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Title: The Maid of Sker
Author: Blackmore, R. D. (Richard Doddridge)
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Maid of Sker" ***
THE MAID OF SKER.
[Illustration: "_All for captain, crew and cargo, was a little helpless
child._"]
THE MAID OF SKER.
BY
R. D. BLACKMORE,
AUTHOR OF
'LORNA DOONE,' 'CLARA VAUGHAN,' AND 'CRADOCK NOWELL.'
᾽Εῥῥε, θεοῑσίν τ᾽ ἐχθρἐ, κἀι ἀνθρωποισιν ἅπιστε,
ψυχρῳ ὃς ἐν κὁλπῲ ποἱκίλον ἐιχες ὅφιν.]
NEW EDITION,
WITH A FRONTISPIECE.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCXCIII
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. FISHERMAN DAVY A FISH OUT OF WATER, 1
II. HUNGER DRIVES HIM A-FISHING, 3
III. THE FISH ARE AS HUNGRY AS HE IS, 7
IV. HE LANDS AN UNEXPECTED FISH, 12
V. A LITTLE ORPHAN MERMAID, 15
VI. FINDS A HOME OF SOME SORT, 21
VII. BOAT _VERSUS_ BARDIE, 27
VIII. CHILDREN WILL BE CHILDREN, 32
IX. SANDHILLS TURNED TO SAND-HOLES, 38
X. UNDER THE ROCK, 44
XI. A WRECKER WRECKED, 49
XII. HOW TO SELL FISH, 57
XIII. THE CORONER AND THE CORONET, 64
XIV. IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EVIDENCE, 70
XV. A VERDICT ON THE JURY, 76
XVI. TRUTH LIES SOMETIMES IN A WELL, 81
XVII. FOR A LITTLE CHANGE OF AIR, 89
XVIII. PUBLIC APPROBATION, 97
XIX. A CRAFT BEYOND THE LAW, 106
XX. CONFIDENTIAL INTERCOURSE, 112
XXI. CROSS-EXAMINATION, 119
XXII. ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT, 125
XXIII. INTO GOOD SOCIETY, 131
XXIV. SOUND INVESTMENTS, 137
XXV. A LONG GOOD-BYE, 145
XXVI. BRAUNTON BURROWS, 151
XXVII. A FINE SPECTACLE, 158
XXVIII. SOMETHING ABOUT HIM, 164
XXIX. A VISIT TO A PARSON, 171
XXX. ON DUTY, 182
XXXI. TWO LOVERS, 189
XXXII. AMONG THE SAVAGES, 194
XXXIII. IN A STATE OF NATURE, 203
XXXIV. WAITING AND LEARNING, 212
XXXV. THE POLITE FERRYMAN, 220
XXXVI. UNDER FAIRER AUSPICES, 227
XXXVII. TWO POOR CHILDREN, 234
XXXVIII. A FINE OLD GENTLEMAN, 241
XXXIX. NOTICE TO QUIT, 250
XL. FORCIBLE EJECTMENT, 257
XLI. THE RIGHT MAN IN THE RIGHT PLACE, 267
XLII. THE LITTLE MAID AND THE MIDSHIPMAN, 276
XLIII. A FINE PRICE FOR BARDIE, 283
XLIV. PROVIDES FOR EDUCATION, 292
XLV. INTRODUCES A REAL HERO, 298
XLVI. AFTER SEVEN YEARS, 305
XLVII. MISCHIEF IN A HOUSEHOLD, 312
XLVIII. A BREATHLESS DISINTERMENT, 320
XLIX. ONE WHO HAS INTERRED HIMSELF, 327
L. A BRAVE MAN RUNS AWAY, 334
LI. TRIPLE EDUCATION, 341
LII. GREAT MARCH OF INTELLECT, 347
LIII. BEATING UP FOR THE NAVY, 356
LIV. TAMING OF THE SAVAGES, 368
LV. UPON FOREIGN SERVICE, 374
LVI. EXILES OF SOCIETY, 380
LVII. MANY WEAK MOMENTS, 387
LVIII. MORE HASTE, LESS SPEED, 398
LIX. IN A ROCKY BOWER, 403
LX. NELSON AND THE NILE, 411
LXI. A SAVAGE DEED, 415
LXII. A RASH YOUNG CAPTAIN, 421
LXIII. POLLY AT HOME, 430
LXIV. SUSAN QUITE ACQUITS HERSELF, 438
LXV. SO DOES POOR OLD DAVY, 447
LXVI. THE MAID AT LAST IS "DENTIFIED," 453
LXVII. DOG EATS DOG, 458
LXVIII. THE OLD PITCHER AT THE WELL AGAIN, 465
THE MAID OF SKER.
CHAPTER I.
FISHERMAN DAVY A FISH OUT OF WATER.
I am but an ancient fisherman upon the coast of Glamorganshire, with
work enough of my own to do, and trouble enough of my own to heed, in
getting my poor living. Yet no peace there is for me among my friends
and neighbours, unless I will set to and try--as they bid me twice a-day
perhaps--whether I cannot tell the rights of a curious adventure which
it pleased Providence should happen, off and on, amidst us, now for a
good many years, and with many ins and outs to it. They assure me, also,
that all good people who can read and write for ten, or it may be
twenty, miles around the place I live in, will buy my book--if I can
make it--at a higher price, perhaps, per lb., than they would give me
even for sewin, which are the very best fish I catch: and hence
provision may be found for the old age and infirmities, now gaining upon
me, every time I try to go out fishing.
In this encouragement and prospect I have little faith, knowing how much
more people care about what they eat than what they read. Nevertheless I
will hope for the best, especially as my evenings now are very long and
wearisome; and I was counted a hopeful scholar, fifty years agone
perhaps, in our village school here--not to mention the Royal Navy; and
most of all, because a very wealthy gentleman, whose name will appear in
this story, has promised to pay all expenses, and £50 down (if I do it
well), and to leave me the profit, if any.
Notwithstanding this, the work of writing must be very dull to me,
after all the change of scene, and the open air and sea, and the many
sprees ashore, and the noble fights with Frenchmen, and the power of
oaths that made me jump so in his Majesty's navy. God save the King, and
Queen, and members of the Royal Family, be they as many as they
will--and they seem, in faith, to be manifold. But His power is equal to
it all, if they will but try to meet Him.
However, not to enter upon any view of politics--all of which are far
beyond the cleverest hand at a bait among us--I am inditing of a thing
very plain and simple, when you come to understand it; yet containing a
little strangeness, and some wonder, here and there, and apt to move
good people's grief at the wrongs we do one another. Great part of it
fell under mine own eyes, for a period of a score of years, or something
thereabout. My memory still is pretty good; but if I contradict myself,
or seem to sweep beyond my reach, or in any way to meddle with things
which I had better have let alone, as a humble man and a Christian, I
pray you to lay the main fault thereof on the badness of the times, and
the rest upon human nature. For I have been a roving man, and may have
gathered much of evil from contact with my fellow-men, although by
origin meant for good. In this I take some blame to myself; for if I had
polished my virtue well, the evil could not have stuck to it.
Nevertheless, I am, on the whole, pretty well satisfied with myself;
hoping to be of such quality as the Lord prefers to those perfect
creatures with whom He has no trouble at all, and therefore no
enjoyment.
But sometimes, taking up a book, I am pestered with a troop of doubts;
not only about my want of skill, and language, and experience, but
chiefly because I never have been a man of consummate innocence,
excellence, and high wisdom, such as all these writers are, if we go by
their own opinions.
Now, when I plead among my neighbours, at the mouth of the old well, all
the above, my sad shortcomings, and my own strong sense of them (which
perhaps is somewhat over-strong), they only pat me on the back, and
smile at one another, and make a sort of coughing noise, according to my
bashfulness. And then if I look pleased (which for my life I cannot help
doing), they wink, as it were, at one another, and speak up like this:--
"Now, Davy, you know better. You think yourself at least as good as any
one of us, Davy, and likely far above us all. Therefore, Davy the
fisherman, out with all you have to say, without any French palaver.
You have a way of telling things so that we can see them."
With this, and with that, and most of all with hinting about a
Frenchman, they put me on my mettle, so that I sit upon the side-stones
of the old-well gallery (which are something like the companion-rail of
a fore-and-after), and gather them around me, with the householders put
foremost, according to their income, and the children listening between
their legs; and thus I begin, but never end, the tale I now begin to
you, and perhaps shall never end it.
CHAPTER II.
HUNGER DRIVES HIM A-FISHING.
In the summer of the year 1782, I, David Llewellyn, of Newton-Nottage,
fisherman and old sailor, was in great distress and trouble, more than I
like to tell you. My dear wife (a faithful partner for eight-and-twenty
years, in spite of a very quick temper) was lately gone to a better
world; and I missed her tongue and her sharp look-out at almost every
corner. Also my son (as fine a seaman as ever went aloft), after helping
Lord Rodney to his great victory over Grass the Frenchman, had been lost
in a prize-ship called the Tonner, of 54 guns and 500 Crappos, which
sank with all hands on her way home to Spithead, under Admiral Graves.
His young wife (who had been sent to us to see to, with his blessing) no
sooner heard of this sad affair as in the Gazette reported, and his pay
that week stopped on her, but she fell into untimely travail, and was
dead ere morning. So I buried my wife and daughter-in-law, and lost all
chance to bury my son, between two Bridgend market-days.
Now this is not very much, of course, compared with the troubles some
people have. But I had not been used to this matter, except in case of a
messmate; and so I was greatly broken down, and found my eyes so weak of
a morning, that I would not be seen out of doors, almost.
The only one now to keep a stir or sound of life in my little cottage,
which faces to the churchyard, was my orphan grandchild "Bunny,"
daughter of my son just drowned, and his only child that we knew of.
Bunny was a rare strong lass, five years old about then, I think; a
stout and hearty-feeding child, able to chew every bit of her victuals,
and mounting a fine rosy colour, and eyes as black as Archangel pitch.
One day, when I was moping there, all abroad about my bearings, and no
better than water-ballasted, the while I looked at my wife's new broom,
now carrying cobweb try-sails, this little Bunny came up to me as if she
had a boarding-pike, and sprang into the netting hammocks of the best
black coat I wore.
"Grand-da!" she said, and looked to know in what way I would look at
her; "Grand-da, I must have sumkin more to eat."
"Something more to eat!" I cried, almost with some astonishment, well as
I knew her appetite; for the child had eaten a barley-loaf, and two
pig's feet, and a dog-fish.
"Yes, more; more bexfass, grand-da." And though she had not the words to
tell, she put her hands in a way that showed me she ought to have more
solid food. I could not help looking sadly at her, proud as I was of her
appetite. But, recovering in a minute or two, I put a good face upon it.
"My dear, and you shall have more," I said; "only take your feet out of
my pocket. Little heart have I for fishing, God knows; but a-fishing I
will go this day, if mother Jones will see to you."
For I could not leave her alone quite yet, although she was a brave
little maid, and no fire now was burning. But within a child's trot from
my door, and down toward the sandhills, was that famous ancient well of
which I spoke just now, dedicate to St John the Baptist, where they used
to scourge themselves. The village church stood here, they say, before
the inroad of the sand; and the water was counted holy. How that may be,
I do not know; but the well is very handy. It has a little grey round
tower of stone domed over the heart of it, to which a covered way goes
down, with shallow steps irregular. If it were not for this plan, the
sand would whelm the whole of it over; even as it has overwhelmed all
the departure of the spring, and the cottages once surrounding it. Down
these steps the children go, each with a little brown pitcher, holding
hands and groping at the sides, as they begin to feel darker. And what
with the sand beneath their feet, and the narrowing of the roof above,
and the shadows moving round them, and the doubt where the water begins
or ends (which nobody knows at any time), it is much but what some
little maid tumbles in, and the rest have to pull her out again.
For this well has puzzled all the country, and all the men of great
learning, being as full of contrariety as a maiden courted. It comes and
goes, in a manner, against the coming and going of the sea, which is
only half a mile from it; and twice in a day it is many feet deep, and
again not as many inches. And the water is so crystal-clear, that down
in the dark it is like a dream. Some people say that John the Baptist
had nothing to do with the making of it, because it was made before his
time by the ancient family of De Sandford, who once owned all the manors
here. In this, however, I place no faith, having read my Bible to better
purpose than to believe that John Baptist was the sort of man to claim
anything, least of all any water, unless he came honestly by it.
In either case, it is very pretty to see the children round the entrance
on a summer afternoon, when they are sent for water. They are all a
little afraid of it, partly because of its maker's name, and his having
his head on a charger, and partly on account of its curious ways, and
the sand coming out of its "nostrils" when first it begins to flow.
That day with which I begin my story, Mrs Jones was good enough to take
charge of little Bunny; and after getting ready to start, I set the
thong of our latch inside, so that none but neighbours who knew the
trick could enter our little cottage (or rather "mine" I should say
now); and thus with conger-rod, and prawn-net, and a long pole for the
bass, and a junk of pressed tobacco, and a lump of barley-bread, and a
maybird stuffed with onions (just to refine the fishiness), away I set
for a long-shore day, upon as dainty a summer morn as ever shone out of
the heavens.
"Fisherman Davy" (as they call me all around our parts) was fifty and
two years of age, I believe, that very same July, and with all my heart
I wish that he were as young this very day. For I never have found such
call to enter into the affairs of another world, as to forget my
business here, or press upon Providence impatiently for a more heavenly
state of things. People may call me worldly-minded for cherishing such a
view of this earth; and perhaps it is not right of me. However, I can
put up with it, and be in no unkindly haste to say "good-bye" to my
neighbours. For, to my mind, such a state of seeking, as many amongst us
do even boast of, is, unless in a bad cough or a perilous calenture, a
certain proof of curiosity displeasing to our Maker, and I might even
say of fickleness degrading to a true Briton.
The sun came down upon my head, so that I thought of bygone days, when I
served under Captain Howe, or Sir Edward Hawke, and used to stroll away
upon leave, with half a hundred Jacks ashore, at Naples, or in Bermudas,
or wherever the luck might happen. Now, however, was no time for me to
think of strolling, because I could no longer live at the expense of the
Government, which is the highest luck of all, and full of noble dignity.
Things were come to such a push that I must either work or starve; and
could I but recall the past, I would stroll less in the days gone by. A
pension of one and eightpence farthing for the weeks I was alive (being
in right of a heavy wound in capture of the Bellona, Frenchman of
two-and-thirty guns, by his Majesty's frigate Vesta, under Captain Hood)
was all I had to hold on by, in support of myself and Bunny, except the
slippery fish that come and go as Providence orders them. She had sailed
from Martinique, when luckily we fell in with her; and I never shall
forget the fun, and the five hours at close quarters. We could see the
powder on the other fellows' faces while they were training their guns
at us, and we showed them, with a slap, our noses, which they never
contrived to hit. She carried heavier metal than ours, and had sixty
more men to work it, and therefore we were obliged at last to capture
her by boarding. I, like a fool, was the first that leaped into her
mizen-chains, without looking before me, as ought to have been. The
Frenchmen came too fast upon me, and gave me more than I bargained for.
Thus it happened that I fell off, in the very prime of life and
strength, from an able-bodied seaman and captain of the foretop to a
sort of lurcher along shore, and a man who must get his own living with
nets and rods and suchlike. For that very beautiful fight took place in
the year 1759, before I was thirty years old, and before his present
most gracious Majesty came to the throne of England. And inasmuch as a
villanous Frenchman made at me with a cutlash, and a power of blue oaths
(taking a nasty advantage of me, while I was yet entangled), and thumped
in three of my ribs before a kind Providence enabled me to relieve him
of his head at a blow--I was discharged, when we came to Spithead, with
an excellent character in a silk bag, and a considerable tightness of
breathing, and leave to beg my way home again.
Now I had not the smallest meaning to enter into any of these
particulars about myself, especially as my story must be all about other
people--beautiful maidens, and fine young men, and several of the prime
gentry. But as I have written it, so let it stay; because, perhaps,
after all, it is well that people should have some little knowledge of
the man they have to deal with, and learn that his character and
position are a long way above all attempt at deceit.
To come back once again, if you please, to that very hot day of July
1782--whence I mean to depart no more until I have fully done with
it--both from the state of the moon, I knew, and from the neap when my
wife went off, that the top of the spring was likely to be in the dusk
of that same evening. At first I had thought of going down straight
below us to Newton Bay, and peddling over the Black Rocks towards the
Ogmore river, some two miles to the east of us. But the bright sun gave
me more enterprise; and remembering how the tide would ebb, also how low
my pocket was, I felt myself bound in honour to Bunny to make a real
push for it, and thoroughly search the conger-holes and the
lobster-ledges, which are the best on all our coast, round about Pool
Tavan, and down below the old house at Sker.
CHAPTER III.
THE FISH ARE AS HUNGRY AS HE IS.
To fish at Sker had always been a matter of some risk and conflict;
inasmuch as Evan Thomas, who lived in the ancient house there, and kept
the rabbit-warren, never could be brought to know that the sea did not
belong to him. He had a grant from the manor, he said, and the shore was
part of the manor; and whosoever came hankering there was a poacher, a
thief, and a robber. With these hard words, and harder blows, he kept
off most of the neighbourhood; but I always felt that the lurch of the
tide was no more than the heeling of a ship, and therefore that any one
free of the sea, was free of the ebb and flow of it.
So when he began to reproach me once, I allowed him to swear himself
thoroughly out, and then, in a steadfast manner, said, "Black Evan, the
shore is not mine or yours. Stand you here and keep it, and I will never
come again;" for in three hours' time there would be a fathom of water
where we stood. And when he caught me again, I answered, "Evan Black, if
you catch me inland, meddling with any of your land-goods, coneys, or
hares, or partridges, give me a leathering like a man, and I must put up
with it; but dare you touch me on this shore, which belongs to our lord
the King, all the way under high-water mark, and by the rod of the Red
Sea I will show you the law of it."
He looked at me and the pole I bore, and, heavy and strong man as he
was, he thought it wiser to speak me fair. "Well, well, Dyo, dear," he
said in Welsh, having scarce any English, "you have served the King,
Dyo, and are bound to know what is right and wrong; only let me know,
good man, if you see any other rogues fishing here."
This I promised him freely enough, because, of course, I had no
objection to his forbidding other people, and especially one vile
Scotchman. Yet being a man of no liberality, he never could see even me
fish there without following and abusing me, and most of all after a
market-day.
That tide I had the rarest sport that ever you did see. Scarcely a
conger-hole I tried without the landlord being at home, and biting
savagely at the iron, which came (like a rate) upon him; whereupon I had
him by the jaw, as the tax-collector has us. Scarcely a lobster-shelf I
felt, tickling as I do under the weeds, but what a grand old soldier
came to the portcullis of his stronghold, and nabbed the neat-hide up my
fingers, and stuck thereto till I hauled him out "nolus-woluss," as we
say; and there he showed his purple nippers, and his great long
whiskers, and then his sides, hooped like a cask, till his knuckled legs
fought with the air, and the lobes of his tail were quivering. It was
fine to see these fellows, worth at least a shilling, and to pop them
into my basket, where they clawed at one another. Glorious luck I had,
in truth, and began to forget my troubles, and the long way home again
to a lonely cottage, and my fear that little Bunny was passing a sorry
day of it. She should have a new pair of boots, and mother Jones a good
Sunday dinner; and as for myself, I would think, perhaps, about half a
glass of fine old rum (to remind me of the navy), and a pipe of the
short cut Bristol tobacco--but that must depend upon circumstances.
Now circumstances had so much manners (contrary to their custom) that
they contrived to keep themselves continually in my favour. Not only did
I fetch up and pile a noble heap of oysters and mussels just at the
lowest of the ebb, but after that, when the tide was flowing, and my
work grew brisker--as it took me by the calves, and my feet were not cut
by the mussels more than I could walk upon--suddenly I found a thing
beating all experience both of the past and future.
This was, that the heat of the weather, and the soft south wind
prevailing, had filled the deep salt-water pools among the rocks of Pool
Tavan, and as far as Ffynnon wen, with the finest prawns ever seen or
dreamed of; and also had peopled the shallow pools higher up the beach
with shoals of silver mullet-fry--small indeed, and as quick as
lightning, but well worth a little trouble to catch, being as fine
eating as any lady in the land could long for.
And here for a moment I stood in some doubt, whether first to be down on
the prawns or the mullet; but soon I remembered the tide would come
first into the pools that held the prawns. Now it did not take me very
long to fill a great Holland bag with these noble fellows, rustling
their whiskers, and rasping their long saws at one another. Four gallons
I found, and a little over, when I came to measure them; and sixteen
shillings I made of them, besides a good many which Bunny ate raw.
Neither was my luck over yet, for being now in great heart and good
feather, what did I do but fall very briskly upon the grey mullet in the
pools: and fast as they scoured away down the shallows, fluting the
surface with lines of light, and huddling the ripples all up in a curve,
as they swung themselves round on their tails with a sweep, when they
could swim no further--nevertheless it was all in vain, for I blocked
them in with a mole of kelp, weighted with heavy pebbles, and then baled
them out at my pleasure.
Now the afternoon was wearing away, and the flood making strongly up
channel by the time I came back from Ffynnon wen--whither the mullet had
led me--to my headquarters opposite Sker farmhouse, at the basin of Pool
Tavan. This pool is made by a ring of rocks sloping inward from the sea,
and is dry altogether for two hours' ebb and two hours' flow of a good
spring-tide, except so much as a little land-spring, sliding down the
slippery sea-weed, may have power to keep it moist.
A wonderful place here is for wild-fowl, the very choicest of all I
know, both when the sluice of the tide runs out and when it comes
swelling back again; for as the water ebbs away with a sulky wash in the
hollow places, and the sand runs down in little crannies, and the
bladder-weeds hang trickling, and the limpets close their valves, and
the beautiful jelly-flowers look no better than chilblains,--all this
void and glistening basin is at once alive with birds.
First the seapie runs and chatters, and the turn-stone pries about with
his head laid sideways in a most sagacious manner, and the sanderlings
glide in file, and the greenshanks separately. Then the shy curlews over
the point warily come, and leave one to watch; while the brave little
mallard teal, with his green triangles glistening, stands on one foot in
the fresh-water runnel, and shakes with his quacks of enjoyment.
Again, at the freshening of the flood, when the round pool fills with
sea (pouring in through the gate of rock), and the waves push merrily
onward, then a mighty stir arises, and a different race of birds--those
which love a swimming dinner--swoop upon Pool Tavan. Here is the giant
grey gull, breasting (like a cherub in church) before he dowses down his
head, and here the elegant kittywake, and the sullen cormorant in the
shadow swimming; and the swiftest of swift wings, the silver-grey
sea-swallow, dips like a butterfly and is gone; while from slumber out
at sea, or on the pool of Kenfig, in a long wedge, cleaves the air the
whistling flight of wild-ducks.
Standing upright for a moment, with their red toes on the water, and
their strong wings flapping, in they souse with one accord and a
strenuous delight. Then ensues a mighty quacking of unanimous content, a
courteous nodding of quick heads, and a sluicing and a shovelling of
water over shoulder-blades, in all the glorious revelry of insatiable
washing.
Recovering thence, they dress themselves in a sober-minded manner,
paddling very quietly, proudly puffing out their breasts, arching their
necks, and preening themselves, titivating (as we call it) with their
bills in and out the down, and shoulders up to run the wet off; then
turning their heads, as if on a swivel, they fettle their backs and
their scapular plume. Then, being as clean as clean can be, they begin
to think of their dinners, and with stretched necks down they dive to
catch some luscious morsel, and all you can see is a little sharp tail
and a pair of red feet kicking.
Bless all their innocent souls, how often I longed to have a good shot
at them, and might have killed eight or ten at a time with a long gun
heavily loaded! But all these birds knew, as well as I did, that I had
no gun with me; and although they kept at a tidy distance, yet they let
me look at them, which I did with great peace of mind all the time I was
eating my supper. The day had been too busy till now to stop for any
feeding; but now there would be twenty minutes or so ere the bass came
into Pool Tavan, for these like a depth of water.
So after consuming my bread and maybird, and having a good drink from
the spring, I happened to look at my great flag-basket, now ready to
burst with congers and lobsters and mullet, and spider-crabs for Bunny
(who could manage any quantity), also with other good saleable fish; and
I could not help saying to myself, "Come, after all now, Davy Llewellyn,
you are not gone so far as to want a low Scotchman to show you the place
where the fish live." And with that I lit a pipe.
What with the hard work, and the heat, and the gentle plash of wavelets,
and the calmness of the sunset, and the power of red onions, what did I
do but fall asleep as snugly as if I had been on watch in one of his
Majesty's ships of the line after a heavy gale of wind? And when I woke
up again, behold, the shadows of the rocks were over me, and the sea was
saluting the calves of my legs, which up to that mark were naked; and
but for my instinct in putting my basket up on a rock behind me, all my
noble catch of fish must have gone to the locker of Davy Jones.
At this my conscience smote me hard, as if I were getting old too soon;
and with one or two of the short strong words which I had learned in the
navy, where the chaplain himself stirred us up with them, up I roused
and rigged my pole for a good bout at the bass. At the butt of the ash
was a bar of square oak, figged in with a screw-bolt, and roven round
this was my line of good hemp, twisted evenly, so that if any fish came
who could master me, and pull me off the rocks almost, I could indulge
him with some slack by unreeving a fathom of line. At the end of the
pole was a strong loop-knot, through which ran the line, bearing two
large hooks, with the eyes of their shanks lashed tightly with cobbler's
ends upon whipcord. The points of the hooks were fetched up with a file,
and the barbs well backened, and the whole dressed over with whale-oil.
Then upon one hook I fixed a soft crab, and on the other a cuttle-fish.
There were lug-worms also in my pot, but they would do better after
dark, when a tumbling cod might be on the feed.
Good-luck and bad-luck has been my lot ever since I can remember;
sometimes a long spell of one, wing and wing, as you might say, and then
a long leg of the other. But never in all my born days did I have such a
spell of luck in the fishing way as on that blessed 10th of July 1782.
What to do with it all now became a puzzle, for I could not carry it
home all at once; and as to leaving a bit behind, or refusing to catch a
single fish that wanted to be caught, neither of these was a possible
thing to a true-born fisherman.
At last things came to such a pitch that it was difficult not to believe
that all must be the crowd and motion of a very pleasant dream. Here was
the magic ring of the pool, shaped by a dance of sea-fairies, and the
fading light shed doubtfully upon the haze of the quivering sea, and the
silver water lifting like a mirror on a hinge, while the black rocks
seemed to nod to it; and here was I pulling out big fishes almost faster
than I cast in.
CHAPTER IV.
HE LANDS AN UNEXPECTED FISH.
Now, as the rising sea came sliding over the coronet of rocks, as well
as through the main entrance--for even the brim of the pool is covered
at high water--I beheld a glorious sight, stored in my remembrance of
the southern regions, but not often seen at home. The day had been very
hot and brilliant, with a light air from the south; and at sunset a haze
arose, and hung as if it were an awning over the tranquil sea. First, a
gauze of golden colour, as the western light came through, and then a
tissue shot with red, and now a veil of silvery softness, as the summer
moon grew bright.
Then the quiet waves began--as their plaited lines rolled onward into
frills of whiteness--in the very curl and fall, to glisten with a
flitting light. Presently, as each puny breaker overshone the one in
front, not the crest and comb alone, but the slope behind it, and the
crossing flaws inshore, gleamed with hovering radiance and soft flashes
vanishing; till, in the deepening of the dusk, each advancing crest was
sparkling with a mane of fire, every breaking wavelet glittered like a
shaken seam of gold. Thence the shower of beads and lustres lapsed into
a sliding tier, moving up the sands with light, or among the pebbles
breaking into a cataract of gems.
Being an ancient salt, of course I was not dismayed by this show of
phosphorus, nor even much astonished, but rather pleased to watch the
brightness, as it brought back to my mind thoughts of beautiful sunburnt
damsels whom I had led along the shore of the lovely Mediterranean. Yet
our stupid landsmen, far and wide, were panic-struck; and hundreds fell
upon their knees, expecting the last trump to sound. All I said to
myself was this: "No wonder I had such sport to-day; change of weather
soon, I doubt, and perhaps a thunderstorm."
As I gazed at all this beauty, trying not to go astray with wonder and
with weariness, there, in the gateway of black rock, with the offing
dark behind her, and the glittering waves upon their golden shoulders
bearing her--sudden as an apparition came a smoothly-gliding boat.
Beaded all athwart the bows and down the bends with drops of light,
holding stem well up in air, and the forefoot shedding gold, she came as
strait toward this poor and unconverted Davy as if an angel held the
tiller, with an admiral in the stern-sheets.
Hereupon such terror seized me, after the wonders of the day, that my
pole fell downright into the water (of which a big fish wronged me so as
to slip the hook and be off again), and it was no more than the turn of
a hair but what I had run away head over heels. For the day had been so
miraculous, beginning with starvation, and going on with so much heat
and hard work and enjoyment, and such a draught of fishes, that a poor
body's wits were gone with it; and therefore I doubt not it must have
been an especial decree of Providence that in turning round to run away
I saw my big fish-basket.
To carry this over the rocks at a run was entirely impossible (although
I was still pretty good in my legs), but to run away without it was a
great deal more impossible for a man who had caught the fish himself;
and beside the fish in the basket, there must have been more than two
hundredweight of bass that would not go into it. Three hundred and a
half in all was what I set it down at, taking no heed of prawns and
lobsters; and with any luck in selling, it must turn two guineas.
Hence, perhaps, it came to pass (as much as from downright bravery, of
which sometimes I have some little) that I felt myself bound to creep
back again, under the shade of a cold wet rock, just to know what that
boat was up to.
A finer floatage I never saw, and her lines were purely elegant, and
she rode above the water without so much as parting it. Then, in spite
of all my fear, I could not help admiring; and it struck me hotly at the
heart, "Oh, if she is but a real boat, what a craft for my business!"
And with that I dropped all fear. For I had not been able, for many
years, to carry on my fishing as skill and knowledge warranted, only
because I could not afford to buy a genuine boat of my own, and hitherto
had never won the chance without the money.
As yet I could see no soul on board. No one was rowing, that was
certain, neither any sign of a sail to give her steerage-way. However,
she kept her course so true that surely there must be some hand
invisible at the tiller. This conclusion flurried me again, very
undesirably; and I set my right foot in such a manner as to be off in a
twinkling of anything unholy.
But God has care of the little souls which nobody else takes heed of;
and so He ordained that the boat should heel, and then yaw across the
middle of the pool; but for which black rocks alone would have been her
welcome.
At once my heart came back to me; for I saw at once, as an old sailor
pretty well up in shipwrecks, that the boat was no more than a derelict;
and feeling that here was my chance of chances, worth perhaps ten times
my catch of fish, I set myself in earnest to the catching of that boat.
Therefore I took up my pole again, and finding that the brace of fish
whom I had been over-scared to land had got away during my slackness, I
spread the hooks, and cast them both, with the slugs of lead upon them,
and half a fathom of spare line ready, as far as ever my arms would
throw.
The flight of the hooks was beyond my sight, for the phosphorus spread
confusion; but I heard most clearly the thump, thump of the two leaden
bobs--the heavy and the light one--upon hollow planking. Upon this I
struck as I would at a fish, and the hooks got hold (or at any rate one
of them), and I felt the light boat following faster as she began to get
way on the haul; and so I drew her gently toward me, being still in some
misgiving, although resolved to go through with it.
But, bless my heart, when the light boat glided buoyantly up to my very
feet, and the moon shone over the starboard gunwale, and without much
drawback I gazed at it--behold! the little craft was laden with a
freight of pure innocence! All for captain, crew, and cargo, was a
little helpless child. In the stern-sheets, fast asleep, with the baby
face towards me, lay a little child in white. Something told me that it
was not dead, or even ailing; only adrift upon the world, and not at
all aware of it. Quite an atom of a thing, taking God's will anyhow;
cast, no doubt, according to the rocking of the boat, only with one tiny
arm put up to keep the sun away, before it fell asleep.
Being taken quite aback with pity, sorrow, and some anger (which must
have been of instinct), I laid hold of the bows of the skiff, and drew
her up a narrow channel, where the land-spring found its way. The lift
of a round wave helped her on, and the bladder-weed saved any chafing. A
brand-new painter (by the feel) it was that I caught hold of; but
instead of a hitch at the end, it had a clean sharp cut across it.
Having made it fast with my fishing-pole jammed hard into a crevice of
rock, I stepped on board rather gingerly, and, seating myself on the
forward thwart, gazed from a respectful distance at the little stranger.
The light of the moon was clear and strong, and the phosphorus of the
sea less dazing as the night grew deeper, therefore I could see pretty
well; and I took a fresh plug of tobacco before any further meddling.
For the child was fast asleep; and, according to my experience, they are
always best in that way.
CHAPTER V.
A LITTLE ORPHAN MERMAID.
By the clear moonlight I saw a very wee maiden, all in white, having
neither cloak nor shawl, nor any other soft appliance to protect or
comfort her, but lying with her little back upon the aftmost planking,
with one arm bent (as I said before), and the other drooping at her
side, as if the baby-hand had been at work to ease her crying; and then,
when tears were tired out, had dropped in sleep or numb despair.
My feelings were so moved by this, as I became quite sure at last that
here was a little mortal, that the tears came to mine own eyes too, she
looked so purely pitiful. "The Lord in heaven have mercy on the little
dear!" I cried, without another thought about it; and then I went and
sat close by, so that she lay between my feet.
However, she would not awake, in spite of my whistling gradually, and
singing a little song to her, and playing with her curls of hair;
therefore, as nothing can last for ever, and the tide was rising fast, I
was forced to give the little lady, not what you would call a kick so
much as a very gentle movement of the muscles of the foot.
She opened her eyes at this, and yawned, but was much inclined to shut
them again; till I (having to get home that night) could make no further
allowance for her, as having no home to go to; and upon this I got over
all misgivings about the dirtiness of my jacket, and did what I had
feared to do, by reason of great respect for her; that is to say, I put
both hands very carefully under her, and lifted her like a delicate
fish, and set her crosswise on my lap, and felt as if I understood her;
and she could not have weighed more than twenty pounds, according to my
heft of fish.
Having been touched with trouble lately, I was drawn out of all
experience now (for my nature is not over-soft) towards this little
thing, so cast, in a dream almost, upon me. I thought of her mother,
well drowned, no doubt, and the father who must have petted her, and of
the many times to come when none would care to comfort her. And though a
child is but a child, somehow I took to that child. Therefore I became
most anxious as to her state of body, and handled her little mites of
feet, and her fingers, and all her outworks; because I was not sure at
all that the manner of her yawning might be nothing more or less than a
going out of this world almost. For think, if you can see it so, how
everything was against her. To be adrift without any food, or any one to
tend her, many hours, or days perhaps, with a red-hot sun or cold stars
overhead, and the greedy sea beneath her!
However, there she was alive, and warm, and limp, to the best of my
judgment, sad though I was to confess to myself that I knew more of bass
than of babies. For it had always so pleased God that I happened to be
away at sea when He thought fit to send them; therefore my legs went
abroad with fear of dandling this one, that now was come, in a way to
disgrace a seaman; for if she should happen to get into irons, I never
could get her out again.
Upon that matter, at any rate, I need not have concerned myself, for the
child was so trim and well ballasted, also ribbed so stiff and sound,
that any tack I set her on she would stick to it, and start no rope; and
knowing that this was not altogether the manner of usual babies (who yaw
about, and no steerage-way), I felt encouraged, and capable almost of a
woman's business. Therefore I gave her a little tickle; and verily she
began to laugh, or perhaps I should say by rights to smile, in a gentle
and superior way--for she always was superior. And a funnier creature
never lived, neither one that could cry so distressfully.
"Wake up, wake up, my deary," said I, "and don't you be afraid of me. A
fine little girl I've got at home, about twice the size that you be, and
goes by the name of 'Bunny.'"
"Bunny!" she said; and I was surprised, not being up to her qualities,
that she could speak so clearly. Then it struck me that if she could
talk like that I might as well know more about her. So I began, very
craftily, with the thing all children are proud about, and are generally
sure to be up to.
"Pretty little soul," I said, "how old do you call yourself?"
At this she gathered up her forehead, not being used to the way I put
it, while she was trying to think it out.
"How old are you, deary?" said I, trying hard to suck up my lips and
chirp, as I had seen the nurses do.
"I'se two, I'se two," she answered, looking with some astonishment;
"didn't 'a know that? Hot's 'a name?"
This proof of her high standing and knowledge of the world took me for
the moment a good deal off my legs, until I remembered seeing it put as
a thing all must give in to, that the rising generation was beyond our
understanding. So I answered, very humbly, "Deary, my name is 'old
Davy.' Baby, kiss old Davy."
"I 'ill," she answered, briskly. "Old Davy, I likes 'a. I'll be a good
gal, I 'ill."
"A good girl! To be sure you will. Bless my heart, I never saw such a
girl." And I kissed her three or four times over, until she began to
smell my plug, and Bunny was nobody in my eyes. "But what's your own
name, deary, now you know old Davy's name?"
"I'se Bardie. Didn't 'a know that?"
"To be sure I did," for a little fib was needful from the way she looked
at me, and the biggest one ever told would have been a charity under the
circumstances.
"Pease, old Davy, I'se aye hungy," she went on ere I was right again,
"and I 'ants a dink o' yater."
"What a fool I am!" cried I. "Of course you do, you darling. What an
atomy you are to talk! Stop here a moment."
Setting her on the seat by herself (like a stupid, as I was, for she
might have tumbled overboard), I jumped out of the boat to fetch her
water from the spring-head, as well as the relics of my food from the
corner of the fish-basket. And truly vexed was I with myself for
devouring of my dinner so. But no sooner was I gone, than feeling so
left alone again after so much desertion, what did the little thing do
but spring like a perfect grasshopper, and, slipping under the
after-thwart, set off in the bravest toddle for the very bow of the
boat, in fear of losing sight of me? Unluckily, the boat just happened
to lift upon a bit of a wave, and, not having won her sea-legs yet in
spite of that long cruise, down came poor Bardie with a thump, which
hurt me more than her, I think.
Knowing what Bunny would have done, I expected a fearful roar, and back
I ran to lift her up. But even before I could interfere, she was up
again and all alive, with both her arms stretched out to show, and her
face set hard to defy herself.
"I 'ont ky, I 'ont, I tell 'a. 'Ee see if I does now, and ma say hot a
good gal I is."
"Where did you knock yourself, little wonder? Let old Davy make it well.
Show old Davy the poor sore place."
"Nare it is. Gardy là! nare poor Bardie knock herself."
And she held up her short white smock, and showed me the bend of her
delicate round knee as simply and kindly as could be.
"I 'ont ky; no, I 'ont," she went on, with her pretty lips screwed up.
"Little brother ky, 'e know; but Bardie a gate big gal, savvy voo?
Bardie too big enough to ky."
However, all this greatness vanished when a drop of blood came oozing
from the long black bruise, and still more when I tried to express my
deep compassion. The sense of bad-luck was too strong for the courage of
even two years' growth, and little Bardie proved herself of just the
right age for crying. I had observed how clear and bright and musical
her voice was for such a tiny creature; and now the sound of her great
woe, and scene of her poor helpless plight, was enough to move the rocks
into a sense of pity for her.
However, while she had her cry out (as the tide would never wait), I
took the liberty of stowing all my fish and fishing-tackle on board of
that handy little boat, which I began to admire and long for more and
more every time I jumped from the rock into her foresheets. And finding
how tight and crank she was, and full of spring at every step and with a
pair of good ash sculls, and, most of all, discovering the snuggest of
snug lockers, my conscience (always a foremost feature) showed me in the
strongest light that it would be a deeply ungracious, ungrateful, and
even sinful thing, if I failed to thank an ever wise and overruling
Providence for sending me this useful gift in so express a manner.
And taking this pious and humble view of the night's occurrence, I soon
perceived a special fitness in the time of its ordering. For it happened
to be the very night when Evan Thomas was out of the way, as I had been
told at Nottage, and the steward of the manor safe to be as drunk as a
fiddler at Bridgend; and it was not more than a few months since that
envious Scotchman, Sandy Macraw (a scurvy limb of the coastguards, who
lived by poaching on my born rights), had set himself up with a boat,
forsooth, on purpose to rogue me and rob me the better. No doubt he had
stolen it somewhere, for he first appeared at night with it; and now
here was a boat, in all honesty mine, which would travel two feet for
each one of his tub!
By the time I had finished these grateful reflections, and resolved to
contribute any unsold crabs to the Dissenting minister's salary (in
recognition of the hand of Providence, and what he had taught me
concerning it no longer ago than last Sabbath-day, when he said that the
Lord would make up to me for the loss of my poor wife, though never
dreaming, I must confess, of anything half so good as a boat), and by
the time that I had moored this special mercy snugly, and hidden the
oars, so that no vile wrecker could make off with her feloniously, that
dear little child was grown quiet again, being unable to cry any more,
and now beginning to watch my doings as much as I could wish, or more.
She never seemed tired of watching me, having slept out all her sleep
for the moment; and as I piled up fish on fish, and they came sliding,
slippery, she came shyly, eyeing them with a desire to see each one,
pushing her mites of fingers out, and then drawing back in a hurry as
their bellies shone in the moonlight. Some of the congers could wriggle
still, and they made her scream when they did it; but the lobsters were
her chief delight, being all alive and kicking. She came and touched
them reverently, and ready to run if they took it amiss; and then she
stroked their whiskers, crying, "Pitty, pitty! jolly, jolly!" till one
great fellow, who knew no better, would have nipped her wrist asunder if
I had not ricked his claw.
"Now, deary," said I, as I drew her away, "you have brought poor old
Davy a beautiful boat, and the least that he can do for you is to get
you a good supper." For since her tumble the little soul had seemed
neither hungry nor thirsty.
"Pease, old Davy," she answered, "I 'ants to go to mama and papa, and
ickle bother and Susan."
"The devil you do!" thought I, in a whistle, not seeing my way to a fib
as yet.
"Does 'ee know mama and papa, and ickle bother, old Davy?"
"To be sure I do, my deary--better than I know you, almost."
"'Et me go to them, 'et me go to them. Hot ma say about my poor leggy
peggy?"
This was more than I could tell; believing her mother to be, no doubt,
some thirty fathoms under water, and her father and little brother in
about the same predicament.
"Come along, my little dear, and I'll take you to your mother." This was
what I said, not being ready, as yet, with a corker.
"I'se yeady, old Davy," she answered; "I'se kite yeady. 'Hen 'll 'e be
yeady? Peshy voo."
"Ready and steady: word of command! march!" said I, looking up at the
moon, to try to help me out of it. But the only thing that I could find
to help me in this trouble was to push about and stir, and keep her
looking at me. She was never tired of looking at things with life or
motion in them; and this I found the special business of her nature
afterwards.
Now, being sure of my boat, I began to think what to do with Bardie. And
many foolish ideas came, but I saw no way to a wise one, or at least I
thought so then, and unhappily looked to prudence more than to gracious
Providence, for which I have often grieved bitterly, ever since it
turned out who Bardie was.
For the present, however (though strongly smitten with her manners,
appearance, and state of shipwreck, as well as impressed with a general
sense of her being meant for good-luck to me), I could not see my way to
take her to my home and support her. Many and many times over I said to
myself, in my doubt and uneasiness, and perhaps more times than need
have been if my conscience had joined me, that it was no good to be a
fool, to give way (as a woman might do) to the sudden affair of the
moment, and a hot-hearted mode of regarding it. And the harder I worked
at the stowing of fish, the clearer my duty appeared to me.
So by the time that all was ready for starting with this boat of mine,
the sea being all the while as pretty as a pond by candle-light, it was
settled in my mind what to do with Bardie. She must go to the old
Sker-house. And having taken a special liking (through the goodness of
my nature and the late distress upon me) to this little helpless thing,
most sincerely I prayed to God that all might be ordered for the best;
as indeed it always is, if we leave it to Him.
Nevertheless I ought never to have left it to Him, as every one now
acknowledges. But how could I tell?
By this time she began to be overcome with circumstances, as might
happen naturally to a child but two years old, after long exposure
without any food or management. Scared, and strange, and tired out, she
fell down anyhow in the boat, and lay like a log, and frightened me.
Many men would have cared no more, but, taking the baby for dead, have
dropped her into the grave of the waters. I, however, have always been
of a very different stamp from these; and all the wars, and discipline,
and doctrine I have encountered, never could imbue me with the cruelty
of my betters. Therefore I was shocked at thinking that the little dear
was dead.
CHAPTER VI.
FINDS A HOME OF SOME SORT.
However, it was high time now, if we had any hope at all of getting into
Sker-house that night, to be up and moving. For though Evan Thomas might
be late, Moxy, his wife, would be early; and the door would open to none
but the master after the boys were gone to bed. For the house is very
lonely; and people no longer innocent as they used to be in that
neighbourhood.
I found the child quite warm and nice, though overwhelmed with weight of
sleep; and setting her crosswise on my shoulders, whence she slid down
into my bosom, over the rocks I picked my way, by the light of the full
clear moon, towards the old Sker-Grange, which stands a little back
from the ridge of beach, and on the edge of the sandhills.
This always was, and always must be, a very sad and lonesome place,
close to a desolate waste of sand, and the continual roaring of the sea
upon black rocks. A great grey house, with many chimneys, many gables,
and many windows, yet not a neighbour to look out on, not a tree to feed
its chimneys, scarce a firelight in its gables in the very depth of
winter. Of course, it is said to be haunted; and though I believe not
altogether in any stories of that kind--despite some very strange things
indeed which I have beheld at sea--at any rate, I would rather not hear
any yarns on that matter just before bedtime in that house; and most
people would agree with me, unless I am much mistaken.
For the whole neighbourhood--if so you may call it, where there are no
neighbours--is a very queer one--stormy, wild, and desolate, with little
more than rocks and sand and sea to make one's choice among. As to the
sea, not only dull, and void it is of any haven, or of proper traffic,
but as dangerous as need be, even in good weather, being full of
draughts and currents, with a tide like a mill-race, suffering also the
ups and downs which must be where the Atlantic Ocean jostles with blind
narrowings: it offers, moreover, a special peril (a treacherous and a
shifty one) in the shape of some horrible quicksands, known as the
"Sker-Weathers:" these at the will of storm and current change about
from place to place, but are, for the most part, some two miles from
shore, and from two to four miles long, according to circumstances;
sometimes almost bare at half-tide, and sometimes covered at low water.
If any ship falls into them, the bravest skipper that ever stood upon a
quarter-deck can do no more than pipe to prayers, though one or two
craft have escaped when the tide was rising rapidly.
As for the shore, it is no better (when once you get beyond the rocks)
than a stretch of sandhills, with a breadth of flaggy marsh behind them
all the way to the mouth of Neath river, some three leagues to the
westward. Eastward, the scene is fairer inland, but the coast itself
more rugged and steep, and scarcely more inhabited, having no house
nearer than Rhwychyns, which is only a small farm, nearly two miles from
Sker-Grange, and a mile from any other house. And if you strike inland
from Sker--that is to say, to the northward--there is nothing to see but
sand, warren, and furze, and great fields marked with rubble, even as
far as Kenfig.
Looking at that vast lonely house, there were two things I never could
make out. The first was, who could ever have been mad enough to build it
there?--for it must have cost a mint of money, being all of quarried and
carried stone, and with no rich farm to require it. And the second thing
was still worse a puzzle: how could any one ever live there?
As to the first point, the story is, that the house was built by abbots
of Neath, when owners of Sker-manor, adding to it, very likely, as they
followed one another; and then it was used as their manor-court, and for
purposes more important, as a place of refection, being near good
fisheries, and especially Kenfig Pool, stocked with all fresh-water
fish, and every kind of wild-fowl.
But upon the other question all that I can say is this: I have knocked
about the world a good bit, and have suffered many trials, by the which
I am, no doubt, chastened and highly rectified; nevertheless, I would
rather end my life among the tomb-stones, if only allowed three
farthings' worth of tobacco every day, than live with all those abbots'
luxuries in that old grey house.
However, there were no abbots now, nor any sort of luxury, only a rough
unpleasant farmer, a kind but slovenly wife of his, and five great lads,
notorious for pleasing no one except themselves; also a boy of a
different order, as you soon shall see.
Thinking of all this, I looked with tenderness at the little dear,
fallen back so fast asleep, innocent, and trustful, with her head upon
my shoulder, and her breathing in my beard. Turning away at view of the
house, I brought the moonlight on her face, and this appeared so pure,
and calm, and fit for better company, that a pain went to my heart, as
in Welsh we speak of it.
Because she was so fast asleep, and that alone is something holy in a
very little child; so much it seems to be the shadow of the death
itself, in their pausing fluttering lives, in their want of wit for
dreaming, and their fitness for a world of which they must know more
than this; also to a man who feels the loss of much believing, and what
grievous gain it is to make doubt of everything, such a simple trust in
Him, than whom we find no better father, such a confidence of safety at
the very outset seems a happy art unknown, and tempts him back to
ignorance. Well aware what years must bring, from all the ill they have
brought to us, we cannot watch this simple sort without a sadness on our
side, a pity, and a longing, as for something lost and gone.
In the scoop between two sandhills such a power of moonlight fell upon
the face of this baby, that it only wanted the accident of her lifting
bright eyes to me to make me cast away all prudence, and even the dread
of Bunny. But a man at my time of life must really look to the main
chance first, and scout all romantic visions; and another face means
another mouth, however pretty it may be. Moreover, I had no wife now,
nor woman to look after us; and what can even a man-child do, without
their apparatus? While on the other hand I knew that (however dreary
Sker might be) there was one motherly heart inside it. Therefore it came
to pass that soon the shadow of that dark house fell upon the little one
in my arms, while with a rotten piece of timber, which was lying handy,
I thumped and thumped at the old oak door, but nobody came to answer me;
nobody even seemed to hear, though every knock went further and further
into the emptiness of the place.
But just as I had made up my mind to lift the latch, and to walk in
freely, as I would have done in most other houses, but stood upon
scruple with Evan Thomas, I heard a slow step in the distance, and Moxy
Thomas appeared at last--a kindly-hearted and pleasant woman, but apt to
be low-spirited (as was natural for Evan's wife), and not very much of a
manager. And yet it seems hard to blame her there, when I come to think
of it, for most of the women are but so, round about our
neighbourhood--sanding up of room and passage, and forming patterns on
the floor every other Saturday, and yet the roof all frayed with
cobwebs, and the corners such as, in the navy, we should have been
rope-ended for.
By means of nature, Moxy was shaped for a thoroughly good and lively
woman; and such no doubt she would have been, if she had had the luck to
marry me, as at one time was our signification. God, however, ordered
things in a different manner, and no doubt He was considering what might
be most for my benefit. Nevertheless, in the ancient days, when I was a
fine young tar on leave, and all Sunday-school set caps at me (perhaps I
was two-and-twenty then), the only girl I would allow to sit on the
crossing of my legs, upon a well-dusted tombstone, and suck the things I
carried for them (all being fond of peppermint), was this little Moxy
Stradling, of good Newton family, and twelve years old at that time. She
made me swear on the blade of my knife never to have any one but her;
and really I looked forward to it as almost beyond a joke; and her
father had some money.
"Who's there at this time of night?" cried Moxy Thomas, sharply, and in
Welsh of course, although she had some English; "pull the latch, if you
be honest. Evan Black is in the house."
By the tone of her voice I knew that this last was a fib of fright, and
glad I was to know it so. Much the better chance was left me of
disposing Bardie somewhere, where she might be comfortable.
Soon as Mrs Thomas saw us by the light of a home-made dip, she scarcely
stopped to stare before she wanted the child out of my arms, and was
ready to devour it, guessing that it came from sea, and talking all the
while, full gallop, as women find the way to do. I was expecting fifty
questions, and, no doubt, she asked them, yet seemed to answer them all
herself, and be vexed with me for talking, yet to want me to go on.
"Moxy, now be quick," I said; "this little thing from out the sea----"
"Quick is it? Quick indeed! Much quick you are, old Dyo!" she replied in
English. "The darling dear, the pretty love!" for the child had spread
its hands to her, being taken with a woman's dress. "Give her to me,
clumsy Davy. Is it that way you do carry her?"
"Old Davy tarry me aye nicely, I tell 'a. Old Davy good and kind; and I
'ont have him called kumsy."
So spake up my two-year-old, astonishing me (as she always has done) by
her wonderful cleverness, and surprising Moxy Thomas that such clear
good words should come from so small a creature.
"My goodness me! you little vixen! wherever did you come from? Bring her
in yourself, then, Dyo, if she thinks so much of you. Let me feel her.
Not wet she is. Where-ever did you get her? Put her on this little
stool, and let her warm them mites of feet till I go for bread and
butter."
Although the weather was so hot, a fire of coal and driftwood was
burning in the great chimney-place, for cooking of black Evan's supper;
because he was an outrageous man to eat, whenever he was drunk, which
(as a doctor told me once) shows the finest of all constitutions.
But truly there was nothing else of life, or cheer, or comfort, in the
great sad stony room. A floor of stone, six gloomy doorways, and a
black-beamed ceiling--no wonder that my little darling cowered back into
my arms, and put both hands before her eyes.
"No, no, no!" she said. "Bardie doesn't 'ike it. When mama come, she be
very angy with 'a, old Davy."
I felt myself bound to do exactly as Mrs Thomas ordered me, and so I
carried Miss Finical to the three-legged stool of firwood which had been
pointed out to me; and having a crick in my back for a moment after
bearing her so far, down I set her upon her own legs, which, although so
neat and pretty, were uncommonly steadfast. To my astonishment, off she
started (before I could fetch myself to think) over the rough stone
flags of the hall, trotting on her toes entirely, for the very life of
her. Before I could guess what she was up to, she had pounced upon an
old kitchen-towel, newly washed, but full of splinters, hanging on a
three-legged horse, and back she ran in triumph with it--for none could
say that she toddled--and with a want of breath, and yet a vigour that
made up for it, began to rub with all her power, as well as a highly
skilful turn, the top of that blessed three-legged stool, and some way
down the sides of it.
"What's the matter, my dear?" I asked, almost losing my mind at this,
after all her other wonders.
"Dirt," she replied; "degustin' dirt!" never stopping to look up at me.
"What odds for a little dirt, when a little soul is hungry?"
"Bardie a boofley kean gal, and this 'tool degustin' cochong!" was all
the reply she vouchsafed me; but I saw that she thought less of me.
However, I was glad enough that Moxy did not hear her, for Mrs Thomas
had no unreasonable ill-will towards dirt, but rather liked it in its
place; and with her its place was everywhere. But I, being used to see
every cranny searched and scoured with holy-stone, blest, moreover, when
ashore, with a wife like Amphitrite (who used to come aboard of us),
could thoroughly enter into the cleanliness of this Bardie, and thought
more of her accordingly.
While this little trot was working, in the purest ignorance of father
and of mother, yet perhaps in her tiny mind hoping to have pleased them
both, back came Mrs Thomas, bringing all the best she had of comfort and
of cheer for us, although not much to speak of.
I took a little hollands hot, on purpose to oblige her, because she had
no rum; and the little baby had some milk and rabbit-gravy, being set up
in a blanket, and made the most we could make of her. And she ate a
truly beautiful supper, sitting gravely on the stool, and putting both
hands to her mouth in fear of losing anything. All the boys were gone
to bed after a long day's rabbiting, and Evan Black still on the spree;
so that I was very pleasant (knowing my boat to be quite safe) toward my
ancient sweetheart. And we got upon the old times so much, in a
pleasing, innocent, teasing way, that but for fear of that vile black
Evan we might have forgotten poor Bardie.
CHAPTER VII.
BOAT _VERSUS_ BARDIE.
Glad as I was, for the poor child's sake, that Black Evan happened to be
from home, I had perhaps some reason also to rejoice on my own account.
For if anything of any kind could ever be foretold about that most
uncertain fellow's conduct, it was that when in his cups he would
fight--with cause, if he could find any; otherwise, without it.
And in the present case, perhaps, was some little cause for fighting;
touching (as he no doubt would think) not only his marital but manorial
rights of plunder. Of course, between Moxy and myself all was purely
harmless, each being thankful to have no more than a pleasant eye for
the other; and of course, in really serious ways, I had done no harm to
him; that boat never being his, except by downright piracy. Nevertheless
few men there are who look at things from what I may call a large and
open standing-place; and Evan might even go so far as to think that I
did him a double wrong, in taking that which was his, the boat, and
leaving that which should have been mine--to wit, the little maiden--as
a helpless burden upon his hands, without so much as a change of
clothes; and all this after a great day's sport among his rocks, without
his permission!
Feeling how hopeless it would be to reason these matters out with him,
especially as he was sure to be drunk, I was glad enough to say
"Good-night" to my new young pet, now fast asleep, and to slip off
quietly to sea with my little frigate and its freight, indulging also my
natural pride at being, for the first time in my life, a legitimate
shipowner and independent deep-sea fisherman. By this time the tide was
turned, of course, and running strong against me as I laid her head for
Newton Bay by the light of the full moon; and proud I was, without
mistake, to find how fast I could send my little crank barky against the
current, having being a fine oarsman in my day, and always stroke of the
captain's gig.
But as one who was well acquainted with the great dearth of honesty (not
in our own parish only, but for many miles around), I could not see my
way to the public ownership of this boat, without a deal of trouble and
vexation. Happening so that I did not buy it, being thoroughly void of
money (which was too notorious, especially after two funerals conducted
to everybody's satisfaction), big rogues would declare at once, judging
me by themselves, perhaps, that I had been and stolen it. And likely
enough, to the back of this, they would lay me half-a-dozen murders and
a wholesale piracy.
Now I have by nature the very strongest affection for truth that can be
reconciled with a good man's love of reason. But sometimes it happens so
that we must do violence to ourselves for the sake of our
fellow-creatures. If these, upon occasion offered, are only too sure to
turn away and reject the truth with a strong disgust, surely it is dead
against the high and pure duty we owe them, to saddle them with such a
heavy and deep responsibility. And to take still loftier views of the
charity and kindness needful towards our fellow-beings--when they hanker
for a thing, as they do nearly always for a lie, and have set their
hearts upon it, how selfish it must be, and inhuman, not to let them
have it! Otherwise, like a female in a delicate condition, to what
extent of injury may we not expose them? Now sailors have a way of
telling great facts of imagination in the most straightforward and
simple manner, being so convinced themselves that they care not a rope's
end who besides is convinced, and who is not. And to make other people
believe, the way is not to want them to do it; only the man must himself
believe, and be above all reasoning.
And I was beginning to believe more and more as I went on, and the
importance of it grew clearer, all about that ill-fated ship of which I
had been thinking ever since the boat came in. Twelve years ago, as
nearly as need be, and in the height of summer--namely, on the 3d of
June 1770--a large ship called the 'Planter's Welvard,' bound from
Surinam to the Port of Amsterdam, had been lost and swallowed up near
this very dangerous place. Three poor children of the planter (whose
name was J. S. Jackert), on their way home to be educated, had floated
ashore, or at least their bodies, and are now in Newton churchyard. The
same must have been the fate of Bardie but for the accident of that
boat. And though she was not a Dutchman's child, so far as one could
guess, from her wonderful power of English, and no sign of Dutch build
about her, she might very well have been in a Dutch ship with her father
and mother, and little brother and Susan, in the best cabin. It was well
known among us that Dutch vessels lay generally northward of their true
course, and from the likeness of the soundings often came up the Bristol
instead of the English Channel; and that this mistake (which the set of
the stream would increase) generally proved fatal to them in the absence
of any lighthouse.
That some ship or other had been lost, was to my mind out of all
dispute, although the weather had been so lovely; but why it must have
been a Dutch rather than an English ship, and why I need so very plainly
have seen the whole of it myself (as by this time I began to believe
that I had done), is almost more than I can tell, except that I hoped it
might be so, as giving me more thorough warrant in the possession of my
prize. This boat, moreover, seemed to be of foreign build, so far as I
could judge of it by moonlight: but of that hereafter.
The wonder is that I could judge of anything at all, I think, after the
long and hard day's work, for a man not so young as he used to be. And
rocks are most confusing things to be among for a length of time, and
away from one's fellow-creatures, and nothing substantial on the
stomach. They do so darken and jag and quiver, and hang over heavily as
a man wanders under them, with never a man to speak to; and then the
sands have such a way of shaking, and of shivering, and changing colour
beneath the foot, and shining in and out with patterns coming all astray
to you! When to these contrary vagaries you begin to add the loose
unprincipled curve of waves, and the up and down of light around you,
and to and fro of sea-breezes, and startling noise of sea-fowl, and a
world of other confusions, with roar of the deep confounding them--it
becomes a bitter point to judge a man of what he saw, and what he thinks
he must have seen.
It is beneath me to go on with what might seem excuses. Enough that I
felt myself in the right; and what more can any man do, if you please,
however perfect he may be? Therefore I stowed away my boat (well earned
both by mind and body) snugly enough to defy, for the present, even the
sharp eyes of Sandy Macraw, under Newton Point, where no one ever went
but myself. Some of my fish I put to freshen in a solid mass of
bladder-weed, and some I took home for the morning, and a stroke of
business after church. And if any man in the world deserved a downright
piece of good rest that night, with weary limbs and soft conscience, you
will own it was Davy Llewellyn.
Sunday morning I lay abed, with Bunny tugging very hard to get me up for
breakfast, until it was almost eight o'clock, and my grandchild in a
bitter strait of hunger for the things she smelled. After satisfying
her, and scoring at the "Jolly Sailors" three fine bass against my shot,
what did I do but go to church with all my topmost togs on? And that not
from respect alone for the parson, who was a customer, nor even that
Colonel Lougher of Candleston Court might see me, and feel inclined to
discharge me as an exemplary Churchman (when next brought up before
him). These things weighed with me a little, it is useless to deny; but
my main desire was that the parish should see me there, and know that I
was not abroad on a long-shore expedition, but was ready to hold up my
head on a Sunday with the best of them, as I always had done.
At one time, while I ate my breakfast, I had some idea perhaps that it
would be more pious almost, and create a stronger belief in me, as well
as ease my own penitence with more relief of groaning, if I were to
appear in the chapel of the Primitive Christians, after certain fish
were gutted. But partly the fear of their singing noise (unsuitable to
my head that morning after the Hollands at Sker-house), and partly my
sense that after all it was but forecastle work there, while the church
was quarter-deck, and most of all the circumstance that no magistrate
ever went there, led me, on the whole, to give the preference to the old
concern, supported so bravely by royalty. Accordingly to church I went,
and did a tidy stroke of business, both before and after service, in the
way of lobsters.
We made a beautiful dinner that day, Bunny and I, and mother Jones, who
was good enough to join us; and after slipping down to see how my boat
lay for the tide, and finding her as right as could be, it came into my
head that haply it would be a nice attention, as well as ease my mind
upon some things that were running in it, if only I could pluck up
spirit to defy the heat of the day, and challenge my own weariness by
walking over to Sker-Manor. For of course the whole of Monday, and
perhaps of Tuesday too, and even some part of Wednesday (with people not
too particular), must be occupied in selling my great catch of Saturday:
so I resolved to go and see how the little visitor was getting on, and
to talk with her. For though, in her weariness and wandering of the
night before, she did not seem to remember much, as was natural at her
tender age, who could tell what might have come to her memory by this
time, especially as she was so clever? And it might be a somewhat
awkward thing if the adventures which I felt really must have befallen
her should happen to be contradicted by her own remembrance: for all I
wanted was the truth; and if her truths contradicted mine, why, mine
must be squared off to meet them; for great is truth, and shall prevail.
I thought it as well to take Bunny with me, for children have a
remarkable knack of talking to one another, which they will not use to
grown people; also the walk across the sands is an excellent thing for
young legs, we say, being apt to crack the skin a little, and so
enabling them to grow. A strong and hearty child was Bunny, fit to be
rated A.B., almost, as behoved a fine sailor's daughter. And as proud as
you could wish to see, and never willing to give in; so I promised
myself some little sport in watching our Bunny's weariness, as the sand
grew deeper, and yet her pride to the last declaring that I should not
carry her.
But here I reckoned quite amiss, for the power of the heat was
such--being the very hottest day I ever knew out of the tropics, and the
great ridge of sandhills shutting us off from any sight of the
water--that my little grandchild scarcely plodded a mile ere I had to
carry her. And this was such a heavy job among the deep dry mounds of
sand, that for a time I repented much of the over-caution which had
stopped me from using my beautiful new boat at once, to paddle down with
the ebb to Sker, and come home gently afterwards with the flow of the
tide towards evening. Nevertheless, as matters proved, it was wiser to
risk the broiling.
This heat was not of the sun alone (such as we get any summer's day, and
such as we had yesterday), but thickened heat from the clouds
themselves, shedding it down like a burning-glass, and weltering all
over us. It was, though I scarcely knew it then, the summing-up and
crowning period of whole weeks of heat and drought, and indeed of the
hottest summer known for at least a generation. And in the hollows of
yellow sand, without a breath of air to stir, or a drop of moisture, or
a firm place for the foot, but a red and fiery haze to go through, it
was all a man could do to keep himself from staggering.
Hence it was close upon three o'clock, by the place the sun was in, when
Bunny and I came in sight of Sker-house, and hoped to find some water
there. Beer, of course, I would rather have; but never was there a
chance of that within reach of Evan Thomas. And I tried to think this
all the better; for half a gallon would not have gone any distance with
me, after ploughing so long through sand, with the heavy weight of
Bunny, upon a day like that. Only I hoped that my dear little grandchild
might find something fit for her, and such as to set her up again; for
never before had I seen her, high and strong as her spirit was, so
overcome by the power and pressure of the air above us. She lay in my
arms almost as helpless as little Bardie, three years younger, had lain
the night before; and knowing how children will go off without a man's
expecting it, I was very uneasy, though aware of her constitution. So in
the heat I chirped and whistled, though ready to drop myself almost; and
coming in sight of the house, I tried my best to set her up again,
finding half of her clothes gone down her back, and a great part of her
fat legs somehow sinking into her Sunday shoes.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHILDREN WILL BE CHILDREN.
The "boys of Sker," as we always called those rough fellows over at
Newton, were rabbiting in the warren; according to their usual practice,
on a Sunday afternoon. A loose unseemly lot of lads, from fifteen up to
two-and-twenty years of age, perhaps, and very little to choose between
them as to work and character. All, however, were known to be first-rate
hands at any kind of sporting, or of poaching, or of any roving
pleasure.
Watkin, the sixth and youngest boy, was of a different nature. His
brothers always cast him off, and treated him with a high contempt, yet
never could despise him. In their rough way, they could hardly help a
sulky sort of love for him.
The seventh and last child had been a girl--a sweet little creature as
could be seen, and taking after Watkin. But she had something on her
throat from six months up to six years old; and when she died, some
three months back, people who had been in the house said that her mother
would sooner have lost all the boys put together, if you left Watkin out
of them. How that was I cannot say, and prefer to avoid those subjects.
But I know that poor black Evan swore no oath worth speaking of for one
great market and two small ones, but seemed brought down to sit by
himself, drinking quietly all day long.
When we came to the ancient hall (or kitchen, as now they called it),
for a moment I was vexed--expecting more of a rush, perhaps, than I was
entitled to. Knowing how much that young child owed me for her
preservation, and feeling how fond I was of her, what did I look for but
wild delight at seeing "old Davy" back again? However, it seems, she had
taken up with another and forgotten me.
Watkin, the youngest boy of Sker, was an innocent good little fellow,
about twelve years old at that time. Bardie had found this out already;
as quickly as she found out my goodness, even by the moonlight. She had
taken the lead upon Watkin, and was laying down the law to him, upon a
question of deep importance, about the manner of dancing. I could dance
a hornpipe with anybody, and forward I came to listen.
"No, no, no! I tell 'a. 'E mustn't do like that, Yatkin. 'E must go
yound and yound like this; and 'e must hold 'a cothes out, same as I
does. Gardy là! 'E must hold 'a cothes out all the time, 'e must."
The little atom, all the time she delivered these injunctions, was
holding out her tiny frock in the daintiest manner, and tripping
sideways here and there, and turning round quite upon tiptoe, with her
childish figure poised, and her chin thrown forward; and then she would
give a good hard jump, but all to the tune of the brass jew's-harp which
the boy was playing for his very life. And all the while she was doing
this, the amount of energy and expression in her face was wonderful. You
would have thought there was nothing else in all the world that required
doing with such zeal and abandonment. Presently the boy stopped for a
moment, and she came and took the knee of his trousers, and put it to
her pretty lips with the most ardent gratitude.
"She must be a foreigner," said I to myself: "no British child could
dance like that, and talk so; and no British child ever shows
gratitude."
As they had not espied us yet, where we stood in the passage-corner, I
drew Bunny backward, and found her all of a tremble with eagerness to go
and help.
"More pay," said little missy, with a coaxing look; "more pay, Yatkin!"
"No, no. You must say 'more play, please, Watkin.'"
"See voo pay, Yatkin; I 'ants--more pay!" The funny thing laughed at
herself while saying it, as if with some comic inner sense of her own
insatiability in the matter of play.
"But how do you expect me to play the music," asked Watkin, very
reasonably, "if I am to hold my clothes out all the time?"
"Can't 'a?" she replied, looking up at him with the deepest
disappointment; "can't 'a pay and dance too, Yatkin? I thought 'a could
do anything. I 'ants to go to my dear mama and papa and ickle bother."
Here she began to set up a very lamentable cry, and Watkin in vain tried
to comfort her, till, hearing us, she broke from him.
"Nare's my dear mama, nare's my dear mama coming!" she exclaimed, as she
trotted full speed to the door. "Mama! mama! here I is. And 'e mustn't
scold poor Susan."
It is out of my power to describe how her little flushed countenance
fell when she saw only me and Bunny. She drew back suddenly, with the
brightness fading out of her eager eyes, and the tears that were in them
began to roll, and her bits of hands went up to her forehead, as if she
had lost herself, and the corners of her mouth came down; and then with
a sob she turned away, and with quivering shoulders hid herself. I
scarcely knew what to do for the best; but our Bunny was very good to
her, even better than could have been hoped, although she came of a
kindly race. Without standing upon ceremony, as many children would have
done, up she ran to the motherless stranger, and, kneeling down on the
floor, contrived to make her turn and look at her. Then Bunny pulled out
her new handkerchief, of which she was proud, I can tell you, being the
first she had ever owned, made from the soundest corner of mother
Jones's old window-blind, and only allowed with a Sunday frock; and
although she had too much respect for this to wet it with anything
herself, she never for a moment grudged to wipe poor Bardie's eyes with
it. Nay, she even permitted her--which was much more for a child to
do--to take it into her own two hands and rub away at her eyes with it.
Gradually she coaxed her out of the cupboard of her refuge, and sitting
in some posture known to none but women children, without a stool to
help her, she got the little one on her lap, and stroked at her, and
murmured to her, as if she had found a favourite doll in the depth of
trouble. Upon the whole, I was so pleased that I vowed to myself I would
give my Bunny the very brightest halfpenny I should earn upon the
morrow.
Meanwhile, the baby of higher birth--as a glance was enough to show
her--began to relax and come down a little, both from her dignity and
her woe. She looked at Bunny with a gleam of humour, to which her wet
eyes gave effect.
"'E call that a ponkey-hankerchy? Does 'a call that a ponkey-hankerchy?"
Bunny was so overpowered by this, after all that she had done, and at
the air of pity wherewith her proud ornament was flung on the floor,
that she could only look at me as if I had cheated her about it. And
truly I had seen no need to tell her about mother Jones and her blind.
Then these little ones got up, having sense of a natural discordance of
rank between them, and Bunny no longer wiped the eyes of Bardie, nor
Bardie wept in the arms of Bunny. They put their little hands behind
them, and stood apart to think a bit, and watched each other shyly. To
see them move their mouths and fingers, and peep from the corners of
their eyes, was as good as almost any play without a hornpipe in it. It
made no difference, however. Very soon they came to settle it between
them. The low-born Bunny looked down upon Bardie for being so much
smaller, and the high-born Bardie looked down upon Bunny for being so
much coarser. But neither was able to tell the other at all what her
opinion was; and so, without any further trouble, they became very
excellent playmates.
Doing my best to make them friends, I seized the little stranger, and
gave her several good tosses-up, as well as tickles between them; and
this was more than she could resist, being, as her nature shows,
thoroughly fond of any kind of pleasure and amusement. She laughed, and
she flung out her arms, and every time she made such jumps as to go up
like a feather. Pretty soon I saw, however, that this had gone on too
long for Bunny. She put her poor handkerchief out of sight, and then
some fingers into her mouth, and she looked as black as a dog in a
kennel. But Bardie showed good-nature now, for she ran up to Bunny and
took her hand and led her to me, and said very nicely, "Give this ickle
gal some, old Davy. She haven't had no pay at all. Oh, hot boofley
buckens oo's got! Jolly, jolly! Keel song grand!"
This admiration of my buttons--which truly were very handsome, being on
my regulation-coat, and as good as gilt almost, with "Minotaur" (a kind
of grampus, as they say) done round them--this appreciation of the navy
made me more and more perceive what a dear child was come ashore to us,
and that we ought to look alive to make something out of her. If she had
any friends remaining (and they could scarcely have all been drowned),
being, as she clearly was, of a high and therefore rich family, it might
be worth ten times as much as even my boat had been to me, to keep her
safe and restore her in a fat state when demanded. With that I made up
my mind to take her home with me that very night, especially as Bunny
seemed to have set up a wonderful fancy to her. But man sees single, God
sees double, as our saying is, and her bits of French made me afraid
that she might after all be a beggar.
"Now go and play, like two little dears, and remember whose day it is,"
I said to them both, for I felt the duty of keeping my grandchild up to
the mark on all religious questions; "and be sure you don't go near the
well, nor out of sight of the house at all, nor pull the tails of the
chickens out, nor throw stones at the piggy-wiggy," for I knew what
Bunny's tricks were. "And now, Watty, my boy, come and talk to me, and
perhaps I will give you a juneating apple from my own tree under the
Clevice."
Although the heat was tremendous now (even inside those three-feet
walls), the little things did as I bade them. And I made the most of
this occasion to have a talk with Watkin, who told me everything he
knew. His mother had not been down since dinner, which they always got
anyhow; because his father, who had been poorly for some days, and
feverish, and forced to lie in bed a little, came to the top of the
stairs, and called, requiring some attendance. What this meant I knew as
well as if I had seen black Evan there, parched with thirst and with
great eyes rolling after helpless drunkenness, and roaring, with his
night-clothes on, for a quart of fresh-drawn ale.
But about the shipwrecked child Watty knew scarce anything. He had found
her in his bed that morning--Moxy, no doubt, having been hard pushed
(with her husband in that state) what to do. And knowing how kind young
Watty was, she had quartered the baby upon him. But Watkin, though
gifted with pretty good English (or "Sassenach," as we call it) beyond
all the rest of his family, could not follow the little creature in her
manner of talking; which indeed, as I found thereafter, nobody in the
parish could do except myself, and an Englishwoman whose word was not
worth taking.
"Indeed and indeed then, Mr Llewellyn," he went on in English, having an
evident desire to improve himself by discourse with me, "I did try, and
I did try; and my mother, she try too. Times and times, for sure we
tried. But no use was the whole of it. She only shakes her head, and
thinks with all her might, as you may say. And then she says 'No! I'se
not hot you says. I'se two years old, and I'se Bardie. And my papa he be
very angy if 'e goes on so with me. My mama yoves me, and I yove her,
and papa, and ickle bother, and everybody. But not the naughty bad man,
I doesn't.' That isn't true English now, I don't think; is it then, Mr
Llewellyn?"
"Certainly not," I answered, seeing that my character for good English
was at stake.
"And mother say she know well enough the baby must be a foreigner. On
her dress it is to show it. No name, as the Christians put, but marks
without any meaning. And of clothes so few upon her till mother go to
the old cupboard. Rich people mother do say they must be; but dead by
this time, she make no doubt."
"Boy," I replied, "your mother, I fear, is right in that particular. To
me it is a subject of anxiety and sorrow. And I know perhaps more about
it than any one else can pretend to do."
The boy looked at me with wonder and eagerness about it. But I gave him
a look, as much as to say, "Ask no more at present." However, he was so
full of her that he could not keep from talking.
"We asked who the naughty bad man was, but she was afraid at that, and
went all round the room with her eyes, and hid under mother's apron. And
dreadful she cried at breakfast about her mama and her own spoon. To my
heart I feel the pain when she does cry; I know I do. And then of a
sudden she is laughing, and no reason for it! I never did see such a
baby before. Do you think so, Mr Llewellyn?"
CHAPTER IX.
SANDHILLS TURNED TO SAND-HOLES.
While I was talking thus with the boy, and expecting his mother every
minute (with hope of a little refreshment when the farmer should have
dropped off into his usual Sunday sleep), a very strange thing began
more and more to force itself on my attention. I have said that the hall
of this desolate house was large and long, and had six doorways--narrow
arches of heavy stone without a door to any of them. Three of these
arches were at the west and three at the east end of the room, and on
the south were two old windows, each in a separate gable, high up from
the floor, and dark with stone-work and with lead-work; and in the
calmest weather these would draw the air and make a rattle. At the north
side of the hall was nothing but dead wall, and fireplace, and
cupboards, and the broad oak staircase. Having used the freedom to light
a pipe, I sate with my face to the chimney-corner, where some wood-ashes
were smouldering, after the dinner was done with; and sitting thus, I
became aware of a presence of some sort over my right shoulder. At first
I thought it was nothing more than the smoke from my own pipe, for I
puffed rather hard, in anxiety about that little darling. But seeing
surprise, and alarm perhaps, in Watkin's face, who sate opposite, I
turned round, and there beheld three distinct and several pillars of a
brownish-yellow light standing over against the doorways of the western
end.
At first I was a little scared, and the more so because the rest of the
hall was darkening with a pulse of colour gradually vanishing; and for
an instant I really thought that the ghosts of the wrecked child's
father and mother, and perhaps her nurse, were come to declare the truth
about her, and challenge me for my hesitation. But presently I called to
mind how many strange things had befallen me, both at sea and on the
coast, in the way of feeling and vision too, designed, however, by the
Power that sends them, more to forewarn than frighten us, and, as we get
used to them, to amuse or edify.
Therefore I plucked my spirit up and approached this odd appearance, and
found that no part of it was visible upon the spot where it seemed to
stand. But Watkin, who was much emboldened by my dauntless carriage,
called out in Welsh that he could see me walking in and out of them,
like so many haystacks. Upon this I took yet further courage, having a
witness so close at hand, and nothing seeming to hurt me. So what did I
do but go outside, without any motion of running away, but to face the
thing to its utmost; and Watkin, keeping along the wall, took good care
to come after me.
Here I discovered in half a second that I had been wise as well as
strong in meeting the matter valiantly; for what we had seen was but the
glancing--or reflection, as they call it now--of what was being done
outside. In a word, the thick and stifling heat of the day (which had
gathered to a head the glaring and blazing power of the last two months
of hot summer) was just beginning to burst abroad in whirlwind, hail,
and thunder. All the upper heaven was covered with a spread of burning
yellow; all the half-way sky was red as blood with fibres under it, and
all the sides and margin looked as black as the new-tarred bends of a
ship. But what threw me most astray was, that the whole was whirling,
tossing upward jets of darkness, as a juggler flings his balls, yet at
one time spinning round, and at the same time scowling down.
"It is a hurricane," said I, having seen some in the West Indies which
began like this. Watkin knew not much of my meaning, but caught hold of
my coat, and stood. And in truth it was enough to make not only a slip
of a boy, but a veteran sailor, stand and fear.
Not a flash of lightning yet broke the expectation of it, nor had been a
drop of rain. But to my surprise, and showing how little we know of
anything, over the high land broke a sand-storm, such as they have in
Africa. It had been brewing some time, most likely in the Kenfig
burrows, toward the westward and the windward, although no wind was
astir with us. I thought of a dance of waterspouts, such as we had twice
encountered in the royal navy; once, I know, was after clearing the
mouth of the Strait of Malaccas; where the other was I truly forget,
having had so much to go everywhere. But this time the whirling stuff
was neither water, nor smoke, nor cloud; but sand, as plain as could be.
It was just like the parson's hour-glass--only going up, not coming
down, and quickly instead of slowly. And of these funnels, spinning
around, and coming near and nearer, there may have been perhaps a dozen,
or there may have been threescore. They differed very much in size,
according to the breadth of whirlwind, and the stuff it fed upon, and
the hole in the air it bored; but all alike had a tawny colour, and a
manner of bulking upward, and a loose uncertain edge, often lashing off
in frays; and between them black clouds galloped; and sometimes two fell
into one, and bodily broke downward; then a pile (as big as Newton Rock)
rose in a moment anyhow. Hill or valley made no odds; sandhill, or
sand-bottom; the sand was in the place of the air, and the air itself
was sand.
Many people have asked me, over and over again (because such a thing was
scarcely known, except at the great storm of sand four hundred years
ago, they say)--our people, ever so many times, assert their privilege
to ask me (now again especially) how many of these pillars there were! I
wish to tell the truth exactly, having no interest in the matter--and if
I had, no other matter would it be to me; and after going into my memory
deeper than ever I could have expected there would be occasion for, all
I can say is this--legion was their number; because they were all coming
down upon me; and how could I stop to count them?
Watkin lost his mind a little, and asked me (with his head gone under my
regulation-coat) if I thought it was the judgment-day.
To this question I "replied distinctly in the negative" (as the man of
the paper wrote, when I said "no" about poaching); and then I cheered
young Watkin up, and told him that nothing more was wanted than to keep
a weather-helm.
Before his wit could answer helm so much as to clear my meaning, the
storm was on me, and broke my pipe, and filled my lungs and all my
pockets, and spoiled every corner of the hat I had bought for my dear
wife's funeral. I pulled back instantly (almost as quickly as boy Watkin
could), and we heard the sand burst over the house, with a rattle like
shot, and a roar like cannon. And being well inside the walls, we fixed
our eyes on one another, in the gloom and murkiness, as much as we could
do for coughing, to be sure of something.
"Where is Bardie gone?" I asked, as soon as my lungs gave speech to me:
it should have been, "Where is Bunny gone?" But my head was full of the
little one.
"Who can tell?" cried the boy, in Welsh, being thoroughly scared of his
English. "Oh, Dyo dear, God the great only knows."
"God will guard her," I said softly, yet without pure faith in it,
having seen such cruel things; but the boy's face moved me. Moreover,
Bardie seemed almost too full of life for quenching; and having escaped
rocks, waves, and quicksands, surely she would never be wrecked upon dry
land ignobly. Nevertheless, at the mere idea of those helpless little
ones out in all this raging havoc, tears came to my eyes, until the
sand, of which the very house was full, crusted up and blinded them.
It was time to leave off thinking, if one meant to do any good. The
whirlwinds spun and whistled round us, now on this side, now on that;
and the old house creaked and rattled as the weather pulled or pushed at
it. The sand was drifted in the courtyard (without any special
whirlwind) three feet deep in the north-east corner; and the sky, from
all sides, fell upon us, like a mountain undermined.
"Boy, go into your mother," I said; and I thank God for enabling me,
else might she have been childless. "Tell your mother not to be
frightened, but to get your father up, and to have the kettle boiling."
"Oh, Dyo--dear Dyo! let me come with you, after that poor little child,
and after my five brothers."
"Go in, you helpless fool," I said; and he saw the set of my
countenance, and left me, though but half-content.
It needed all my strength to draw the door of the house behind me,
although the wind was bent no more on one way than another, but
universal uproar. And down-roar too; for it fell on my head quite as
much as it jerked my legs, and took me aback, and took me in front, and
spun me round, and laughed at me. Then of a sudden all wind dropped, and
yellow sky was over me.
What course to take (if I had the choice) in search of those poor
children, was more at first than I could judge, or bring my mind to bear
upon. For as sure as we live by the breath of the Lord, the blast of His
anger deadens us.
Perhaps it was my instinct only, having been so long afloat, which drove
me, straight as affairs permitted, toward the margin of the sea. And
perhaps I had some desire to know how the sea itself would look under
this strange visiting. Moreover, it may have come across me, without any
thinking twice of it, that Bunny had an inborn trick of always running
toward the sea, as behoved a sailor's daughter.
Anyhow, that way I took, so far as it was left to me to know the points
of the compass, or the shape and manner of anything. For simple and
short as the right road was, no simpleton or shortwitted man could have
hit it, or come near it, in that ravenous weather. In the whirl and
grim distortion of the air and the very earth, a man was walking (as you
might say) in the depth of a perfect calm, with stifling heat upon him,
and a piece of shadow to know himself by; and then, the next moment,
there he was in a furious state of buffeting, baffled in front, and
belaboured aback, and bellowed at under the swing of his arms, and the
staggering failure of his poor legs.
Nevertheless, in the lull and the slack times, I did my utmost to get
on, having more presence of mind perhaps than any landsman could have
owned. Poor fellows they are when it comes to blow; and what could they
do in a whirlwind?
As I began to think of them, and my luck in being a seaman, my courage
improved to that degree that I was able quite heartily to commend myself
to the power of God, whom, as a rule, I remember best when the world
seems coming to an end. And I think it almost certain that this piety on
my part enabled me to get on as I did.
For without any skill at all or bravery of mine, but only the calmness
which fell upon me, as it used to do in the heat of battle, when I
thought on my Maker, all at once I saw a way to elude a great deal of
the danger. This was as simple as could be, yet never would have come
home to a man unable to keep his wits about him.
Blurred and slurred as the whole sky was with twisted stuff and with
yellowness, I saw that the whirling pillars of sand not only whirled but
also travelled in one spiral only. They all came from the west, where
lay the largest spread of sandhills, and they danced away to the
north-east first, and then away to south of east, shaping a round like a
ship with her helm up, preserving their spiral from left to right as all
waterspouts do on the north of the Line.
So when a column of sand came nigh to suck me up, or to bury
me--although it went thirty miles an hour, and I with the utmost care of
my life could not have managed ten perhaps--by porting my helm without
carrying sail, and so working a traverse, I kept the weather-gage of it
and that made all the difference.
Of course I was stung in the face and neck as bad as a thousand
musquitoes when the skirts of the whirl flapped round at me, but what
was that to care about? It gave me pleasure to walk in such peril, and
feel myself almost out of it by virtue of coolness and readiness.
Nevertheless it gave me far greater pleasure, I can assure you, to feel
hard ground beneath my feet, and stagger along the solid pebbles of the
beach of Sker, where the sand-storm could not come so much.
Hereupon I do believe that, in spite of all my courage--so stout and
strong in the moment of trial--all my power fell away before the sense
of safety. What could my old battered life matter to any one in the
world, except myself and Bunny? However, I was so truly thankful to kind
Providence for preserving it, that I cannot have given less than nine
jumps, and said, "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John," three times over, and
in both ways.
This brought me back to the world again, as any power of piety always
does when I dwell therein, and it drove me thereupon to trust in
Providence no longer than the time was needful for me to recover
breathing.
When I came to my breath and prudence, such a fright at first oppressed
me, that I made a start for running into the foremost of the waves,
thinking (if I thought at all) of lying down there, with my head kept
up, and defying the sand to quench the sea.
Soon, however, I perceived that this was not advisable. Such a roar
arose around me from the blows of hills and rocks, and the fretful
eagerness of the sea to be at war again, and the deep sound of the
distance--the voice of man could travel less than that of a sandpiper,
and the foot of man might long to be the foot of a sandhopper. For the
sea was rising fast up the verge of ground-swell, and a deep hoarse echo
rolling down the shoaling of the surges. This to me was pleasant music,
such as makes a man awake.
The colour of the sun and sky was just as I had once beholden near the
pearl-grounds of Ceylon, where the bottom of the sea comes up with a
very mournful noise, and the fish sing dirges, and no man, however clear
of eye, can open the sea and the sky asunder. And by this time being
able to look round a little--for the air was not so full of sand, though
still very thick and dusty--I knew that we were on the brink of a kind
of tornado, as they call it in the tropics,--a storm that very seldom
comes into these northern latitudes, being raised by violence of heat,
as I have heard a surveyor say, the air going upward rapidly, with a
great hole left below it.
Now as I stood on watch, as it were, and, being in such a situation,
longed for more tobacco, what came to pass was exactly this--so far as a
man can be exact when his wits have long been failing him.
The heaven opened, or rather seemed to be cloven by a sword-sweep, and a
solid mass of lightning fell, with a cone like a red-hot anvil. The ring
of black rocks received its weight, and leaped like a boiling caldron,
while the stormy waters rose into a hiss and heap of steam. Then the
crash of heaven stunned me.
When I came to myself it was raining as if it had never rained before.
The rage of sand and air was beaten flat beneath the rain, and the
fretful lifting of the sea was hushed off into bubbles. What to do I
could not tell, in spite of all experience, but rubbed the sand from
both my eyes, as bad as the beard of an oyster, and could see no clear
way anywhere.
Now the sky was spread and traversed with a net of crossing fires, in
and out like mesh and needle, only without time to look. Some were
yellow, some deep red, and some like banks of violet, and others of a
pale sweet blue, like gazing through a window. They might have been very
beautiful, and agreeable to consider, if they had been further off, and
without that wicked crack of thunder through the roar. Worse storms I
had seen, of course, in the hot world and up mountains, and perhaps
thought little of them; but then there was this difference, I had always
plenty of fellows with me, and it was not Sunday. Also, I then was
young, and trained for cannons to be shot at me. Neither had I a boat of
my own, but my dear wife was alive.
These considerations moved me to be careful of my life--a duty which
increases on us after the turn of the balance; and seeing all things
black behind me, and a world of storm around, knowing every hole as I
did, with many commendations of myself to God for the sake of Bunny, in
I went into a hole under a good solid rock, where I could watch the sea,
and care for nothing but an earthquake.
CHAPTER X.
UNDER THE ROCK.
For a while the power of the lightning seemed to quench the wind almost,
and one continuous roar of thunder rang around the darkness. Then, with
a bellow, the wind sprang forth (like a wild bull out of a mountain),
and shattered the rain and drowned the thunder, and was lord of
everything. Under its weight the flat sea quivered, and the crests flew
into foam, and the scourge upon the waters seemed to beat them all
together. The whirlwinds now were past and done with, and a violent gale
begun, and in the burst and change of movement there appeared a helpless
ship.
She was bearing towards Pool Tavan, as poor Bardie's boat had done, but
without the summer glory and the golden wealth of waves. All was smooth
and soft and gentle, as the moonlight in a glass, when the little boat
came gliding with its baby captain. All was rough and hard and furious
as a fight of devils, when that ship came staggering with its load of
sin and woe. And yet there had not been so much as twenty-four hours
between the two.
Not one of our little coasting vessels, but a full-rigged ship she
loomed, of foreign build, although at present carrying no colours. I saw
at once what her business was, to bring from the West Indies sugar, rum,
and suchlike freight, to Bristol, or to the Dutchmen. This was in her
clearance-bill; but behind that she had other import not so clearly
entered. In a word, she carried negroes from the overstocked
plantations, not to be quite slaves (at least in the opinion of their
masters), but to be distributed, for their own Christian benefit, at a
certain sum per head, among the Bristol or Dutch merchants, or wherever
it might be. And it serves them right, I always say; for the fuss that
we now make about those black men must bring down the anger of the
Creator, who made them black, upon us.
As the gale set to its work, and the sea arose in earnest, and the
lightning drifted off into the scud of clouds, I saw, as plain as a
pikestaff, that the ship must come ashore, and go to pieces very likely,
before one could say "Jack Robinson." She had been on the Sker-weather
sands already, and lost her rudder and some of her sternpost, as the
lift of the water showed; and now there was nothing left on board her of
courage or common seamanship. The truth of it was, although of course I
could not know it then, that nearly all the ship's company acted as was
to be expected from a lot of foreigners; that is to say, if such they
were. They took to the boats in a kind of panic when first she struck
among the sands in the whirlwind which began the storm. There could have
been then no great sea running, only quiet rollers; and being but two
miles off the shore, they hoped, no doubt, to land well enough, after
leaving the stupid negroes and the helpless passengers to the will of
Providence.
However, before they had rowed a mile, with the flood-tide making
eastward, one of the boats was struck by lightning, and the other caught
in a whirl vorago (as the Spaniards call it), and not a soul ever came
to land, and scarcely any bodies. Both these accidents were seen from
Porthcawl Point by Sandy Macraw through a telescope: and much as he was
mine enemy, I do him the justice to believe it; partly because he could
look for no money from any lies in the matter, and still more because I
have heard that some people said that they saw him see it.
But to come back to this poor ship: the wind, though blowing madly
enough (as a summer gale is often hotter for a while than a winter one),
had not time and sweep as yet to raise any very big rollers. The sea was
sometimes beaten flat and then cast up in hillocks; but the mighty march
of waters fetched by a tempest from the Atlantic was not come, and would
not come in a veering storm like this. For it takes a gale of at least
three tides, such as we never have in summer, to deliver the true buffet
of the vast Atlantic.
Nevertheless the sea was nasty and exceeding vicious; and the wind more
madly wild, perhaps, than when it has full time to blow; in short, the
want of depth and power was made up by rage and spite. And for a ship
not thoroughly sound and stanch in all her timbers it had been better,
perhaps, to rise and fall upon long billows, with a chance of casting
high and dry, than to be twirled round and plucked at, thrown on
beam-ends, and taken aback, as this hapless craft was being, in the lash
of rocky waters and the drift of gale and scud.
By this time she was close ashore, and not a man (except myself) to help
or even pity her. All around her was wind and rocks, and a mad sea
rushing under her. The negroes, crouching in the scuppers, or clinging
to the masts and rails, or rolling over one another in their want of
pluck and skill, seemed to shed their blackness on the snowy spray and
curdled foam, like cuttle-fish in a lump of froth. Poor things! they are
grieved to die as much, perhaps, as any white man; and my heart was
overcome, in spite of all I know of them.
The ship had no canvas left, except some tatters of the fore-topsail,
and a piece of the main-royals; but she drifted broadside on, I daresay
five or six knots an hour. She drew too much water, unluckily, to come
into Pool Tavan at that time of the tide, even if the mouth had been
wide enough; but crash she went on a ledge of rocks thoroughly well
known to me, every shelf of which was a razor. Half a cable's length
below the entrance to Pool Tavan, it had the finest steps and stairs for
congers and for lobsters, whenever one could get at it in a low
spring-tide; but the worst of beaks and barbs for a vessel to strike
upon at half-flow, and with a violent sea, and a wind as wild as Bedlam.
With the pressure of these, she lay so much to leeward before striking
(and perhaps her cargo had shifted), that the poor blackies rolled down
the deck like pickling walnuts on a tray; and they had not even the
chance of dying each in his own direction.
I was forced to shut my eyes; till a grey squall came, and caught her
up, as if she had been a humming-top, and flung her (as we drown a
kitten) into the mashing waters.
Now I hope no man who knows me would ever take me for such a fool as to
dream for a moment--after all I have seen of them--that a negro is "our
own flesh and blood, and a brother immortal," as the parsons begin to
prate, under some dark infection. They differ from us a great deal more
than an ass does from a horse; but for all that I was right down
glad--as a man of loving-kindness--that such a pelt of rain came up as
saved me from the discomfort--or pain, if you must have the truth--of
beholding several score, no doubt, of unfortunate blacks a-drowning.
If it had pleased Providence to drown any white men with them, and to
let me know it, beyond a doubt I had rushed in, though without so much
as a rope to help me; and as it was, I was ready to do my very best to
save them if they had only shown some readiness to be hawled ashore by a
man of proper colour. But being, as negroes always are, of a most
contrary nature, no doubt they preferred to drift out to sea rather than
Christian burial. At any rate, none of them came near me, kindly
disposed as I felt myself, and ready to tuck up my Sunday trousers at
the very first sight of a woolly head. But several came ashore next
tide--when it could be no comfort at all to them. And such, as I have
always found, is the nature of black people.
But for me it was a sad, and, as I thought, severe, visitation to be
forced on a Sabbath-day--my only holiday of the week--to meditate over a
scene like this. As a truly consistent and truth-seeking Christian
(especially when I go round with fish on a Monday morning among
Nonconformists), it was a bitter trial for me to reflect upon those
poor negroes, gone without any sense at all, except of good Christians'
wickedness, to the judgment we decree for all, except ourselves and
families.
But there was worse than this behind; for after waiting as long as there
seemed good chance of anything coming ashore, which might go into my
pocket, without risk of my pension, and would truly be mine in all
honesty--and after seeing that the wreck would not break up till the
tide rose higher, though all on board were swept away--suddenly it came
into my head about poor Bardie and Bunny. They were worth all the
niggers that ever made coal look the colour of pipeclay; and with a
depth of self-reproach which I never deserved to feel, having truly done
my utmost--for who could walk in such weather?--forth I set, resolved to
face whatever came out of the heavens. Verily nothing could come much
worse than what was come already. Rheumatics, I mean, which had struck
me there, under the rock, as a snake might. Three hours ago all the
world was sweat, and now all the air was shivers. Such is the climate of
our parts, and many good people rail at it, who have not been under
discipline. But all who have felt that gnawing anguish, or that fiery
freezing, burning at once and benumbing (like a dead bone put into the
live ones, with a train of powder down it)--all these will have pity for
a man who had crouched beneath a rock for at least three hours, with
dripping clothes, at the age of two-and-fifty.
For a hero I never set up to be, and never came across one until my old
age in the navy, as hereafter to be related. And though I had served on
board of one in my early years, off La Hague and Cape Grisnez, they told
me she was only a woman that used to hold a lantern. Hero, however, or
no hero, in spite of all discouragement and the aching of my bones,
resolved I was to follow out the fate of those two children. There
seemed to be faint hope, indeed, concerning the little stranger; but
Bunny might be all alive and strong, as was right and natural for a
child of her age and substance. But I was sore downcast about it when I
looked around and saw the effect of the storm that had been over them.
For the alteration of everything was nothing less than amazing.
It is out of my power to tell you how my heart went up to God, and all
my spirit and soul was lifted into something purer, when of a sudden, in
a scoop of sand, with the rushes overhanging, I came on those two little
dears, fast asleep in innocence. A perfect nest of peace they had, as if
beneath their Father's eye, and by His own hand made for them. The fury
of the earth and sky was all around and over them; the deep revenge of
the sea was rolling, not a hundred yards away; and here those two little
dots were asleep, with their angels trying to make them dream.
Bunny, being the elder and much the stronger child, had thrown the skirt
of her frock across poor little Bardie's naked shoulders; while Bardie,
finding it nice and warm, had nestled her delicate head into the lap of
her young nurse, and had tried (as it seemed), before dropping off, to
tell her gratitude by pressing Bunny's red hands to her lips. In a word,
you might go a long way and scarcely see a prettier or more moving
picture, or more apt to lead a man who seldom thinks of his Maker. As
for me, I became so proud of my own granddaughter's goodness, and of the
little lady's trust and pure repose therein, that my heart went back at
once to my dead boy Harry, and I do believe that I must have wept, if I
could have stopped to look at them.
But although I was truly loath to spoil this pretty picture, the poor
things must be partly wet, even in that nest of rushes, which the
whirlwinds had not touched. So I awoke them very gently, and shook off
the sand, while they rubbed their eyes, and gaped, and knew no more of
their danger than if they had been in their own dear beds. Then, with
Bardie in my arms, and Bunny trotting stoutly with her thumb spliced
into my trousers, I shaped a course for Sker farmhouse, having a strong
gale still abaft, but the weather slightly moderating.
CHAPTER XI.
A WRECKER WRECKED.
Near the gate I met Evan Thomas, the master of the house himself, at
length astir, but still three-parts drunk, and--if I may say so with due
compassion for the trouble then before him--in a very awkward state of
mind. It happened so that the surliness of his liquor and of his nature
mingled at this moment with a certain exultation, a sense of good-luck,
and a strong desire to talk and be told again of it. And this is the
nature of all Welshmen; directly they have any luck, they must begin to
brag of it. You will find the same in me perhaps, or, at any rate, think
you do, although I try to exclude it, having to deal with Englishmen,
who make nothing of all the great deeds they have done until you begin
to agree with them. And then, my goodness, they do come out! But the
object of my writing is to make them understand us, which they never yet
have done, being unlike somehow in nature, although we are much of their
fathers.
Having been almost equally among both these nations, and speaking
English better perhaps than my native tongue of the Cymry--of which
anybody can judge who sees the manner in which I do it--it is against my
wish to say what Evan Thomas looked like. His dark face, overhung with
hair, and slouched with a night of drinking, was beginning to burn up,
from paleness and from weariness, into a fury of plunder. Scarcely did I
know the man, although I had so many recollections of evil against him.
A big, strong, clumsy fellow at all times, far more ready to smite than
smile, and wholly void of that pleasant humour, which among almost all
my neighbours--though never yet could I find out why--creates a pleasing
eagerness for my humble society as punctual as my pension-day.
But now his reeling staggering manner of coming along towards us, and
the hunching of his shoulders, and the swagging of his head, and, most
of all, the great gun he carried, were enough to make good quiet people
who had been to church get behind a sandhill. However, for that it was
too late. I was bound to face him. Bardie dropped her eyes under my
beard, and Bunny crept closer behind my leg. For my part, although the
way was narrow, and the lift of the storm gave out some light, it would
have moved no resentment in me if he had seen (as rich men do) unfit to
see a poor man.
However, there was no such luck. He carried his loaded gun with its
muzzle representing a point of view the very last I could have
desired--namely, at my midships; and he carried it so that I longed to
have said a little word about carefulness. But I durst not, with his
coal-black eyes fixed upon me as they were, and so I pulled up suddenly.
For he had given me an imperious nod, as good as ordering me to stop.
"Wreck ashore!" he cried out in Welsh, having scarce a word of
English--"wreck ashore! I smell her, Dyo. Don't tell me no lies, my boy.
I smelled her all the afternoon. And high time to have one."
"There is a wreck ashore," I answered, looking with some disgust at him,
as a man who has been wrecked himself must do at a cruel wrecker; "but
the ebb most likely will draw her off and drift her into the
quicksands."
"Great God! speak not like that, my boy. The worst you are of
everything. If those two children came ashore, there must have been
something better." And he peered at the children as if to search for any
gold upon them.
"Neither child came from that wreck. One is my granddaughter Bunny.
Bunny, show yourself to black Evan." But the child shrank closer behind
me. "Evan black, you know her well. And the other is a little thing I
picked up on the coast last night."
"Ha, ha! you pick up children where you put them, I suppose. But take
them indoors and be done with them. Cubs to come with a wreck ashore, a
noble wreck ashore, I say! But come you down again, fisherman Dyo." He
used the word "fisherman" with a peculiar stress, and a glance of
suspicion at my pockets. "Come you down again, Dyo dear. I shall want
you to help me against those thieves from Kenfig. Bring my other gun
from the clock-case, and tell the boys to run down with their
bando-sticks. I'll warrant we'll clear the shore between us; and then,
good Dyo, honest Dyo, you shall have some--you shall, you dog.
Fair-play, Dyo; fair share and share, though every stick is mine of
right. Ah, Dyo, Dyo, you cunning sheep's head, you love a keg of rum,
you dog."
This I knew to be true enough, but only within the bounds of both
honesty and sobriety. But so much talking had made his brain, in its
present condition, go round again; and while I was thinking how far it
might be safe and right to come into his views, his loaded gun began
wagging about in a manner so highly dangerous, that for the sake of the
two poor children I was obliged to get out of his way, and, looking back
from a safer distance, there I beheld him flourishing with his arms on
the top of a sandhill, and waving his hat on the top of his gun, for
his sons to come over the warren.
Moxy Thomas was very kind; she never could help being so, and therefore
never got any thanks. She stripped the two wet children at once, and put
them in bed together to keep each other warm. But first she had them
snugly simmering in a milk-pan of hot water with a little milk for the
sake of their skins. Bunny was heavy and sleepy therein, and did nothing
but yawn and stretch out her arms. Bardie, on the other hand, was ready
to boil over with delight and liveliness, flashing about like a little
dab-chick.
"Old Davy," she said, as I came to see her at her own invitation, and
she sate quite over Bunny, "'Ill 'a have a ickle dop?" With the water up
to her neck, she put one mite of a transparent finger to my grizzled
mouth, and popped a large drop in, and laughed, until I could have
worshipped her.
Now, having seen these two little dears fast asleep and warmly
compassed, I began, according to Evan's orders, to ask about the boys,
not having seen any sign of them. Moxy said that Watkin went out to look
for his five brothers about an hour after I had left, and in spite of
the rain and lightning. She had tried in vain to stop him: something was
on his mind, it seemed; and when she went up to attend on his father, he
took the opportunity to slip out of the kitchen.
Now Moxy having been in the house, and the house away from the worst of
the storm, being moreover a woman, and therefore wholly abroad about
weather, it was natural that she should not have even the least idea of
the jeopardy encountered by her five great sons in the warren. Enough
for her that they were not at sea. Danger from weather upon dry land was
out of her comprehension.
It wanted perhaps half an hour of dusk, and had given over raining, but
was blowing a good reef-topsail gale, when I started to search for the
sons of Sker. Of course I said nothing to make their mother at all
uneasy about them, but took from the clock-case the loaded gun (as Evan
had commanded me), and set forth upon the track of young Watkin, better
foot foremost. For he was likely to know best what part of the warren
his five great brothers had chosen for their sport that day; and in the
wet sand it was easy to follow the course the boy had taken.
The whirlwinds had ceased before he went forth, and the deluge of rain
was now soaked in, through the drought so long abiding. But the wind was
wailing pitifully, and the rushes swaying wearily; and the yellow
baldness, here and there, of higher sandhills, caught the light. Ragged
clouds ran over all, and streamers of the sunset; and the sky was like a
school let loose, with the joy of wind and rain again. It is not much of
me that swears, when circumstances force me; only a piece, perhaps, of
custom, and a piece of honesty. These two lead one astray sometimes; and
then comes disappointment. For I had let some anger vex me at the
rudeness of black Evan, and the ungodliness of his sons, which forced me
thus to come abroad, when full of wet and weariness. In spite of this,
I was grieved and frightened, and angry with no one but myself, when I
chanced upon boy Watkin, fallen into a tuft of rushes, with his blue
eyes running torrents. There he lay, like a heap of trouble, as young
folk do ere they learn the world; and I put him on his legs three times,
but he managed to go down again. At last I got his knees to stick; but
even so he turned away, and put his head between his hands, and could
not say a word to me. And by the way his shoulders went, I knew that he
was sobbing. I asked him what the matter was, and what he was taking so
much to heart; and, not to be too long over a trifle, at last I got this
out of him:--
"Oh, good Mr Llewellyn, dear, I never shall see nothing more of my great
brothers five, so long as ever I do live. And when they kicked me out of
bed every Sunday morning, and spread the basins over me, it was not that
they meant to harm--I do feel it, I do feel it; and perhaps my knees ran
into them. Under the sands, the sands, they are; and never to kick me
again no more! Of sorrow it is more than ever I can tell."
"Watty," said I, "why talk you so? Your brothers know every crick and
corner of this warren, miles and miles; and could carry a sandhill
among them. They are snug enough somewhere with their game, and perhaps
gone to sleep, like the little ones."
Of the babies' adventures he knew nothing, and only stared at me; so I
asked him what had scared him so.
"Under the sands, the sands, they are, so sure as ever I do live. Or the
rabbit-bag would not be here, and Dutch, who never, never leaves them,
howling at the rabbit-bag!"
Looking further through the tussocks, I saw that it was even so. Dutch,
the mongrel collie, crouched beside a bag of something, with her tail
curled out of sight, and her ears laid flat and listless, and her jowl
along the ground. And every now and then she gave a low but very
grievous howl.
"Now, boy, don't be a fool," I said, with the desire to encourage him;
"soon we shall find your brothers five, with another great sack of
rabbits. They left the bitch yonder to watch the sack, while they went
on for more, you see."
"It is the sack; the sack it is! And no other sack along of them. Oh, Mr
Llewellyn, dear, here is the bag, and there is Dutch, and never no sign
at all of them!"
At this I began to fear indeed that the matter was past helping--that
an accident and a grief had happened worse than the drowning of all the
negroes, which it has ever pleased Providence (in a darkness of mood) to
create for us. But my main desire was to get poor Watty away at once,
lest he should encounter things too dreadful for a boy like him.
"Go home," I said, "with the bag of rabbits, and give poor Dutch her
supper. Your father is down on the shore of the sea, and no doubt the
boys are with him. They are gone to meet a great shipwreck, worth all
the rabbits all the way from Dunraven to Giant's Grave."
"But little Dutch, it is little Dutch! They never would leave her, if
wreck there was. She can fetch out of the water so good almost as any
dog."
I left him to his own devices, being now tired of arguing. For by this
time it was growing dark; and a heavy sea was roaring; and the wreck was
sure to be breaking up, unless she had been swallowed up. And the
common-sense of our village, and parish, would go very hard against me
for not being on the spot to keep the adjacent parish from stealing. For
Kenfig and Newton are full of each other, with a fine old ancient
hatred. So we climbed over the crest of high sand, where the rushes lay
weltering after the wind; and then with a plunge of long strides down
hill, and plucking our feet out hastily, on the watered marge we stood,
to which the sea was striving.
Among the rocks black Evan leaped, with white foam rushing under him,
and sallies of the stormy tide volleying to engulf him. Strong liquor
still was in his brain, and made him scorn his danger, and thereby saved
him from it. One timid step, and the churning waters would have made a
curd of him. The fury of his visage showed that somebody had wronged
him, after whom he rushed with vengeance, and his great gun swinging.
"Sons of dogs!" he cried in Welsh, alighting on the pebbles; "may the
devil feed their fathers with a melting bowl!"
"What's the rumpus now?" I asked; "what have your sons been doing?"
For he always swore at his sons as freely as at anybody's, and at
himself for begetting them.
"My sons!" he cried, with a stamp of rage; "if my sons had been here,
what man would have dared to do on the top of my head this thing? Where
are they? I sent you for them."
"I have sought for them high and low," I answered; "here is the only one
I could find."
"Watkin! What use of Watkin? A boy like a girl or a baby! I want my five
tall bully-boys to help their poor father's livelihood. There's little
Tom tailor gone over the sandhills with a keg of something; and Teddy
shoemaker with a spar; and I only shot between them! Cursed fool! what
shall I come to, not to be able to shoot a man?"
He had fired his gun, and was vexed, no doubt, at wasting a charge so
randomly; then spying his other gun on my shoulder, with the flint and
the priming set, he laid his heavy hand on it. I scarce knew what to do,
but feared any accident in the struggle; and after all, he was not so
drunk that the law would deny him his own gun.
"Ha, ha!" with a pat of the breech, he cried; "for this I owe thee a
good turn, Dyo. Thou art loaded with rocks, my darling, as the other was
with cowries. Twenty to the pound of lead for any long-shore robbers. I
see a lot more sneaking down. Dyo, now for sport, my boy."
I saw some people, dark in the distance, under the brow of a sandhill;
and before I could speak or think, black Evan was off to run at them. I
too set my feet for speed, but the strings of my legs hung backward; and
Watty, who could run like a hare, seemed to lag behind me. And behind
him there was little Dutch, crawling with her belly down, and her eyes
turned up at us, as if we were dragging her to be hanged.
Until we heard a shout of people, through the roar of wind and sea, in
front of where black Evan strode; and making towards it, we beheld, in
glimmering dusk of shore and sky, something we knew nothing of.
A heavy sandhill hung above them, with its brow come over; and long
roots of rushes naked in the shrillness of the wind. Under this were men
at work, as we work for lives of men; and their Sunday shirt-sleeves
flashed, white like ghosts, and gone again. Up to them strode Evan
black, over the marge of the wild March tides; and grounded his gun and
looked at them. They for a breath gazed up at him, and seemed to think
and wonder; and then, as though they had not seen him, fell again
a-digging.
"What means this?" he roared at them, with his great eyes flashing fire,
and his long gun levelled. But they neither left their work nor lifted
head to answer him. The yellow sand came sliding down, in wedge-shaped
runnels, over them, and their feet sank out of sight; but still they
kept on working.
"Come away, then, Evan great; come away and seek for wreck," I shouted,
while he seemed to stand in heaviness of wonder. "This is not a place
for you. Come away, my man, my boy."
Thus I spoke, in Welsh of course, and threw my whole weight on his arm,
to make him come away with me. But he set his feet in sand, and spread
his legs, and looked at me; and the strongest man that was ever born
could not have torn him from his hold, with those eyes upon him.
"Dyo, I am out of dreaming. Dyo, I must see this wreck; only take the
gun from me."
This I would have done right gladly, but he changed his mind about it,
falling back to a savage mood.
"You down there, who gave you leave to come and dig my sandhills?
Answer, or have skins of lead."
Two or three of the men looked up, and wanted to say something. But the
head-man from the mines, who understood the whole of them, nodded, and
they held their tongues. Either they were brave men all (which never is
without discipline), or else the sense of human death confused and
overpowered them. Whatever they meant, they went on digging.
"Some damned sailor under there," cried Evan, losing patience; "little
mustard-spoons of sand. Can't you throw it faster? Fine young fellows
three of them, in the hole their own ship made, last March tide, it must
have been. Let us see this new batch come. They always seem to have
spent their wages before they learn to drown themselves."
He laughed and laid his gun aside, and asked me for tobacco, and, trying
to be sober, sang "the rising of the lark." I, for my part, shrunk away,
and my flesh crawled over me.
"Work away, my lads, work away. You are all of a mind to warm
yourselves. Let me know when you have done. And all you find belongs to
me. I can sit and see it out, and make a list of everything. Ear-rings
gold, and foreign pieces, and the trinkets they have worn. Out with
them! I know them all. Fools! what use of skulking? You are on soft
stuff, I see. Have out every one of them."
So they did; and laid before him, in the order of their birth, the
carcases of his five sons. Evan first, his eldest born; Thomas next, and
Rees, and Hopkin, and then (with the sigh of death still in him) Jenkin,
newly turned fifteen.
CHAPTER XII.
HOW TO SELL FISH.
What I had seen that night upset me more than I like to dwell upon. But
with all my fish on hand, I was forced to make the best of it. For a
down-hearted man will turn meat, as we say, and much more, fish, to a
farthing's-worth. And though my heart was sore and heavy for my ancient
sweetheart Moxy, and for little Bardie in the thick of such disasters,
that could be no excuse to me for wasting good fish--or at least pretty
good--and losing thoroughly good money.
Here were the mullet, with less of shine than I always recommended and
honestly wish them to possess; here were the prawns, with a look of
paleness and almost of languishing, such as they are bound to avoid
until money paid and counted; and most of all, here were lawful bass, of
very great size and substance, inclined to do themselves more justice in
the scales than on the dish.
I saw that this would never answer to my present high repute. Concerning
questions afterwards, and people being hard upon me, out of thoughtless
ignorance, that was none of my affair. The whole of that would go, of
course, upon the weather and sudden changes, such as never were known
before. And if good religious people would not so be satisfied with the
will of Providence to have their fish as fish are made, against them I
had another reason, which never fails to satisfy.
The "burning tide," as they called it (through which poor Bardie first
appeared), had been heard of far inland, and with one consent pronounced
to be the result of the devil improperly flipping his tail while
bathing. Although the weather had been so hot, this rumour was beyond my
belief; nevertheless I saw my way, if any old customer should happen,
when it came to his dinner-time, to be at all discontented (which no man
with a fine appetite and a wholesome nose should indulge in)--I saw my
way to sell him more, upon the following basket-day, by saying what good
people said, and how much I myself had seen of it.
With these reflections I roused my spirits, and resolved to let no good
fish be lost, though it took all the week to sell them. For, in spite of
the laws laid down in the books (for young married women, and so
forth), there is scarcely any other thing upon which both men and women
may be led astray so pleasantly as why to buy fish, and when to buy
fish, and what fish to buy.
Therefore I started in good spirits on the Monday morning, carrying with
me news enough to sell three times the weight I bore, although it was
breaking my back almost. Good fish it was, and deserved all the praise
that ever I could bestow on it, for keeping so well in such shocking
weather; and so I sprinkled a little salt in some of the delicate
places, just to store the flavour there; for cooks are so forgetful, and
always put the blame on me when they fail of producing a fine fresh
smell.
Also knowing, to my sorrow, how suspicious people are, and narrow-minded
to a degree none would give them credit for, I was forced to do a thing
which always makes me to myself seem almost uncharitable.
But I felt that I could trust nobody to have proper faith in me,
especially when they might behold the eyes of the fishes retire a
little, as they are very apt to do when too many cooks have looked at
them. And knowing how strong the prejudice of the public is in this
respect, I felt myself bound to gratify it, though at some cost of time
and trouble. This method I do not mind describing (as I am now pretty
clear of the trade) for the good of my brother fishermen.
When the eyes of a fish begin to fail him through long retirement from
the water, you may strengthen his mode of regarding the world (and
therefore the world's regard for him) by a delicate piece of handling.
Keep a ray-fish always ready--it does not matter how stale he is--and on
the same day on which you are going to sell your bass, or mullet, or
cod, or whatever it may be, pull a few sharp spines, as clear as you
can, out of this good ray. Then open the mouth of your languid fish and
embolden the aspect of either eye by fetching it up from despondency
with a skewer of proper length extended from one ball to the other. It
is almost sure to drop out in the cooking; and even if it fails to do
so, none will be the wiser, but take it for a provision of nature--as
indeed it ought to be.
Now, if anybody is rude enough to gainsay your fish in the market, you
have the evidence of the eyes and hands against that of the nose alone.
"Why, bless me, madam," I used to say, "a lady like you, that
understands fish a great deal better than I do! His eyes are coming out
of his head, ma'am, to hear you say such things of him. Afloat he was at
four this morning, and his eyes will speak to it." And so he was, well
afloat in my tub, before I began to prepare him for a last appeal to the
public. Only they must not float too long, or the scales will not be
stiff enough.
Being up to a few of these things, and feeling very keenly how hard the
public always tries to get upper hand of me, and would beat me down to
half nothing a pound (if allowed altogether its own way), I fought very
bravely the whole of that Monday to turn a few honest shillings. "Good
old Davy, fine old Davy, brave old Davy!" they said I was every time I
abated a halfpenny; and I called them generous gentlemen and
Christian-minded ladies every time they wanted to smell my fish, which
is not right before payment. What right has any man to disparage the
property of another? When you have bought him, he is your own, and you
have the title to canvas him; but when he is put in the scales, remember
"nothing but good of the dead," if you remember anything.
As I sate by the cross roads in Bridgend on the bottom of a bucket, and
with a four-legged dressing-table (hired for twopence) in front of me,
who should come up but the well-known Brother Hezekiah? Truly tired I
was getting, after plodding through Merthyr Mawr, Ogmore, and Ewenny,
Llaleston, and Newcastle, and driven at last to the town of Bridgend.
For some of my fish had a gamesome odour, when first I set off in the
morning; and although the rain had cooled down the air, it was now
become an unwise thing to recommend what still remained to any man of
unchristian spirit, or possessing the ear of the magistrates.
Now perhaps I should not say this thing, and many may think me inclined
to vaunt, and call me an old coxcomb; but if any man could sell stinking
fish in the times of which I am writing--and then it was ten times
harder than now, because women looked after marketing--that man I verily
believe was this old Davy Llewellyn; and right he has to be proud of it.
But what were left on my hands that evening were beginning to get so
strong, that I feared they must go over Bridgend bridge into the river
Ogmore.
The big coach with the London letters, which came then almost twice
a-week, was just gone on, after stopping three hours to rest the horses
and feed the people; and I had done some business with them, for London
folk for the most part have a kind and pleasing ignorance. They paid me
well, and I served them well with fish of a fine high flavour; but now I
had some which I would not offer to such kind-hearted gentry.
Hezekiah wanted fish. I saw it by his nostrils, and I knew it for
certain when he pretended not to see me or my standing. He went a good
bit round the corner, as if to deal with the ironmonger. But for all
that, I knew as well as if I could hear his wife beginning to rake the
fire, that fish for supper was the business which had brought him across
the bridge. Therefore I refused an offer which I would have jumped at
before seeing Hezekiah, of twopence a-pound for the residue from an old
woman who sold pickles; and I made up my mind to keep up the price,
knowing the man to have ten in family, and all blessed with good
appetites.
"What, Davy! Brother Davy!" he cried, being compelled to begin, because
I took care not to look at him. "Has it been so ordered that I behold
good brother Davy with fish upon a Monday?" His object in this was plain
enough--to beat down my goods by terror of an information for
Sabbath-labour.
"The Lord has been merciful to me," I answered, patting my best fish on
his shoulder; "not only in sending them straight to my net, at nine
o'clock this morning; but also, brother Hezekiah, in the hunger all
people have for them. I would that I could have kept thee a taste; not
soon wouldst thou forget it. Sweeter fish and finer fish never came out
of Newton Bay"--this I said because Newton Bay is famous for high
quality. "But, brother Hezekiah, thou art come too late." And I began to
pack up very hastily.
"What!" cried Hezekiah, with a keen and hungrily grievous voice; "all
those fish bespoken, Davy?"
"Every one of them bespoken, brother; by a man who knows a right down
good bass, better almost than I do. Griffy, the 'Cat and Snuffers.'"
Now, Griffith, who kept the "Cat and Snuffers," was a very jovial man,
and a bitter enemy to Hezekiah Perkins; and I knew that the latter would
gladly offer a penny a-pound upon Griffy's back, to spoil him of his
supper, and to make him offend his customers.
"Stop, brother Davy," cried Hezekiah, stretching out his broad fat
hands, as I began to pack my fish, with the freshest smellers uppermost;
"Davy dear, this is not right, nor like our ancient friendship. A rogue
like Griffy to cheat you so! What had he beaten you down to, Davy?"
"Beaten me down!" I said, all in a hurry; "is it likely I would be
beaten down, with their eyes coming out of their heads like that?"
"Now, dear brother Dyo, do have patience! What was he going to give you
a-pound?"
"Fourpence a-pound, and ten pound of them. Three-and-fourpence for a lot
like that! Ah, the times are bad indeed!"
"Dear brother Dyo, fourpence-halfpenny! Three-and-nine down, for the lot
as it stands."
"Hezekiah, for what do you take me? Cut a farthing in four, when you get
it. Do I look a likely man to be a rogue for fivepence?"
"No, no, Davy; don't be angry with me. Say as much as tenpence.
Four-and-twopence, ready money; and no Irish coinage."
"Brother Hezekiah," said I, "a bargain struck is a bargain kept. Rob a
man of his supper for tenpence!"
"Oh, Dyo, Dyo! you never would think of that man's supper, with my wife
longing for fish so! Such a family as we have, and the weakness in
Hepzibah's back! Five shillings for the five, Davy."
"There, there; take them along," I cried at last, with a groan from my
chest: "you are bound to be the ruin of me. But what can I do with a
delicate lady? Brother, surely you have been a little too hard upon me.
Whatever shall I find to say to a man who never beats me down?"
"Tell that worldly 'Cat and Snuffers' that your fish were much too
good--why, Davy, they seem to smell a little!"
"And small use they would be, Hezekiah, either for taste or for
nourishment, unless they had the sea-smell now. Brother, all your money
back, and the fish to poor Griffy, if you know not the smell of salt
water yet."
"Now, don't you be so hot, old Davy. The fish are good enough, no doubt;
and it may be from the skewer-wood; but they have a sort, not to say a
smell, but a manner of reminding one----"
"Of the savoury stuff they feed on," said I; "and the thorough good use
they make of it. A fish must eat, and so must we, and little blame to
both of us."
With that he bade me "good-night," and went with alacrity towards his
supper, scornfully sneering as he passed the door of the "Cat and
Snuffers." But though it was a fine thing for me, and an especial
Providence, to finish off my stock so well, at a time when I would have
taken gladly a shilling for the lot of it, yet I felt that circumstances
were against my lingering. Even if Hezekiah, unable to enter into the
vein of my fish, should find himself too fat to hurry down the steep
hill after me, still there were many other people, fit for supper, and
fresh for it, from the sudden coolness, whom it was my duty now to
preserve from mischief; by leaving proper interval for consideration,
before I might happen to be in front of their dining room windows
another day.
Therefore, with a grateful sense of goodwill to all customers, I thought
it better to be off. There I had been, for several hours, ready to prove
anything, but never challenged by anybody; and my spirit had grown
accordingly. But I never yet have found it wise to overlie success. Win
it, and look at it, and be off, is the quickest way to get some more. So
I scarcely even called so much as a pint at the "Cat and Snuffers," to
have a laugh with Griffy; but set off for Newton, along the old road,
with a good smart heel, and a fine day's business, and a light heart
inside of me.
When I had passed Red-hill and Tythegston, and clearly was out upon
Newton Down, where the glow-worms are most soft and sweet, it came upon
me, in looking up from the glow-worms to the stars of heaven, to think
and balance how far I was right in cheating Hezekiah. It had been done
with the strictest justice, because his entire purpose was purely to
cheat me. Whereupon Providence had stepped in and seen that I was the
better man. I was not so ungrateful--let nobody suppose it--as to repine
at this result. So far from that, that I rattled my money and had a good
laugh, and went on again. But being used to watch the stars, as an old
sailor is bound to do, I thought that Orion ought to be up, and I could
not see Orion. This struck me as an unkindly thing, although, when I
thought of it next day, I found that Orion was quite right, and perhaps
the beer a little strong which had led me to look out for him; anyhow,
it threw me back to think of Hezekiah, and make the worst of him to
myself for having had the best of him.
Everybody may be sure that I never would have gone out of the way to
describe my traffic with that man unless there were good reason. Nay,
but I wanted to show you exactly the cast and the colour of man he was,
by setting forth his low attempt to get my fish for nothing.
There was no man, of course, in my native village, and very few in
Bridgend perhaps, to whom I would have sold those fish, unless they were
going to sell it again. But Hezekiah Perkins, a member and leading elder
of the "Nicodemus-Christians," was so hard a man to cheat--except by
stirring of his gall--and so keen a cheat himself; so proud, moreover,
of his wit and praying, and truly brotherly,--that to lead him astray
was the very first thing desired by a sound Churchman.
By trade and calling he had been--before he received his special
call--no more than a common blacksmith. Now a blacksmith is a most
useful man, full of news and full of jokes, and very often by no means
drunk; this, however, was not enough to satisfy Hezekiah. Having parts,
as he always told us--and sometimes we wished that he had no
whole--cultivated parts, moreover, and taken up by the gentry, nothing
of a lower order came up to his merits than to call himself as follows:
"Horologist, Gunsmith, Practical Turner, Working Goldsmith and Jeweller,
Maker of all Machinery, and Engineman to the King and Queen."
The first time he put this over his door, all the neighbours laughed at
him, knowing (in spite of the book he had got full of figures and shapes
and crossings, which he called "Three-gun-ometry") that his education
was scarcely up to the rule of three, without any guns. Nevertheless he
got on well, having sense enough to guide him when to talk large (in the
presence of people who love large talk, as beyond them), and when to
sing small, and hold his tongue, and nod at the proper distances, if
ever his business led him among gentry of any sense or science, such as
we sometimes hear of. Hence it was that he got the order to keep the
church-clock of Bridgend a-going by setting the hands on twice a-day,
and giving a push to the pendulum; and so long as the clock would only
go, nobody in the town cared a tick whether it kept right time or wrong.
And if people from the country durst say anything about it, it was
always enough to ask them what their own clocks had to say.
There were not then many stable-clocks, such as are growing upon us now,
so that every horse has his own dinner-bell; only for all those that
were, Hezekiah received, I daresay, from five to ten shillings a-month
apiece in order to keep them moving. But, bless my heart! he knew less
of a clock than I, old Davy Llewellyn, and once on a time I asked him,
when he talked too much of his "ometries"--as a sailor might do in his
simpleness--I asked him to take an "observation," as I had seen a good
deal of it. But all he did was to make a very profane and unpleasant
one. As for this man's outward looks, he was nothing at all particular,
but usually with dirt about him, and a sense of oiliness. Why he must
needs set up for a saint the father of evil alone may tell; but they
said that the clock that paid him best (being the worst in the
neighbourhood) belonged to a Nicodemus-Christian, with a great cuckoo
over it. Having never seen it, I cannot say; and the town is so full of
gossip that I throw myself down on my back and listen, being wholly
unable to vie with them in depth or in compass of story-telling, even
when fish are a week on my hands.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CORONER AND THE CORONET.
An officer of high repute had lately been set over us, to hold account
of the mischief, and to follow evidence, and make the best he could of
it when anybody chose to die without giving proper notice. He called
himself "Coroner of the King;" and all the doctors, such as they were,
made it a point that he must come, whenever there was a dead man or
woman who had died without their help.
Now all about the storm of sand, and all about the shipwreck, was known
in every part of the parish, before the church clock had contrived, in
gratitude to Hezekiah, to strike the noon of Monday. Every child that
went to the well knew the truth of everything; and every woman of Newton
and Nottage had formed from the men her own opinion, and was ready to
stand thereby, and defy all the other women.
Nevertheless some busy doctor (who had better been in the stocks) took
it for a public duty to send notice and demand for the Coroner to sit
upon us. The wrath of the parish (now just beginning to find some wreck,
that would pay for the ropes) was so honest and so grave, that the
little doctor was compelled to run and leave his furniture. And so it
always ought to be with people who are meddlesome.
It came to my knowledge that this must happen, and that I was bound to
help in it, somewhere about middle-day of Tuesday; at a time when I was
not quite as well as I find myself when I have no money. For, being
pleased with my luck perhaps, and not content quite to smoke in the
dark, and a little dry after the glow-worms, it happened (I will not
pretend to say how) that I dropped into the "Jolly Sailors," to know
what the people could be about, making such a great noise as they were,
and keeping a quiet man out of his bed.
There I smelled a new tobacco, directly I was in the room; and somebody
(pleased with my perception) gave me several pipes of it, with a
thimbleful--as I became more and more agreeable--of a sort of
rum-and-water. And, confining myself, as my principle is, to what the
public treat me to, it is not quite out of the question that I may have
been too generous. And truly full I was of grief, upon the following
morning, that somebody had made me promise, in a bubbling moment, to be
there again, and bring my fiddle, on the Tuesday night.
Now, since the death of my dear wife, who never put up with my fiddle
(except when I was courting her), it had seemed to my feelings to be
almost a levity to go fiddling. Also I knew what everybody would begin
to say of me; but the landlord, foreseeing a large attendance after the
Coroner's inquest, would not for a moment hear of any breach of my
fiddle pledge.
Half of Newton, and perhaps all Nottage, went to Sker the following day
to see the Coroner, and to give him the benefit of their opinions. And
another piece of luck there was to tempt them in that direction. For the
ship which had been wrecked and had disappeared for a certain time, in a
most atrocious manner, was rolled about so by the tide and a shift of
the wind on Monday, that a precious large piece of her stern was in
sight from the shore on Tuesday morning. It lay not more than a cable's
length from low-water mark, and was heaved up so that we could see as
far as the starboard mizzen-chains. Part of the taffrail was carried
away, and the carving gone entirely, but the transom and transom-knees
stood firm; and of the ship's name done in gold I could make out in
large letters TA LUCIA; and underneath, in a curve, and in smaller
letters, ADOR.
Of course no one except myself could make head or tail of this; but
after thinking a little while, I was pretty sure of the meaning of
it--namely, that the craft was Portuguese, called the Santa Lucia, and
trading from San Salvador, the capital of Brazils. And in this opinion I
was confirmed by observing through my spy-glass, copper bolt-heads of a
pattern such as I had seen at Lisbon, but never in any British ship.
However, I resolved, for the present, to keep my opinion to myself,
unless it were demanded upon good authority. For it made me feel
confused in mind, and perhaps a little uneasy, when, being struck by
some resemblance, I pulled from the lining of my hat a leaf of a book,
upon which I copied all that could be made out of the letters, each side
of the tiller of my new boat; and now I found them to be these,--UC from
the starboard side, just where they would have stood in Lucia--and DOR
from the further end of the line, just as in San Salvador.
The sands were all alive with people, and the rocks, and every place
where anything good might have drifted. For Evan Thomas could scarcely
come at a time of such affliction to assert his claims of wreck, and to
belabour right and left. Therefore, for a mile or more, from where the
land begins to dip, and the old stone wall, like a jagged cord, divides
our parish from Kenfig, hundreds of figures might be seen, running along
the grey wet sands, and reflected by their brightness. The day was going
for two of the clock, and the tide growing near to the turn of ebb; and
the landsprings oozing down from the beach, spread the whole of the flat
sands so, with a silver overlaying, that without keen sight it was hard
to tell where the shore ended and sea began. And a great part of this
space was sprinkled with naked feet going pattering--boys and girls, and
young women and men, who had left their shoes up high on the rocks to
have better chance in the racing.
Now it is not for me to say that all or half of these good people were
so brisk because they expected any fine thing for themselves. I would
not even describe them as waiting in readiness for the force of fortune
by the sea administered. I believe that all were most desirous of doing
good, if possible. In the first case, to the poor people drowned; but if
too late, then to console any disconsolate relations: failing of which,
it would be hard if anybody should blame them for picking up something
for themselves.
"What! you here, mother Probyn?" I cried, coming upon a most pious old
woman, who led the groaning at Zoar Chapel, and being for the moment
struck out of all my manners by sight of her.
"Indeed, and so I am, old Davy," she answered, without abashment, and
almost too busy to notice me; "the Lord may bless my poor endeavours to
rescue them poor Injuns. But I can't get on without a rake. If I had
only had the sense to bring my garden-rake. There are so many little
things, scarcely as big as cockleshells; and the waves do drag them away
from me. Oh, there, and there goes another! Gwenny, if I don't smack
you!"
All these people, and all their doings, I left with a sort of contempt,
perhaps, such as breaks out on me now and then at any very great
littleness. And I knew that nothing worth wet of the knees could be
found with the ebb-tide running, and ere the hold of the ship broke up.
So I went toward the great house, whose sorrows and whose desolation
they took little heed of. And nothing made me feel more sad--strange as
it may seem, and was--than to think of poor black Evan, thus unable to
stand up and fight for his unrighteous rights.
In the great hall were six bodies, five of strong young men laid quiet,
each in his several coffin; and the other of a little child in a simple
dress of white, stretched upon a piece of board. Death I have seen in
all his manners, since I was a cabin-boy, and I took my hat off to the
bodies, as I had seen them do abroad; but when I saw the small dead
child, a thrill and pang of cold went through me. I made sure of nothing
else, except that it was dear Bardie. That little darling whom I loved,
for her gifts direct from God, and her ways, so out of the way to all
other children--it struck my heart with a power of death, that here this
lively soul was dead.
When a man makes a fool of himself, anybody may laugh at him; and this
does him good, perhaps, and hardens him against more trouble. But bad as
I am, and sharp as I am, in other people's opinion (and proud sometimes
to think of it), I could not help a good gulp of a tear, over what I
believed to be the body of poor little Bardie. For that child had such
nice ways, and took such upper hand of me; that, expecting to find a
Captain always, especially among women----
"Old Davy, I 'ants 'a. Old Davy, 'hen is 'a coming?"
By the union-jack, it was as good as a dozen kegs of rum to me. There
was no mistaking the sweetest and clearest voice ever heard outside of a
flute. And presently began pit-pat of the prettiest feet ever put in a
shoe, down the great oak staircase. She held on by the rails, and showed
no fear at all about it, though the least slip might have killed her.
Then she saw the sad black sight after she turned the corner, and
wondered at the meaning of it, and her little heart stood still. As she
turned to me in awe, and held out both hands quivering, I caught her
up, and spread my grey beard over her young frightened eyes, and took
her out of sight of all those cold and very dreadful things.
I had never been up the stairs before in that dark and ancient house;
and the length, and the width, and the dreariness, and the creaking
noises, frightened me; not so much for my own sake (being never required
to sleep there), but for the tender little creature, full already of
timid fancies, who must spend the dark nights there. And now the house,
left empty of its noise, and strength, and boastfulness, had only five
more ghosts to wander silent through the silent places. And this they
began the very night after their bodies were in the churchyard.
The Coroner came on an old white pony, nearly four hours after the time
for which his clerk had ordered us. Being used, for my part, to royal
discipline, and everything done to the minute fixed, with the captain's
voice like the crack of a gun, I was vexed and surprised; but expected
him to give us some reason, good or bad. Instead of that he roared out
to us, with his feet still in both stirrups, "Is there none of you
Taffies with manners enough to come and hold a gentleman's horse? Here
you, Davy Jones, you are long enough, and lazy enough; put your hand to
the bridle, will you?"
This was to me, who was standing by, in the very height of innocence,
having never yet seen any man appointed to sit upon dead bodies, and
desiring to know how he could help them. I did for his Honour all I
could, although his manner of speech was not in any way to my liking.
But my rule has always been that of the royal navy, than which there is
no wiser. If my equal insults me, I knock him down; if my officer does
it, I knock under.
Meanwhile our people were muttering "Sassenach, Sassenach!" And from
their faces it was plain that they did not like an Englishman to sit
upon Cymric bodies. However, it was the old, old thing. The Welsh must
do all the real work; and the English be paid for sitting upon them
after they are dead.
"I never sate on a black man yet, and I won't sit on a black man now,"
the Coroner said, when he was sure about oats enough for his pony; "I'll
not disgrace his Majesty's writ by sitting upon damned niggers."
"Glory be to God, your Honour!" Stradling Williams cried, who had come
as head of the jury: clerk he was of Newton Church, and could get no
fees unless upon a Christian burial: "we thought your Honour would
hardly put so great a disgrace upon us; but we knew not how the law
lay."
"The law requires no Christian man," pronounced the Crowner, that all
might hear, "to touch pitch, and defile himself. Both in body and soul,
Master Clerk, to lower and defile himself!"
Hereupon a high hard screech, which is all we have in Wales for the
brave hurrah of Englishmen, showed that all the jury were of one accord
with the Coroner: and I was told by somebody that all had shaken hands,
and sworn to strike work, rather than put up with misery of conscience.
"But, your Honour," said Mr Lewis, bailiff to Colonel Lougher, "if we
hold no quest on the black men, how shall we certify anything about this
terrible shipwreck?"
"The wreck is no concern of mine," answered the Crowner, crustily: "it
is not my place to sit upon planks, but upon Christian bodies. Do you
attend to your own business, and leave mine to me, sir."
The bailiff, being a nice quiet man, thought it best to say no more. But
some of the people who were thronging from every direction to see his
Honour, told him about the little white baby found among the
bladder-weed. He listened to this, and then he said,--
"Show me this little white infant discovered among the black men. My
business here is not with infants, but with five young smothered men.
However, if there be an infant of another accident, and of Christian
colour, I will take it as a separate case, and damn the county in the
fees."
We assured his lordship, as every one now began to call him (in virtue
of his swearing so, which no doubt was right in a man empowered to make
other people swear), we did our best at any rate to convince the
Crowner, that over and above all black men, there verily was a little
child, and, for all one could tell, a Christian child, entitled to the
churchyard, and good enough for him to sit on. And so he entered the
house to see it.
But if he had sworn a little before (and more than I durst set down for
him), he certainly swore a great deal now, and poured upon us a bitter
heat of English indignation. All of the jury were taken aback; and I as
a witness felt most uneasy; until we came to understand that his
Honour's wrath was justly kindled on account of some marks on the baby's
clothes.
"A coronet!" he cried, stamping about; "a coronet on my young lord's
pinafore, and you stupid oafs never told me!"
Nobody knew except myself (who had sailed with an earl for a captain)
what the meaning of this thing was; and when the clerk of the church was
asked, rather than own his ignorance, he said it was part of the arms of
the crown; and the Crowner was bound like a seal by it.
This explanation satisfied all the people of the parish, except a few
far-going Baptists, with whom it was a point of faith always to cavil
and sneer at every "wind of doctrine" as they always called it--the
scent of which could be traced, anyhow, to either the parson or the
clerk, or even the gravedigger. But I was content to look on and say
nothing, having fish to sell, at least twice a-week, and finding all
customers orthodox, until they utter bad shillings.
CHAPTER XIV.
IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EVIDENCE.
There is no need for me to follow all the Crowner's doings, or all that
the juries thought and said, which was different altogether from what
they meant to think and say. And he found himself bound to have two of
them, with first right of inquest to the baby because of the stamp on
his pinafore. And here I was, foreman of the jury, with fifteenpence for
my services, and would gladly have served on the other jury after
walking all that way, but was disabled for doing so, and only got
ninepence for testimony. With that, however, I need not meddle, as every
one knows all about it; only, to make clear all that happened, and,
indeed, to clear myself, I am forced to put before you all that we did
about that baby, as fully and emphatically as the state of our doings
upon that occasion permitted me to remember it.
For the Coroner sate at the head of the table, in the great parlour of
the house; and the dead child came in on his board, and we all regarded
him carefully, especially heeding his coronet mark, and then set him by
the window. A fine young boy enough to look at, about the age of our
Bardie, and might have been her twin-brother, as everybody vowed he was,
only his face was bolder and stronger, and his nose quite different,
and altogether a brave young chap, instead of funny and delicate. All
this, however, might well have come from knocking about in the sea so
much.
I would have given a good half-crown to have bitten off my foolish
tongue, when one of the jurymen stood up and began to address the
Coroner. He spoke, unluckily, very good English, and his Honour was glad
to pay heed to him. And the clerk put down nearly all he said, word for
word, as might be. This meddlesome fellow (being no less than brother
Hezekiah's self) nodded to me for leave to speak, which I could not deny
him; and his Honour lost no time whatever to put his mouth into his
rummer of punch, as now provided for all of us, and to bow (whenever his
mouth was empty) to that Hezekiah. For the man had won some reputation,
or rather had made it, for himself, by perpetual talking, as if he were
skilled in the history and antiquities of the neighbourhood. Of these he
made so rare a patchwork, heads and tails, prose, verse, and proverbs,
histories, and his stories, that (as I heard from a man of real teaching
and learning who met him once and kept out of his way ever after) any
one trusting him might sit down in the chair of Canute at King Arthur's
table. Not that I or any of my neighbours would be the worse for doing
that; only the thought of it frightened us, and made us unwilling to
hearken him much.
However, if there was any matter on which Hezekiah deserved to be heard,
no doubt it was this upon which he was now delivering his opinions--to
wit, the great inroad or invasion of the sand, for miles along our
coast; of which there are very strange things to tell, and of which he
had made an especial study, having a field at Candleston with a shed
upon it and a rick of hay, all which disappeared in a single night, and
none was ever seen afterwards. It was the only field he had, being left
to him by his grandmother; and many people were disappointed that he had
not slept with his cow that night. This directed his attention to the
serious consideration, as he always told us at first start, being a
lover of three-decked words, of the most important contemplation which
could occupy the attention of any Cambrian landowner.
"Show your land," cried a wag of a tailor, with none to cross his legs
upon; but we put him down, and pegged him down, till his manners should
be of the pattern-book. Hezekiah went on to tell, in words too long to
answer the helm of such a plain sailor as I am, how the sweep of
hundreds of miles of sand had come up from the west and south-west in
only two hundred and fifty years. How it had first begun to flow about
the Scilly Islands, as mentioned by one Borlase, and came to the mouth
of Hayle river, in Cornwall, in the early years of King Henry VIII., and
after that blocked up Bude Haven, and swallowed the ploughs in the
arable land. Then at Llanant it came like a cloud over the moon one
winter night, and buried five-and-thirty houses with the people in them.
An Act of Parliament was passed--chapter the second of Philip and
Mary--to keep it out of Glamorganshire; and good commissioners were
appointed, and a survey made along the coast, especially of Kenfig.
Nevertheless the dash of sand was scarcely on their ink, when swarming,
driving, darkening the air, the storm swept on their survey. At the
mouths of the Tawey and Afan rivers the two sailors' chapels were
buried, and then it swept up the great Roman road, a branch of the
Julian way, and smothered the pillars of Gordian, and swallowed the
castle of Kenfig, which stood by the side of the western road; and still
rushing eastward, took Newton village and Newton old church beneath it.
And so it went on for two hundred years, coming up from the sea, no
doubt, carried by the perpetual gales, which always are from the south
and west--filling all the hollow places, changing all bright mossy pools
into hills of yellow drought, and, like a great encampment, dwelling
over miles and leagues of land. And like a camp it was in this, that it
was always striking tent. Six times in the last few years had the
highest peak of sand--the general's tent it might be called--been
shifted miles away, perhaps, and then come back towards Ogmore; and it
was only the other day that, through some shift or swirl of wind, a
windmill, with its sails entire, had been laid bare near Candleston, of
which the last record was in Court-rolls of a hundred and fifty years
agone.[A]
Now all this, though Hezekiah said it, was true enough, I do believe,
having heard things much to the same purpose from my own old
grandfather. The Coroner listened with more patience than we had given
him credit for, although he told us that brother Perkins should have
reserved his learned speech for the second inquiry, which was to be
about the deaths of the five young men; for to him it appeared that
this noble infant must lay the blame of his grievous loss not on the
sand but upon the sea. Hezekiah replied, with great deference, that the
cause in both cases was the same, for that the movement of sand went
on under the sea even more than ashore, and hence the fatal gulfing of
that ship, the Andalusia, and the loss of his young lordship.
The name he had given the ship surprised me; and indeed I felt sure that
it was quite wrong; and so I said immediately, without any low
consideration of what might be mine own interest. But the Coroner would
not hearken to me, being much impressed now with the learning and wisdom
of Hezekiah Perkins. And when Hezekiah presented his card, beginning
with "horologist," and ending with the "king and queen," he might have
had any verdict he liked, if he himself had been upon trial.
Therefore, after calling in (for the sake of form) the two poor women
who found the dead baby among the sea-weed, and had sevenpence apiece
for doing so, and who cried all the while that they talked in Welsh
(each having seen a dear baby like him not more than twenty years ago),
we came in the most unanimous manner, under his lordship's guidance, to
the following excellent verdict:--
"Found drowned on Pool Tavan rocks, a man-child, supposed to be two
years old; believed to be a young nobleman, from marks on pinafore, and
high bearing; but cast away by a storm of sand from the ship Andalusia
of Appledore."
Now I was as certain, as sure could be, that half of this verdict must
be wrong; especially as to the name of the ship, and her belonging to
Appledore, which never yet owned any craft of more than 200 tons at the
utmost--a snow, or a brig at the very outside. Nevertheless I was
compelled to give in to the rest of them, and most of all to the
Coroner. Only I said, as many who are still alive can remember, and are
not afraid to speak to, and especially my good friend Mr Lewis, "The
ship was not called the Andalusia; the ship was never from Appledore;
neither was she of British build. As an old seaman, it is likely that I
know more of the build of a ship than a lubber of a clock-maker, or
rather a clock-mauler."
But here I was put down sternly; and hearing of verdicts a great deal
worse, without any mischief come of them, I was even content to sign the
return, and have a new pipe of bird's-eye. And a bird's-eye view this
gave me of them at the second inquest wherein I had to give evidence;
and was not of the jury. They wanted to cross-examine me, because I had
been unpleasant, but of that they got the worst, and dropped it. But as
all our jurymen declared upon their oaths that the little nobleman was
drowned in a storm of sand, so they found that the five young rabbiters
came to their end of smothering through a violent sea-tempest.
In the days of my youth such judgments perhaps would have tried my
patience; but now I knew that nothing ever follows truth and justice.
People talk of both these things, and perhaps the idea does them good.
Be that according to God's will--as we always say when deprived of our
own--at any rate, I am bound to tell one little thing more about each
quest. And first about the first one. Why was I so vexed and angry with
my foolish tongue when Hezekiah began to speak? Only because I knew full
well that it would lead to the very thing, which it was my one desire to
avoid, if possible. And this--as you may guess at once, after what
happened on the stairs--was the rude fetching and exposing of the dear
little maid among so many common fellows; and to show her the
baby-corpse. I feared that it must come to this, through my own
thoughtless blabbing about her "ickle bother" in the presence of
Hezekiah: and if ever man had a hollow dry heart from over-pumping of
the tongue, I had it when Hezekiah came in; bearing, in a depth of
fright and wonder, and contempt of him, my own delicate Bardie. I had
set my back against the door, and sworn that they should not have her;
but crafty Perkins had stolen out by another door while they humoured
me. Now my pretty dear was awed, and hushed beyond all crying, and even
could not move her feet, as children do, in a kicking way. Trying to get
as far as possible from Hezekiah's nasty face--which gave me a great
deal of pleasure, because she had never done the like to me, unless I
were full of tobacco--she stretched away from his greasy shoulder, and
then she saw old Davy. Her hands came toward me, and so did her eyes,
and so did her lips, with great promise of kisses, such as her father
and mother perhaps might have been mightily tempted by; but nobody now
to care for them.
When Hezekiah, pretending to dandle this little lady in a jaunty way,
like one of his filthy low children, was taking her towards that poor
little corpse, so white in the light of the window; and when he made
her look at it, and said, "Is that ickle bother, my dear?" and she all
the time was shivering and turning her eyes away from it, and seeking
for me to help her, I got rid of the two men who held me, nor hearkened
I the Coroner, but gave Hezekiah such a grip as he felt for three months
afterwards, and with Bardie on my left arm, kept my right fist ready.
Nobody cared to encounter this; for I had happened to tell the
neighbourhood how the Frenchman's head came off at the time when he
tried to injure me; and so I bore off the little one, till her chest
began to pant and her tears ran down my beard. And then as I spoke
softly to her and began to raise her fingers, and to tickle her frizzy
hair, all of a sudden she flung both arms around my neck, and loved me.
"Old Davy, poor ickle Bardie not go to 'e back pit-hole yet?"
"No, my dear, not for ever so long. Not for eighty years at least. And
then go straight to heaven!"
"Ickle bother go to 'e back pit-hole? Does 'a think, old Davy?"
This was more than I could tell, though inclined to think it very
likely. However, before I could answer, some of the jury followed us,
and behind them the Coroner himself; they insisted on putting a question
to her, and so long as they did not force her again to look at that
which terrified her, I had no right to prevent them. They all desired to
speak at once; but the clerk of the Coroner took the lead, having as yet
performed no work toward the earning of his salt or rum. An innocent old
man he was, but very free from cleanliness; and the child being most
particular of all ever born in that matter, turned away with her mite of
a nose, in a manner indescribable.
He was much too dull to notice this; but putting back his spectacles,
and stooping over her hair and ears (which was all she left outside my
beard), he wanted to show his skill in babies, of which he boasted
himself a grandfather. And so he began to whisper,--
"My little dear, you will be a good child--a very good child; won't you,
now? I can see it in your little face. Such a pretty dear you are! And
all good children always do as they are told, you know. We want you to
tell us a little thing about pretty little brother. I have got a little
girl at home not so old as you are, and she is so clever, you can't
think. Everything she does and says; everything we tell her----"
"Take ayay 'e nasty old man. Take ayay 'e bad old man; or I never tis 'a
again, old Davy."
She flashed up at me with such wrath, that I was forced to obey her;
while the old man put down his goggles to stare, and all the jury
laughed at him. And I was running away with her, for her little breath
was hot and short; when the Coroner called out, "Stop, man; I know how
to manage her." At this I was bound to pull up, and set her to look at
him, as he ordered me. She sate well up in my arms, and looked, and
seemed not to think very highly of him.
"Look at his Honour, my dear," said I, stroking her hair as I knew she
liked; "look at his lordship, you pretty duck."
"Little child," began his Honour, "you have a duty to perform, even at
this early period of your very beginning life. We are most desirous to
spare your feelings, having strong reasons to believe that you are
sprung from a noble family. But in our duty towards your lineage, we
must require you, my little dear--we must request you, my little
lady--to assist us in our endeavour to identify----"
"I can say 'dentify,' old Davy; tell 'e silly old man to say 'dentify'
same as I does."
She spread her little open hand with such contempt at the Coroner, that
even his own clerk could not keep his countenance from laughing. And his
Honour, having good reason to think her a baby of high position before,
was now so certain that he said, "God bless her! What a child she is!
Take her away, old mariner. She is used to high society."
CHAPTER XV.
A VERDICT ON THE JURY.
As to the second inquest, I promised (as you may remember) to tell
something also. But in serious truth, if I saw a chance to escape it,
without skulking watch, I would liefer be anywhere else almost--except
in a French prison.
After recording with much satisfaction our verdict upon Bardie's
brother--which nearly all of us were certain that the little boy must
be--the Coroner bade his second jury to view the bodies of the five
young men. These were in the great dark hall, set as in a place of
honour, and poor young Watkin left to mind them; and very pale and ill
he looked.
"If you please, sir, they are all stretched out, and I am not afraid of
them;" he said to me, as I went to console him: "father cannot look at
them; but mother and I are not afraid. They are placed according to
their ages, face after face, and foot after foot. And I am sure they
never meant it, sir, when they used to kick me out of bed: and
oftentimes I deserved it."
I thought much less of those five great corpses than of the gentle and
loving boy who had girt up his heart to conquer fear, and who tried to
think evil of himself for the comforting of his brethren's souls.
But he nearly broke down when the jurymen came; and I begged them to
spare him the pain and trial of going before the Coroner to identify the
bodies, which I could do, as well as any one; and to this they all
agreed.
When we returned to the long oak parlour, we found that the dignity of
the house was maintained in a way which astonished us. There had been
some little refreshment before, especially for his Honour; but now all
these things were cleared away, and the table was spread with a noble
sight of glasses, and bottles, and silver implements, fit for the mess
of an admiral. Neither were these meant for show alone, inasmuch as to
make them useful, there was water cold and water hot, also lemons, and
sugar, and nutmeg, and a great black George of ale, a row of pipes, and
a jar of tobacco, also a middling keg of Hollands, and an anker of old
rum. At first we could hardly believe our eyes, knowing how poor and
desolate, both of food and furniture, that old grange had always been.
But presently one of us happened to guess, and Hezekiah confirmed it,
that the lord of the manor had taken compassion upon his afflicted
tenant, and had furnished these things in a handsome manner, from his
own great house some five miles distant. But in spite of the custom of
the country, I was for keeping away from it all, upon so sad an
occasion. And one or two more were for holding aloof, although they cast
sheep's-eyes at it.
However, the Crowner rubbed his hands, and sate down at the top of the
table, and then the foreman sate down also, and said that, being so much
upset, he was half inclined to take a glass of something weak. He was
recommended, if he felt like that, whatever he did, not to take it weak,
but to think of his wife and family; for who could say what such a turn
might lead to, if neglected? And this reflection had such weight, that
instead of mixing for himself, he allowed a friend to mix for him.
The Crowner said, "Now, gentlemen, in the presence of such fearful
trouble and heavy blows from Providence, no man has any right to give
the rein to his own feelings. It is his duty, as a man, to control his
sad emotions; and his duty, as a family-man, to attend to his
constitution." With these words he lit a pipe, and poured himself a
glass of Hollands, looking sadly upward, so that the measure quite
escaped him. "Gentlemen of the jury," he continued with such authority,
that the jury were almost ready to think that they must have begun to be
gentlemen--till they looked at one another; "gentlemen of the jury, life
is short, and trouble long. I have sate upon hundreds of poor people who
destroyed themselves by nothing else than want of self-preservation. I
have made it my duty officially to discourage such shortcomings. Mr
Foreman, be good enough to send the lemons this way; and when ready for
business, say so."
Crowner Bowles was now as pleasant as he had been grumpy in the morning;
and finding him so, we did our best to keep him in that humour. Neither
was it long before he expressed himself in terms which were an honour
alike to his heart and head. For he told us, in so many words--though I
was not of the jury now, nevertheless I held on to them, and having been
foreman just now, could not be, for a matter of form, when it came to
glasses, cold-shouldered,--worthy Crowner Bowles, I say, before he had
stirred many slices of lemon, told us all, in so many words--and the
more, the more we were pleased with them--that for a thoroughly honest,
intelligent, and hard-working jury, commend him henceforth and as long
as he held his Majesty's sign-manual, to a jury made of Newton parish
and of Kenfig burgesses!
We drank his health with bumpers round, every man upon his legs, and
then three cheers for his lordship; until his clerk, who was rather
sober, put his thumb up, and said "Stop." And from the way he went on
jerking with his narrow shoulders, we saw that he would recall our
thoughts to the hall that had no door to it. Then following his looks,
we saw the distance of the silence.
This took us all aback so much, that we had in the witnesses--of whom I
the head man was there already--and for fear of their being nervous, and
so confusing testimony, gave them a cordial after swearing. Everybody
knew exactly what each one of them had to say. But it would have been
very hard, and might have done them an injury, not to let them say it.
The Coroner, having found no need to charge (except his rummer), left
his men for a little while to deliberate their verdict.
"Visitation of God, of course it must be," Stradling Williams began to
say; "visitation of Almighty God."
Some of the jury took the pipes out of their mouths and nodded at him,
while they blew a ring of smoke; and others nodded without that trouble;
and all seemed going pleasantly. When suddenly a little fellow, whose
name was Simon Edwards, a brother of the primitive Christians, or at
least of their minister, being made pugnacious by ardent spirits, rose,
and holding the arm of his chair, thus delivered his sentiments;
speaking, of course, in his native tongue.
"Head-man, and brothers of the jury, I-I-I do altogether refuse and deny
the goodness of that judgment. The only judgment I will certify is in
the lining of my hat,--'Judgment of Almighty God, for rabbiting on the
Sabbath-day.' Hezekiah Perkins, I call upon thee, as a brother
Christian, and a consistent member, to stand on the side of the Lord
with me."
His power of standing on any side was by this time, however, exhausted;
and falling into his chair he turned pale, and shrunk to the very back
of it. For over against him stood Evan Thomas, whom none of us had seen
till then. It was a sight that sobered us, and made the blood fly from
our cheeks, and forced us to set down the glass.
The face of black Evan was ashy grey, and his heavy square shoulders
slouching forward, and his hands hung by his side. Only his deep eyes
shone without moving; and Simon backed further and further away, without
any power to gaze elsewhere. Then Evan Thomas turned from him, without
any word, or so much as a sigh, and looked at us all; and no man had
power to meet the cold quietness of his regard. And not having thought
much about his troubles, we had nothing at all to say to him.
After waiting for us to begin, and finding no one ready, he spake a few
words to us all in Welsh, and the tone of his voice seemed different.
"Noble gentlemen, I am proud that my poor hospitality pleases you. Make
the most of the time God gives; for six of you have seen the white
horse." With these words he bowed his head, and left us shuddering in
the midst of all the heat of cordials. For it is known that men, when
prostrate by a crushing act of God, have the power to foresee the death
of other men that feel no pity for them. And to see the white horse on
the night of new moon, even through closed eyelids, and without sense of
vision, is the surest sign of all sure signs of death within the
twelvemonth. Therefore all the jury sate glowering at one another, each
man ready to make oath that Evan's eyes were not on him.
Now there are things beyond our knowledge, or right of explanation, in
which I have a pure true faith--for instance, the "Flying Dutchman,"
whom I had twice beheld already, and whom no man may three times see,
and then survive the twelvemonth; in him, of course, I had true
faith--for what can be clearer than eyesight? Many things, too, which
brave seamen have beheld, and can declare; but as for landsmen's
superstitions, I scarcely cared to laugh at them. However, strange
enough it is, all black Evan said came true. Simon Edwards first went
off, by falling into Newton Wayn, after keeping it up too late at
chapel. And after him the other five, all within the twelvemonth; some
in their beds, and some abroad, but all gone to their last account. And
heartily glad I was for my part (as one after other they dropped off
thus), not to have served on that second jury; and heartily sorry I was
also that brother Hezekiah had not taken the luck to behold the white
horse.
Plain enough it will be now, to any one who knows our parts, that after
what Evan Thomas said, and the way in which he withdrew from us, the
only desire the jury had was to gratify him with their verdict, and to
hasten home, ere the dark should fall, and no man to walk by himself on
the road. Accordingly, without more tobacco, though some took another
glass for strength, they returned the following verdict:--
"We find that these five young and excellent men"--here came their
names, with a Mister to each--"were lost on their way to a place of
worship, by means of a violent storm of the sea. And the jury cannot
separate without offering their heartfelt pity"--the Crowner's clerk
changed it to 'sympathy'--"to their bereaved and affectionate parents.
God save the King!"
After this, they all went home; and it took good legs to keep up with
them along "Priest Lane," in some of the darker places, and especially
where a white cow came, and looked over a gate for the milking-time. I
could not help laughing, although myself not wholly free from
uneasiness; and I grieved that my joints were not as nimble as those of
Simon Edwards.
But while we frightened one another, like so many children, each
perceiving something which was worse to those who perceived it not,
Hezekiah carried on as if we were a set of fools, and nothing ever could
frighten him. To me, who was the bravest of them, this was very irksome;
but it happened that I knew brother Perkins's pet belief. His wife had
lived at Longlands once, a lonely house between Nottage and Newton, on
the rise of a little hill. And they say that on one night of the year,
all the funerals that must pass from Nottage to Newton in the
twelvemonth, go by in succession there, with all the mourners after
them, and the very hymns that they will sing passing softly on the wind.
So as we were just by Longlands in the early beat of the stars, I
managed to be at Perkins's side. Then suddenly, as a bat went by, I
caught the arm of Hezekiah, and drew back, and shivered.
"Name of God, Davy! what's the matter?"
"Can't you see them, you blind-eye? There they go! there they
go! All the coffins with palls to them. And the names upon the
head-plates:--Evan, and Thomas, and Hopkin, and Rees, and Jenkin, with
only four bearers! And the psalm they sing is the thirty-fourth."
"So it is! I can see them all. The Lord have mercy upon my soul! Oh
Davy, Davy! don't leave me here."
He could not walk another step, but staggered against the wall and
groaned, and hid his face inside his hat. We got him to Newton with much
ado; but as for going to Bridgend that night, he found that our
church-clock must be seen to, the very first thing in the morning.
CHAPTER XVI.
TRUTH LIES SOMETIMES IN A WELL.
The following morning it happened so that I did not get up over early;
not, I assure you, from any undue enjoyment of the grand Crowner's
quests; but partly because the tide for fishing would not suit till the
afternoon, and partly because I had worked both hard and long at the
"Jolly Sailors:" and this in fulfilment of a pledge from which there was
no escaping, when I promised on the night before to grease and tune my
violin, and display the true practice of hornpipe. Rash enough this
promise was, on account of my dear wife's memory, and the things bad
people would say of it. And but for the sad uneasiness created by black
Evan's prophecy, and the need of lively company to prevent my seeing
white horses, the fear of the parish might have prevailed with me over
all fear of the landlord. Hence I began rather shyly; but when my first
tune had been received with hearty applause from all the room, how could
I allow myself to be clapped on the back, and then be lazy?
Now Bunny was tugging and clamouring for her bit of breakfast, almost
before I was wide-awake, when the latch of my cottage-door was lifted,
and in walked Hezekiah. Almost any other man would have been more
welcome; for though he had not spoken of it on the day before, he was
sure to annoy me, sooner or later, about the fish he had forced me to
sell him. When such a matter is over and done with, surely no man, in
common-sense, has a right to reopen the question. The time to find fault
with a fish, in all conscience, is before you have bought him. Having
once done that, he is now your own; and to blame him is to find fault
with the mercy which gave you the money to buy him. A foolish thing as
well; because you are running down your own property, and spoiling your
relish for him. Conduct like this is below contempt; even more
ungraceful and ungracious than that of a man who spreads abroad the
faults of his own wife.
Hezekiah, however, on this occasion, was not quite so bad as that. His
errand, according to his lights, was of a friendly nature; for he pried
all round my little room with an extremely sagacious leer, and then
gazed at me with a dark cock of his eye, and glanced askance at Bunny,
and managed to wink, like the Commodore's ship beginning to light
poop-lanterns.
"Speak out, like a man," I said; "is your wife confined with a prophecy,
or what is the matter with you?"
"Hepzibah, the prophetess, is well; and her prophecies are abiding the
fulness of their fulfilment. I would speak with you on a very secret and
important matter, concerning also her revealings."
"Then I will send the child away. Here, Bunny, run and ask mother
Jones----"
"That will not do; I will not speak here. Walls are thin, and walls have
ears. Come down to the well with me."
"But the well is a lump of walls," I answered, "and children almost
always near it."
"There are no children. I have been down. The well is dry, and the
children know it. No better place can be for speaking."
Looking down across the churchyard, I perceived that he was right; and
so I left Bunny to dwell on her breakfast, and went with Hezekiah. Among
the sandhills there was no one; for fright had fallen on everybody,
since the sands began to walk, as the general folk now declared of them.
And nobody looked at a sandhill now with any other feeling than towards
his grave and tombstone.
Even my heart was a little heavy, in spite of all scientific points,
when I straddled over the stone that led into the sandy passage. After
me came Hezekiah, groping with his grimy hands, and calling out for me
to stop, until he could have hold of me. However, I left him to follow
the darkness, in the wake of his own ideas.
A better place for secret talk, in a parish full of echoes, scarcely
could be found, perhaps, except the old "Red House" on the shore. So I
waited for Perkins to unfold, as soon as we stood on the bottom step,
with three or four yards of quicksand, but no dip for a pitcher below
us. The children knew that the well was dry, and some of them perhaps
were gone to try to learn their letters.
What then was my disappointment, as it gradually came out, that so far
from telling me a secret, Hezekiah's object was to deprive me of my own!
However, if I say what happened, nobody can grumble.
In the first place, he manœuvred much to get the weather-gage of me, by
setting me so that the light that slanted down the grey slope should
gather itself upon my honest countenance. I for my part, as a man
unwarned how far it might become a duty to avoid excess of accuracy,
took the liberty to prefer a less conspicuous position; not that I had
any lies to tell, but might be glad to hear some. Therefore, I stuck to
a pleasant seat upon a very nice sandy slab, where the light so shot and
wavered, that a badly inquisitive man might seek in vain for a flush or
a flickering of the most delicate light of all--that which is cast by
the heart or mind of man into the face of man.
Upon the whole, it could scarcely be said, at least as concerned
Hezekiah, that truth was to be found, just now, at the bottom of this
well.
"Dear brother Dyo," he gently began, with the most brotherly voice and
manner; "it has pleased the Lord, who does all things aright, to send me
to you for counsel now, as well as for comfort, beloved Dyo."
"All that I have is at your service," I answered very heartily; looking
for something about his wife, and always enjoying a thing of that kind
among those righteous fellows; and we heard that Hepzibah had taken up,
under word of the Lord, with the Shakers.[B]
"Brother David, I have wrestled hard in the night-season, about that
which has come to pass. My wife----"
"To be sure," I said.
"My wife, who was certified seven times as a vessel for the Spirit----"
"To be sure--they always are; and then they gad about so----"
"Brother, you understand me not; or desire to think evil. Hepzibah,
since her last confinement, is a vessel for the Spirit to the square of
what she was. Seven times seven is forty-nine, and requires no
certificate. But these are carnal calculations."
All this took me beyond my depth, and I answered him rather crustily;
and my word ended with both those letters which, as I learned from my
Catechism, belong to us by baptism.
"Unholy David, shun evil words. Pray without ceasing, but swear not at
all. In a vision of the night, Hepzibah hath seen terrible things of
thee."
"Why, you never went home last night, Hezekiah. How can you tell what
your wife dreamed?"
"I said not when it came to pass. And how could I speak of it yesterday
before that loose assembly?"
"Well, well, out with it! What was this wonderful vision?"
"Hepzibah, the prophetess, being in a trance, and deeply inspired of
the Lord, beheld the following vision: A long lonely sea was spread
before her, shining in the moonlight smoothly, and in places strewed
with gold. A man was standing on a low black rock, casting a line, and
drawing great fish out almost every time he cast. Then there arose from
out the water a dear little child all dressed in white, carrying with
both hands her cradle, and just like our little maiden, Martha----"
"Like your dirty Martha indeed!" I was at the very point of saying, but
snapped my lips, and saved myself.
"This small damsel approached the fisherman, and presented her cradle to
him, with a very trustful smile. Then he said, 'Is it gold?' And she
said, 'No, it is only a white lily.' Upon which he shouted, 'Be off with
you!' And the child fell into a desolate hole, and groped about vainly
for her cradle. Then all the light faded out of the sea, and the waves
and the rocks began moaning, and the fisherman fell on his knees, and
sought in vain for the cradle. And while he was moaning, came Satan
himself, bearing the cradle red-hot and crackling; and he seized the
poor man by his blue woollen smock, and laid him in the cradle, and
rocked it, till his shrieks awoke Hepzibah. And Hepzibah is certain that
you are the man."
To hear all this in that sudden manner quite took my breath away for a
minute, so that I fell back and knocked my head, purely innocent as I
was. But presently I began to hope that the prophetess might be wrong
this time; and the more so because that vile trance of hers might have
come from excessive enjoyment of those good fish of mine. And it grew
upon me more and more, the more I disliked her prediction about me, that
if she had such inspiration, scarcely would she have sent Hezekiah to
buy her supper from my four-legged table. Therefore I spoke without much
loss of courage.
"Brother Hezekiah, there is something wrong with Hepzibah. Send her, I
pray you, to Dr Ap-Yollup before she prophesies anything more. No blue
woollen smock have I worn this summer, but a canvas jacket only, and
more often a striped jersey. It is Sandy Macraw she has seen in her
dream, with the devil both roasting and rocking him. Glory be to the
Lord for it!"
"Glory be to Him, Dyo, whichever of you two it was! I hope that it may
have been Sandy. But Hepzibah is always accurate, even among fishermen."
"Even fishermen," I answered (being a little touched with wrath), "know
the folk that understood them, and the folk that cannot. Even fishermen
have their right, especially when reduced to it, not to be blasphemed in
that way, even by a prophetess."
"Dyo, you are hot again. What makes you go on so? A friend's advice is
such a thing, that I nearly always take it; unless I find big obstacles.
Dyo, now be advised by me."
"That depends on how I like it," was the best thing I could say.
"David Llewellyn, the only chance to save thy sinful soul is this. Open
thine heart to the chosen one, to the favoured of the Lord. Confess to
Hepzibah the things that befell thee, and how the tempter prevailed with
thee. Especially bring forth, my brother, the accursed thing thou hast
hid in thy tent, the wedge of gold, and the shekels of silver, and the
Babylonish garment. Thou hast stolen, and dissembled also; and put it
even among thine own stuff. Cast it from thee, deliver it up, lay it
before the ark of the Lord, and Hepzibah shall fall down and pray, lest
thou be consumed and burnt with fire, like the son of Carmi the son of
Zabdi, and covered over with a great heap of stones, even such as this
is."
My wrath at this foul accusation, and daring attempt to frighten me, was
kindled so that I could not speak; and if this had happened in the open
air, I should have been certain to knock him down. However, I began to
think, for Perkins was a litigious fellow; and however strict a man's
conduct is, he does not want his affairs all exposed. Therefore I kept
my knit knuckles at home, but justly felt strong indignation. Perkins
thought he had terrified me, for perhaps in that bad light I looked
pale; and so he began to triumph upon me, which needs, as everybody
knows, a better man than Hezekiah.
"Come, come, brother Dyo," he said, in a voice quite different from the
Chapel-Scriptural style he had used; "you see, we know all about it. Two
dear children come ashore, one dead, and the other not dead. You
contrive to receive them both, with your accustomed poaching skill. For
everybody says that you are always to be found everywhere, except in
your chapel, on Sabbath-day. Now, David, what do our good people, having
families of their own, find upon these children? Not so much as a chain,
or locket, or even a gold pin. I am a jeweller, and I know that children
of high position always have some trinket on them, when their mothers
love them. A child with a coronet, and no gold! David, this is wrong of
wrong. And worse than this, you conceal the truth, even from me your
ancient friend. There must be a great deal to be made, either from those
who would hold them in trust, or from those in whose way they stood. For
the family died out, very likely, in all male inheritance. Think what we
might make of it, by acting under my direction. And you shall have half
of it all, old Davy, by relieving your mind, and behaving in a sensible
and religious manner."
This came home to my sense of experience more than all Hepzibah's divine
predictions or productions. At the same time I saw that Hezekiah was all
abroad in the dark, and groping right and left after the bodily truth.
And what call had he to cry shares with me, because he had more
reputation, and a higher conceit of himself, of course? But it crossed
my mind that this nasty fellow, being perhaps in front of me in some
little tricks of machinery, might be useful afterwards in getting at the
real truth, which often kept me awake at night. Only I was quite
resolved not to encourage roguery, by letting him into partnership.
Perceiving my depth of consideration--for it suited my purpose to hear
him out, and learn how much he suspected--it was natural that he should
try again to impress me yet further by boasting.
"Dyo, I have been at a Latin school for as much as three months
together. My father gave me a rare education, and I made the most of it.
None of your ignorance for me! I am up to the moods and the tenses, the
accidents and the proselytes. The present I know, and the future I know;
the Peter-perfection, and the hay-roost----"
"I call that stuff gibberish. Talk plain English if you can."
"Understand you then so much as this? I speak in a carnal manner now. I
speak as a fool unto a fool. I am up to snuff, good Dyo; I can tell the
time of day."
"Then you are a devilish deal cleverer than any of your clocks are. But
now thou speakest no parables, brother. Now I know what thou meanest.
Thou art up for robbing somebody; and if I would shun Satan's clutches,
I must come and help thee."
"Dyo, this is inconsistent, nor can I call it brotherly. We wish to do
good, both you and I, and to raise a little money for works of love;
you, no doubt, with a good end in view, to console you for much
tribulation; and I with a single eye to the advancement of the cause
which I have at heart, to save many brands from the burning. Then, Dyo,
why not act together? Why not help one another, dear brother; thou with
the good-luck, and I with the brains?"
He laid his hand on my shoulder kindly, with a yearning of his bowels
towards me, such as true Nonconformists feel at the scent of any money.
I found myself also a little moved, not being certain how far it was
wise to throw him altogether over.
But suddenly, by what means I know not, except the will of Providence,
there arose before me that foul wrong which the Nicodemus-Christian had
committed against me some three years back. I had forborne to speak of
it till now, wishing to give the man fair-play.
"Hezekiah, do you remember," I asked, with much solemnity "do you
remember your twentieth wedding-day?"
"Davy, my brother, how many times--never mind talking about that now."
"You had a large company coming, and to whom did you give a special
order to catch you a turbot at tenpence a-pound?"
"Nay, nay, my dear friend Dyo; shall I never get that thing out of your
stupid head?"
"You had known me for twenty years at least as the very best fisherman
on the coast, and a man that could be relied upon. Yet you must go and
give that order, not to a man of good Welsh blood--with ten Welshmen
coming to dinner, mind--not to a man that was bred and born within five
miles of your dirty house--not to a man that knew every cranny and
crinkle of sand where the turbots lie; but to a tag-rag Scotchman! It
was spoken of upon every pebble from Briton Ferry to Aberthaw. David
Llewellyn put under the feet of a fellow like Sandy Macraw--a beggarly,
interloping, freckled, bitter weed of a Scotchman!"
"Well, Davy, I have apologised. How many times more must I do it? It was
not that I doubted your skill. You tell us of that so often, that none
of us ever question it. It was simply because--I feared just then to
come near your excellent and lamented----"
"No excuses, no excuses, Mr Perkins, if you please! You only make the
matter worse. As if a man's wife could come into the question, when it
comes to business! Yours may, because you don't know how to manage her;
but mine----"
"Well, now she is gone, Dyo; and very good she was to you, And in your
heart, you know it."
Whether he said this roguishly, or from the feeling which all of us have
when it comes to one another, I declare I knew not then, and I know not
even now. For I did not feel so sharply up to look to mine own interest,
with these recollections over me. I waited for him to begin again, but
he seemed to stick back in the corner. And in spite of all that turbot
business, at the moment I could not help holding out my hand to him.
He took it, and shook it, with as much emotion as if he had truly been
fond of my wife; and I felt that nothing more must be said concerning
that order to Sandy Macraw. It seemed to be very good reason also, for
getting out of that interview; for I might say things to be sorry for,
if I allowed myself to go on any more with my heart so open. Therefore I
called in my usual briskness, "Lo, the water is rising! The children
must be at the mouth of the well. What will the good wife prophesy if
she sees thee coming up the stairs with thy two feet soaking wet, Master
Hezekiah?"
CHAPTER XVII.
FOR A LITTLE CHANGE OF AIR.
On the very next day, I received such a visit as never had come to my
house before. For while I was trimming my hooks, and wondering how to
get out of all this trouble with my conscience sound and my pocket
improved; suddenly I heard a voice not to be found anywhere.
"I 'ants to yalk, I tell 'a, Yatkin. Put me down derekkerly. I 'ants to
see old Davy."
"And old Davy wants to see you, you beauty," I cried, as she jumped like
a little wild kid, and took all my house with a glance, and then me.
"Does 'a know, I yikes this house, and I yikes 'a, and I yikes Yatkin,
and ickle Bunny, and evelybody?"
She pointed all round for everybody, with all ten fingers spread
everyway. Then Watkin came after her, like her slave, with a foolish
grin on his countenance, in spite of the undertaking business.
"If you please, sir, Mr Llewellyn," he said, "we was forced to bring her
over; she have been crying so dreadful, and shivering about the black
pit-hole so. And when the black things came into the house, she was
going clean out of her little mind, ever so many times almost. No use
it was at all to tell her ever so much a-yard they was. 'I don't yike
back, and I 'on't have back. Yite I yikes, and boo I yikes; and my dear
papa be so very angy, when I tells him all about it.' She went on like
that, and she did so cry, mother said she must change the air a bit."
All the time he was telling me this, she watched him with her head on
one side and her lips kept ready in the most comic manner, as much as to
say, "Now you tell any stories at my expense, and you may look out." But
Watkin was truth itself, and she nodded, and said "Ness," at the end of
his speech.
"And, if you please, sir, Mr Llewellyn, whatever is a 'belung,' sir? All
the way she have been asking for 'belung, belung, belung.' And I cannot
tell for the life of me whatever is 'belung.'"
"Boy, never ask what is unbecoming," I replied, in a manner which made
him blush, according to my intention. For the word might be English for
all I knew, and have something of high life in it. However, I found,
by-and-by, that it meant what she was able to call "Ummibella," when
promoted a year in the dictionary.
But now anybody should only have seen her, who wanted a little rousing
up. My cottage, of course, is not much to boast of, compared with
castles, and so on; nevertheless there is something about it pleasant
and good, like its owner. You might see ever so many houses, and think
them larger, and grander, and so on, with more opportunity for sitting
down, and less for knocking your head perhaps; and after all you would
come back to mine. Not for the sake of the meat in the cupboard--because
I seldom had any, and far inferior men had more; but because--well, it
does not matter. I never could make you understand, unless you came to
see it.
Only I felt that I had found a wonderful creature to make me out, and
enter almost into my own views (of which the world is not capable) every
time I took this child up and down the staircase. She would have jumps,
and she made me talk in a manner that quite surprised myself; and such a
fine feeling grew up between us, that it was a happy thing for the whole
of us, not to have Bunny in the way just then. Mother Jones was giving
her apple-party; as she always did when the red streaks came upon her
"Early Margarets." But I always think the White Juneating is a far
superior apple: and I have a tree of it. My little garden is nothing
grand, any more than the rest of my premises, or even myself, if it
comes to that; still you might go for a long day's walk, and find very
few indeed to beat it, unless you were contradictory. For ten doors at
least, both west and east, this was admitted silently; as was proved by
their sending to me for a cabbage, an artichoke, or an onion, or
anything choice for a Sunday dinner. It may suit these very people now
to shake their heads and to run me down, but they should not forget what
I did for them, when it comes to pronouncing fair judgment.
Poor Bardie appeared as full of bright spirit, and as brave as ever, and
when she tumbled from jumping two steps, what did she do but climb back
and jump three, which even Bunny was afraid to do. But I soon perceived
that this was only a sort of a flash in the pan, as it were. The happy
change from the gloom of Sker House, from the silent corners and
creaking stairs, and long-faced people keeping watch, and howling every
now and then--also the sight of me again (whom she looked upon as her
chief protector), and the general air of tidiness belonging to my
dwelling--these things called forth all at once the play and joyful
spring of her nature. But when she began to get tired of this, and to
long for a little coaxing, even the stupidest gaffer could see that she
was not the child she had been. Her little face seemed pinched and pale,
and prematurely grave and odd; while in the grey eyes tears shone ready
at any echo of thought to fall. Also her forehead, broad and white,
which marked her so from common children, looked as if too much of
puzzling and of wondering had been done there. Even the gloss of her
rich brown poll was faded, with none to care for it; while the dainty
feet and hands, so sensitive as to a speck of dirt, were enough to bring
the tears of pity into a careful mother's eyes.
"Gardy la! 'Ook 'e see, 'hot degustin' naily pailies! And poor Bardie
nuffin to kean 'em with!"
While I was setting this grief to rest (for which she kissed me
beautifully), many thoughts came through my mind about this little
creature. She and I were of one accord, upon so many important points;
and when she differed from me, perhaps she was in the right almost:
which is a thing that I never knew happen in a whole village of grown-up
people. And by the time I had brushed her hair and tied up the bows of
her frock afresh, and when she began to dance again, and to play every
kind of trick with me, I said to myself, "I must have this child.
Whatever may come of it, I will risk--when the price of butcher's-meat
comes down."
This I said in real earnest; but the price of butcher's-meat went up,
and I never have known it come down again.
While I was thinking, our Bunny came in, full of apples, raw and
roasted, and of the things the children said. But at the very first
sight of Bardie, everything else was gone from her. All the other
children were fit only to make dirt-pies of. This confirmed and held me
steadfast in the opinions which I had formed without any female
assistance.
In spite of all her own concerns (of which she was full enough, goodness
knows), Bunny came up, and pulled at her, by reason of something down
her back, which wanted putting to rights a little--a plait, or a tuck,
or some manner of gear; only I thought it a clever thing, and the little
one approved of it. And then, our Bunny being in her best, these
children took notice of one another, to settle which of them was nearer
to the proper style of clothes. And each admired the other for anything
which she had not got herself.
"Come, you baby-chits," said I, being pleased at their womanly ways, so
early; "all of us want some food, I think. Can we eat our dresses?" The
children, of course, understood me not; nevertheless, what I said was
sense.
And if, to satisfy womankind--for which I have deepest regard and
respect--I am forced to enter into questions higher than reason of men
can climb--of washing, and ironing, and quilling, and gaufreing, and
setting up, and styles of transparent reefing, and all our other
endeavours to fetch this child up to her station--the best thing I can
do will be to have mother Jones in to write it for me; if only she can
be forced to spell.
However, that is beyond all hope; and even I find it hard sometimes to
be sure of the royal manner. Only I go by the Bible always, for every
word that I can find; being taught (ever since I could read at all) that
his Majesty, James I., confirmed it.
Now this is not all the thing which I wanted to put before you clearly;
because I grow like a tombstone often, only fit to make you laugh, when
I stand on my right to be serious. My great desire is to tell you what I
did, and how I did it, as to the managing of these children, even for a
day or two, so as to keep them from crying, or scorching, or spoiling
their clothes, or getting wet, or having too much victuals or too
little. Of course I consulted that good mother Jones five or six times
every day; and she never was weary of giving advice, though she said
every time that it must be the last. And a lucky thing it was for me in
all this responsibility to have turned enough of money, through skilful
catch and sale of fish, to allow of my staying at home a little, and not
only washing and mending of clothes, but treating the whole of the
household to the delicacies of the season. However, it is not my habit
to think myself anything wonderful; that I leave to the rest of the
world: and no doubt any good and clever man might have done a great part
of what I did. Only if anything should befall us, out of the reach of a
sailor's skill and the depth of Bunny's experience, mother Jones
promised to come straight in, the very moment I knocked at the wall; and
her husband slept with such musical sound that none could be lonely in
any house near, and so did all of her ten children who could crack a
lollipop.
Upon the whole, we passed so smoothly over the first evening, with the
two children as hard at play as if they were paid fifty pounds for it,
that having some twenty-five shillings in hand after payment of all
creditors, and only ten weeks to my pension-day, with my boat unknown to
anybody, and a very good prospect of fish running up from the Mumbles at
the next full moon, I set the little one on my lap, after a good bout of
laughing at her very queer ins and outs--for all things seem to be all
alive with, as well as to, her.
"Will you stay with me, my dear?" I said, as bold as King George and the
Dragon; "would you like to live with old Davy and Bunny, and have ever
so many frocks washed, soon as ever he can buy them?" For nothing
satisfied her better than to see her one gown washed. She laid her head
on one side a little, so that I felt it hot to my bosom, being excused
of my waistcoat; and I knew that she had overworked herself.
"Ness," she said, after thinking a bit. "Ness, I live with 'a, old Davy,
till my dear mama come for me. Does 'e know, old Davy, 'hot I thinks?"
"No, my pretty; I only know that you are always thinking." And so she
was; no doubt of it.
"I tell 'a, old Davy, 'hot I thinks. No--I can't tell 'a; only sompfin.
'Et me go for more pay with Bunny."
"No, my dear, just stop a minute. Bunny has got no breath left in her;
she is such a great fat Bunny. What you mean to say is, that you don't
know how papa and mama could ever think of leaving you such a long, long
time away."
She shook her curly pate as if each frizzle were a puzzle; and her sweet
white forehead seemed a mainsail full of memory; and then gay presence
was in her eyes, and all the play which I had stopped broke upon her
mind again.
"Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor," she began, with her beautiful fingers
crawling, like white carnelian compasses, up the well-made buttons of my
new smock-guernsey; for though I had begged my hot waistcoat off, I
never was lax of dress in her presence as I would be in Bunny's--or, in
short, with anybody except this little lady. I myself taught her that
"tinker, tailor," and had a right to have it done to me. And she
finished it off with such emphasis upon button No. 7, which happened to
be the last of them, "gentleman, ploughboy, fief," looking straight into
my eyes, and both of us laughing at the fine idea that I could possibly
be called a thief! But fearing to grow perhaps foolish about her, as she
did these charming things to me, I carried her up to bed with Bunny, and
sung them both away to sleep with a melancholy dirge of sea.
Into whatever state of life it may please God to call me--though I fear
there cannot be many more at this age of writing--it always will be, as
it always has been, my first principle and practice to do my very utmost
(which is far less than it was, since the doctor stopped my hornpipes)
to be pleasant and good company. And it is this leading motive which has
kept me from describing--as I might have done, to make you tingle and be
angry afterwards--the state of Sker House, and of Evan Thomas, and Moxy
his wife, and all their friends, about those five poor rabbiters. Also
other darkish matters, such as the plight of those obstinate black men
when they came ashore at last, three together, and sometimes four, as if
they had fought in the water. And, after all, what luck they had in
obtaining proper obsequies, inasmuch as, by order of Crowner Bowles, a
great hole in the sand was dug in a little sheltered valley, and kept
open till it was fairly thought that the sea must have finished with
them; and then, after being carefully searched for anything of value,
they were rolled in all together and kept down with stones, like the
parish mangle, and covered with a handsome mound of sand. And not only
this, but in spite of expense and the murmuring of the vestry, a board
well tarred (to show their colour) was set up in the midst of it, and
their number "35" chalked up; and so they were stopped of their mischief
awhile, after shamefully robbing their poor importer.
But if this was conducted handsomely, how much more so were the
funerals of the five young white men! The sense of the neighbourhood,
and the stir, and the presence of the Coroner (who stopped a whole week
for sea air and freshness, after seeing so many good things come in, and
perceiving so many ways home that night, that he made up his mind to
none of them); also the feeling (which no one expressed, but all would
have been disappointed of) that honest black Evan, after knocking so
many men down in both parishes and the extra-parochial manor, was
designed, by this downright blow from above, to repent and to entertain
every one; and most of all, the fact that five of a highly respectable
family were to be buried at once, to the saving of four future funerals,
all of which must have been fine ones,--these universal sympathies
compelled the house and the people therein to exert themselves to the
uttermost.
Enough that it gave satisfaction, not universal, but general; and even
that last is a hard thing to do in such great outbursts of sympathy.
Though Moudlin church is more handy for Sker, and the noble Portreeve of
Kenfig stood upon his right to it, still there were stronger reasons why
old Newton should have the preference. And Sker being outside either
parish, Crowner Bowles, on receipt of a guinea, swore down the Portreeve
to his very vamps. For Moxy Thomas was a Newton woman, and loved every
scrape of a shoe there; and her uncle, the clerk, would have ended his
days if the fees had gone over to Kenfig. Our parson, as well, was a
very fine man, and a match for the whole of the service; while the
little fellow at Moudlin always coughed at a word of three syllables.
There was one woman in our village who was always right. She had been
disappointed, three times over, in her early and middle days; and the
effect of this on her character was so lasting and so wholesome, that
she never spoke without knowing something. When from this capital female
I heard that our churchyard had won the victory, and when I foresaw the
demented condition of glory impending upon our village (not only from
five magnificent palls, each with its proper attendance of black, and
each with fine hymns and good howling, but yet more than that from the
hot strength of triumph achieved over vaunting Kenfig), then it came
into my mind to steal away with Bardie.
A stern and sad sacrifice of myself, I assured myself that it was, and
would be; for few even of our oldest men could enjoy a funeral more than
I did, with its sad reflections and junketings. And I might have been
head-man of all that day, entitled not only to drop the mould, but to
make the speech afterwards at the Inn.
But I abandoned all these rights, and braved once more the opinions of
neighbours (which any man may do once too often); and when the advance
of sound came towards us, borne upon the western wind from the end of
Newton Wayn, slowly hanging through the air, as if the air loved death
of man--the solemn singing of the people who must go that way
themselves, and told it in their melody; and when the Clevice rock rung
softly with the tolling bell, as well as with the rolling dirges, we
slipped away at the back of it--that is to say, pretty Bardie and I. For
Bunny was purer of Newton birth than to leave such a sight without
tearing away. And desiring some little to hear all about it, I left her
with three very good young women, smelling strongly of southernwood, who
were beginning to weep already, and promised to tell me the whole of it.
As we left this dismal business, Bardie danced along beside me, like an
ostrich-feather blown at. In among the sandhills soon I got her, where
she could see nothing, and the thatch of rushes deadened every pulse of
the funeral bell. And then a strange idea took me, all things being
strange just now, that it might prove a rich wise thing to go for a
quiet cruise with Bardie. In that boat, and on the waves, she might
remember things recovered by the chance of semblance. Therefore, knowing
that all living creatures five miles either way of us were sure to be in
Newton churchyard nearly all the afternoon, and then in the
public-houses, I scrupled not to launch my boat and go to sea with the
little one. For if we steered a proper course no funeral could see us.
And so I shipped her gingerly. The glory of her mind was such that
overboard she must have jumped, except for my Sunday neck-tie with a
half-hitch knot around her. And the more I rowed the more she laughed,
and looked at the sun with her eyes screwed up, and at the water with
all wide open. "'Hare is 'a going, old Davy?" she said, slipping from
under my Sunday splice, and coming to me wonderfully, and laying her
tiny hands on mine, which beat me always, as she had found out; "is 'a
going to my dear papa, and mama, and ickle bother?"
"No, my pretty, you must wait for them to come. We are going to catch
some fish, and salt them, that they may keep with a very fine smell,
till your dear papa brings your mama and all the family with him; and
then what a supper we will have!"
"'Ill 'a," she said; "and poor Bardie too?"
But the distance of the supper-time was a very sad disappointment to
her, and her bright eyes filled with haze. And then she said "Ness" very
quietly, because she was growing to understand that she could not have
her own way now. I lay on my oars and watched her carefully, while she
was shaking her head and wondering, with her little white shoulders
above the thwart, and her innocent and intelligent eyes full of the
spreading sky and sea. It was not often one had the chance, through the
ever-flitting change, to learn the calm and true expression of that poor
young creature's face. Even now I could not tell, except that her
playful eyes were lonely, and her tender lips were trembling, and a
heartful of simple love could find no outlet, and lost itself. These
little things, when thinking thus, or having thought flow through them,
never ought to be disturbed, because their brains are tender. The
unknown stream will soon run out, and then they are fit again for play,
which is the proper work of man. We open the world, and we close the
world, with nothing more than this; and while our manhood is too grand
(for a score and a half of years, perhaps), to take things but in
earnest, the justice of our birth is on us,--we are fortune's plaything.
CHAPTER XVIII.
PUBLIC APPROBATION.
If that child had no luck herself (except, of course, in meeting me), at
any rate she never failed to bring me wondrous fortune. The air was
smooth, and sweet, and soft, the sky had not a wrinkle, and the fickle
sea was smiling, proud of pleasant manners. Directly I began to fish at
the western tail of the Tuskar, scarcely a fish forebore me.
Whiting-pollacks run in shoals, and a shoal I had of them; and the way I
split and dried them made us long for breakfast-time. And Bardie did
enjoy them so.
The more I dwelled with that little child, the more I grew wrapped up in
her. Her nature was so odd and loving, and her ways so pretty. Many men
forego their goodness, so that they forget the nature of a little
darling child. Otherwise, perhaps, we might not, if we kept our hearts
aright, so despise the days of loving, and the time of holiness. Now
this baby almost shamed me, and I might say Bunny too, when, having
undressed her, and put the coarse rough night-gown on her, which came
from Sker with the funerals, my grandchild called me from up-stairs, to
meet some great emergency.
"Granny, come up with the stick dreckly moment, granny dear! Missy 'ont
go into bed. Such a bad wicked child she is."
I ran up-stairs, and there was Bunny all on fire with noble wrath, and
there stood Bardie sadly scraping the worm-eaten floor with her small
white toes.
"I'se not a yicked shild," she said, "I'se a yae good gal, I is; I 'ont
go to bed till I say my payers to 'Mighty God, as my dear mama make me.
She be very angy with 'a, Bunny, 'hen she knows it."
Hereupon I gave Bunny a nice little smack, and had a great mind to let
her taste the stick which she had invoked so eagerly. However, she
roared enough without it, because her feelings were deeply hurt. Bardie
also cried for company, or, perhaps, at my serious aspect, until I put
her down on her knees and bade her say her prayers, and have done with
it. At the same time it struck me how stupid I was not to have asked
about this before, inasmuch as even a child's religion may reveal some
of its history.
She knelt as prettily as could be, with her head thrown back, and her
tiny palms laid together upon her breast, and thus she said her simple
prayer.
"Pay God bless dear papa, and mama, and ickle bother. Gentle Jesus, meek
and mild, 'ook upon a ickle shild, and make me a good gal. Amen."
Then she got up and kissed poor Bunny, and was put into bed as good as
gold, and slept like a little dormouse till morning.
Take it altogether now, we had a happy time of it. Every woman in Newton
praised me for my kindness to the child; and even the men who had too
many could not stand against Bardie's smile. They made up, indeed, some
scandalous story, as might have been expected, about my relationship to
the baby, and her sudden appearance so shortly after my poor wife's
death. However, by knocking three men down, I produced a more active
growth of charity in our neighbourhood.
And very soon a thing came to pass, such as I never could have
expected, and of a nature to lift me (even more than the free use of my
pole) for a period of at least six months, above the reach of libel,
from any one below the rank of a justice of the peace. This happened
just as follows:--One night the children were snug in bed, and finding
the evenings long, because the days were shortening in so fast--which
seemed to astonish everybody--it came into my head to go no more than
outside my own door, and into the "Jolly Sailors." For the autumn seemed
to be coming on, and I like to express my opinions upon that point in
society; never being sure where I may be before ever another autumn.
Moreover, the landlord was not a man to be neglected with impunity. He
never liked his customers to stay too long away from him, any more than
our parson did; and pleasant as he was when pleased, and generous in the
way of credit to people with any furniture, nothing was more sure to vex
him, than for a man without excuse, to pretend to get on without him.
Now when I came into the room, where our little sober proceedings are--a
narrow room, and dark enough, yet full of much good feeling, also with
hard wooden chairs worn soft by generations of sitting--a sudden stir
arose among the excellent people present. They turned and looked at me,
as if they had never enjoyed that privilege, or, at any rate, had failed
to make proper use of it before. And ere my modesty was certain whether
this were for good or harm, they raised such a clapping with hands and
feet, and a clinking of glasses in a line with it, that I felt myself
worthy of some great renown. I stood there and bowed, and made my best
leg, and took off my hat in acknowledgment. Observing this, they were
all delighted, as if I had done them a real honour; and up they arose
with one accord, and gave me three cheers, with an Englishman setting
the proper tune for it.
I found myself so overcome all at once with my own fame and celebrity,
that I called for a glass of hot rum-and-water, with the nipple of a
lemon in it, and sugar the size of a nutmeg. My order was taken with a
speed and deference hitherto quite unknown to me; and better than that,
seven men opened purses, and challenged the right to pay for it.
Entering into so rare a chance of getting on quite gratis, and knowing
that such views are quick to depart, I called for six oz. of tobacco,
with the Bristol stamp (a red crown) upon it. Scarce had I tested the
draught of a pipe--which I had to do sometimes for half an hour, with
all to blow out, and no drawing in--when the tobacco was at my elbow,
served with a saucer, and a curtsey. "Well," thought I, "this is real
glory." And I longed to know how I had earned it.
It was not likely, with all those people gazing so respectfully, that I
would deign to ask them coarsely, what the deuce could have made them do
it. I had always felt myself unworthy of obscure position, and had
dreamed, for many years, of having my merits perceived at last. And to
ask the reason would have been indeed a degradation, although there was
not a fibre of me but quivered to know all about it. Herein, however, I
overshot the mark, as I found out afterwards; for my careless manner
made people say that I must have written the whole myself--a thing so
very far below me, that I scorn to answer it. But here it is; and then
you can judge from the coarse style, and the three-decked words, whether
it be work of mine.
Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, Saturday, July 24, 1782.--"_Shipwreck
and loss of all hands_--_Heroism of a British tar_.--We hear of a sad
catastrophe from the coast of Glamorganshire. The season of great heat
and drought, from which our readers must have suffered, broke up, as
they may kindly remember, with an almost unprecedented gale of wind and
thunder, on Sunday, the 11th day of this month. In the height of the
tempest a large ship was descried, cast by the fury of the elements upon
a notorious reef of rocks, at a little place called Sker, about twenty
miles to the east of Swansea. Serious apprehensions were entertained by
the spectators for the safety of the crew, which appeared to consist of
black men. Their fears were too truly verified, for in less than an hour
the ill-fated bark succumbed to her cruel adversaries. No adult male of
either colour appears to have reached the shore alive, although a
celebrated fisherman, and heroic pensioner of our royal navy, whose name
is David Llewellyn, and who traces his lineage from the royal bard of
that patronymic, performed prodigies of valour, and proved himself
utterly regardless of his own respectable and blameless life, by
plunging repeatedly into the boiling surges, and battling with the
raging elements, in the vain hope of extricating the sufferers from a
watery grave. With the modesty which appears to be, under some
inscrutable law of nature, inseparable from courage of the highest
order, this heroic tar desires to remain in obscurity. This we could not
reconcile with our sense of duty; and if any lover of our black brethren
finds himself moved by this narration, we shall be happy to take charge
of any remittance marked 'D. L.' It grieves us to add that none escaped
except an intelligent young female, who clung to the neck of Llewellyn.
She states that the ship was the Andalusia, and had sailed from
Appledore, which is, we believe, in Devonshire. The respected Coroner
Bowles held an inquest, which afforded universal satisfaction."
Deeply surprised as I was to find how accurately, upon the whole, this
paper had got the story of it--for not much less than half was true--it
was at first a puzzle to me how they could have learned so much about
myself, and the valiant manner in which I intended to behave, but found
no opportunity. Until I remembered that a man, possessing a very bad
hat, had requested the honour of introducing himself to me, in my own
house, and had begged me by all means to consider myself at home, and to
allow him to send for refreshment, which I would not hear of twice, but
gave him what I thought up to his mark, according to manners and
appearance. And very likely he made a mistake between my description of
what I was ready, as well as desirous, to carry out, and what I bodily
did go through, ay, and more, to the back of it. However, I liked this
account very much, and resolved to encourage yet more warmly the next
man who came to me with a bad hat. What, then, was my disgust at
perceiving, at the very foot of that fine description, a tissue of stuff
like the following!
"_Another account_ [from a highly-esteemed correspondent].--The great
invasion of sand, which has for so many generations spread such wide
devastation, and occasioned such grievous loss to landowners on the
western coast of Glamorganshire, made another great stride in the storm
of Sabbath-day, July 11. A vessel of considerable burthen, named the
Andalusia, and laden with negroes, most carefully shipped for conversion
among the good merchants of Bristol, appears to have been swallowed up
by the sand; and our black fellow-creatures disappeared. It is to be
feared, from this visitation of an ever-benign Providence, that few of
them had been converted, and that the burden of their sins disabled them
from swimming. If one had been snatched as a brand from the burning,
gladly would we have recorded it, and sent him forward prayerfully for
sustenance on his way to the Lord. But the only eyewitness (whose word
must never be relied upon when mammon enters into the conflict), a
worn-out but well-meaning sailor, who fattens upon the revenue of an
overburdened country--this man ran away so fast that he saw hardly
anything. The Lord, however, knoweth His own in the days of visitation.
A little child came ashore alive, and a dead child bearing a coronet.
Many people have supposed that the pusillanimous sailor aforesaid knows
much more than he will tell. It is not for us to enter into that part of
the question. Duty, however, compels us to say, that any one desiring to
have a proper comprehension of this heavy but righteous judgment--for He
doeth all things well--cannot do better than apply to the well-known
horologist of Bridgend, Hezekiah Perkins, also to the royal family."
The above yarn may simply be described as a gallow's-rope spun by Jack
Ketch himself from all the lies of all the scoundrels he has ever
hanged, added to all that his own vile heart can invent, with the devil
to help him. The cold-blooded, creeping, and crawling manner in which I
myself was alluded to--although without the manliness even to set my
name down--as well as the low hypocrisy of the loathsome white-livered
syntax of it, made me,--well, I will say no more--the filthiness reeks
without my stirring, and, indeed, no honest man should touch it; only,
if Hezekiah Perkins had chanced to sneak into the room just then, his
wife might have prophesied shrouds and weeds.
For who else was capable of such lies, slimed with so much sanctimony,
like cellar slugs, or bilge-hole rats, rolling in Angelica, while all
their entrails are of brimstone, such as Satan would scorn to vomit? A
bitter pain went up my right arm, for the weakness of my heart, when
that miscreant gave me insult, and I never knocked him down the well.
And over and over again I have found it a thorough mistake to be always
forgiving. However, to have done with reflections which must suggest
themselves to any one situated like me--if, indeed, any one ever
was--after containing myself, on account of the people who surrounded
me, better than could have been hoped for, I spoke, because they
expected it.
"Truly, my dear friends, I am thankful for your goodwill towards me.
Also to the unknown writer, who has certainly made too much of my poor
unaided efforts. I did my best; it was but little: and who dreams of
being praised for it? Again, I am thankful to this other writer, who has
overlooked me altogether. For the sake of poor Sandy Macraw, we must
thank him that he kindly forbore to make public the name."
You should have seen the faces of all the folk around the table when I
gave them this surprise.
"Why," said one, "we thought for sure that it was you he was meaning,
Dyo dear. And in our hearts we were angry to him, for such falsehoods
large and black. Indeed and indeed, true enough it may be of a man
outlandish such as Sandy Macraw is."
"Let us not hasten to judge," I replied; "Sandy is brave enough, I
daresay, and he can take his own part well. I will not believe that he
ran away; very likely he never was there at all. If he was, he deserves
high praise for taking some little care of himself. I should not have
been so stiff this night, if I had only had the common-sense to follow
his example."
All our people began to rejoice; and yet they required, as all of us do,
something more than strongest proof.
"What reason is to show then, Dyo, that this man of letters meant not
you, but Sandy Macraw, to run away so?"
"Hopkin, read it aloud," I said; "neither do I know, nor care, what the
writer's meaning was. Only I thought there was something spoken about
his Majesty's revenue. Is it I, or is it Sandy, that belongs to the
revenue?"
This entirely settled it. All our people took it up, and neglected not
to tell one another. So that in less than three days' time, my name was
spread far and wide for the praise, and the Scotchman's for the
condemnation. I desired it not, as my friends well knew; but what use to
beat to windward, against the breath of the whole of the world?
Therefore I was not so obstinate as to set my opinion against the rest;
but left it to Mr Macraw to rebut, if he could, his pusillanimity.
As for Hezekiah Perkins, all his low creations fell upon the head from
which they sprang. I spoke to our rector about his endeavour to harm a
respectable Newton man--for you might call Macraw that by comparison,
though he lived at Porthcawl, and was not respectable--and everybody was
struck with my kindness in using such handsome terms of a rival. The
result was that Perkins lost our church-clock, which paid him as well as
a many two others, having been presented to the parish, and therefore
not likely to go without pushing. For our rector was a peppery man,
except when in the pulpit, and what he said to Hezekiah was exactly
this.
"What, Perkins! another great bill again! 'To repair of church-clock,
seven-and-sixpence; to ten miles' travelling, at threepence per
mile,'--and so on, and so on! Why, you never came further than my
brother the Colonel's, the last three times you have charged for. Allow
me to ask you a little question: to whom did you go for the keys of the
church?"
"As if I should want any keys of the church! There is no church-lock in
the county that I cannot open, as soon as whistle."
"Indeed! So you pick our lock. Do you ever open a church-door honestly,
for the purpose of worshipping the Lord? I have kept my eye upon you,
sir, because I hear that you have been reviling my parishioners. And I
happen to know that you never either opened the lock of our church or
picked it, for the last three times you have charged for. But one thing
you have picked for many years, and that is the pocket of my ratepayers.
Be off, sir--be off with your trumpery bill! We will have a good
churchman to do our clock--a thoroughly honest seaman, and a regular
church-goer."
"Do you mean that big thief, Davy Llewellyn? Well, well, do as you
please. But I will thank you to pay my bill first."
"Thank me when you get it, sir. You may fall down on your canting knees,
and thank the Lord for one thing."
"What am I to thank the Lord for? For allowing you to cheat me thus?"
"For giving me self-command enough not to knock you down, sir." With
that the rector came so nigh him, that brother Perkins withdrew in
haste; for the parson had done that sort of thing to people who ill-used
him; and the sense of the parish was always with him. Hence the
management of the church-clock passed entirely into my hands, and I kept
it almost always going, at less than half Hezekiah's price; and this
reunited me to the Church (from which my poor wife perhaps had led me
astray some little), by a monthly arrangement which reflected equal
credit on either party.
And even this was not the whole of the blessings that now rolled down
upon me, for the sake, no doubt, of little Bardie, as with the ark in
the Bible. For this fine Felix Farley was the only great author of news
at that time prevalent among us. It is true that there was another
journal nearer to us, at Hereford, and a highly good one, but for a very
clear reason it failed to have command of the public-houses. For the
customers liked both their pipes and their papers to be of the same
origin, and go together kindly. And Hereford sent out no tobacco; while
Bristol was more famous for the best Virginian birdseye, than even for
rum, or intelligence.
Therefore, as everybody gifted with the gift of reading came to the
public-houses gradually, and to compare interpretation over those two
narratives, both of which stirred our county up, my humble name was in
their mouths as freely and approvingly as the sealing-wax end of their
pipe stems. Unanimous consent accrued (when all had said the same thing
over, fifty times in different manners, and with fine-drawn argument)
that after all, and upon the whole, David Llewellyn was an honour to
county and to country.
After that, for at least a fortnight, no more dogs were set at me. When
I showed myself over a gentleman's gate, in the hope of selling fish to
him, it used to be always, "At him, Pincher!" "Into his legs, Growler,
boy!" so that I was compelled to carry my conger-rod to save me. Now,
however, and for a season till my fame grew stale, I never lifted the
latch of a gate without hearing grateful utterance, "Towser, down, you
son of a gun! Yelp and Vick, hold your stupid tongues, will you?" The
value of my legs was largely understood by gentlemen. As for the ladies
and the housemaids, if conceit were in my nature, what a run it would
have had! Always and always the same am I, and above even women's
opinions. But I know no other man whose head would not have been turned
with a day of it. For my rap at the door was scarcely given (louder,
perhaps, than it used to be) before every maid in the house was out, and
the lady looking through the blinds. I used to dance on the step, and
beat my arms on my breast, with my basket down between my legs, and
tremble almost for a second rap; and then it was, "Like your imperence!"
"None of your stinking stuff!" and so on. But now they ran down
beautifully, and looked up under their eyelids at me, and left me to
show them what I liked, and never beat down a halfpenny, and even
accepted my own weight. Such is the grand effect of glory; and I might
have kissed every one of them, and many even of the good plain cooks, if
I could have reconciled it with my sense of greatness.
CHAPTER XIX.
A CRAFT BEYOND THE LAW.
Colonel Lougher, of Candleston Court, was one of the finest and noblest
men it was ever my luck to come across. He never would hear a word
against me, any more than I would against him; and no sooner did I see
him upon the Bench than I ceased to care what the evidence was. If they
failed to prove their falsehoods (as nearly always came to pass), he
dismissed them with a stern reprimand for taking away my character; and
if they seemed to establish anything by low devices against me, what did
he say? Why, no more than this: "David, if what they say be true, you
appear to have forgotten yourself in a very unusual manner. You have
promised me always to improve; and I thought that you were doing it.
This seems to be a trifling charge--however, I must convict you. The
penalty is one shilling, and the costs fifteen."
"May it please your worship," I always used to answer, "is an honest man
to lose his good name, and pay those who have none for stealing it?"
Having seen a good deal of the world, he always felt the force of this,
but found it difficult to say so with prejudiced men observing him. Only
I knew that my fine and costs would be slipped into my hand by-and-by,
with a glimpse of the Candleston livery.
This was no more than fair between us; for not more than seven
generations had passed since Griffith Llewellyn, of my true stock, had
been the proper and only bard to the great Lord Lougher of Coity, whence
descended our good Colonel. There had been some little mistake about the
departure of the title, no doubt through extremes of honesty, but no
lord in the county came of better blood than Colonel Lougher. To such a
man it was a hopeless thing for the bitterest enemy--if he had one--to
impute one white hair's breadth of departure from the truth. A
thoroughly noble man to look at, and a noble man to hearken to, because
he knew not his own kindness, but was kind to every one. Now this good
man had no child at all, as generally happens to very good men, for fear
of mankind improving much. And the great king of Israel, David, from
whom our family has a tradition--yet without any Jewish blood in us--he
says (if I am not mistaken) that it is a sure mark of the ungodly to
have children at their desire, and to leave the rest of their substance
to ungodly infants.
Not to be all alone, the Colonel, after the death of his excellent wife,
persuaded his only sister, the Lady Bluett, widow of Lord Bluett, to set
up with him at Candleston. And this she was not very loath to do,
because her eldest son, the present Lord Bluett, was of a wild and
sporting turn, and no sooner became of age but that he wanted no mother
over him. Therefore she left him for a while to his own devices, hoping
every month to hear of his suddenly repenting.
Now this was a lady fit to look at. You might travel all day among
people that kept drawing-rooms, and greenhouses, and the new safe of
music, well named from its colour "grand paeony," and you might go up and
down Bridgend, even on a fair-day, yet nobody would you set eyes on fit
to be looked at as a lady on the day that you saw Lady Bluett.
It was not that she pretended anything; that made all the difference.
Only she felt such a thorough knowledge that she was no more than we
might have been, except for a width of accidents. And nothing ever
parted her from any one with good in him. For instance, the first time
she saw me again (after thirty years, perhaps, from the season of her
beauty-charm, when I had chanced to win all the prizes in the sports
given at Candleston Court, for the manhood of now Colonel Lougher), not
only did she at once recognise me, in spite of all my battering, but she
held out her beautiful hand, and said, "How are you, Mr Llewellyn?"
Nobody had ever called me "Mr Llewellyn" much till then; but, by good
luck, a washerwoman heard it and repeated it; and since that day there
are not many people (leaving out clods and low enemies) with the face to
accost me otherwise.
However, this is not to the purpose, any more than it is worthy of me.
How can it matter what people call me when I am clear of my fish-basket?
as, indeed, I always feel at the moment of unstrapping. No longer any
reputation to require my fist ready. I have done my utmost, and I have
received the money.
These are the fine perceptions which preserve a man of my position from
the effects of calumny. And, next to myself, the principal guardian of
my honour was this noble Colonel Lougher. Moreover, a fine little chap
there was, Lady Bluett's younger son, Honourable Rodney Bluett by name;
for his father had served under Admiral Rodney, and been very friendly
with him, and brought him to church as a godfather. This young Rodney
Bluett was about ten years old at that time, and the main delight of his
life was this, to come fishing with old Davy. The wondrous yarns I used
to spin had such an effect on his little brain, that his prospects on
dry land, and love of his mother, and certain inheritance from the
Colonel, were helpless to keep him from longing always to see the things
which I had seen. With his large blue eyes upon me, and his flaxen hair
tied back, and his sleeves tucked up for paddling, hour by hour he would
listen, when the weather was too rough to do much more than look at it.
Or if we went out in a boat (as we did when he could pay for hiring, and
when his mother was out of the way), many and many a time I found him,
when he should have been quick with the bait, dwelling upon the fine
ideas which my tales had bred in him. I took no trouble in telling them,
neither did I spare the truth when it would come in clumsily (like a
lubber who cannot touch his hat), but they all smelled good and true,
because they had that character.
However, he must bide his time, as every one of us has to do, before I
make too much of him. And just at the period now in hand he was down in
my black books for never coming near me. It may have been that he had
orders not to be so much with me, and very likely that was wise; for
neither his mother nor his uncle could bear the idea of his going to
sea, but meant to make a red herring of him, as we call those poor
land-soldiers. Being so used to his pretty company, and his admiration,
also helping him as I did to spend his pocket-money, I missed him more
than I could have believed; neither could I help sorrowing at this great
loss of opportunity; for many an honest shilling might have been turned
ere winter by the hire of my boat to him when he came out with me
fishing. I had prepared a scale of charges, very little over Captain
Bob's, to whom he used to pay 4d. an hour, when I let him come after the
whiting with me. And now, for no more than 6d. an hour, he should have
my very superior boat, and keep her head by my directions, for he
understood a rudder, and bait my hooks, and stow my fish, and enjoy (as
all boys should) the idea of being useful.
For, as concerns that little barkie, I had by this time secured myself
from any further uneasiness, or troublesome need of concealment, by a
bold and spirited facing of facts, which deserve the congratulation of
all honest fishermen. The boat, like her little captain, was at first
all white--as I may have said--but now, before her appearance in public,
I painted her gunwale and strakes bright blue, even down to her
water-mark; and then, without meddling with her name, or rather that of
the ship she belonged to, I retraced very lightly, but so that any one
could read it, the name of the port from which she hailed, and which (as
I felt certain now, from what I had seen on the poor wrecked ship) must
have been San Salvador; and the three last letters were so plain, that I
scarcely had to touch them.
Now this being done, and an old worn painter shipped instead of the new
one, which seemed to have been chopped off with an axe, I borrowed a
boat and stood off to sea from Porthcawl Point, where they beach them,
having my tackle and bait on board, as if for an evening off the Tuskar,
where turbot and whiting-pollack are. Here I fished until dusk of the
night, and as long as the people ashore could see me; but as soon as all
was dark and quiet, I just pulled into Newton Bay, and landed opposite
the old "Red house," where my new boat lay in ordinary, snug as could
be, and all out of sight. For the ruins of this old "Red house" had such
a repute for being haunted, ever since a dreadful murder cast a ban
around it, that even I never wished to stop longer than need be there at
night; and once or twice I heard a noise that went to the marrow of my
back; of which, however, I will say no more, until it comes to the
proper place. Enough that no man, woman, or child, for twenty miles
round, except myself, had a conscience clear enough to go in there after
dark, and scarcely even by daylight. My little craft was so light and
handy, that, with the aid of the rollers ready, I led her down over the
beach myself, and presently towed her out to sea, with the water as
smooth as a duck-pond, and the tide of the neap very silent. The weather
was such as I could not doubt, being now so full of experience.
Therefore, I had no fear to lie in a very dangerous berth indeed, when
any cockle of a sea gets up, or even strong tides are running. This was
the west-end fork of the Tuskar, making what we call "callipers;" for
the back of the Tuskar dries at half-ebb, and a wonderful ridge stops
the run of the tide, not only for weeds but for fish as well. Here with
my anchor down, I slept, as only a virtuous man can sleep.
In the grey of the morning, I was up, ere the waning moon was done with,
and found the very thing to suit me going on delightfully. The heavy dew
of autumn, rising from the land by perspiration, spread a cloud along
the shore. A little mist was also crawling on the water here and there;
and having slept with a watch-coat and tarpaulin over me, I shook myself
up, without an ache, and like a good bee at the gate of the hive, was
brisk for making honey.
Hence I pulled away from land, with the heavy boat towing the light one,
and even Sandy Macraw unable to lay his gimlet eye on me. And thus I
rowed, until quite certain of being over three miles from land. Then
with the broad sun rising nobly, and for a moment bowing, till the white
fog opened avenues, I spread upon my pole a shirt which mother Jones had
washed for me. It was the time when Sandy Macraw was bound to be up to
his business; and I had always made a point of seeing that he did it. To
have a low fellow of itchy character, and no royal breed about him,
thrust by a feeble and reckless government into the berth that by nature
was mine, and to find him not content with this, but even in his hours
of duty poaching, both day and night, after my fish; and when I desired
to argue with him, holding his tongue to irritate me,--satisfaction
there could be none for it; the only alleviation left me was to rout up
this man right early, and allow him no chance of napping.
Therefore, I challenged him with my shirt, thus early in the morning,
because he was bound to be watching the world, if he acted up to his
nasty business, such as no seaman would deign to; and after a quarter of
an hour perhaps, very likely it was his wife that answered. At any rate
there was a signal up, and through my spy-glass I saw that people wanted
to launch a boat, but failed. Therefore I made a great waving of shirt,
as much as to say, "extreme emergency; have the courage to try again."
Expecting something good from this, they laid their shoulders, and
worked their legs, and presently the boat was bowing on the
gently-fluted sea.
Now it was not that I wanted help, for I could have managed it all well
enough; but I wanted witnesses. For never can I bear to seem to set at
nought legality. And these men were sure, upon half-a-crown, to place
the facts before the public in an honest manner. So I let them row away
for the very lives of them, as if the salvage of the nation hung upon
their thumbs and elbows; only I dowsed my shirt as soon as I found them
getting eager. And I thought that they might as well hail me first, and
slope off disappointment.
"Hoy there! Boat ahoy! What, old Davy Llewellyn!"
What man had a right to call me "old"? There I was as fresh as ever. And
I felt it the more that the man who did it was grey on the cheeks with a
very large family, and himself that vile old Sandy! Nevertheless I
preserved good manners.
"Ship your starboard oars, you lubbers. Do you want to run me down? What
the devil brings you here, at this time of the morning?" Hereupon these
worthy fellows dropped their oars, from wonder; until I showed them
their mistake, and begged them to sheer off a little. For if I had
accepted rope, such as they wished to throw me, they might have put in
adverse claims, and made me pay for my own boat!
"When a poor man has been at work all night," said I, to break off their
officiousness; "while all you lazy galley-rakers were abed and snoring,
can't he put his shirt to dry, without you wanting to plunder him?"
To temper off what might appear a little rude, though wholesome, I now
permitted them to see a stoneware gallon full of beer, or at least I had
only had two pints out. Finding this to be the case, and being hot with
rowing so rapidly to my rescue, they were well content to have some
beer, and drop all further claims. And as I never can bear to be mean, I
gave them the two and sixpence also.
Sandy Macraw took all this money; and I only hope that he shared it
duly; and then, as he never seemed at all to understand my contempt of
him, he spoke in that dry drawl of his, which he always droned to drive
me into very dreadful words, and then to keep his distance.
"I am heartily glad, ma mon, to see the loock ye have encoontered. Never
shall ye say agin that I have the advantage of ye. The boit stud me in
mickle siller; but ye have grappit a boit for nort."
I cannot write down his outlandish manner of pronouncing English; nor
will I say much more about it; because he concealed his jealousy so,
that I had no enjoyment of it, except when I reasoned with myself. And I
need have expected nothing better from such a self-controlling rogue.
But when we came to Porthcawl Point--where some shelter is from wind,
and two public-houses, and one private--the whole affair was so
straightforward, and the distance of my boat from shore, at time of
capture, so established and so witnessed, that no steward of any manor
durst even cast sheep's-eyes at her. A paper was drawn up and signed;
and the two public-houses, at my expense, christened her "Old Davy."
And indeed, for a little spell, I had enough to do with people, who came
at all hours of the day, to drink the health of my boat and me; many of
whom seemed to fail to remember really who was the one to pay. And being
still in cash a little, and so generous always, I found a whole basket
of whiting, and three large congers, and a lobster, disappear against
chalk-marks, whereof I had no warning, and far worse, no flavour. But
what I used to laugh at was, that when we explained to one another how
the law lay on this question, and how the craft became legally mine, as
a derelict from the Andalusia, drifting at more than a league from
land,--all our folk being short and shallow in the English language,
took up the word, and called my boat, all over the parish, my "RELICT;"
as if, in spite of the Creator's wisdom, I were dead and my wife alive!
CHAPTER XX.
CONFIDENTIAL INTERCOURSE.
But everybody must be tired of all this trouble about that boat. It
shows what a state of things we live in, and what a meddlesome lot we
are, that a good man cannot receive a gift straight into his hands from
Providence, which never before rewarded him, though he said his prayers
every night almost, and did his very best to cheat nobody; it proves, at
least to my mind, something very rotten somewhere, when a man of
blameless character must prove his right to what he finds. However, I
had proved my right, and cut in Colonel Lougher's woods a larger pole
than usual, because the law would guarantee me, if at all assaulted.
And truly, after all my care to be on the right side of it, such a vile
attack of law was now impending on me, that with all my study of it, and
perpetual attempts to jam its helm up almost into the very eye of
reason, my sails very nearly failed to draw, and left me shivering in
the wind. But first for what comes foremost.
At that particular moment all things seemed to be most satisfactory.
Here was my property duly secured and most useful to me, here was a run
of fish up from the Mumbles of a very superior character, here was my
own reputation spread by the vigilance of the public press, so that I
charged three farthings a-pound more than Sandy Mac did, and here was my
cottage once more all alive with the mirth of our Bunny and Bardie. To
see them playing at hide-and-seek with two chairs and a table; or
"French and English," which I taught them; or "come and visit my
grandmother;" or making a cat of the kettle-holder, with a pair of ears
and a tail to it; or giving a noble dinner-party with cockles and
oyster-shells, and buttons, and apple-peel chopped finely; or, what was
even a grander thing, eating their own dinners prettily, with their
dolls beside them,--scarcely any one would have believed that these
little ones had no mothers.
And yet they did not altogether seem to be forgetful, or to view the
world as if there were no serious side to it. Very grave discourse was
sometimes held between their bouts of play, and subjects of great depth
and wonder introduced by doll's clothes. For instance:--
"Hasn't 'a got no mama, poor Bunny, to thread 'e needle?"
"No, my dear," I answered, for my grandchild looked stupid about it;
"poor Bunny's mother is gone to heaven."
"My mama not gone to heaven. My mama come demorrow-day. I'se almost
tired of yaiting, old Davy, but she sure to come demorrow-day."
But as the brave little creature spoke, I saw that "the dust was in her
eyes." This was her own expression always, to escape the reproach of
crying, when her lonely heart was working with its misty troubles, and
sent the tears into her eyes, before the tongue could tell of them.
"Demorrow-day, demorrow-day," all her loss was to be recovered always on
"demorrow-day."
Not even so much as a doll had been saved from the total wreck of her
fortunes; and when I beheld her wistful eyes set one day upon Bunny's
doll--although only fit for hospital, having one arm and one leg and no
nose, besides her neck being broken--I set to at once and sharpened my
knife upon a piece of sandstone. Then I sought out a piece of abele,
laid by from the figure-head of a wrecked Dutchman, and in earnest I
fell to, and shaped such a carving of a doll as never was seen before or
since. Of course the little pet came, and stood, and watched every chip
as I sliced it along, with sighs of deep expectancy, and a laugh when I
got to the tail of it; and of course she picked up every one, not only
as neatest of the neat, but also accounting them sacred offsets of the
mysterious doll unborn. I could not get her to go to bed; and it was as
good as a guinea to me to see the dancing in her eyes, and the spring of
her body returning.
"'E can make a boofely doll, old Davy; but 'e doesn't know the yay to
dess a doll."
"You are quite wrong there," said I, perceiving that I should go up, or
down, according to my assertion; and it made her open her eyes to see me
cut out, with about five snips, a pair of drawers quite good enough for
any decent woman. And she went to bed hugging the doll in that state,
and praying to have her improved to-morrow.
At breakfast-time mother Jones dropped in, for she loved a good
salt-herring, and to lay down the law for the day almost; as if I knew
scarce anything. And I always let her have her talk, and listened to it
gravely; and clever women, as a rule, should not be denied of this
attention; for if they are, it sours them. While she was sucking the
last of the tail, and telling me excellent scandal, my little lady
marched in straight, having finished her breakfast long ago, and bearing
her new doll pompously. The fly-away colour in her cheeks, which always
made her beautiful, and the sparkle of her gleeful eyes, were come again
with pleasure, and so was the lovely pink of her lips, and the proper
aspect of her nose. Also she walked with such motherly rank, throwing
her legs with a female jerk--it is enough for me to say that any
newly-married woman would have kissed her all round the room.
Now, mother Jones, having ten fine children (five male and five female)
going about with clothes up to their forks, need not have done what she
did, I think, and made me so bashful in my own house. For no sooner did
she see this doll, than she cried, "Oh, my!" and covered up her face.
The little maid looked up at me in great wonder, as if I were leading
her astray; and I felt so angry with Mrs Jones, after all the things I
had seen abroad, and even in English churches, that I would not trust
myself to speak. However, to pay her out for that, I begged her to cure
the mischief herself, which she could not well decline; and some of the
green blind still remaining, Dolly became a most handsome sight, with a
crackle in front and a sweeping behind, so that our clerk, a good
natured man, was invited to christen her; and "Patty Green" was the name
he gave: and Bunny's doll was nobody. Such a baby-like thing might seem
almost below my dignity, and that of all the rest of us; only this child
had the power to lead us, as by a special enchantment, back to our own
childhood. Moreover, it was needful for me to go through with this
doll's birth (still more so with her dress, of course, having her a
female), because through her I learned a great deal more of Bardie's
history than ever our Bunny could extract.
Everybody who has no patience with the ways of childhood, may be vexed,
and must be vexed, with our shipwrecked maid for knowing many things,
but not the right; but I think she was to blame, only for her innocence.
In her tiny brain was moving some uncertain sense of wrong; whether done
by herself, or to her, was beyond her infant groping. If she could have
made her mind up, in its little milky shell, that the evil had befallen,
without harm on her part, doubtless she had done her best to let us know
the whole of it. Her best, of course, would be but little, looking at
her age and so on; and perhaps from some harsh word or frown, stamped
into the tender flux of infantile memory, a heavy dread both darkened
and repressed much recollection. Hence, if one tried to examine her, in
order to find out who she was, she would shake her head, and say, "No!
sompfin;" as she always did when puzzled or unable to pronounce a word.
The only chance of learning even any little things she knew, was to
leave her to her own way, and not interrupt her conversation with wooden
or crockery playmates. All of these she endowed with life, having such
power of life herself, and she reckoned them up for good behaviour, or
for bad, as the case might be. And often was I touched at heart, after a
day of bitter fighting with a world that wronged me, by hearing her in
baby-prattle tell her playthings of their unkindness to a little thing
with none to love her.
But when I had finished Patty's face up to complete expression, with two
black buttons for her eyes, and a cowry for her mouth, and a nose of
coral, also a glorious head of hair of crinkled sea-weed growing out of
a shell (toothed like an ivory comb almost), the ecstasy of the child
was such, that I obtained, as well as deserved, some valuable
information.
"Patty Geen, 'e's been aye good," I heard her say in my window-place,
one morning after breakfast; "and 'e is the most boofely doll ever seen,
and I tell 'a sompfin; only 'e musn't tell anybody, till my dear mama
comes. Nat wasn't ickle bother, Patty."
"How do you know, Miss?" Patty inquired by means of my voice in the
distance, and a little art I had learned abroad of throwing it into
corners.
"I tell 'a, Patty, I tell 'a. I 'ouldn't tell 'e nasty man, but I tell
old Davy some day. Ickle bother not like nat at all. Ickle bother not so
big enough, and only two ickle teeth in front, and his hair all gone
ayay it is, but mama say soon come back again."
"And what is little brother's name?" said Patty, in a whisper; "and what
is your name and papa's?"
"Oh, 'e silly Patty Geen! As if 'e didn't know I'se Bardie, ever since I
was anytin. And papa, is papa, he is. Patty, I'se kite ashamed of 'a.
'E's such a silly ickle fin!"
"Well, I know I am not very clever, Miss. But tell me some more things
you remember."
"I tell 'a, if 'e stop kiet. 'I 'ish 'a many happy turns of the day,
Miss Bardie. Many happy turns of the day to 'a!' And poor Bardie get off
her stool, and say what her dear papa tell. 'Gentleyums and yadies, I'se
aye much obiged to 'a.' And then have boofely appledies, and carbies,
and a ickle dop of good yiney-piney. Does 'e know 'hot that means, poor
Patty?"
"No, my dear; how should I know?"
"'E mustn't call me 'my dear,' I tell 'a. 'E must know 'a's pace in
yife. Why, 'e's only a doll, Patty, and Bardie's a young yady, and a
'streamly 'cocious gal I is, and the gentleyums all say so. Ickle bother
can't say nuffin, without me to sow him the yay of it. But Bardie say
almost anyfin; anyfin, when I yikes to ty. Bardie say 'Pomyoleanian
dog!'"
This cost her a long breath, and a great effort; but Patty expressed
intense amazement at such power of diction, and begged to know something
more about that extraordinary animal.
"Pomyoleanian dog is yite, yite all over 'sept his collar, and his
collar's boo. And he's got hair that long, Patty, ever so much longer
than yours. And he yun yound and yound, he does. Oh, I do so yant my
Pomyoleanian dog!"
Patty waited for two great tears to run quietly down two little cheeks;
and then she expressed some contempt of the dog, and a strong desire to
hear some more about the happy turns of the day.
"Don't 'e be jealous, now, Patty, I tell 'a. 'E ickle yite dog can eat,
but 'e can't. And happy turns of the day is yen a geat big gal is two
years old with a ickle bother. And he can't say nuffin, 'cos he grow
too strong enough, and 'e young yady must repy; and ayebody yooks at 'a,
and yaffs, and put 'e gasses up, and say, 'Hot a 'cocious ickle fin!'
And my dear papa say, 'Hot a good gal!' and mama come and tiss 'a all
over a'most, and then 'e all have some more puddeny-pie!"
Overcome with that last memory, she could go no further; and being
unable to give her pies, I felt myself bound to abandon any more
inquiries. For that child scarcely ever roared, so as to obtain relief;
but seemed with a kind of self-control--such as unlucky people form,
however early in their lives--to take her troubles inwardly, and to be
full to the very lip of them, without the power of spilling. This,
though a comfort to other people, is far worse for themselves, I fear.
And I knew that she did love pastry rarely; for one day, after a fine
pair of soles, I said to the two children, "Now, put your little hands
together, and thank God for a good dinner." Bunny did this in a grateful
manner, but Bardie said, "No, I 'ont, old Davy; I'll thank God when I
gets puddeny-pie."
Upon the whole, I concluded thus, that the little creature was after all
(and as might have been expected with any other child almost) too young,
in the third year of her age, to maintain any clear ideas of place, or
time, or names, or doings, or anything that might establish from her own
words only, whence she came or who she was. However, I now knew quite
enough, if the right people ever came to seek for her, to "'dentify"
her, as she expressed it to that stupid Coroner.
Moxy Thomas came to fetch her back to Sker, in a few days' time. I was
now resolved to keep her, and she resolved to stay with me--and
doubtless I had first right to her. But when I saw poor Moxy's face, and
called to mind her desolation, and when she kissed my fishy hand to let
her have this comfort, after all the Lord had taken from her, I could
not find it in my heart to stand to my own interest. It came across me
too that Bardie scarcely throve on so much fish; and we never had any
butcher's meat, or meat of any kind at all, unless I took shares in a
pig, after saving up money for Christmas, or contrived to defend myself
against the hares that would run at me so, when I happened to come
through a gate at night.
So with a clearly-pronounced brave roar, having more music than Bunny's
in it, and enough to wash a great deal of "dust" out of her woefully
lingering eyes, away she went in Moxy's arms, with Patty Green in her
own looking likely to get wet through. And Bunny stuck her thumbs into
my legs, which she had a knack of doing, especially after sucking them;
so thus we stood, at our cottage door, looking after Bardie; and I took
off my hat, and she spread her hand out, in the intervals of woe; and
little thought either of us, I daresay, of the many troubles in store
for us both.
Only before that grievous parting, she had done a little thing which
certainly did amaze me. And if anybody knows the like, I shall be glad
to hear of it. I had a snug and tidy locker very near the fireplace,
wherein I kept some little trifles; such as Bunny had an eye for, but
was gradually broken into distant admiration. One morning I came
suddenly in from looking to my night-lines, and a pretty scene I saw.
The door of my cupboard was wide open, and there stood little Bardie
giving a finishing lick to her fingers. Bunny also in the corner, with
her black eyes staring, as if at the end of the world itself. However,
her pinafore was full.
No sooner did my grandchild see me, than she rushed away with shrieks,
casting down all stolen goods in agony of conscience. I expected Bardie
to do the same; but to my great wonderment up she walked and faced me.
"Must I beat poor Patty Geen?" The tears were in her eyes at having to
propose so sad a thing. And she stroked the doll, to comfort her.
"Beat poor Patty!" said I, in amazement. "Why, what harm has Patty
done?"
"Nare she have been, all 'e time, stealing 'a soogar, old Davy!" And she
looked at me as if she had done a good turn by the information. I
scarcely knew what to do, I declare; for her doll was so truly alive to
her, that she might and perhaps did believe it. However, I shut her in
my little bedroom, until her heart was almost broken; and then I tried
to reason with her, on the subject of telling lies; but she could not
understand what they were; until I said what I was forced to do, when I
went among bad people.
That evening, after she was gone, and while I was very dull about it,
finding poor Bunny so slow and stupid, and nothing to keep me wide
awake--there I was bound to be wide awake, more than at Petty Sessions
even, when mine enemies throng against me. For almost before I had
smoked two pipes, or made up my mind what to do with myself, finding a
hollow inside of me, the great posting-coach from Bridgend came up, with
the sun setting bright on its varnish, and at my very door it stopped.
Next to the driver sat a constable who was always unjust to me; and
from the inside came out first Justice Anthony Stew of Pen Coed, as
odious and as meddlesome a justice of the peace as ever signed a
warrant; and after him came a tall elderly gentleman, on whom I had
never set eyes before, but I felt that he must be a magistrate.
CHAPTER XXI.
CROSS-EXAMINATION.
Those justices of the peace, although appointed by his Majesty, have
never been a comfort to me, saving only Colonel Lougher. They never seem
to understand me, or to make out my desires, or to take me at my word,
as much as I take them at theirs. My desire has always been to live in a
painfully loyal manner, to put up with petty insults from customers who
know no better, leaving them to self-reflection, and if possible to
repentance, while I go my peaceful way, nor let them hear their money
jingle, or even spend it in their sight. To be pleased and trustful also
with the folk who trust in me, and rather to abandon much, and give back
twopence in a shilling, than cause any purchaser self-reproach for
having sworn falsely before the bench,--now, if all this would not do,
to keep me out of the session-books, can any man point out a clearer
proof of the vicious administration of what they call "justice" around
our parts? And when any trumpery case was got up, on purpose to worry
and plague me, the only chance left me, of any fair-play, was to throw
up my day's work, and wear out my shoes in trudging to Candleston Court,
to implore that good Colonel Lougher to happen to sit on the bench that
day.
When those two gentlemen alighted from that rickety old coach, and
ordered that very low constable to pace to and fro at the door of my
house, boldly I came out to meet them, having injured no man, nor done
harm of any sort that I could think of, lately. Stew came first, a man
of no lineage, but pushed on by impudence; "Anthony Stew can look you
through," an English poacher said of him; and this he tried always to do
with me, and thoroughly welcome he was to succeed.
I will not say that my inner movements may not have been uneasy, in
spite of all my rectitude; however, I showed their two worships inside,
in the very host style of the quarter-deck such as I had gathered from
that coroneted captain, my proud connection with whom, perhaps, I may
have spoken of ere this, or at any rate ought to have done so, for I had
the honour of swabbing his pumps for him almost every morning; and he
was kind enough to call me "Davy."
Every Briton, in his own house, is bound to do his utmost; so I touched
my grey forelock, and made two good bows, and set a chair for each of
them, happening to have no more just now, though with plenty of money to
buy them. Self-controlled as I always am, many things had tried me, of
late, almost to the verge of patience; such imputations as fall most
tenderly on a sorrowful widower; and my pure admiration of Bardie, and
certainty of her lofty birth, had made me the more despise such
foulness. So it came to pass that two scandalous men were given over by
the doctors (for the pole I had cut was a trifle too thick),
nevertheless they recovered bravely, and showed no more gratitude
towards God, than to take out warrants against me! But their low devices
were frustrated by the charge being taken before Colonel Lougher. And
what did that excellent magistrate do? He felt himself compelled to do
something. Therefore he fined me a shilling per head for the two heads
broken, with 10s. costs (which he paid, as usual), and gave me a very
severe reprimand.
"Llewellyn," he said, "the time is come for you to leave off this course
of action. I do not wonder that you felt provoked; but you must seek for
satisfaction in the legal channels. Suppose these men had possessed thin
heads, why you might have been guilty of murder! Make out his commitment
to Cardiff Gaol, in default of immediate payment."
All this was good, and sustained one's faith in the efficacy of British
law; and trusting that nothing might now be amiss in the minds of these
two magistrates, I fetched the block of sycamore, whereupon my fish were
in the habit of having their fins and tails chopped off; and there I
sate down, and presented myself both ready and respectful. On the other
hand, my visitors looked very grave and silent; whether it were to
prolong my doubts, or as having doubts of their own, perhaps.
"Your worships," I began at last, in fear of growing timorous, with any
longer waiting--"your worships must have driven far."
"To see you, Llewellyn," Squire Stew said, with a nasty snap, hoping the
more to frighten me.
"Not only a pleasure to me, your worships, but a very great honour to my
poor house. What will your worships be pleased to eat? Butcher's meat I
would have had, if only I had known of it. But one thing I can truly
say, my cottage has the best of fish."
"That I can believe," said Stew; "because you sell all the worst to me.
Another such a trick, Llewellyn, and I have you in the stocks."
This astonished me so much--for his fish had never died over four
days--that nothing but my countenance could express my feelings.
"I crave your pardon, Justice Stew," said the tall grey gentleman with
the velvet coat, as he rose in a manner that overawed me, for he stood a
good foot over Anthony Stew, and a couple of inches over me; "may we not
enter upon the matter which has led us to this place?"
"Certainly, Sir Philip, certainly," Stew replied, with a style which
proved that Sir Philip must be of no small position; "all I meant, Sir
Philip, was just to let you see the sort of fellow we have to deal
with."
"My integrity is well known," I answered, turning from him to the
gentleman; "not only in this parish, but for miles and miles round. It
is not my habit to praise myself; and in truth I find no necessity. Even
a famous newspaper, so far away as Bristol, the celebrated 'Felix
Farley's Journal'----"
"Just so," said the elder gentleman; "it is that which has brought us
here; although, as I fear, on a hopeless errand."
With these words he leaned away, as if he had been long accustomed to be
disappointed. To me it was no small relief to find their business
peaceable, and that neither a hare which had rushed at me like a lion
through a gate by moonlight, nor a stupid covey of partridges (nineteen
in number, which gave me no peace while excluded from my dripping-pan),
nor even a pheasant cock whose crowing was of the most insulting
tone,--that none of these had been complaining to the bench emboldened
me, and renewed my sense of reason. But I felt that Justice Stew could
not be trusted for a moment to take this point in a proper light.
Therefore I kept my wits in the chains, taking soundings of them both.
"Now, Llewellyn, no nonsense, mind!" began Squire Stew, with his face
like a hatchet, and scollops over his eyebrows: "what we are come for is
very simple, and need not unsettle your conscience, as you have allowed
it to do, I fear. Keep your aspect of innocent wonder for the next time
you are brought before me. I only wish your fish were as bright and
slippery as you are."
"May I humbly ask what matter it pleases your worship to be thinking
of?"
"Oh, of course you cannot imagine, Davy. But let that pass, as you were
acquitted, by virtue of your innocent face, in the teeth of all the
evidence. If you had only dropped your eyes, instead of wondering so
much--but never mind, stare as you may, some day we shall be sure to
have you."
Now, I will put it to anybody whether this was not too bad, in my own
house, and with the Bench seated on my own best chairs! However, knowing
what a man he was, and how people do attribute to me things I never
dreamed of, and what little chance a poor man has if he takes to
contradiction, all I did was to look my feelings, which were truly
virtuous. Nor were they lost upon Sir Philip.
"You will forgive me, good sir, I hope," he said to Squire Anthony; "but
unless we are come with any charge against this--Mr Llewellyn, it is
hardly fair to reopen any awkward questions of which he has been
acquitted. In his own house, moreover, and when he has offered kind
hospitality to us--in a word, I will say no more."
Here he stopped, for fear perhaps of vexing the other magistrate; and I
touched my grizzled curl and said, "Sir, I thank you for a gentleman."
This was the way to get on with me, instead of driving and bullying; for
a gentleman or a lady can lead me to any extremes of truth; but not a
lawyer, much less a justice. And Anthony Stew had no faith in truth,
unless she came out to his own corkscrew.
"British tar," he exclaimed, with his nasty sneer; "now for some more of
your heroism! You look as if you were up for doing something very
glorious. I have seen that colour in your cheeks when you sold me a
sewin that shone in the dark. A glorious exploit; wasn't it now?"
"That it was, your worship, to such a customer as you."
While Anthony Stew was digesting this, which seemed a puzzle to him, the
tall grey gentleman, feeling but little interest in my commerce, again
desired to hurry matters. "Forgive me again, I beseech you, good sir;
but ere long it will be dark, and as yet we have learned nothing."
"Leave it all to me, Sir Philip; your wisest plan is to leave it to me.
I know all the people around these parts, and especially this fine
fellow. I have made a sort of study of him, because I consider him what
I may call a thoroughly typical character."
"I am not a typical character," I answered, over-hastily, for I found
out afterwards what he meant. "I never tipple; but when I drink, my rule
is to go through with it."
Squire Stew laughed loud at my mistake, as if he had been a great
scholar himself; and even Sir Philip smiled a little in his sweet and
lofty manner. No doubt but I was vexed for a moment, scenting (though I
could not see) error on my own part. But now I might defy them both,
ever to write such a book as this. For vanity has always been so foreign
to my nature, that I am sure to do my best, and, after all, think
nothing of it, so long as people praise me. And now, in spite of all
rude speeches, if Sir Philip had only come without that Squire Anthony,
not a thing of all that happened would I have retained from him. It is
hopeless for people to say that my boat crippled speech on my part.
Tush! I would have pulled her plug out on the tail of the Tuskar rather
than one moment stand against the light for Bardie.
Squire Stew asked me all sorts of questions having no more substance in
them than the blowing-hole at the end of an egg, or the bladder of a
skate-fish. All of these I answered boldly, finding his foot outside my
shoes. And so he came back again, as they do after trying foolish
excursions, to the very point he started with.
"Am I to understand, my good fellow, that the ship, which at least you
allow to be wrecked, may have been or might have been something like a
foreigner?"
"Therein lies the point whereon your worship cannot follow me, any more
than could the Coroner. Neither he, nor his clerk, nor the rest of the
jury, would listen to common-sense about it. That ship no more came from
Appledore than a whale was hatched from a herring's egg."
"I knew it; I knew it," broke in Sir Philip. "They have only small
coasters at Appledore. I said that the newspaper must be wrong. However,
for the sake of my two poor sons, I am bound to leave no clue
unfollowed. There is nothing more to be done, Mr Stew, except to express
my many and great obligations for your kindness." Herewith he made a
most stately bow, and gave even me a corner of it.
"Stay, Sir Philip; one moment more. This fellow is such a crafty file.
Certain I am that he never would look so unnaturally frank and candid
unless he were in his most slippery mood. You know the old proverb, I
daresay, 'Put a Taffy on his mettle, he'll boil Old Nick in his own
fish-kettle.' Dyo, where did your boat come from?"
This question he put in a very sudden, and I might well say vicious,
manner, darting a glance at me like the snake's tongues in the island of
Das Cobras. I felt such contempt that I turned my back, and gave him a
view of the "boofely buckens" admired so much by Bardie.
"Well done!" he cried. "Your resources, Dyo, are an infinite credit to
you. And, do you know, when I see your back, I can almost place some
faith in you. It is broad and flat and sturdy, Dyo. Ah! many a fine hare
has swung there head downwards. Nevertheless, we must see this boat."
Nothing irritates me more than what low Englishmen call "chaff." I
like to be pleasant and jocular upon other people; but I don't like
that sort of thing tried upon me when I am not in the humour for it.
Therefore I answered crustily, "Your worship is welcome to see my boat,
and go to sea in her if you please, with the plug out of her bottom.
Under Porthcawl Point she lies; and all the people there know all about
her. Only, I will beg your worship to excuse my presence, lest you
should have low suspicions that I came to twist their testimony."
"Well said, David! well said, my fine fellow! Almost I begin to believe
thee, in spite of all experience. Now, Sir Philip."
"Your pardon, good sir; I follow you into the carriage."
So off they set to examine my boat; and I hoped to see no more of them,
for one thing was certain--to wit, that their coachman never would face
the sandhills, and no road ever is, or ever can be, to Porthcawl; so
that these two worthy gentlemen needs must exert their noble legs for at
least one-half of the distance. And knowing that Squire Stew's soles
were soft, I thought it a blessing for him to improve the only soft part
about him.
CHAPTER XXII.
ANOTHER DISAPPOINTMENT.
Highly pleased with these reflections, what did I do but take a pipe,
and sit like a lord at my own doorway, having sent poor Bunny with a
smack to bed, because she had shown curiosity: for this leading vice of
the female race cannot be too soon discouraged. But now I began to fear
almost that it would be growing too dark very soon for me to see what
became of the carriage returning with those two worships. Moreover, I
felt that I had no right to let them go so easily, without even knowing
Sir Philip's surname, or what might be the especial craze which had led
them to honour me so. And sundry other considerations slowly prevailed
over me; until it would have gone sore with my mind, to be kept in the
dark concerning them. So, when heavy dusk of autumn drove in over the
notch of sandhills from the far-away of sea, and the green of grass was
gone, and you hardly could tell a boy from a girl among the children
playing, unless you knew their mothers; I rejoicing in their pleasures,
quite forgot the justices. For all our children have a way of letting
out their liveliness, such as makes old people feel a longing to be in
with them. Not like Bardie, of course; but still a satisfactory feeling.
And the better my tobacco grew, the sweeter were my memories.
Before I had courted my wife and my sweethearts (a dozen and a-half
perhaps, or at the outside say two dozen) anything more than twice
apiece, in the gentle cud of memory; and with very quiet sighs indeed,
for echoes of great thumping ones; and just as I wondered what execution
a beautiful child, with magnificent legs, would do when I lay in the
churchyard--all of a heap I was fetched out of dreaming into
common-sense again. There was the great yellow coach at the corner of
the old grey wall that stopped the sand; and all the village children
left their "hide-and-seek" to whisper. Having fallen into a different
mood from that of curiosity, and longing only for peace just now, or
tender styles of going, back went I into my own cottage, hoping to hear
them smack whip and away. Even my hand was on the bolt--for a bolt I had
now on account of the cats, who understand every manner of latch,
wherever any fish be--and perhaps it is a pity that I did not shoot it.
But there came three heavy knocks; and I scarcely had time to unbutton
my coat, in proof of their great intrusion, before I was forced to show
my face, and beg to know their business.
"Now, Dyo, Dyo," said that damned Stew [saving your presence, I can't
call him else]; "this is a little too bad of you! Retiring ere dusk!
Aha! aha! And how many hours after midnight will you keep your hornpipes
up, among the 'jolly sailors!' Great Davy, I admire you."
I saw that it was not in his power to enter into my state of mind: nor
could I find any wit in his jokes, supposing them to be meant for such.
"Well, what did your worships think of Porthcawl?" I asked, after
setting the chairs again, while I bustled about for my tinder-box: "did
you happen to come across the man whose evil deeds are always being
saddled upon me?"
"We found a respectable worthy Scotchman, whose name is Alexander
Macraw; and who told us more in about five minutes than we got out of
you in an hour or more. He has given us stronger reason to hope that we
may be on the right track at last to explain a most painful mystery, and
relieve Sir Philip from the most cruel suspense and anxiety."
At these words of Squire Anthony, the tall grey gentleman with the
velvet coat bowed, and would fain have spoken, but feared perhaps that
his voice would tremble.
"Macraw thinks it highly probable," Justice Stew continued, "that the
ship, though doubtless a foreigner, may have touched on the opposite
coast for supplies, after a long ocean voyage: and though Sir Philip has
seen your boat, and considers it quite a stranger, that proves nothing
either way, as the boat of course would belong to the ship. But one very
simple and speedy way there is of settling the question. You thought
proper to conceal the fact that the Coroner had committed to your charge
as foreman of the jury--and a precious jury it must have been--so as to
preserve near the spot, in case of any inquiry, the dress of the poor
child washed ashore. This will save us the journey to Sker, which in the
dusk would be dangerous. David Llewellyn, produce that dress, under my
authority."
"That I will, your worship, with the greatest pleasure. I am sure I
would have told you all about it, if I had only thought of it."
"Ahem!" was all Squire Stew's reply, for a horribly suspicious man hates
such downright honesty. But without taking further notice of him, I
went to my locker of old black oak, and thence I brought that upper
garment something like a pinafore, the sight of which had produced so
strong an effect upon the Coroner. It was made of the very finest linen,
and perhaps had been meant for the child to wear in lieu of a frock in
some hot climate. As I brought this carefully up to the table, Squire
Stew cried, "Light another candle," just as if I kept the village shop!
This I might have done at one time, if it had only happened to me, at
the proper period, to marry the niece of the man that lived next door to
the chapel, where they dried the tea-leaves. She took a serious liking
to me, with my navy trousers on; but I was fool enough to find fault
with a little kink in her starboard eye. I could have carried on such a
trade, with my knowledge of what people are, and description of foreign
climates--however, it was not to be, and I had to buy my candles.
As soon as we made a fine strong light, both the gentlemen came nigh,
and Sir Philip, who had said so little, even now forbore to speak. I
held the poor dress, tattered by much beating on the points of rocks;
and as I unrolled it slowly, he withdrew his long white hands, lest we
should remark their quivering.
"You are not such fools as I thought," said Stew; "it is a coronet
beyond doubt. I can trace the lines and crossings, though the threads
are frayed a little. And here in the corner, a moneygrum--ah! you never
saw that, you stupes--do you know the mark, sir?"
"I do not," Sir Philip answered, and seemed unable to fetch more words;
and then like a strong man turned away, to hide all disappointment. Even
Anthony Stew had the manners to feel that here was a sorrow beyond his
depth, and he covered his sense of it, like a gentleman, by some petty
talk with me. And it made me almost respect him to find that he dropped
all his banter, as out of season.
But presently the tall grey gentleman recovered from his loss of hope,
and with a fine brave face regarded us. And his voice was firm and very
sweet.
"It is not right for me to cause you pain by my anxieties; and I fear
that you will condemn me for dwelling upon them overmuch. But you, Mr
Stew, already know, and you my friend have a right to know, after your
kind and ready help, that it is not only the piteous loss of two little
innocent children, very dear ones both of them, but also the loss of
fair repute to an honourable family, and the cruel suspicion cast upon
a fine brave fellow, who would scorn, sir, who would scorn, for the
wealth of all this kingdom, to hurt the hair of a baby's head."
Here Sir Philip's voice was choked with indignation more than sorrow,
and he sat down quickly, and waved his hand, as much as to say, "I am an
old fool, I had much better not pretend to talk." And much as I longed
to know all about it, of course it was not my place to ask.
"Exactly, my dear sir, exactly," Squire Anthony went on, for the sake of
saying something; "I understand you, my dear sir, and feel for you, and
respect you greatly for your manly fortitude under this sad calamity.
Trust in Providence, my dear sir; as indeed I need not tell you."
"I will do my best; but this is now the seventh disappointment we have
had. It would have been a heavy blow, of course, to have found the poor
little fellow dead. But even that, with the recovery of the other, would
have been better than this dark mystery, and, above all, would have
freed the living from these maddening suspicions. But as it is, we must
try to bear it, and to say, 'God's will be done.' But I am thinking too
much about ourselves. Mr Stew, I am very ungrateful not to think more of
your convenience. You must be longing to be at home."
"At your service, Sir Philip--quite at your service. My time is entirely
my own."
This was simply a bit of brag; and I saw that he was beginning to
fidget; for, bold as his worship was on the bench, we knew that he was
but a coward at board, where Mrs Stew ruled with a rod of iron: and now
it was long past dinner-time, even in the finest houses.
"One thing more, then, before we go," answered Sir Philip, rising;
"according to the newspaper, and as I hear, one young maiden was really
saved from that disastrous shipwreck. I wish we could have gone on to
see her; but I must return to-morrow morning, having left many anxious
hearts behind. And to cross the sands in the dark, they say, is utterly
impossible."
"Not at all, Sir Philip," said I, very firmly, for I honestly wished
to go through with it; "although the sand is very deep, there is no
fear at all, if one knows the track. It is only the cowardice of these
people ever since the sand-storm. I would answer to take you in the
darkest night, if only I had ever learned to drive," But Anthony Stew
broke in with a smile, "It would grieve me to sit behind you, Dyo, and
I trow that Sir Philip would never behold Appledore again. There is
nothing these sailors will not attempt."
Although I could sit the bow-thwart of a cart very well, with a boy to
drive me, and had often advised the hand at the tiller, and sometimes as
much as held the whip, all this, to my diffidence, seemed too little to
warrant me in navigating a craft that carried two horses.
Sir Philip looked at me, and perhaps he thought that I had not the cut
of a coachman. However, all he said was this:
"In spite of your kindness, Mr Stew, and your offer, my good sir"--this
was to me, with much dignity--"I perceive that we must not think of it.
And of what use could it be except to add new troubles to old ones? Sir,
I have trespassed too much on your kindness; in a minute I will follow
you." Anthony Stew, being thus addressed, was only too glad to skip into
the carriage. "By, by, Dyo," he cried; "mend your ways, if you can, my
man. I think you have told fewer lies than usual; knock off one every
time of speaking, and in ten years you will speak the truth."
Of this low rubbish I took no heed any more than any one would who knows
me, especially as I beheld Sir Philip signalling with his purse to me,
so that Stew might not be privy to it. Entering into the spirit of this,
I had some pleasant memories of gentlemanly actions done by the superior
classes towards me, but longer agone than I could have desired. And now
being out of the habit of it, I showed some natural reluctance to begin
again, unless it were really worth my while. Sir Philip understood my
feelings, and I rose in his esteem, so that half-guineas went back to
his pocket, and guineas took the place of them.
"Mr Llewellyn, I know," he said, "that you have served your country
well; and it grieves me to think that on my account you have met with
some harsh words to-day."
"If your worship only knew how little a thing of that sort moves me when
I think of the great injustice. But I suppose it must be expected by a
poor man such as I am. Justice Stew is spoiled by having so many rogues
to deal with. I always make allowance for him; and of course I know that
he likes to play with the lofty character I bear. If I had his house and
his rich estate--but it does not matter--after all, what are we?"
"Ah, you may well say that, Llewellyn. Two months ago I could not have
believed--but who are we to find fault with the doings of our Maker? All
will be right if we trust in Him, although it is devilish hard to do.
But that poor maid at that wretched place--what is to become of her?"
"She has me to look after her, your worship, and she shall not starve
while I have a penny."
"Bravely said, Llewellyn! My son is a sailor, and I understand them. I
know that I can trust you fully to take charge of a trifle for her."
"I love the maid," I answered truly; "I would sooner rob myself than
her."
"Of course you would, after saving her life. I have not time to say much
to you, only take this trifle for the benefit of that poor thing."
From a red leathern bag he took out ten guineas, and hastily plunged
them into my hand, not wishing Stew to have knowledge of it. But I was
desirous that everybody should have the chance to be witness of it, and
so I held my hand quite open. And just at that moment our Bunny snored.
"What! have you children yourself, Llewellyn? I thought that you were an
old bachelor."
"An ancient widower, your worship, with a little grandchild; and how to
keep her to the mark, with father none and mother none, quite takes me
off my head sometimes. Let me light your honour to your carriage."
"Not for a moment, if you please; I wish I had known all this before. Mr
Stew never told me a word of this."
"It would have been strange if he had," said I; "he is always so bitter
against me, because he can never prove anything."
"Then, Llewellyn, you must oblige me. Spend this trifle on clothes and
things for that little snorer."
He gave me a little crisp affair, feeling like a child's caul dried, and
I thought it was no more than that. However I touched my brow and
thanked him as he went to the carriage-steps; and after consulting all
the village, I found it a stanch pledge from the Government for no less
than five pounds sterling.
CHAPTER XXIII.
INTO GOOD SOCIETY.
In spite of all that poor landsmen say about equinoctial gales and so
on, we often have the loveliest weather of all the year in September. If
this sets in, it lasts sometimes for three weeks or a month together.
Then the sky is bright and fair, with a firm and tranquil blue, not so
deep of tint or gentle as the blue of spring-tide, but more truly staid
and placid, and far more trustworthy. The sun, both when he rises over
the rounded hills behind the cliffs, and when he sinks into the level of
the width of waters, shines with ripe and quiet lustre, to complete a
year of labour. As the eastern in the morning, so at sunset the western
heaven glows with an even flush of light through the entire depth
pervading, and unbroken by any cloud. Then at dusk the dew fog wavers in
white stripes over the meadowland, or in winding combes benighted
pillows down, and leaves its impress a sparkling path for the sun's
return. To my mind no other part of the year is pleasanter than this end
of harvest, with golden stubble, and orchards gleaming, and the
hedgerows turning red. Then fish are in season, and fruit is wholesome,
and the smell of sweet brewing is rich on the air.
This beautiful weather it was that tempted Colonel Lougher and Lady
Bluett to take a trip for the day to Sker. The distance from Candleston
Court must be at least two good leagues of sandy road, or rather of sand
without any road, for a great part of the journey. Therefore, instead of
their heavy coach, they took a light two-wheeled car, and a steady-going
pony, which was very much wiser of them. Also, which was wiser still,
they had a good basket of provisions, intending to make a long sea-side
day, and expecting a lively appetite. I saw them pass through Newton as
I chanced to be mending my nets by the well; and I touched my hat to the
Colonel of course, and took it off to the lady. The Colonel was driving
himself, so as not to be cumbered with any servant; and happening to see
such a basket of food, I felt pretty sure there would be some over, for
the quality never eat like us. Then it came into my memory that they
could not bear Evan Thomas, and it struck me all of a sudden that it
might be well worth my while to happen to meet them upon their return,
before they passed any poor houses, as well as to happen to be swinging
an empty basket conspicuously. It was a provident thought of mine, and
turned out as well as its foresight deserved.
They passed a very pleasant day at Sker (as I was told that evening),
pushing about among rocks and stones, and routing out this, that, and
the other, of shells and sea-weed and starfish, and all the rest of the
rubbish, such as amuses great gentry, because they have nothing to do
for their living. And though money is nothing to them, they always seem
to reckon what they find by money-value. Not Colonel Lougher, of course,
I mean, and even less Lady Bluett. I only speak of some grand people who
come raking along our beach. And of all of these there was nobody with
the greediness Anthony Stew had. A crab that had died in changing his
shell would hardly come amiss to him. Let that pass--who cares about
him? I wish to speak of better people. The Colonel, though he could not
keep ill-will against any one on earth, did not choose to be indebted to
Sker-grange for even so much as a bite of hay for his pony. Partly,
perhaps, that he might not appear to play false to his own tenantry; for
the Nottage farmers, who held of the Colonel, were always at feud with
Evan Thomas. Therefore he baited the pony himself, after easing off some
of the tackle, and moored him to an ancient post in a little sheltered
hollow. Their rations also he left in the car, for even if any one did
come by, none would ever think of touching this good magistrate's
property.
Quite early in the afternoon, their appetites grew very brisk by reason
of the crisp sea-breeze and sparkling freshness of the waves.
Accordingly, after consultation, they agreed that the time was come to
see what Crumpy, their honest old butler, had put into the basket. The
Colonel held his sister's hand to help her up rough places, and
breasting a little crest of rushes, they broke upon a pretty sight,
which made them both say "hush," and wonder.
In a hollow place of sand, spread with dry white bones, skates' pouches,
blades of cuttle-fish, sea-snail shells, and all the other things that
storm and sea drive into and out of the sands, a very tiny maid was
sitting, holding audience all alone. She seemed to have no sense at all
of loneliness or of earthly trouble in the importance of the moment and
the gravity of play. Before her sat three little dolls, arranged
according to their rank, cleverly posted in chairs of sand. The one in
the middle was "Patty Green," the other two strange imitations
fashioned by young Watkin's knife. Each was urging her claim to shells,
which the mistress was dispensing fairly, and with good advice to each,
then laughing at herself and them, and trying to teach them a
nursery-song, which broke down from forgetfulness. And all the while her
quick bright face, and the crisp grain of her attitudes, and the jerk of
her thick short curls, were enough to make any one say, "What a queer
little soul!" Therefore it is not to be surprised at that Colonel
Lougher could not make her out, or that while he was feeling about for
his eye-glass of best crystal, his sister was (as behoves a female)
rasher to express opinion. For she had lost a little girl, and sometimes
grieved about it still.
"What a queer little, dear little thing, Henry! I never saw such a
child. Where can she have dropped from? Did you see any carriage come
after us? It is useless to tell me that she can belong to any of the
people about here. Look at her forehead, and look at her manners, and
how she touches everything! Now did you see that? What a wonderful
child! Every movement is grace and delicacy. Oh, you pretty darling!"
Her ladyship could wait no longer for the Colonel's opinion (which he
was inclined to think of ere he should come out with it), and she ran
down the sandhill almost faster than became her dignity. But if she had
been surprised before, how was she astonished now at Bardie's reception
of her?
"Don'e tush. Knee tushy paw, see voo pay. All 'e dollies is yae good;
just going to dinny, and 'e mustn't 'poil their appeties."
And the little atom arose and moved Lady Bluett's skirt out of her magic
circle. And then, having saved her children, she stood scarcely up to
the lady's knee, and looked at her as much as to ask, "Are you of the
quality?" And being well satisfied on that point, she made what the lady
declared to be the most elegant curtsy she ever had seen.
Meanwhile the Colonel was coming up, in a dignified manner, and
leisurely, perceiving no cause to rush through rushes, and knowing that
his sister was often too quick. This had happened several times in the
matter of beggars and people on crutches, and skin-collectors, and
suchlike, who cannot always be kept out of the way of ladies; and his
worship the Colonel had been compelled to endeavour to put a stop to it.
Therefore (as the best man in the world cannot in reason be expected to
be in a moment abreast with the sallies of even the best womankind, but
likes to see to the bottom of it) the Colonel came up crustily.
"Eleanor, can you not see that the child does not wish for your
interference? Her brothers and sisters are sure to be here from Kenfig
most likely, or at any rate some of her relations, and busy perhaps with
our basket."
"No," said the child, looking up at him, "I'se got no 'lations now; all
gone ayae; but all come back de-morrow day."
"Why, Henry, what are we thinking of? This must be the poor little girl
that was wrecked. And I wanted you so to come down and see her; but you
refused on account of her being under the care of Farmer Thomas."
"No, my dear, not exactly that, but on account of the trouble in the
house I did not like to appear to meddle."
"Whatever your reason was," answered the lady, "no doubt you were quite
right; but now I must know more of this poor little thing. Come and have
some dinner with us, my darling; I am sure you must be hungry. Don't be
afraid of the Colonel. He loves little children when they are good."
But poor Bardie hung down her head and was shy, which never happened to
her with me or any of the common people; she seemed to know, as if by
instinct, that she was now in the company of her equals. Lady Bluett,
however, was used to children, and very soon set her quite at ease by
inviting her dolls, and coaxing them and listening to their histories,
and all the other little turns that unlock the hearts of innocence. So
it came to pass that the castaway dined in good society for the first
time since her great misfortune. Here she behaved so prettily, and I
might say elegantly, that Colonel Lougher (who was of all men the most
thoroughly just and upright) felt himself bound to confess his error in
taking her for a Kenfig nobody. Now, as it happened to be his birthday,
the lady had ordered Mr Crumpy, the butler, to get a bottle of the
choicest wine, and put it into the hamper without saying anything to the
Colonel, so that she might drink his health, and persuade him to do
himself the like good turn. Having done this, she gave the child a drop
in the bottom of her own wine-glass, which the little one tossed off
most fluently, and with a sigh of contentment said--
"I'se not had a dop of that yiney-piney ever since--sompfin."
"Why, what wine do you call it, my little dear?" the Colonel asked,
being much amused with her air of understanding it.
"Doesn't 'a know?" she replied, with some pity; "nat's hot I calls a dop
of good Sam Paine."
"Give her some more," said the Colonel; "upon my word she deserves it.
Eleanor, you were right about her; she is a wonderful little thing."
All the afternoon they kept her with them, being more and more delighted
with her as she began to explain her opinions; and Watty, who came to
look after her, was sent home with a shilling in his pocket. And some of
the above I learned from him, and some from Mr Crumpy (who was a very
great friend of mine), and a part from little Bardie, and the rest even
from her good ladyship, except what trifles I add myself, being gifted
with power of seeing things that happen in my absence.
This power has been in my family for upwards of a thousand years, coming
out and forming great bards sometimes, and at other times great
story-tellers. Therefore let no one find any fault or doubt any single
thing I tell them concerning some people who happen just now to be five
or six shelves in the world above me, for I have seen a great deal of
the very highest society when I cleaned my Earl's pumps and epaulettes,
and waited upon him at breakfast; and I know well how those great people
talk, not from observation only, but by aid of my own fellow-feeling for
them, which, perhaps, owes its power of insight not to my own sagacity
only, but to my ancestors' lofty positions, as poets to royal families.
Now although I may have mentioned this to the man of the Press--whose
hat appeared to have undergone Press experience--I have otherwise kept
it quite out of sight, because every writer should hold himself entirely
round the corner, and discover his hand, but not his face, to as many as
kindly encourage him. Of late, however, it has been said--not by people
of our own parish, who have seen and heard me at the well and elsewhere,
but by persons with no more right than power to form opinions--that I
cannot fail of breaking down when I come to describe great people. To
these my answer is quite conclusive. From my long connection with
royalty, lasting over a thousand years, I need not hesitate to describe
the Prince of Wales himself; and inasmuch as His Royal Highness is not
of pure ancient British descent, I verily doubt whether he could manage
to better my humble style to my liking.
Enough of that. I felt doubts at beginning, but I find myself stronger
as I get on. You may rely upon me now to leave the question to your own
intelligence. The proof of the pudding is in the eating; and if any one
fears that I cannot cook it, I only beg him to wait and see.
Lady Bluett was taken so much with my Bardie, and the Colonel the
same--though he tried at first to keep it under--that nothing except
their own warm kindness stopped them from making off with her. The lady
had vowed that she would do so, for it would be so much for the little
soul's good; and of course, so far as legality went, the Chief-Justice
of the neighbourhood had more right to her than a common rough farmer.
But Watty came down, being sent by Moxy, after he went home with that
shilling, and must needs make show of it. He came down shyly, from habit
of nature, to the black eyebrows of the tide, where the Colonel and
Bardie were holding grand play, with the top of the spring running up to
them. She was flying at the wink of every wave, and trying to push him
back into it; and he was laughing with all his heart at her spry ways
and audacity, and the quickness of her smiles and frowns, and the whole
of her nature one whirl of play, till he thought nothing more of his
coat-tails.
"What do you want here, boy?" the Colonel asked, being not best pleased
that a man of his standing should be caught in the middle of such
antics.
Watkin opened his great blue eyes, and opened his mouth as well, but
could not get steerage-way on his tongue, being a boy of great
reverence.
"Little fellow, what are you come for?" with these words he smiled on
the boy, and was vexed with himself for frightening him.
"Oh sir, oh sir, if you please, sir, mother says as Miss Delushy must
come home to bed, sir."
"'E go ayay now, 'e bad Yatkin! I 'ants more pay with my dear Colonel
Yucca."
"I am not at all sure," said the Colonel, laughing, "that I shall not
put her into my car, and drive away with her, Watkin."
"You may go home, my good boy, and tell your mother that we have taken
this poor little dear to Candleston." This, of course, was Lady Bluett.
You should have seen Watkin's face, they told me, when I came to hear of
it. Betwixt his terror of giving offence, and his ignorance how to
express his meaning, and the sorrow he felt on his mother's account, and
perhaps his own pain also, not a word had he to say, but made a grope
after the baby's hands. Then the little child ran up to him, and flung
both arms around his leg, and showed the stanchness of her breed. Could
any one, even of six years old, better enter into it?
"I yoves Yatkin. Yatkin is aye good and kind. And I yoves poor Moky. I
'ont go ayay till my dear papa and my dear mamma comes for me."
Lady Bluett, being quick and soft, could not keep her tears from
starting; and the Colonel said, "It must be so. We might have done a
great wrong, my dear. Consider all"--and here he whispered out of
Watkin's hearing, and the lady nodded sadly, having known what trouble
is. But the last words he spoke bravely, "God has sent her for a comfort
where He saw that it was needed. We must not give way to a passing fancy
against a deep affliction; only we will keep our eyes upon this little
orphan darling."
CHAPTER XXIV.
SOUND INVESTMENTS.
The spring-tides led me to Sker the next day, and being full early for
the ebb, I went in to see what the Colonel had done. For if he should
happen to take up the child, she would pass out of my hands altogether,
which might of course be a serious injury, as well as a very great
hardship. For of Moxy's claim I had little fear if it came to a question
of title, inasmuch as I had made her sign a document prepared and copied
by myself, clearly declaring my prior right in virtue of rescue and
providential ordinance. But as against Colonel Lougher I durst not think
of asserting my claims, even if the law were with me; and not only so;
but I felt all along that the matter was not one for money to heal, but
a question of the deepest feelings.
And now the way in which Moxy came out, while Bardie was making much of
me (who always saw everything first, of course), and the style of her
meddling in between us, led me to know that a man has no chance to be up
to the tricks of a female. For the dialogue going on between us was of
the very simplest nature, as you may judge by the following:--
"Hy'se 'a been so long, old Davy, afore 'a come to see poor Bardie?"
"Because, my pretty dear, I have been forced to work, all day long
almost."
"Hasn't 'a had no time to pay?"
"No, my dear, not a moment to play. Work, work, work! Money, money,
money! Till old Davy is quite worn out."
I may have put horns to the truth in this. But at any rate not very long
ones. And the child began to ponder it.
"I tell 'a, old Davy, 'hot to do. Susan say to me one day, kite yell, I
amember, ickle Bardie made of money! Does 'a sink so?"
"I think you are made of gold, you beauty; and of diamonds, and the
Revelations."
"Aye yell! Then I tell 'a hot to do. Take poor Bardie to markiss, old
Davy; and 'e get a great big money for her."
She must have seen some famous market; for acting everything as she did
(by means of working face, arms, and legs), she put herself up like a
fowl in a basket, and spread herself, making the most of her breast, and
limping her neck as the dead chickens do. Before I could begin to laugh,
Moxy was upon us.
"Dyo! Why for you come again? Never you used to come like this. Put down
Delushy, directly moment. No fish she is for you to catch. When you
might have had her, here you left her through the face of everything.
And now, because great Evan's staff is cloven, by the will of God, who
takes not advantage of him? I thought you would have known better, Dyo.
And this little one, that he dotes upon----"
"It is enough," I answered, with a dignity which is natural to me, when
females wound my feelings; "Madame Thomas, it is enough. I will quit
your premises." With these words I turned away, and never looked over my
shoulder even, though the little one screamed after me; until I felt
Watty hard under my stern, and like a kedge-anchor dragging. Therefore,
I let them apologise; till my desire was to forgive them. And after they
brought forth proper things, I denied all evil will, and did my best to
accomplish it.
Mrs Thomas returning slowly to her ancient style with me, as I relaxed
my dignity, said that now the little maid was getting more at home with
them. Mr Thomas, after what had happened in the neighbourhood--this was
the death of her five sons--felt naturally low of spirit; and it was
good for him to have a lively child around him. He did not seem quite
what he was. And nothing brought him to himself so much as to watch this
shadow of life; although she was still afraid of him.
Every word of this was clear to me. It meant ten times what it
expressed. Because our common people have a "height of kindness," some
would say, and some a "depth of superstition," such as leads them
delicately to slope off their meaning. But in my blunt and sailor
fashion, I said that black Evan must, I feared, be growing rather shaky.
I had better have kept this opinion quiet; for Moxy bestowed on me such
a gaze of pity mingled with contempt, that knowing what sort of a man he
had been, I felt all abroad about everything. All I could say to myself
was this, that the only woman of superior mind I ever had the luck to
come across, and carefully keep clear of, had taken good care not to
have a husband, supposing there had been the occasion. And I think I
made mention of her before; because she had been thrice disappointed;
and all she said was true almost.
However, Sker-house might say just what it pleased, while I had my
written document, and "Delushy" herself (as they stupidly called her by
corruption of Andalusia) was not inclined to abandon me. And now she
made them as jealous as could be, for she clung to me fast with one
hand, while she spread the beautiful tiny fingers of the other to Moxy,
as much as to say, "Interrupt me not; I have such a lot of things to
tell old Davy."
And so she had without any mistake; and the vast importance of each
matter lost nothing for want of emphasis. Patty Green had passed through
a multitude of most surprising adventures, some of them even
transcending her larceny of my sugar. Watty had covered himself with
glory, and above all little "Dutch," the sheep-dog, was now become a
most benevolent and protecting power.
"'Hots 'a think, old Davy? Patty Geen been yecked, she has."
"'Yecked!' I don't know what that is, my dear."
"Ness, I said, 'yecked,' old Davy; yecked down nare, same as Bardie
was."
It was clear that she now had taken up with the story which everybody
told; and she seemed rather proud of having been wrecked.
"And Patty," she went on, quite out of breath; "Patty 'poiled all her
boofely cothes: such a mess 'e never see a'most! And poor Patty go to 'e
back pit-hole, till 'e boofely Dush yun all into 'e yater."
"Oh, and Dutch pulled her out again, did she?"
"Ness, and her head come kite out of her neck. But Yatty put 'e guepot
on, and make it much better than ever a'most."
"Now, Delushy, what a child you are!" cried Mrs Thomas, proudly; "you
never told Mr. Llewellyn that you ran into the sea yourself, to save
your doll; and drownded you must have been, but for our Watkin."
"Bardie 'poil her cothes," she said, looking rather shy about it:
"Bardie's cothes not boofely now, not same as they used to be."
But if she regretted her change of apparel, she had ceased by this time,
Moxy said, to fret much for her father and mother. For Watkin, or some
one, had inspired her with a most comforting idea--to wit, that her
parents had placed her there for the purpose of growing faster; and that
when she had done her best to meet their wishes in this respect, they
would suddenly come to express their pride and pleasure at her
magnitude. Little brother also would appear in state, and so would
Susan, and find it needful to ascend the dairy-stool to measure her. As
at present her curly head was scarcely up to the mark of that stool, the
duty of making a timely start in this grand business of growing became
at once self-evident. To be "a geat big gal" was her chief ambition;
inasmuch as "'hen I'se a geat big gal, mama and papa be so peased, and
say, 'hot a good gal 'e is, Bardie, to do as I tell 'a!"
Often when her heart was heavy in the loneliness of that house, and the
loss of all she loved, and with dirty things around her, the smile would
come back to her thoughtful eyes, and she would open her mouth again for
the coarse but wholesome food, which was to make a "big gal" of her.
Believing herself now well embarked toward this desired magnitude, she
had long been making ready for the joy it would secure. "'E come and
see, old Davy. I sow 'a sompfin," she whispered to me, when she thought
the others were not looking, so I gave a wink to Moxy Thomas, whose
misbehaviour I had overlooked, and humouring the child I let her lead me
to her sacred spot.
This was in an unused passage, with the end door nailed to jambs, and
black oak-panelling along it, and a floor of lias stone. None in the
house durst enter it except this little creature; at least unless there
were three or four to hearten one another, and a strong sun shining. The
Abbot's Walk was its proper name; because a certain Abbot of Neath, who
had made too much stir among the monks, received (as we say) his quietus
there during a winter excursion; and in spite of all the masses said,
could not keep his soul at rest. Therefore his soul came up and down;
and that is worse than a dozen spirits; for the soul can groan, but the
spirit is silent.
Into this dark lonely passage I was led by a little body, too newly
inhabited by spirit to be at all afraid of it. And she came to a
cupboard door, and tugged, and made a face as usual, when the button was
hard to move. But as for allowing me to help her,--not a bit of it, if
you please. With many grunts and jerks of breath, at last she fetched it
outward, having made me promise first not to touch, however grand and
tempting might be the scene disclosed to me.
What do you think was there collected, and arranged in such a system
that no bee could equal it? Why, every bit of everything that every one
who loved her (which amounts to everybody) ever had bestowed upon her,
for her own sweet use and pleasure, since ashore she came to us. Not a
lollipop was sucked, not a bit of "taffy" tasted, not a plaything had
been used, but just enough to prove it; all were set in portions four,
two of which were double-sized of what the other two were. Nearly half
these things had come, I am almost sure, from Newton; and among the
choicest treasures which were stored in scollop shells, I descried one
of my own buttons which I had honestly given her, because two eyelets
had run together; item, a bowl of an unsmoked pipe (which had snapped in
my hand one evening); item, as sure as I am alive, every bit of the
sugar which the Dolly had taken from out my locker.
Times there are when a hardy man, at sense of things (however childish),
which have left their fibre in him, finds himself, or loses self, in a
sudden softness. So it almost was with me (though the bait on my hooks
all the time was drying), and for no better reason than the hopeless
hopes of a very young child. I knew what all her storehouse meant before
she began to tell me. And her excitement while she told me scarcely left
her breath to speak.
"'Nat for papa, with 'e kean pipe to 'moke, and 'nat for mamma with 'e
boofely bucken for her coke, and 'nat for my dear ickle bother, because
it just fit in between his teeth, and 'nis with 'e 'ooking-gass for
Susan, because she do her hair all day yong."
She held up the little bit of tin, and mimicked Susan's self-adornment,
making such a comic face, and looking so conceited, that I felt as if I
should know her Susan, anywhere in a hundred of women, if only she
should turn up so. And I began to smile a little; and she took it up
tenfold.
"'E make me yaff so, I do decare, 'e silly old Davy; I doesn't know 'hat
to do a'most. But 'e mustn't tell anybody."
This I promised, and so went a-fishing, wondering what in the world
would become of the queerest fish I had ever caught, as well as the
highest-flavoured one. It now seemed a toss-up whether or not something
or other might turn up, in the course of one's life, about her. At any
rate she was doing well, with her very bright spirits to help her, and
even Black Evan, so broken down as not to be hard upon any one. And as
things fell out to take me from her, without any warning, upon the whole
it was for the best to find the last sight comfortable.
And a man of my power must not always be poking after babies, even the
best that were ever born. Tush, what says King David, who was a
great-grandfather of mine; less distant than Llewellyn Harper, but as
much respected; in spite of his trying to contribute Jewish blood to the
lot of us in some of his rasher moments? But ancestor though we
acknowledge him (when our neighbourhood has a revival), I will not be
carried away by his fame to copy, so much as to hearken him. The autumn
now grew fast upon us, and the beach was shifting; and neither room nor
time remained for preaching under the sandhills, even if any one could
be found with courage to sit under them. And as the nights turned cold
and damp, everybody grumbled much; which was just and right enough, in
balance of their former grumbling at the summer drought and heat. And it
was mainly this desire not to be behind my neighbours in the comfort and
the company of grumbling and exchanging grumbles, which involved me in a
course of action highly lowering to my rank and position in society, but
without which I could never have been enabled to tell this story. And
yet before entering on that subject, everybody will want to know how I
discharged my important and even arduous duties as trustee through Sir
Philip's munificence for both those little children. In the first place,
I felt that my position was strictly confidential, and that it would be
a breach of trust to disclose to any person (especially in a loquacious
village) a matter so purely of private discretion. Three parties there
were to be considered, and only three, whatever point of view one chose
to take of it. The first of these was Sir Philip, the second the two
children, and the third of course myself. To the first my duty was
gratitude (which I felt and emitted abundantly), to the second both zeal
and integrity; and for myself there was one course only (to which I am
naturally addicted), namely, a lofty self-denial. This duty to myself I
discharged at once, by forming a stern resolution not to charge either
of those children so much as a single farthing for taking care of her
property until she was twenty-one years of age. Then as regards the
second point, I displayed my zeal immediately, by falling upon Bunny
soon after daylight, and giving her a small-tooth-combing to begin with,
till the skin of her hair was as bright as a prawn; after which, without
any heed whatever of roars, or even kicks, I took a piece of holy-stone,
and after a rinsing of soda upon her, I cleaned down her planking to
such a degree that our admiral might have inspected her. She was clean
enough for a captain's daughter before, and dandy-trimmed more than need
have been for a little craft built to be only a coaster. But now when
her yelling had done her good, and her Sunday frock was shipped, and her
black hair spanked with a rose-coloured ribbon, and the smiles flowed
into her face again with the sense of all this smartness, Sir Philip
himself would have thought her consistent with the owner of five pounds
sterling.
And as touching the money itself, and the honesty rightly expected from
me, although the sum now in my hands was larger than it ever yet had
pleased the Lord to send me, for out and out my own, nevertheless there
was no such thing as leading me astray about it. And this was the more
to my credit, because that power of evil, who has more eyes than all the
angels put together, or, at any rate, keeps them wider open, he came
aft, seeing how the wind was, and planted his hoof within half a plank
of the tiller of my conscience. But I heaved him overboard at once, and
laid my course with this cargo of gold, exactly as if it were shipper's
freight, under bond and covenant. Although, in downright common-sense,
having Bunny for my grandchild, I also possessed beyond any doubt
whatever belonged to Bunny; just as the owner of a boat owns the oars
and rudder also. And the same held true, as most people would think,
concerning Bardie's property; for if I had not saved her life, how could
she have owned any?
So far, however, from dealing thus, I not only kept all their money for
them, but invested it in the manner which seemed to be most for their
interest. To this intent I procured a book for three halfpence (paid out
of mine own pocket), wherein I declared a partnership, and established a
fishing association, under the name, style, and description of "Bardie,
Bunny, Llewellyn, and Co." To this firm I contributed not only my
industry and skill, but also nets, tackle, rods and poles, hooks and
corks, and two kettles for bait, and a gridiron fit to land and cook
with; also several well-proven pipes, and a perfectly sound tobacco-box.
Every one of these items, and many others, I entered in the ledger of
partnership; and Mother Jones, being strange to much writing, recorded
her mark at the bottom of it (one stroke with one hand and one with the
other), believing it to be my testament, with an Amen coming after it.
But knowing what the tricks of fortune are, and creditors so
unreasonable, I thought it much better to keep my boat outside of the
association. If the firm liked, they might hire it, and have credit
until distribution-day, which I fixed for the first day of every three
months. My partners had nothing to provide, except just an anchor, a
mast, and a lug-sail, a new net or two, because mine were wearing, and
one or two other trifles perhaps, scarcely worth describing. For after
all, who could be hard upon them, when all they contributed to the firm
was fifteen pounds and ten shillings?
It was now in the power of both my partners to advance towards fortune;
to permit very little delay before they insisted on trebling their
capital; and so reinvest it in the firm; and hence at the age of
twenty-one, be fit to marry magistrates. And I made every preparation to
carry their shares of the profits over. Nevertheless, things do not
always follow the line of the very best and soundest calculations. The
fish that were running up from the Mumbles, fast enough to wear their
fins out, all of a sudden left off altogether, as if they had heard of
the association. Not even a twopenny glass of grog did I ever take out
of our capital, nor a night of the week did I lie abed, when the lines
required attendance. However, when fish are entirely absent, the very
best fishermen in the world cannot manage to create them; and therefore
our partnership saw the wisdom of declaring no dividends for the first
quarter.
CHAPTER XXV.
A LONG GOOD-BYE.
It is an irksome task for a man who has always stood upon his position,
and justified the universal esteem and respect of the neighbourhood, to
have to recount his own falling off, and loss of proper station, without
being able to render for it any cause or reason, except indeed his own
great folly, with fortune too ready to second it. However, as every
downfall has a slope which leads towards it, so in my case small
downhills led treacherously to the precipice. In the first place, the
dog-fish and the sting-rays (which alone came into the nets of our new
association) set me swearing very hard; which, of course, was a trifling
thing, and must have befallen St Peter himself, whose character I can
well understand. But what was wrong in me was this, that after it went
on for a fortnight, and not even a conger turned up, I became proud of
my swearing with practice, instead of praying to be forgiven, which I
always feel done to me, if desired. For my power of words began to
please me--which was a bait of the devil, no doubt--as every tide I felt
more and more that married life had not deprived me of my gift of
language; or, at any rate, that widowership had restored my vigour
promptly.
After this, being a little exhausted, for two days and two nights I
smoked pipes. Not in any mood soever unfit for a Christian; quite the
contrary, and quite ready to submit to any discipline; being ordered
also to lay by, and expect a sign from heaven. And at this time came
several preachers; although I had very little for them, and was grieved
to disappoint their remembrance of the ham that my wife used to keep in
cut. And in so many words I said that now I was bound to the Church by a
contract of a shilling a-week, and if they waited long enough, they
might hear the clock strike--something. This, combined with a crab whose
substance had relapsed to water, and the sign of nothing in my locker
except a pint of peppermint, induced these excellent pastors to go; and
if they shook off (as they declared) the dirt of their feet at me, it
must have been much to their benefit. This trifle, however, heaped up my
grievance, although I thought scorn to think of it; and on the back of
it there came another wrong far more serious. Tidings, to wit, of a
wretched warrant being likely to issue against me from that low tyrant
Anthony Stew, on a thoroughly lying information by one of his own
gamekeepers. It was true enough that I went through his wood, with a
couple of sailors from Porthcawl; by no means with any desire to harm,
but to see if his game was healthy. Few things occur that exalt the mind
more than natural history; and if a man dare not go into a wood, how can
he be expected to improve his knowledge? Tho other men perhaps employed
their means to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with the structure
and methods of various creatures, going on two legs, or going on four;
but as for myself, not so much as a gun did any one see in my hands that
day.
At first I thought of standing it out on the strength of all my glory;
but knowing what testimony is, when it gets into the mouths of
gamekeepers, and feeling my honour concerned, to say nothing of the
other fellows (who were off to sea), also cherishing much experience of
the way Stew handled me, upon the whole I had half a mind to let the
neighbourhood and the county learn to feel the want of me.
Also what Joe Jenkins said perhaps had some effect on me. This was a
young fellow of great zeal, newly appointed to Zoar Chapel, instead of
the steady Nathaniel Edwards, who had been caught sheep-stealing; and
inasmuch as the chapel stood at the western end of the village, next
door to the "Welcome to Town, my Lads," all the maids of Newton ran
mightily to his doctrine. For he happened to be a smart young fellow,
and it was largely put abroad that an uncle of his had a butter-shop,
without any children, and bringing in four pounds a-week at Chepstow.
There is scarcely a day of my life on which I do not receive a lesson:
and the difference betwixt me and a fool is that I receive, and he
scorns it. And a finer lesson I have rarely had than for letting Joe
Jenkins into my well-conducted cottage, for no better reason than that
the "Welcome to Town" was out of beer. I ought to have known much
better, of course, with a fellow too young to shave himself, and myself
a good hearty despiser of schism, and above all having such a fine
connection with the Church of England. But that fellow had such a
tongue--they said it must have come out of the butter. I gave him a
glass of my choicest rum, when all he deserved was a larruping. And I
nearly lost the church-clock through it.
When I heard of this serious consequence, I began to call to mind, too
late, what the chaplain of the Spitfire--32-gun razy--always used to say
to us; and a finer fellow to stand to his guns, whenever it came to
close quarters, I never saw before or since. "Go down, parson, go down,"
we said; "sir, this is no place for your cloth." "Sneaking schismatics
may skulk," he answered, with the powder-mop in his hand; for we had
impressed a Methody, who bolted below at exceeding long range; "but if
my cloth is out of its place, I'll fight the devil naked." This won over
to the side of the Church every man of our crew that was gifted with any
perception of reasoning.
However, I never shall get on if I tell all the fine things I have seen.
Only I must set forth how I came to disgrace myself so deeply that I
could not hope for years and years to enjoy the luxury of despising so
much as a lighterman again. The folk of our parish could hardly believe
it; and were it to be done in any way consistent with my story, I would
not put it on paper now. But here it is. Make the worst of it. You will
find me redeem it afterwards. The famous David Llewellyn, of His
Majesty's Royal Navy, took a berth in a trading-schooner, called the
"Rose of Devon!"
After such a fall as this, if I happened to speak below my mark, or not
describe the gentry well, everybody must excuse me: for I went so low in
my own esteem, that I could not have knocked even Anthony Stew's
under-keeper down! I was making notes, here and there, already,
concerning the matters at Sker House, and the delicate sayings of
Bardie, not with any view to a story perfect and clear as this is, but
for my own satisfaction in case of anything worth going on with. And but
for this forethought, you could not have learned both her sayings and
doings so bright as above. And now being taken away from it, I tried to
find some one with wit enough to carry it on in my absence. In a
populous neighbourhood this might have been; but the only man near us
who had the conceit to try to carry it on a bit, fell into such a
condition of mind that his own wife did not know him. But in spite of
the open state of his head, he held on very stoutly, trying to keep
himself up to the mark with ale, and even Hollands; until it pleased God
that his second child should fall into the chicken-pox; and then all the
neighbours spoke up so much--on account of his being a tailor--that it
came to one thing or the other. Either he must give up his trade, and
let his apprentice have it--to think of which was worse than gall and
wormwood to his wife--or else he must give up all meddling with pen and
ink and the patterns of chicken-pox. How could he hesitate, when he knew
that the very worst tailor can make in a day as much as the best writer
can in a month?
Upon the whole I was pleased with this; for I never could bear that
rogue of a snip, any more than he could put up with me for making my own
clothes and Bunny's. I challenged him once on a buttonhole, for I was
his master without a thimble. And for this ninth part of a man to think
of taking up my pen!
The name of our schooner, or rather ketch--for she was no more than that
(to tell truth), though I wished her to be called a "schooner"--was, as
I said, the "Rose of Devon," and the name of her captain was "Fuzzy."
Not a bad man, I do believe, but one who almost drove me wicked, because
I never could make him out. A tender and compassionate interest in the
affairs of everybody, whom it pleases Providence that we should even
hear of, has been (since our ancestors baffled the Flood, without
consulting Noah) one of the most distinct and noblest national traits of
Welshmen. Pious also; for if the Lord had not meant us to inquire, He
never would have sent us all those fellow-creatures to arouse unallayed
disquietude. But this man "Fuzzy," as every one called him, although his
true name was "Bethel Jose," seemed to be sent from Devonshire for the
mere purpose of distracting us. Concerning the other two
"stone-captains" (as we call those skippers who come for limestone, and
steal it from Colonel Lougher's rocks), we knew as much as would keep us
going whenever their names were mentioned; but as to Fuzzy, though this
was the third year of his trading over, there was not a woman in Newton
who knew whether he had a wife or not! And the public eagerness over
this subject grew as the question deepened; until there were seven of
our best young women ready to marry him, at risk of bigamy, to find out
the matter and to make it known.
Therefore, of course, he rose more and more in public esteem, voyage
after voyage; and I became jealous, perhaps, of his fame, and resolved
to expose its hollow basis, as compared with that of mine. Accordingly,
when it came to pass that my glory, though still in its prime, was
imperilled by that Irish Stew's proceedings--for he must have been Irish
by origin--having my choice (as a matter of course) among the three
stone captains, I chose that very hard stone to crack; and every one
all through the village rejoiced, though bitterly grieved to lose me,
and dreading the price there would be for fish, with that extortionate
Sandy Macraw left alone to create a monopoly. There was not a man in all
Newton that feared to lay half-a-crown to a sixpence that I brought back
the whole of old Fuzzy's concerns: but the women, having tried Skipper
Jose with everything they could think of, and not understanding the odds
of betting, were ready to lay a crooked sixpence on Fuzzy, whenever they
had one.
To begin with, he caught me on the hop; at a moment of rumours and
serious warnings, and thoroughly pure indignation on my part. At the
moment, I said (and he made me sign) that I was prepared to ship with
him. After which he held me fast, and frightened me with the land-crabs,
and gave me no chance to get out of his jaws. I tried to make him laugh
with some of the many jokes and stories, which everybody knows of mine,
and likes them for long acquaintance' sake. However, not one of them
moved him so much as to fetch one squirt of tobacco-juice. This alone
enabled him to take a strong lead over me. Every time that he was bound
to laugh, according to human nature, and yet had neither a wag in his
nose, nor a pucker upon his countenance, nor even so much as a gleam in
his eye, so many times I felt in my heart that this man was the wise
man, and that laughter is a folly. And I had to bottle down the laughs
(which always rise inside of me, whenever my joke has the cream on it)
until I could find some other fellow fit to understand me; because I
knew that my jokes were good.
When I found no means of backing out from that degrading contract, my
very first thought was to do strict justice to our association, and
atone for the loss of my services to it. Therefore, in case of anything
undesirable befalling me--in short, if I should be ordered aloft with no
leave to come down again--there I made my will, and left my property to
establish credit, for a new start among them. Chairs and tables, knives
and forks, iron spoons, brought into the family by my wife's
grandfather, several pairs of duds of my own, and sundry poles, as
before described, also nets to a good extent--though some had gone under
usury--bait-kettles, I forget how many, and even my character in a
silk-bag; item, a great many sundry things of almost equal value; the
whole of which I bravely put into my will, and left them. And knowing
that the proper thing is to subscribe a codicil, therein I placed a set
of delf, and after that my blessing. Eighteenpence I was compelled to
pay for this pious document to a man who had been turned out of the law
because he charged too little. And a better shilling-and-sixpence worth
of sense, with heads and tails to it, his lordship the Bishop of
Llandaff will own that he never set seal upon; unless I make another
one. Only I felt it just to leave my boat entire to Bardie.
Having done my duty thus, I found a bracing strength upon me to go
through with everything. No man should know how much I felt my violent
degradation from being captain of a gun, to have to tread mercantile
boards! Things have changed since then so much, through the parsimony of
Government, that our very best sailors now tail off into the Merchant
service. But it was not so, when I was young; and even when I was turned
of fifty, we despised the traders. Even the largest of their vessels, of
four or as much as five hundred tons, we royal tars regarded always as
so many dust-bins with three of the clothes-props hoisted. And now, as I
looked in the glass, I beheld no more than the mate of a fifty-ton
ketch, for a thirty-mile voyage out of Newton bay!
However, I had lived long enough then to be taught one simple thing.
Whatever happens, one may descry (merely by using manly aspect) dawning
glimpses of that light which the will of God intended to be joy for all
of us; but so scattered now and vapoured by our own misdoings, still it
will come home some time, and then we call it "comfort."
Accordingly, though so deeply fallen in my own regard, I did not find
that people thought so very much the less of me. Nay, some of them even
drove me wild, by talking of my "rise in life," as if I had been a pure
nobody! But on the whole we learned my value, when I was going away from
us. For all the village was stirred up with desire to see the last of
me. My well-known narratives at the well would be missed all through the
autumn; and those who had dared to call them "lies," were the foremost
to feel the lack of them. Especially the children cried "Old Davy going
to be drownded! No more stories at the well!" Until I vowed to be back
almost before they could fill their pitchers.
These things having proved to me, in spite of inordinate modesty, that I
had a certain value, I made the very best of it; and let everybody know
how much I wished to say "Good-bye" to them, although so short of money.
From "Felix Farley" I had received no less than seven-and-tenpence--for
saving the drowned black people--under initials "D. L." at the office;
accruing to a great extent from domestic female servants. Some of these
craved my candid opinion as to accepting the humble addresses of
coloured gentlemen in good livery, and whether it made so much
difference. And now I thought that Newton might have a mark of esteem
prepared for me.
But though they failed to think of that--purely from want of
experience--everything else was done that could be done for a man who
had no money, by his neighbours who had less; and sixpence never entered
twice into the thoughts of any one. Richard Matthews, the pilot,
promised to mind the church-clock for me, without even handling my
salary. As for Bunny, glorification is the shortest word I know. A young
man, who had never paid his bill, put her into two-inch ribbon from the
Baptist preacher's shop. Also a pair of shoes upon her, which had right
and left to them, although not marked by nature. And upon the front of
her bosom, lace that made me think of smuggling; and such as that young
man never could have expected to get booked to him, if he had felt
himself to be more than a month converted.
Moreover, instead of Mother Jones (who was very well in her way, to be
sure), the foremost folk in all the village, and even Master Charles
Morgan himself, carpenter and churchwarden, were beginning to vie, one
with the other, in desire to entertain her, without any word of her
five-pound note. In short, many kind things were said and done; enough
to make any unbashful man desire to represent them. But I, for my part,
was quite overcome, and delivered my speech with such power of doubt
concerning my own worthiness, that they had to send back to the inn
three times, before they could properly say "Good-bye."
CHAPTER XXVI.
BRAUNTON BURROWS.
The weather was still as fair as could be, with a light wind from the
east-north-east; and as our course lay west by south, and the ebb was
running, we slipped along at the rate of six or seven knots an hour,
though heavily-laden with the Colonel's rocks; and after rounding
Porthcawl Point we came abreast of the old Sker House a little after
sunset. Skipper Jose would never have ventured inside the Sker-weathers,
only that I held the tiller, and knew every vein of sand and rock. And I
kept so close in shore, because one of the things that vexed me most in
all this sudden departure, was to run away without proper ceremony from
Bardie. She was certain to feel it much, and too young to perceive the
necessity; and fried pudding had been promised her at my table come the
very next Sunday.
The windows of the old grey mansion gleamed in the fading western light,
but we descried no smoke or movement, neither any life or variance, only
a dreary pile of loneliness in the middle of yellow sands. Then I rigged
out my perspective glass, and levelled it on the cuddy chimney--for the
ketch was a half-decker--to spy if the little one might so chance to be
making her solitary play, as she was used to do all day, and most of all
ere bedtime. And if she should so happen, I knew how wild her delight
would be to discover a vessel so near the shore; because whenever a sail
went by, even at two or three leagues of distance, there was no
containing her. Out she would rush with her face on fire, and curly hair
all jogging, and up would go two little hands, spread to the sky and the
vast wide sea. "Mammy dear, I 'ants 'a so. Dear papa, I has yaited so
yong. Ickle bother, such a lot of things Bardie's got to tell 'a." And
thus she would run on the brink of the waves with hope and sadness
fluctuating on her unformed countenance, until the sail became a speck.
However, now I saw no token of this little rover, unless it were some
washed clothes flapping on the rushen tufts to dry; and Jose called me
back to my spell at the helm before I had finished gazing. And in less
than half an hour the landmark of the ancient house was fading in the
dew-fog.
Our ship's company amounted to no less than four, all hands told--viz.,
Captain Bethel Jose, _alias_ Fuzzy; Isaac Hutchings, the mate; my humble
self (who found it my duty to supersede Ikey and appoint myself); and a
boy of general incapacity, and of the name of "Bang."
Making fine weather as we did, and with myself at the helm all night,
and taking command (as my skill required), we slanted across Channel
very sweetly; and when the grey of morning broke, Lundy Isle was on our
lee-bow. Hereupon I gave the helm to old Ike, for beyond this was
unknown to me, and Providence had never led me over Barnstaple bar as
yet. So I tumbled in, and turned up no more until we were close on the
bar itself, about ten o'clock of the forenoon. This is a thoroughly
dangerous place, a meeting of treacherous winds and waters, in amongst
uncertain shoaling, and would be worse than our Sker-weathers if it lay
open to south-west gales. We waited for the tide, and then slipped over
very cleverly, with Hartland Point on our starboard beam; and presently
we found ourselves in a fine broad open water, with plenty of grey
stretch going along it, and green hills tufting away from it. Everything
looked so mild and handsome, that I wondered whether these men of
Devonshire might not be such fools for bragging after all, when tested.
Because, when I found no means to escape this degrading voyage to
Devonshire, I had said to myself that at any rate it would enable me to
peg down those people for the future. Not that they boasted, so to
speak, but that they held their tongues at our boasts; as much as to
say, "You may talk if you please; it does you good; and our land is such
that we never need contradict you."
But now when I saw these ins and outs, and ups and downs, and cornering
places, and the wrinkles of the valleys, and the cheeks of the very
rocks, set with green as bright and lively (after a burning summer) as
our own country can show in May, I began to think--though I would not
say it, through patriotic unwillingness--that the people who lived in
such land as this could well afford to hold their tongues, and hearken
our talk with pleasure. Captain Fuzzy said no word, to show that he was
home again; neither did he care to ask my opinion about the look of it.
And old Ike treating me likewise, though he ought to have known much
better, there I found myself compelled by my natural desire to know all
about my fellow-creatures, to carry on what must have been a most highly
flattering patronage towards the boy who did our slop-work, and whose
name was "Bang," because everybody banged him.
This boy, forgetting the respect which is due to the mate of a ship of
commerce--for I now assumed that position legally, over the head of old
Ikey, who acknowledged my rank when announced to him--this ignorant boy
had the insolence to give me a clumsy nudge, and inquire--
"Du 'e knaw thiccy peart over yanner? Them down-plasses, and them zandy
backs?"
"My boy," I replied, "I have not the honour of knowing anything about
them. Very likely you think a good deal of them."
"Whai, thee must be a born vule. Them be Braunton Burrusses!"
"Be them indeed? Take this, my boy, for such valuable information." And
I gave him a cuff of an earnest nature, such as he rarely obtained,
perhaps, and well calculated to be of timely service to him. He howled a
good bit, and attempted to kick; whereupon I raised him from his natural
level, and made his head acquainted with the nature of the foremast,
preserving my temper quite admirably, but bearing in mind the great
importance of impressing discipline at an early age. And I reaped a
well-deserved reward in his lifelong gratitude and respect.
While Bang went below to complete his weeping, and to find some plaster,
I began to take accurate observation of these Braunton Burrows, of which
I had often heard before from the Devonshire men, who frequent our coast
for the purpose of stealing coal or limestone. An up-and-down sort of a
place it appeared, as I made it out with my spy-glass; and I could not
perceive that it beat our sands, as those good people declared of it.
Only I noticed that these sandhills were of a different hue from ours.
Not so bare and yellow-faced, not so swept by western winds, neither
with their tops thrown up like the peak of a new volcano. Rushes,
spurge, and goose-foot grasses, and the rib-leafed iris, and in hollow
places cat's-mint, loose-strife, and low eye-bright--these and a
thousand other plants seemed to hold the flaky surface so as not to fly
like ours. Ike broke silence, which to him was worse than breaking his
own windows, and said that all for leagues around was full of giants and
great spectres. Moreover, that all of it long had been found an unkid
and unholy place, bad for a man to walk in, and swarming with great
creatures, striped the contrary way to all good-luck, and having eight
legs every side, and a great horn crawling after them. And their food
all night was known to be travellers' skulls and sailors' bones. Having
seen a good deal of land-crabs, I scarcely dared to deny the story, and
yet I could hardly make it out. Therefore, without giving vent to
opinions of things which might turn out otherwise, I levelled my
spy-glass again at the region of which I had heard such a strange
account. And suddenly here I beheld a man of no common appearance,
wandering in and out the hollows, as if he never meant to stop; a tall
man with a long grey beard, and wearing a cocked-hat like a colonel.
There was something about him that startled me, and drew my whole
attention. Therefore, with my perspective glass not long ago cleaned,
and set ship-shape by a man who understood the bearings--after that
rogue of a Hezekiah had done his best to spoil it--with this honest
magnifier (the only one that tells no lies) I carefully followed up and
down the figure, some three cables'-lengths away, of this strange walker
among the sandhills. We were in smooth water now, gliding gently up the
river, with the mainsail paying over just enough for steerage-way; and
so I got my level truly, and could follow every step.
It was a fine old-fashioned man, tall and very upright, with a broad
ribbon upon his breast, and something of metal shining; and his Hessian
boots flashed now and then as he passed along with a stately stride. His
beard was like a streak of silver, and his forehead broad and white; but
all the rest of his face was dark, as if from foreign service. His dress
seemed to be of a rich black velvet, very choice and costly, and a long
sword hung at his side, although so many gentlemen now have ceased to
carry even a rapier. I like to see them carry their swords--it shows
that they can command themselves; but what touched me most with feeling
was his manner of going on. He seemed to be searching, ever searching,
up the hills and down the hollows, through the troughs and on the
breastlands, in the shadow and the sunlight, seeking for some precious
loss.
After watching this figure some little time, it was natural that I
should grow desirous to know something more about him; especially as I
obtained an idea, in spite of the distance and different dress, that I
had seen some one like this gentleman not such a very long time ago. But
I could not recall to my mind who it was that was hovering on the skirts
of it; therefore I looked around for help. Ike Hutchings, my under-mate,
was at the tiller, but I durst not lend him my glass, because he knew
not one end from the other; so I shouted aloud for Captain Jose, and
begged him to take a good look, and tell me everything that he knew or
thought. He just set his eye, and then shut up the glass, and handed it
to me without a word and walked off, as if I were nobody! This vexed me,
so that I holloaed out: "Are all of you gone downright mad on this side
of the Channel? Can't a man ask a civil question, and get a civil
answer?"
"When he axeth what consarneth him," was the only answer Captain Fuzzy
vouchsafed me over his shoulder.
I could not find it worth my while to quarrel with this ignorant man for
the sake of a foolish word or two, considering how morose he was, and
kept the keys of everything. For the moment, I could not help regretting
my wholesome chastisement of the boy Bang; for he would have told me at
least all he knew, if I could have taught him to take a good look. And
as for Ike, when I went and tried him, whether it was that he failed of
my meaning, or that he chose to pretend to do so (on account of my
having deposed him), or that he truly knew nothing at all--at any rate,
I got nothing from him. This was, indeed, a heavy trial. It is
acknowleged that we have such hearts, and strength of goodwill to the
universe, and power of entering into things, that not a Welshman of us
is there but yearns to know all that can be said about every one he has
ever seen, or heard, or even thought of. And this kind will, instead of
being at all repressed by discouragement, increases tenfold in
proportion as others manifest any unkind desire to keep themselves out
of the way of it. My certy, no low curiosity is this, but lofty
sympathy.
My grandfather nine generations back, Yorath the celebrated bard, begins
perhaps his most immortal ode to a gentleman who had given him a quart
of beer with this noble moral precept: "Lift up your eyes to the castle
gates and behold on how small a hinge they move! The iron is an inch and
a quarter thick, the gates are an hundred and fifty feet wide!" And
though the gates of my history are not quite so wide as that, they often
move on a hinge even less than an inch and a quarter in thickness;
though I must not be too sure, of course, as to the substance of Bang's
head. However, allow even two inches for it, and it seems but a very
trifling matter to tell as it did upon great adventures. The boy was as
sound as a boy need be in a couple of hours afterwards, except that he
had, or pretended to have, a kind of a buzzing in one ear; and I found
him so grateful for my correction, that I could not bear to urge his
head with inquiries for the moment.
To Captain Fuzzy I said no more. If he could not see the advantage of
attending to his own business, but must needs go out of his way to
administer public reproof to me, I could only be sorry for him. To Ikey,
however, I put some questions of a general tendency; but from his
barbarous broken English--if this jargon could be called English at
all--the only thing I could gather was, that none but true Devonshire
folk had a right to ask about Devonshire families. This might be true
to a certain extent, though I never have seen such a law laid down. The
answer, however, is perfectly simple. If these people carry on in a
manner that cannot fail to draw public attention, they attack us at once
on our tenderest point, and tenfold so if they are our betters; for what
man of common-sense could admit the idea of anybody setting up to be
nobody? Therefore I felt myself quite ready to give a week's pay and
victuals, in that state of life to which God alone could have seen fit
to call me--as mate of that Devonshire ketch, or hoy, or tub, or
whatever it might be--four shillings and a bag of suet-dumplings, twice
a-day, I would have given, to understand upon the spot all about that
elderly gentleman.
It helped me very little, indeed, that I kept on saying to myself, "This
matters not; 'tis a few hours only. The moment we get to Barnstaple, I
shall find some women;--the women can never help telling everything, and
for the most part ten times that. Only contradict them bravely, and they
have no silence left." However, it helped me not a little when Captain
Fuzzy, with a duck of his head, tumbled up from the cuddy, brimful, as
we saw, of the dinner-time. A man of my experience, who has lived for
six weeks on the horns of sea-snails, which the officers found too hard
for them, that time we were wrecked in the Palamede--what can a man of
this kind feel when a trumpery coaster dares to pipe all hands to
dinner?
However, it so happened for the moment that what I felt was appetite:
and Fuzzy, who was a first-rate cook, and knew seasoning without
counting, had brought an iron ladle up, so as to save his words, and yet
to give us some idea. Soup it was of a sort, that set us thinking of all
the meat under it. I blew upon it, and tasted a drop, and found that
other people's business would keep till at least after dinner. In the
midst of dinner we came to the meeting of two fine rivers, called Tawe
and Torridge, and with the tide still making strong we slanted up the
former. The channel was given to twists and turns, but the fine open
valley made up for it, and the wealth of land on either side, sloping
with green meadows gently, and winding in and out with trees. Here were
cattle, as red as chesnuts, running about with tails like spankers, such
as I never saw before; but Ikey gave me to understand that the colour of
the earth was the cause of it, and that if I lived long upon corned beef
made of them (whose quality no other land could create), I should be
turned to that hue myself. At this I laughed, as a sailor's yarn; but
after regarding him steadfastly, and then gazing again at the bullocks,
I thought there might be some truth in it.
One thing I will say of these sons of Devon: rough they may be, and
short of grain, and fond of their own opinions, and not well up in
points of law--which is our very nature--queer, moreover, in thought and
word, and obstinate as hedgehogs,--yet they show, and truly have, a kind
desire to feed one well. Money they have no great love of spending round
the corner, neither will they go surety freely for any man who is free
to run; but "vittels," as they call them, "vittels!"--before you have
been in a house two minutes out come these, and eat you must! Happily,
upon this point I was able to afford them large and increasing
satisfaction, having rarely enjoyed so fine a means of pleasing myself
and others also. For the things are good, and the people too; and it
takes a bad man to gainsay either.
CHAPTER XXVII.
A FINE SPECTACLE.
We brought the Rose of Devon to her moorings on the south side of the
river, about two miles short of Barnstaple, where a little bend and
creek is, and a place for barges, and "Deadman's Pill" was the name of
it. What could a dead man want with a pill, was the very first thing I
asked them; but they said that was no concern of theirs; there were
pills up and down the river for miles, as well as a town called
Pill-town. The cleverest man that I came across said that it must be by
reason of piles driven in where the corners were to prevent the washing,
and he showed me some piles, or their stumps, to prove it, and defied
all further argument. For the time I was beaten, until of a sudden, and
too late to let him know, I saw like a stupid that it must be no other
than our own word "Pwll," which differs much from an English "pool,"
because it may be either dry or wet, so long as it lies in a hollow. And
with that I fell a-thinking of poor Bardie and Pwll Tavan. To be quit of
remorse, and to see the world, I accepted old Ikey's invitation to
Barnstaple fair for the very next day. We could not begin to discharge
our limestone, as even that obstinate Fuzzy confessed, upon a sacred day
like that. Fuzzy himself had a mind for going, as we half suspected,
although he held his tongue about it; and my under-mate told me to let
him alone, and see what would come of it.
The town is a pleasant and pretty one, and has always been famous for
thinking itself more noble than any other; also the fair was a fine
thing to see, full of people, and full of noise, and most outrageous
dialect; everybody in fine broad humour, and no fighting worth even
looking at. This disappointed me; for in Wales we consider the off-day
market a poor one, unless at least some of the women pull caps. I tried,
however, not to miss it, having seen in foreign countries people meeting
peaceably. Of this I could have had no intention to complain to poor
Ikey Hutchings. However, he took it as if I had, and offered to find me
a man from Bratton, or himself, to have a square with me, and stake
half-a-crown upon it. He must have found early cause for repentance, if
I had taken him at his word; but every one would have cried shame upon
me against such a poor little fellow. And so we pushed on, and the
people pushed us.
After a little more of this, and Ikey bragging all the time, though I
saw nothing very wonderful, we turned the corner of a narrow street, and
opened into a broader one. Here there seemed to be no bullocks, such as
had made us keep springs on our cables, but a very amazing lot of
horses, trotting about, and parading, and rushing, most of them with
their tails uphoisted, as if by discharging tackle. Among them stood
men, making much of their virtues, and sinking their faults (if they had
any), and cracking a whip every now and then, with a style of applause
toward them.
Now I have a natural love of the horse, though I never served long on
board of one; and I regularly feel, at sight of them, a desire to mount
the rigging. Many a time I have reasoned to my own conviction and my
neighbours', that a man who can stand on the mizzen-top-gallant yard in
a heavy gale of wind, must find it a ridiculously easy thing to hold on
by a horse with the tackle to help him, and very likely a dead calm all
round. Nevertheless, somehow or other, the result seems always
otherwise.
I had just hailed a man with a colt to show off, and commodore's
pendants all over his tail, and was keeping clear of his counter to
catch the rise of the wave for boarding him, when a hush came over all
hands as if the street had been raked with chain-shot. And on both sides
of the street all people fell back and backed their horses, so that all
the roadway stood as clear as if the fair had turned into a Sunday
morning.
Up the centre, and heeding the people no more than they would two rows
of trees, came two grave gentlemen, daintily walking arm in arm, and
dressed in black. They had broad-flapped hats, long coats of broadcloth,
black silk tunics, and buckled breeches, and black polished boots
reaching up to the buckles.
Meanwhile all the people stood huddled together upon the pitched stones
on either side, touching their hats, and scarce whispering, and even the
showing off of the horses went into the side-streets.
After all the bowing and legging that I had beheld in the Royal Navy,
the double file, the noble salutes, the manning of the sides and yards,
the drums, the oars all upon the catch, and all the other glorious
things that fit us to thrash the Frenchmen so, there was nothing else
left for me to suppose but that here were two mighty admirals, gone into
mourning very likely for the loss of the Royal George, or come on the
sly perhaps to enjoy the rollicking of the fair, and sinking the uniform
for variety. How could I tell, and least of all would I think of
interfering with the pleasure of my betters; therefore I stopped in my
throat the cheer (which naturally seemed to rise the moment I took my
hat off), for fear of letting the common people know that I understood
their Honours. But after looking again so long as one might without
being inquisitive, I saw that neither of these great men could walk the
deck in a rolling sea.
I had been so bold in the thick of the horses, that Ikey had found it
too much for him always to keep close to me; but now, as the nearest
horse must have drifted the length of two jolly-boats away, this little
sailor came up and spoke.
"Can 'e show the laikes of they two, in Taffy-land, old Taffy now?"
"Plenty, I should hope," said I (though proud in the end to say "not
one"); "but what a fuss you make! Who are they?"
"As if thee didn't know!" cried Ikey, staring with indignation at me.
"How should I know when I never clapped eyes on either of them till this
moment?"
"Thou hast crossed the water for something then, Davy. Them be the two
Passons!"
"Two Passons!" I could not say it exactly as he sounded it. "I never
heard of two Passons."
"'A wants to draive me mad, 'a dooth," said Ikey, in self-commune: "Did
'e never hear tell of Passon Chowne, and Passon Jack, man alive now?"
It was hopeless to try any more with him, for I could not ding into his
stupid head the possibility of such ignorance. He could only believe
that I feigned it for the purpose of driving him out of his senses, or
making little of his native land. So I felt that the best thing I could
do was to look at those two great gentlemen accurately and impartially,
and thus form my own opinion. Hence there was prospect of further
pleasure, in coming to know more about them.
Verily they were goodly men, so far as the outer frame goes; the one for
size, and strength, and stature--and the other for face, form, and
quickness. I felt as surely as men do feel, who have dealed much among
other men, that I was gazing upon two faces not of the common order. And
they walked as if they knew themselves to be ever so far from the
average. Not so much with pride, or conceit, or any sort of arrogance,
but with a manner of going distinct from the going of fellow-creatures.
Whether this may have been so, because they were both going straight to
the devil, is a question that never crossed my mind, until I knew more
about them. For our parsons in Wales, take them all in all, can hardly
be called gentlemen; except, of course, our own, who was Colonel
Lougher's brother, also the one at Merthyr Mawr, and St Brides, and one
or two other places where they were customers of mine; but most of the
rest were small farmers' sons, or shopkeepers' boys, and so on. These
may do very well for a parish, or even a congregation that never sees a
gentleman (except when they are summoned--and not always then); however,
this sort will not do for a man who has served, ay, and been in battle,
under two baronets and an earl.
Therefore I looked with some misgiving at these two great parsons; but
it did not take mo long to perceive that each of them was of good birth
at least, whatever his manners afterwards,--men who must feel themselves
out of their rank when buttoned into a pulpit for reasoning with
Devonshire plough-tail Bobs, if indeed they ever did so; and as for
their flocks, they kept dogs enough at any rate to look after them. For
they both kept hounds; and both served their Churches in true hunting
fashion--that is to say, with a steeplechase, taking true country at
full gallop over hedges and ditches, and stabling the horse in the
vestry. All this I did not know as yet, or I must have thought even
more than I did concerning those two gentlemen. The taller of the two
was as fair and ruddy, and as free of countenance as a June rose in the
sunshine; a man of commanding build and figure, but with no other
command about him, and least of all, that of his own self. The other it
was that took my gaze, and held it, having caught mine eyes, until I
forgot myself, and dropped them under some superior strength. For the
time, I knew not how I felt, or what it was that vanquished me; only
that my spirit owned this man's to be its master. Whether from excess of
goodness, or from depth of desperate evil, at the time I knew not.
It was the most wondrous unfathomable face that ever fellow-man fixed
gaze upon; lost to mankindliness, lost to mercy, lost to all memory of
God. As handsome a face as need be seen, with a very strong forehead and
coal-black eyes, a straight white nose, and a sharp-cut mouth, and the
chin like a marble sculpture. Disdain was the first thing it gave one to
think of; and after that, cold relentless humour; and after that,
anything dark and bad.
Meanwhile this was a very handsome man, as women reckon beauty; and his
age not over forty, perhaps; also of good average stature, active and
elegant form, and so on. Neither years nor cubits make much odds to a
man of that sort; and the ladies pronounce him perfect.
When these two were gone by, I was able to gaze again at the taller one.
Truly a goodly man he was, though spared from being a good one. He
seemed to stand over me, like Sir Philip; although I was measured for
six feet and one inch, before I got into rheumatic ways. And as for size
and compass, my parents never could give me food to fetch out my girth,
as this parson's was. He looked a good yard and a half round the chest,
and his arms were like oak-saplings. However, he proved to be a man void
of some pride and some evil desires, unless anybody bore hard on him;
and as for reading the collects, or lessons, or even the burial service,
I was told that no man in the British realm was fit to say "Amen" to
him. This had something to do with the size of his chest, and perhaps
might have helped to increase it. His sermons also were done in a style
that women would come many miles to enjoy; beginning very soft and
sweet, so as to melt the milder ones; and then of a sudden roaring
greatly with all the contents of enormous lungs, so as to ring all round
the sides of the strongest weaker vessels. And as for the men, what
could they think, when the preacher could drub any six of them?
This was "Parson Jack," if you please, his surname being "Rambone," as I
need not say, unless I write for unborn generations. His business in
Boutport Street that day was to see if any man would challenge him. He
had held the belt seven years, they said, for wrestling, as well as for
bruising; the condition whereof was to walk the street both at
Barnstaple fair and at Bodmin revels, and watch whether any man laid
foot across him.
This he did purely as a layman might. But the boxing and bruising were
part of his office, so that he hung up his cassock always for a
challenge to make rent in it. There had been some talk of a Cornishman
interfering about the wrestling; and bad people hoped that he might so
attempt, and never know the way home again; but as for the fighting, the
cassock might hang till the beard of Parson Jack was grey, before any
one made a hole in it. Also the Cornish wrestler found, after looking at
Parson Jack, that the wisest plan before him was to challenge the other
Cornishmen, and leave the belt in Devonshire.
All this I found out at a little gathering which was held round the
corner, in Bear Street, to reflect upon the business done at the fair,
and compare opinions. And although I had never beheld till then any of
our good company, neither expected to see them again, there were no two
opinions about my being the most agreeable man in the room. I showed
them how to make punch to begin with, as had been done by his Royal
Highness, with me to declare proportions; and as many of the farmers had
turned some money, they bade me think twice about no ingredient that
would figure on the bill, even half-a-crown.
By right of superior knowledge, and also as principal guest of the
evening, I became voted the chairman, upon the clear understanding that
I would do them the honour of paying nothing; and therein I found not a
man that would think of evading his duty towards the chair. I entreated
them all to be frank, and regard me as if I were born in Barnstaple,
which they might look upon as being done otherwise, as the mere turn of
a shaving; for my father had been there twice, and my mother more than
once thought of trying it. Everybody saw the force of this; and after a
very fine supper we grew as genial as could be. And leading them all
with a delicate knowledge of the ins and outs of these natives (many of
which I had learned at the fair), and especially by encouraging their
bent for contradiction, I heard a good deal of the leading people in the
town or out of it. I listened, of course, to a very great deal, which
might be of use to me or might not; but my object was, when I could
gather in their many-elbowed stories, to be thoroughly up to the mark on
three points.
First, about Fuzzy, and most important. Who was he? What was he? Where
did he live? Had he got a wife? And if so, why? And if not, more
especially, why again? Also, how much money had he, and what in the
world did he do with it; and could he have, under the rose, any reason
for keeping our women so distant? Particularly, I had orders to know
whether he was considered handsome by the Devonshire women. For our
women could not make up their minds, and feared to give way to the high
opinion engendered by his contempt of them. Only they liked his general
hairiness, if it could be warranted not to come off.
Upon this point I learned nothing at all. No man even knew Bethel Jose,
or, at any rate, none would own to it, perhaps because Ikey was there to
hearken; so I left that until I should get with the women. My next
matter was about Braunton Burrows, and the gentleman of high rank who
wandered up and down without telling us why. And I might hereupon have
won some knowledge, and was beginning to do so, when a square stout man
came in and said "Hush!" and I would gladly have thrown a jug at him.
Nevertheless, I did learn something which I mean to tell next to
directly.
But as concerned the third question before me (and to myself the most
itching of any), satisfaction, to at least half-measure, was by proper
skill and fortune brought within my reach almost. And this I must set
down at leisure, soberly thinking over it.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
SOMETHING ABOUT HIM.
It was of course not Parson Rambone but the Parson Chowne who aroused my
desire of knowledge so strongly. And even here I was met at first by
failure and disappointment. The men would only shake their hands and
say "Ah, he is a queer one!" or, "Well, well, we can't expect all folk
to be alike, you know;" or even some of the ruder spirits, "You had
better go yourself and ask him"--a most absurd suggestion, for never yet
had I seen a man less fit to encourage impertinence. Far more ready
would I have been to displease even his great comrade, the Reverend John
Rambone; and no one who saw them together could doubt which of the two
was the master. My true course was clearly to bide my time, and, as
chairman, to enhance the goodwill and geniality of the evening. And this
I was ready enough to do--ay, and in the vein for it--bearing in mind
the wisdom of enjoying to the utmost such favourable circumstances, to
be on the free boot, and well received in a place entirely new to me,
where I found myself so much ahead of everybody in matter of mind, and
some of them glad to acknowledge it; also where no customer could be
waiting to reproach me, nor even a justice of the peace well versed in
my countenance; moreover, blessed as I was with a sense of pity for
these natives, and a largeness of goodwill to them, such a chance had
never crossed me since the day my wife did.
Ikey and I had a good laugh also at that surly Bethel Jose, who had
shown himself so much above the fair in mind, yet was there in body.
None but Bang, the boy, had been left for captain and crew of the Rose
of Devon, and before it was dark we had found Bang shooting, at four
shots a-penny, for cocoa-nut slices, with ginger-beer poured over them.
Now fortune stood my friend that night, for before we began to find
ourselves in a condition at all uproarious, I managed to loosen the
tongues of these natives by means of some excellent stories. Recalling
the fame of my grandfather (that long David Llewellyn, who made on his
harp three unconquered ballads, and won the first prize at all the
Eisteddfods held during his life for Englynion), I could not accept it
as my business to play second fiddle. Therefore, being in a happy mood,
I was enabled to recount such stories as made these Devonshire folk open
their mouths like a man at a great rock-oyster, while their experience
was in contention with faith and perhaps good manners. And as their
nature is obstinate and most unwilling to be outdone, they found
themselves driven down at last to tell the most wonderful things they
knew, or else to be almost nobodies. And putting aside what their
grandfathers might have seen or heard or even done--which is a mistake
to dwell upon--all their stories worth curve of the ear were of Parson
Chowne, and no other.
For this man was a man, as we say. No other man must have a will that
stood across the path of his. If he heard of any one unwilling to give
way to him, he would not go to bed until he had taken that arrogance out
of him. Many people, and even some of ten times his own fortune, had
done their best, one after the other, not to be beaten by him. All of
them found that they could not do it, and that their only chance of
comfort was to knock under to Parson Chowne. And even after that had
been done, he was not always satisfied, but let them know from time to
time their folly in offending him. And most of all, he made a point (as
was natural perhaps) of keeping the Lord Bishop of the country under
him. Some of these had done their best (before they understood him) to
make his habits hold themselves within some stretch of discipline; or,
if that could not be hoped, at any rate to keep silent. When he heard of
these ideas he was not a little pleased, because he descried a rare
chance of sport, and he followed it up with their lordships. The law he
knew to its lowest tittle, and while he broke it every day himself, woe
to any man who dared to break it against him. And gradually these
bishops came (one after the other growing a little alive to what the
parsons were) not so much to let him alone as to desire his
acquaintance--out of school, if so I may put it, in my ignorance of the
bench of bishops. For well as I know a fish called "the Pope," and also
a pear said to be "Bishop's thumb," not to mention a grass called
"Timothy," it has not been my luck thus far to rise above the bench of
magistrates.
"Let be" is the wisest thing one can say; and so everybody said of him,
so soon as ever it was acknowledged that he could never be put down. And
thus he might have done well enough if he would have been content with
this. Only it never was his nature to be content with anything, which is
the only true way to get on; if any one cares for that sort of thing,
who knows mankind's great randomness. Because the one who shoves and
swears without being too particular, has the best chance to hoist
himself upon the backs of the humble. By dint of this, and to keep him
quiet, Parson Chowne himself, they said, might have been bishop if so he
had chosen. For this he had some fine qualifications, for his very
choicest pleasure was found in tormenting his fellow-parsons: and a man
of so bold a mind he was, that he believed in nothing except himself.
Even his own servants never knew how to come nigh him. One at the
stables would touch his hat, and he would kick him for reply; then
another would come without ceremony, and he knocked him down to learn
it. Also in the house, the maidens had the same account to give. However
much they might think of themselves, and adorn themselves to that
estimate, he never was known to do so much as to chuck any one of them
under the chin, as they had been at all other places much in the habit
of feeling; neither did he make a joke to excuse himself for omitting
it. As to that, they would scorn themselves ever to think of permitting
it, being young women of high respect, and quite aware how to conduct
themselves. But they might have liked to stop him, and they got no
chance of doing it.
All this small-talk almost vexed me more than the content it gave. Every
now and then I could see the man in these little corner views, but they
did not show me round him so as to get his girth and substance. "Think
of the devil," is an old saying; and while I thought of him, in he
walked.
At the very first glimpse of him, all those people who had been talking
so freely about him shrank away, and said, "Servant, sir!" and looked so
foolish more than usual, that he read them with one eye. He had his
riding-clothes on now, and it made him look still sharper.
"Talking of me, good people, eh? I hope the subject pleases you. Open
your ranks, if you please, and show me whether my groom is behind you."
He cracked a great hunting-whip as he spoke, and it seemed a poor
prospect for the groom, wherever he might be loitering.
"Plaize your honour, your honour's groom have not been here all day
a'most; and if her coom'th, us 'ont keep un."
"In that resolution you are wise. What! you here, Welshman? I marked you
to-day. You will come to me by noon to-morrow. Here is for your
charges."
He threw on the table two crown-pieces, and was gone before I knew what
answer I was bound to make to him. The men, recovering from his
presence, ran to the window to watch him as far as the flaring lights of
the fair, now spluttering low, displayed him. Without being able to see
so much as I strongly desired to see of him, I could not help admiring
now his look, and his manner, and strong steady gait, and the general
style of his outward man. His free way of going along made clear the
excellence of his clothing; and he swung his right elbow, as I was told,
from his constant desire to lash a horse. He was the devil himself to
ride, so everybody said of him; and Parson Chowne's horse was now become
a by-word for any one thoroughly thrashed. And yet no other man must
ever dare to touch his horses. If any one did, no deadlier outrage could
be put upon him.
Hearing these things from fourteen customers able to express their
thoughts, I was sorry when the corner turned upon Parson Chowne, so
walking in the light of long deal tables, set with finely-guttering
candles, and with goods not quite sold out. And he left upon my memory a
vision of a great commander, having a hat of controlling movements, and
a riding-coat so shaped that a horse appeared to be under it; and lower
down, buff leathern breeches, and boots well over the hinge of his legs,
and silver heels, and silver spurs, and nothing to obscure him. No
topcoat or outer style of means to fend the weather, because he could
keep it in order always.
"I wish I was like him, then," said I; "and what does he mean by
insulting me? I know a hundred bigger fellows. Am I at his beck and
call?"
"I warr'n thou wilt be, zoon enough," answered, with a heavy grin, a
lout of a fellow, who had shown no more sense than to leave the room at
the very crash and crown of one of my best stories; "hast heered what
Passon have now a dooed?" He was come in primed with some rubbishing
tale, and wanted the room to make much of him. Nevertheless, the men of
perception had not done with me yet.
"Wuttever be un? wuttever be un? Spak up, Oasler Jan!" cried some of the
altogether younger men, who never know good work from bad, but seek some
new astonishment. Goodness knows how hard it was, and how wholly
undeserved, for me to withdraw and let them talk, only because their
news was newer, and about a favourite man to talk of. However, I pressed
down my feelings, not being certain about my bill, if I offended any
one. For mercy's sake I spare their brogue, and tell their story
decently. And Ostler John's tale was as follows, so far as I could make
it out, by means of good luck, and by watching his face.
A certain justice of the peace, whose name was Captain Vellacott, a
gentleman of spirit, who lived in one of the parishes belonging to this
Parson Chowne (who happened to have two churches), this gentleman had
contrived to give, as almost every one managed to do, deadly offence to
Parson Chowne. It was expected that the Parson would be content to have
him down and horsewhip him (as his manner was), and burn his house down
afterwards. But the people who thought this were too hasty, and
understood not his reverence. Whether from dislike of sitting upon the
bench with him afterwards, or whether because Mrs Vellacott also had
dared to shake hands with her gauntlet on, or because the baby cried
when offered up to kiss the Parson--at any rate, Captain Vellacott must
have more than a simple chastisement. The Captain being a quick sharp
man, who said a hot word and forgot it, laughed at every one who told
him to see to himself; and so on. "The Parson," said he, "is a man of
his cloth; so am I of mine; and I will not insult him by expecting
insult." So it came to pass that he made the mistake of measuring
another man by his own measure. After a few months this gentleman felt
that the Parson had quite forgiven him, no evil having befallen him yet,
except that his rick-yard had twice been fired, and his wife insulted by
the naked people whom Chowne maintained upon Nympton Moor. And so, when
they met in the fair this day, the Captain bowed to the Parson, and
meant to go on and see to his business. But the other would not have it
so. He offered his hand most cordially, and asked how Mrs Vellacott was,
and all the five children, according to ages, using the Christian name
of each. Captain Vellacott was so pleased by the kindness of his memory,
and the nobility shown in dropping whatever had been between them, that
what did he do but invite Master Chowne to dine with him up at the
Fortescue Arms Hotel, and see a young horse he had bought in the fair,
giving his own for it and five guineas; for he was not a rich man at
all, and was come to make a moderate bargain.
Everything might have gone on well, and perhaps the Parson really meant
to forgive him at the moment for having dared, in the bygone matter, to
have a will of his own almost. But, as bad luck would have it, this very
horse that the Captain had bought turned out to be one which the Parson
had eye upon ever since last year's hunting season. However, not to
paint the devil too black, it was confessed that he offered Vellacott
five pounds for his bargain. This ought to have satisfied any man who
knew what Parson Chowne was, and that fifty times five pounds would be
saved by keeping out of his black books. Nevertheless the Captain stuck
to his bargain and ruined himself.
The two gentlemen parted very good friends, shaking hands warmly, and
having their joke, and hoping to dine again soon together; for Parson
Chowne could beat all the world at after-dinner stories; and the Captain
was the best man to laugh anywhere round the neighbourhood. And so he
started rather early, on purpose to show his new horse to his wife.
But the ostler, who was a very old codger, and had seen a little of
Parson's ways, shook his head after the Captain's shilling, and spat
upon it to prevent bad luck, and laid it on the shelf where he kept his
blacking. He was too clever to say one word; but every one remembered
how he had behaved, and the sigh he gave--when he reminded them.
It may have been half an hour afterwards, or it may have been an hour
and a half (so much these people differed), when Captain Vellacott on a
hurdle came to Surgeon Cutcliffe's door, and the horse was led to
Farrier Gould, who sent him to the mayor for opinions, and his worship
sent him on to Pilch of the knacker's yard. Poor Justice Vellacott's
collar bone was snapped in two places, and his left thigh broken, also
three of his ribs stoven in, and a good deal of breakage abroad in his
head. However, they hoped that he might come round; and being a
Devonshire man, he did, as I found out afterwards.
This tale, which Ostler John delivered at ten times the length of the
above, caused a very great stir and excitement and comparison of
opinions. And when these wiseacres had almost exhausted their powers of
wonder, I desired to know, in the name of goodness, why the poor Parson
must be saddled with every man who fell off his horse. In the first
place, he must have been far away from the scene of the misfortune,
inasmuch as no more than an hour ago he was seeking his groom amongst
us. And, again, what could be more likely than that Captain Vellacott
might have taken, with a view to good luck for his purchase, a bottle or
two of wine beyond what otherwise would have contented him? And even if
not--why, a horse might fall, much more a man (who has only two legs),
without anybody having designed it.
This reasoning of mine made no impression, because everybody's opinion
was set. "Passon Chowne had adooed it;" they scratched their heads and
went into side questions, but on the main point all agreed--"'twor
ayther the Passon or the devil himzell."
CHAPTER XXIX.
A VISIT TO A PARSON.
My opinion of Devonshire now grew fast that most of the people are mad
there. Honest, respectable, very kind-hearted, shrewd at a bargain, yet
trustful, simple, manly, and outspoken, nevertheless they must be mad to
keep Parson Chowne among them. But here, as in one or two other matters,
I found myself wrong ere I finished with it. If a man visits a strange
country, he ought to take time to think about it, and not judge the
natives by first appearance, however superior he may be. This I felt
even then, and tried my very best to act up to it: nevertheless it came
back on me always that in the large county of Devon there were only two
sound people; Parson Chowne for the one--and, of course, for the other,
Davy Llewellyn.
So I resolved to see this thing out, especially as (when I came to
think) nothing could be clearer than that the Parson himself had
descried and taken me (with his wonderful quickness) for the only
intelligent man to be found. How he knew me to be a Welshman, I could
not tell then, and am not sure now. It must have been because I looked
so superior to the rest of them. I gazed at the two crown-pieces, when I
came to be active again the next day; and finding them both very good, I
determined to keep them, and go to see after some more. But if I thought
to have got the right side of the bargain, so far as the money went, I
reckoned amiss considerably; for I found that the Parson lived so far
away, that I could not walk thither and back again without being
footsore for a week; and Captain Fuzzy would not allow it, especially as
he had bound me to help in discharging cargo. And being quite ignorant
as to the road, to hire a horse would not avail me, even supposing I
could stay on board of him, which was against all experience. And by the
time I had hired a cart to take me to Nympton on the Moors, as well as a
hand to pilot her, behold I was on the wrong side of my two crowns,
without any allowance for rations. They told me that everybody always
charged double price for going up to the Parson's, and even so did not
care for the job much. Because, though it was possible to come back
safe, there was a poor chance of doing so without some damage to man or
beast, and perhaps to the vehicle also.
Hereupon I had a great mind not to go; but being assured upon all sides
that this would be a most dangerous thing, as well as supported,
perhaps, by my native resolution and habits of inquiry, I nailed my
colours to the mast, and mounted the cart by the larboard slings. It was
a long and tiresome journey, quite up into a wilderness; and, for the
latter part of it, the track could not have been found, except by means
of a rough stone flung down here and there. But the driver told me that
Parson Chowne took the whole of it three times a-week at a gallop, not
being able to live without more harm than this lonely place afforded.
Finding this fellow more ahead of his wits than most of those Devonshire
yokels are, I beguiled the long journey by letting him talk, and now and
then putting a question to him. He was full, of course, like all the
town, of poor Captain Vellacott's misadventure, and the terrible spell
put upon his new horse, which had seemed in the morning so quiet and
docile. This he pretended at first to explain as the result of a compact
formed some years back between his reverence and the devil. For Parson
Chowne had thoroughly startled and robbed the latter of all self-esteem,
until he had given in, and contracted to be at his beck and call (like a
good servant) until it should come to the settlement. And poor Parson
Jack was to be thrown in, though not such a very bad man sometimes; it
being thoroughly understood, though not expressed between them, that
Parson Chowne was to lead him on, step by step, with his own pilgrimage.
All this I listened to very quietly, scarce knowing what to say about
it. However, I asked the driver, as a man having intimate knowledge of
horses, whether he really did believe that they (like the swine of the
Gadarenes) were laid open to infection from even a man with seven devils
in him; and the more so as these had been never cast out, according to
all that appeared of him. At this he cracked his whip and thought, not
being much at theology; and not having met, it may be, until now, a man
so thoroughly versed in it. I gave him his time to consider it out; but
the trouble seemed only to grow on him, until he laid down his whip and
said, not being able to do any more, "Horses is horses, and pigs is
pigs, every bit the same as men be men. If the Lord made 'em both, the
devil had the right to take 'em both."
This was so sound in point of reasoning, as well as of what we do hear
in church, that never another word could I say, being taken in my own
shallowness. And this is the only thing that can happen to a fellow too
fond of objections. However, the driver, perceiving now that he had been
too much for me, was pleased with me, and became disposed to make it up
by a freedom of further information. If I were to put this in his own
words, who could make head or tail of it? And indeed I could not stoop
my pen to write such outlandish language. He said that his cousin was
the very same knacker who had slaughtered that poor horse last night, to
put it out of misery. Having an order from the mayor, "Putt thiss here
hannimall to deth," he did it, and thought no more about it, until he
got up in the morning. Then, as no boiling was yet on hand, he went to
look at this fine young horse, whose time had been so hastened. And the
brains being always so valuable for mixing with fresh--but I will not
tell for the sake of honour--it was natural that he should look at the
head of this poor creature. Finding the eyes in a strange condition, he
examined them carefully, and, lifting the lids and probing round, in
each he found a berry. My coachman said that his cousin now took these
two berries which he had thus discovered out of a new horn-box, in which
he had placed them for certainty, and asked him to make out what they
were. The knacker, for his part, believed that they came from a creeping
plant called the "Bitter-sweet nightshade," or sometimes the "Lady's
necklace." But his cousin, my coachman, thought otherwise. He had
wandered a good deal about in the fields before he married his young
woman; and there he had seen, in autumnal days, the very same things as
had killed the poor horse. A red thing that sticks in a cloven pod, much
harder than berries of nightshade, and likely to keep in its poison
until the moisture and warmth should dissolve its skin. I knew what he
meant after thinking a while, because when a child I had gathered them.
It is the seed of a nasty flag, which some call the "Roast-beef plant,"
and others the "Stinking Iris." These poisonous things in the eyes of a
horse, cleverly pushed in under the lids, heating and melting, according
as the heating and working of muscles crushed them; then shooting their
red fire over the agonised tissues of eyeballs,--what horse would not
have gone mad with it?
Also finding so rare a chance of a Devonshire man who was not dumb, I
took opportunity of going into the matter of that fine old gentleman,
whose strange and unreasonable habit of seeking among those Braunton
Burrows (as if for somebody buried there) had almost broken my rest ever
since, till I stumbled on yet greater wonders. Coachman, however, knew
nothing about it, or else was not going to tell too much, and took a
sudden turn of beginning to think that I asked too many questions,
without even an inn to stand treat at. And perhaps he found out, with
the jerks of the cart, that I had a very small phial of rum, not enough
for two people to think of.
He may have been bidding for that, with his news; if so, he made a great
mistake. Not that I ever grudge anything; only that there was not half
enough for myself under the trying circumstances, and the man should
have shown better manners than ever to cast even half an eye on it.
At last we were forced, on the brow of a hill, to come to a mooring in a
fine old ditch, not having even a wall, or a tree, or a rick of peat to
shelter us. And half a mile away round the corner might be found (as the
driver said) the rectory house of Parson Chowne. Neither horse nor man
would budge so much as a yard more in that direction, and it took a
great deal to make them promise to wait there till two of the clock for
me. But I had sense enough to pay nothing until they should carry me
home again. Still I could not feel quite sure how far their courage
would hold out in a lonely place, and so unkind.
And even with all that I feel within me of royal blood from royal
bards--which must be the highest form of it--I did not feel myself so
wholly comfortable and relishing as my duty is towards dinner-time.
Nevertheless I plucked up courage, and went round the corner. Here I
found a sort of a road with fir-trees on each side of it, all blown one
way by strong storms, and unable to get back again. The road lay not in
a hollow exactly, but in a shallow trough of the hills, which these
fir-trees were meant to fill up, if the wind would allow them occasion.
And going between them I felt the want of the pole I had left behind me.
And if I had happened to own a gold watch, or anything fit to breed
enemies, the knowledge of my price would have kept me from such
temptation of Providence.
A tremendous roaring of dogs broke upon me the moment I got the first
glimpse of the house; and this obliged me to go on carefully, because of
that race I have had too much, and never found them mannersome. One huge
fellow rushed up to me, and disturbed my mind to so great a degree that
I was unable to take heed of anything about the place except his savage
eyes and highly alarming expression and manner. For he kept on showing
his horrible tusks, and growling a deep growl broken with snarls, and
sidling to and fro, so as to get the better chance of a dash at me; and
I durst not take my eyes from his, or his fangs would have been in my
throat at a spring. I called him every endearing name that I could lay
my tongue to, and lavished upon him such admiration as might have melted
the sternest heart; but he placed no faith in a word of it, and nothing
except my determined gaze kept him at bay for a moment. Therefore I felt
for my sailor's knife, which luckily hung by a string from my belt; and
if he had leaped at me he would have had it, as sure as my name is
Llewellyn; and few men, I think, would find fault with me for doing my
best to defend myself. However, one man did, for a stern voice cried--
"Shut your knife, you scoundrel! Poor Sammy, did the villain threaten
you?"
Sammy crouched, and fawned, and whimpered, and went on his belly to lick
his master, while I wiped the perspiration of my fright beneath my hat.
"This is a nice way to begin," said Chowne, after giving his dog a kick,
"to come here and draw a knife on my very best dog. Go down on your
knees, sir, and beg Sammy's pardon."
"May it please your reverence," I replied, in spite of his eyes, which
lay fiercer upon me than even those of the dog had done, "I would have
cut his throat; and I will, if he dares to touch me."
"That would grieve me, my good Welshman, because I should then let loose
the pack, and we might have to bury you. However, no more of this
trifle. Go in to my housekeeper, and recover your nerves a little, and
in half an hour come to my study."
I touched my hat and obeyed his order, following the track which he
pointed out, but keeping still ready for action if any more dogs should
bear down on me. However, I met no creature worse than a very morose old
woman, who merely grunted in reply to the very best flourish I could
contrive, and led me into a long low kitchen. Dinner-time for the common
people being now at maturity, I expected to see all the servants of
course, and to smell something decent and gratifying. However, there was
no such luck, only, without even asking my taste, she gave me a small
jug of sour ale, and the bottom of a loaf, and a bit of Dutch cheese. Of
course this was good enough for me; and having an appetite after the
ride, I felt truly grateful. However, I could not help feeling also that
in the cupboard just over my elbow there lay a fillet of fine spiced
beef, to which I have always been partial. And after the perils I had
encountered, the least she could do was to offer it down. Anywhere else
I might have taken the liberty of suggesting this, but in that house I
durst not, further than to ask very delicately--
"Madam, it is early for great people; but has his reverence been pleased
to dine?"
"Did he give you leave to ask, sir?"
"No, I cannot say that he did. I meant no offence; but only----"
"I mean no offence; but only, you must be a stranger to think of asking
a question in this house without his leave."
Nothing could have been said to me more thoroughly grievous and
oppressive. And she offered no line or opening for me to begin again, as
cross women generally do, by not being satisfied with their sting. So I
made the best of my bread-and-cheese, and thought that Sker House was a
paradise compared to Nympton Rectory.
"It is time for you now to go to my master," she broke in with her cold
harsh voice, before I had scraped all the rind of my cheese, and when I
was looking for more sour beer.
"Very well," I replied; "there is no temptation of any sort, madam, to
linger here."
She smiled, for the first time, a very tart smile, even worse than the
flavour of that shrewd ale, but without its weakness. And then she
pointed up some steps, and along a stone passage, and said, exactly as
if she took me for no more than a common tramp--
"At the end of that passage turn to the left, and knock at the third
door round the corner. You dare not lay hands on anything. My master
will know it if you do."
This was a little too much for me, after all the insults I had now put
up with. I turned and gazed full on her strange square face, and into
the depth of her narrow black eyes, with a glimpse of the window showing
them.
"Your master!" I said. "Your son, you mean! And much there is to choose
between you!"
She did not betray any signs of surprise at this hap-hazard shot of
mine, but coldly answered my gaze, and said--
"You are very insolent. Let me give you a warning. You seem to be a
powerful man: in the hands of my master you would be a babe, although
you are so much larger. And were I to tell him what you have said, there
would not be a sound piece of skin on you. Now, let me hear no more of
you."
"With the greatest pleasure, madam. I am sure I can't understand
whatever could bring me here."
"But I can;" she answered, more to her own thoughts than to mine, as she
shut the door quite on my heels, and left me to my own devices. I felt
almost as much amiss as if I were in an evil dream of being chased
through caves of rock by some of my very best customers, all bearing
red-hot toasting forks, and pelting me with my own good fish. It is the
very worst dream I have, and it never comes after a common supper; which
proves how clear my conscience is. And even now I might have escaped,
because there were side passages; and for a minute I stood in doubt,
until there came into my mind the tales of the pack of hounds he kept,
and two or three people torn to pieces, and nobody daring to interfere.
Also, I wanted to see him again, for he beat everybody I had ever seen;
and I longed to be able to describe him to a civilised audience at the
"Jolly Sailors." Therefore I knocked at the door of his room,
approaching it very carefully, and thanking the Lord for His last great
mercy in having put my knife into my head.
"You may come in," was the answer I got at last; and so in I went; and a
queerer room I never did go into. But wonderful as the room was surely,
and leaving on memory a shade of half-seen wonders afterwards, for the
time I had no power to look at anything but the man.
People may laugh (and they always do until they gain experience) at the
idea of one man binding other men prisoners to his will. For all their
laughing, there stands the truth; and the men who resist such influence
best are those who do not laugh at it. I have seen too much of the
tricks of the world to believe in anything supernatural; but the
granting of this power is most strictly within nature's scope; and
somebody must have it. One man has the gift of love, that everybody
loves him; another has the gift of hate, that nobody comes near him; the
third, and far the rarest gift, combines the two others (one more, one
less), and adds to them both the gift of fear. I felt, as I tried to
meet his gaze and found my eyes quiver away from it, that the further I
kept from this man's sight, the better it would be for me.
He sat in a high-backed chair, and pointed to a three-legged stool, as
much as to say, "You may even sit down." This I did, and waited for him.
"Your name is David Llewellyn," he said, caring no more to look at me;
"you came from the coast of Glamorgan, three days ago, in the Rose of
Devon schooner."
"Ketch, your reverence, if you please. The difference is in the
mizzen-mast."
"Well, Jack Ketch, if you like, sir. No more interrupting me. Now you
will answer a few questions; and if you tell me one word of
falsehood----"
He did not finish his sentence, but he frightened me far more than if he
had. I promised to do my best to tell the truth, so far as lies in me.
"Do you know what child that was that came ashore drowned upon your
coast, when the coroner made such a fool of himself?"
"And the jury as well, your reverence. About the child I know nothing at
all."
"Describe that child to the best of your power: for you are not
altogether a fool."
I told him what the poor babe was like, so far as I could remember it.
But something holy and harmless kept me from saying one word about
Bardie. And to the last day of my life I shall rejoice that I so
behaved. He saw that I was speaking truth; but he showed no signs of joy
or sorrow, until I ventured to put in--
"May I ask why your reverence wishes to know, and what you think of this
matter, and how----"
"Certainly you may ask, Llewellyn; it is a woman's and a Welshman's
privilege; but certainly you shall have no reply. What inquiry has been
made along your coast about this affair?"
I longed to answer him in my humour, even as he had answered me. With
any one else I could have done it, but I durst not so with him.
Therefore I told him all the truth, to the utmost of my
knowledge,--making no secret of Hezekiah, and his low curiosity; also
the man of the press with the hat; and then I could not quite leave out
the visit of Anthony Stew and Sir Philip.
This more than anything else aroused Parson Chowne's attention. For the
papers he cared not a damn, he said; for two of them lived by abusing
him; but as he swore not (except that once), it appeared to me that he
did care. However, he pressed me most close and hard about Anthony Stew
and Sir Philip.
When he had got from me all that I knew--except that he never once hit
upon Bardie (the heart and the jewel of everything), he asked me without
any warning--
"Do you know who that Sir Philip is?"
"No, your reverence; I have not even heard so much as his surname,
although, no doubt, I shall find out."
"You fool! Is that all the wit you have? Three days in and out of
Barnstaple! It is Sir Philip Bampfylde of Narnton Court, close by you."
"There is no Narnton Court, that I know of, your reverence, anywhere
round our neighbourhood. There is Candleston Court, and Court Isa, and
Court----"
"Tush, I mean near where your ship is lying. And that is chiefly what I
want with you. I know men well; and I know that you are a man that will
do anything for money."
My breath was taken away at this: so far was it from my true character.
I like money well enough in its way; but as for a single disgraceful
action----
"Your reverence never made such a mistake. For coming up here I have
even paid more than you were pleased to give me. If that is your point I
will go straight back. Do anything, indeed, for money!"
"Pooh! This is excellent indignation. What man is there but will do so?
I mean, of course, anything you consider to be right and virtuous."
"Anything which is undeniably right, and upright, and virtuous. Ah! now
your reverence understands me. Such has always been my character."
"In your own opinion. Well, self-respect is a real blessing: I will not
ask you to forego it. Your business will be of a nature congenial as
well as interesting to you. Your ship lies just in the right position
for the service I require; and as she is known to have come from Wales,
no Revenue-men will trouble you. You will have to keep watch, both day
and night, upon Sir Philip and Narnton Court."
"Nothing in the nature of spying, your reverence, or sneaking after
servants, or underhand work----"
"Nothing at all of that sort. You have nothing to do but to use your
eyes upon the river-front of the building, especially the landing-place.
You will come and tell me as soon as ever you see any kind of boat or
vessel either come to or leave the landing-place. Also, if any man with
a trumpet hails either boat or vessel. In short, any kind of
communication betwixt Narnton Court and the river. You need not take
any trouble, except when the tide is up the river."
"Am I to do this against Sir Philip, who has been so kind and good to
me? If so, I will hear no more of it."
"Not so; it is for Sir Philip's good. He is in danger, and very
obstinate. He stupidly meddles with politics. My object is to save him."
"I see what your reverence means," I answered, being greatly relieved by
this; for then (and even to this day, I believe) many of the ancient
families were not content with his gracious Majesty, but hankered after
ungracious Stuarts, mainly because they could not get them. "I will do
my best to oblige you, sir." I finished, and made a bow to him.
"To obey me, you mean. Of course you will. But remember one thing--you
are not to dare to ask a single word about this family, or even mention
Sir Philip's name to anybody except myself. I have good reason for this
order. If you break it I shall know it, and turn you to stone
immediately. You are aware that I possess that power."
"Please your reverence, I have heard so; and I would gladly see it
done--not to myself as yet, but rather to that old woman in the kitchen.
It could not make much difference to her."
"Keep your position, sir," he answered, in a tone which frightened me;
it was not violent, but so deep. "And now for your scale of wages. Of
course, being opposite that old house, you would watch it without any
orders. The only trouble I give you is this--when the tide runs up after
dark, and smooth water lets vessels over the bar, you will have to
loosen your boat or dingy, punt, or whatever you call her, and pull
across the river, and lie in a shaded corner which you will find below
Narnton Court, and commanding a view of it. Have you firearms? Then take
this. The stock is hollow, and contains six charges. You can shoot; I am
sure of that. I know a poacher by his eyelids."
He gave me a heavy two-barrelled pistol, long enough for a gun almost,
and meant to be fired from the shoulder. Then pressing a spring in the
stock, he laid bare a chamber containing some ammunition, as well as a
couple of spare flints. He was going to teach me how to load it, till I
told him that I had been captain of cannon, and perhaps the best shot in
the royal navy.
"Then don't shoot yourself," he said, "as most of the old sailors have
reason to do. But now you will earn your living well, what with your
wages on board the schooner and the crown a-week I shall give you."
"A crown a-week, your reverence!" My countenance must have fallen sadly;
for I looked to a guinea a-week at least. "And to have to stay out of my
bed like that!"
"It is a large sum, I know, Llewellyn. But you must do your best to earn
it, by diligence and alacrity. I could have sent one of my fine naked
fellows, and of course not have paid him anything. But the fools near
the towns are so fidgety now that they stare at these honest Adamites,
and talk of them--which would defeat my purpose. Be off with you! I must
go and see them. Nothing else refreshes me after talking so long to a
fellow like you. Here are two guineas for you--one in advance for your
first month's wage; the other you will keep until I have done with you,
and then return it to me."
"A month, your honour!" I cried in dismay. "I never could stop in this
country a month. Why, a week of it would be enough to drive me out of my
mind almost."
"You will stay as long as I please, Llewellyn. That second guinea, which
you pouched so promptly, is to enable you to come to me, by day or by
night, on the very moment you see anything worth reporting. You are
afraid of the dogs? Yes, all rogues are. Here, take this whistle. They
are trained to obey it--they will crouch and fawn to you when you blow
it." He gave me a few more minute instructions, and then showed me out
by a little side-door; and all the way back such a weight was upon me,
and continual presence of strange black eyes, and dread of some hovering
danger, that I answered the driver to never a word, nor cared for any of
his wondrous stories about the naked people (whose huts we beheld in a
valley below us); nay, not even--though truly needing it, and to my own
great amazement--could I manage a drop of my pittance of rum. So the
driver got it after all, or at least whatever remained of it, while I
wished myself back at Old Newton Nottage, and seemed to be wrapped in an
evil dream. Both horse and driver, however, found themselves not only
thankful, but light-hearted, at getting away from Nympton Moor. Jack
even sang a song when five miles off, and in his clumsy way rallied me.
But finding this useless, he said that it was no more than he had
expected; because it was known that it always befell every man who
forgot his baptism, and got into dealings with Parson Chowne.
CHAPTER XXX.
ON DUTY.
There are many people who cannot enter into my meaning altogether. This
I have felt so often that now I may have given utterance to it once or
possibly twice before. If so, you will find me consistent wholly, and
quite prepared to abide by it. In all substantial things I am clearer
than the noon-day sun itself; and, to the very utmost farthing,
righteous and unimpeachable. Money I look at, now and then, when it
comes across me; and I like it well enough for the sake of the things it
goes for. But as for committing an action below the honour of my family
and ancestors (who never tuned their harps for less than a mark
a-night), also, and best of all, my own conscience--a power that thumps
all night like a ghost if I have not strictly humoured it,--for me to
talk of such things seems almost to degrade the whole of them.
Therefore, if any one dreams, in his folly, that I would play the spy
upon that great house over the river, I have no more to say, except that
he is not worthy to read my tale. I regard him with contempt, and loathe
him for his vile insinuations. Such a man is only fit to take the place
of a spy himself, and earn perhaps something worth talking of, if his
interest let him talk of it. For taking friendly observation of Narnton
Court, for its inmates' sake, I was to have just five shillings a-week!
It became my duty now to attend to the getting out of the limestone; and
I fetched it up with a swing that shook every leaf of the Rose of Devon.
Fuzzy attempted to govern me; but I let him know that I would not have
it, and never knocked under to any man. And if Parson Chowne had come
alongside, I would have said the same to him.
Nevertheless, as an honest man, I took good care to earn my money,
though less than the value of one good sewin, or at any rate of a fine
turbot, each week. No craft of any sort went up or down that blessed
river without my laying perspective on her, if there chanced to be light
enough; or if she slipped along after dark--which is not worth while to
do, on account of the shoals and windings--there was I, in our little
dingy, not so far off as they might imagine. And I could answer for it,
even with disdainful Chowne looking down through me, that nothing
larger than a row-boat could have made for Narnton Court. But I have not
said much of the river as yet; and who can understand me?
This river bends in graceful courtesies to the sweet land it is leaving,
and the hills that hold its birth. Also with a vein of terror at the
unknown sea before it, back it comes, when you grieve to think that it
must have said "good-bye" for ever. Such a lovely winding river, with so
many wilful ways, silvery shallows, and deep, rich shadows, where the
trees come down to drink; also, beautiful bright-green meadows, sloping
to have a taste of it, and the pleaches of bright sand offered to
satisfy the tide, and the dark points jutting out on purpose to protect
it! Many rivers have I seen, nobler, grander, more determined, yet among
them all not one that took and led my heart so.
Had I been born on its banks, or among the hills that gaze down over it,
what a song I would have made to it!--although the Bardic inspiration
seems to have dropped out of my generation, yet will it return with
fourfold vigour, probably in Bunny's children, if she ever has any, that
is to say, of the proper gender; for the thumb of a woman is weak on the
harp. And Bunny's only aspiration is for ribbons and lollipops, which
must be beaten out of her.
However, my principal business now was not to admire this river, but
watch it; and sometimes I found it uncommonly cold, and would gladly
have had quite an ugly river, if less attractive to white frosts. And
what with the clearing of our cargo, and the grumbling afterwards, and
the waiting for sailing-orders and never getting any, and the setting-in
of a sudden gale (which, but for me, must have capsized us when her hold
was empty), as well as some more delays which now I cannot stop to think
of--the middle of October found us still made fast, by stem and stern,
in Barnstaple river, at Deadman's Pill.
Parson Chowne (who never happened to neglect a single thing that did
concern his interests, any more than he ever happened to forget an
injury), twice or thrice a-week he came, mounted on his coal-black mare,
to know what was going on with us. I saw--for I am pretty sharp, though
not pretending to vie with him, as no man might who had not dealt in a
wholesale mode with the devil--I saw (though the clumsy under-strappers
meant me not to notice it) that Bethel Jose, our captain, was no more
than a slave of the Parson's. This made clear to me quite a lump of what
had seemed hopeless mysteries. Touching my poor self, to begin with,
Chowne knew all about me, of course, by means of this dirty Fuzzy. Also
Fuzzy's silence now, and the difficulty of working him (with any number
of sheets in the wind), which had puzzled both Newton and Nottage, and
the two public-houses at Porthcawl, and might have enabled him to marry
even a farmer's widow with a rabbit-warren, and £350 to dispose of, and
a reputation for sheep's-milk cheese, and herself not bad-looking, in
spite of a beard.
I could see, and could carry home the truth, having thoroughly got to
the bottom of it; and might have a chance myself to settle, if I dealt
my secret well, with some of the women who had sworn to be single, until
that Fuzzy provoked them so. This consideration added, more than can be
now described, to my desire to get home before any one got in front of
me. But Fuzzy, from day to day, pretended that the ketch was not
victualled to sail, any more than she was even ballasted. She must load
with hay, or with bricks, or pottery, or with something to fill her hold
and pay freight, or what was to fill our bellies all the way back? And
so on, and so on; until I was sure that he had some dark reason for
lingering there.
Of course I had not been such a pure fool--in spite of short seasons for
going from home--as to forget my desire and need to come home, after
proper interval. The whole of the parish would yearn for me, and so
would Ewenny and Llaleston, long ere the Christmas cod comes in; and I
made a point in my promises to be back before Gunpowder Treason and
Plot. As a thoroughly ancient hand at the cannon, I always led the
fireworks; and the Pope having done something violent lately, they were
to be very grand this year. What is a man when outside his own
country--a prophet, a magistrate, even a sailor, who has kept well in
with his relations? All his old friends are there, longing to praise
him, when they hear of good affairs; and as to his enemies--a man of my
breadth of nature has none.
This made it dreadfully grievous for me not to be getting home again;
and my heart was like a sprouted onion when I thought of Bardie. Bunny
would fight on, I knew, and get converted to the Church in the house of
our churchwarden, and perhaps be baptised after all, which my wife never
would have done to her. However, I did not care for that, because no
great harm could come of it; and if the Primitives gave her ribbons, the
Church would be bound to grant Honiton lace.
Thinking of all my engagements, and compacts, and serious trusteeships,
and the many yearnings after me, I told Bethel Jose, in so many words,
that I was not a black man, but a white man, unable to be trampled on,
and prepared (unless they could show me better) to place my matter in
the hands of his worship, no less than the Mayor of Barnstaple. Fuzzy
grinned, and so did Ike; and finding the mayor sitting handsomely upon
the very next market-day, I laid my case before him. His worship (as
keeping a grocer's shop, at which I had bought three pounds of onions,
and a quarter of a pound of speckled cheese, and half an ounce of
tobacco) was much inclined to do me justice; and, indeed, began to do so
in a loud and powerful voice, and eager for people to hearken him. But
somebody whispered something to him, containing, no doubt, the great
Parson's name, and he shrank back into his hole, and discharged my
summons, like a worm with lime laid on his tail.
Such things are painful; yet no man must insist upon them hardly,
because our ancestors got on among far greater hardships. And it would
prove us a bad low age if we turned sour about them. We are the finest
fellows to fight that were ever according to Providence; we ought to be
thankful for this great privilege (as I mean to show by-and-by), and I
would not shake hands with any man, who, for trumpery stuff, would dare
to make such a terrible force internal.
This grand soundness of my nature led me to go under orders, though
acquit of legal contract, only seeking to do the right while receiving
the money beforehand. Now this created a position of trust, for it
involved a strong confidence in one's honour. Any man paying me
beforehand places me at a disadvantage, which is hardly fair of him. I
do not like to refuse him, because it would seem so ungraceful; and yet
I can never be sure but that I ought to take consideration.
Not to dwell too much upon scruples which scarcely any one else might
feel, and no other man can enter into, be it enough that my honour now
was bound to do what was expected. But what a hardship it was, to be
sure, to find myself debarred entirely from forming acquaintance, or
asking questions, or going into the matter in my own style! especially
now that my anxiety was quickened beyond bearing to get to the bottom of
all these wonders about Sir Philip Bampfylde. What had led him to visit
me? What was he seeking on Braunton Burrows--for now I knew that it must
be he? Why did Parson Chowne desire to keep such watch on the visitors
to Narnton Court by water, while all the world might pass into or out of
the house by land? Or did the Parson keep other people watching the
other side of the house, and prevent me from going near them, lest we
should league together to cheat him? This last thing seemed to be very
likely, and it proved to be more than that.
Revolving all this much at leisure in the quiet churn of mind, I pushed
off with my little dingy from the side of the Rose of Devon, when the
evening dusk was falling, somewhere at October's end. This little boat
now seemed to be placed at my disposal always, although there used to be
such a fuss, and turn for turn, in taking her. Now the glance of light
on water, and the flowing shadows, keeping humour with the quiet play of
evening breezes, here a hill and there a tree or rock to be regarded,
while the strong influx of sea with white wisps traced the middle
channel, and the little nooks withdrawn under gentle promontories took
no heed of anything; when the moon came over these, dissipating clouds
and moving sullen mists aside her track, I found it uncommonly difficult
to be sure what I was up to. The full moon, lately risen, gazed directly
down the river; but memory of daylight still was coming from the
westward, feeble, and inclined to yield. What business was all this of
mine? God makes all things to have turn; and I doubt if He ever meant
mankind to be always spying into it. Ever so much better go these things
without our bother; and our parson said, being a noble preacher, and fit
any day for the navy, that the people who conquered the world, according
to the prophet Joel--20th after Trinity--never noticed nature, never did
consult the Lord of Hosts, and yet must have contented Him.
Difficult questions of this colour must be left to parsons (who beat all
lawyers, out and out, in the matter of pure cleverness; because the
latter never can anyhow, but the former, somehow, with the greatest
ease, reconcile all difficulties). The only business I have to deal with
is what I bodily see, feel, and hear, and have mind to go through with,
and work out to perfect satisfaction. And this night I found more than
ever broke upon my wits before, except when muzzle gapes at muzzle, and
to blow or be blown up depends upon a single spark.
Because now, in my quiet manner (growing to be customary, under Parson
Chowne's regard) dipping oars, I crossed the river, making slant for
running tide. That man, knowing everybody who might suit his purpose,
had employed me rather than old Ikey or even Fuzzy, partly because I
could row so well and make no sound in doing it; while either of them,
with muffled rowlocks, would splash and grunt, to be heard across river,
and half-way to Barnstaple Bridge almost. As silently as an owl I
skimmed across the silent river, not with the smallest desire to spy,
but because the poetry of my nature came out strongly. And having this
upon me still, I rowed my boat into a drooping tree, overhanging a quiet
nook. Here I commanded the river-front of all that great house, Narnton
Court, which stands on the north side of the water over against our
Deadman's Pill. After several voyages under sundry states of light and
weather, this was now approved to me as the very best point of
observation. For all the long and straggling house (quite big enough for
any three of the magistrates' houses on our side) could have been taken
and raked (as it were) like a great ship with her stern to me, from the
spot where I lay hidden. Such a length it stretched along, with little
except the west end to me, and a show of front-windows dark and void;
and all along the river-terrace, and the narrow spread of it,
overlooking the bright water, pagan gods, or wicked things just as bad,
all standing. However, that was not my business; if the gentry will
forego the whole of their Christianity, they must answer for themselves,
when the proper time appears. Only we would let them know that we hold
aloof from any breach of their commandments.
A flight of ten wild ducks had been seen coming up the river, every now
and then, as well as fourteen red-caps, and three or four good wisps of
teal. Having to see to my victualling now, as well as for the sport of
it, I loaded the Parson's two-foot pistol, which was as good as a gun
almost, with three tobacco pipes full of powder poured into each barrel,
and then a piece of an ancient hat (which Ikey had worn so long that no
man could distinguish it from wadding), and upon the top of the hat
three ounces of leaden pellets, and all kept tight with a good dollop of
oakum. It must kill a wild duck at forty yards, or a red-cap up to
fifty, if I hit the rogues in the head at all.
The tide must have been pretty nigh the flood, and the moon was rising
hazily, and all the river was pale and lonely, for the brown-sailed
lighters (which they call the "Tawton fleet") had long passed by, when I
heard that silvery sound of swiftness cleaving solitude--the flight of a
wedge of wild ducks. I knelt in the very smallest form that nature would
allow of, and with one hand held a branch to keep the boat from surging.
Plash they came down, after two short turns (as sudden as forked
lightning), heads down for a moment, then heads up, and wings flapping,
sousing, and subsiding. Quacks began, from the old drake first, and then
from the rest of the company, and a racing after one another, and a
rapid gambolling. Under and between them all, the river lost its
smoothness, beaten into ups and downs that sloped away in ridge and
furrow.
These fine fellows, as fat as butter after the barley-stubble time,
carried on such joy and glory within twenty yards of me that I could not
bring my gun to bear for quiet shot, so as to settle four. Like an
ancient gunner, I bided my time, being up to the tricks of most of them.
When their wild delight of water should begin to sate itself, what would
they do? Why, gather in round the father of the family, and bob their
heads together. This is the time to be sure of them, especially with two
barrels fired at once, as I could easily manage. I never felt surer of
birds in my life; I smelt them in the dripping-pan, and beheld myself
quite basting them, but all of a sudden, up they flew, when I had got
three in a line, and waited for two more to come into it, just as the
muzzle was true upon them--up and away, and left me nothing except to
rub my eyes and swear. I might have shot as they rose, but something
told me not to do so. Therefore I crept back in my little punt, and
waited. In another moment I heard the swing of stout oars pulled with
time and power, such as I had not heard for years, nor since myself was
stroke of it. Of course I knew that this must be a boat of the British
navy, probably the captain's gig, and choice young fellows rowing her;
and the tears sprang into my eyes at thought of all the times and things
between, and all the heavy falls of life, since thus I clove the waters.
All my heart went out towards her, and I held my breath with longing (as
I looked between the branches of the dark and fluttering tree), just to
let them know that here was one who understood them.
CHAPTER XXXI.
TWO LOVERS.
The boat came round the corner swiftly of the wooded stretch of rock,
within whose creek I lay concealed; and the officer in the stern-sheets
cried, in the short sharp tone of custom, "Easy, stroke; hold all!" I
heard him jerk the rudder-lines, as they passed within biscuit-toss of
me, and with a heavy sheer he sent her, as if he knew every inch of
water, to the steps of Narnton Court: not the handsome balustrade, only
a landing of narrow stone-way nearer to me than the western end, and
where the river-side terrace stopped. Two men sprang ashore and made the
boat fast at the landing, and then some others lifted out what seemed to
be a heavy chest, and placed it on the topmost step, until the officer,
having landed, signed to them to bear it further to a corner of the
parapet. I could see the whole of these doings, and distinguish him by
his uniform, because the boat and the group of sailors were not more
than fifty yards from me, and almost in the track of the moon from the
place where I was hiding. In a minute or two all returned to the boat,
with the exception of the officer, and I heard him give orders from the
shore--
"Round the point, men! Keep close, and wait for me under the Yellow Hook
I showed you."
The coxswain jumped into the stern-sheets; in a second or two they had
put about, and the light gig pulling six good oars shot by me, on the
first of the ebb, as swiftly almost as the wild ducks flew. Meanwhile
the officer stood and gazed until they had rounded the western point,
from which they had spoiled my shot so; and knowing the vigilant
keenness of a British captain's eyes, I feared that he might espy my
punt, which would have disgraced me dreadfully. And even without this I
felt how much I would rather be far away. There could have been no man
more against my taste to keep a watch upon than a captain in the royal
navy, whose father might have been over me. And vigorously as I called
to mind that all I was doing must be for his good, as well as for that
of his relatives, I could not find that satisfaction which ought to flow
from such benevolence. However, it now was too late to back out, even if
my desire to know the end of this matter allowed of it.
The officer stood for a minute or two, as if in brown thoughts and deep
melancholy, and turned to the house once or twice, and seemed to
hesitate as to approaching it. The long great house, with the broad
river-front, looked all dark and desolate; not a servant, a horse, or
even a dog was moving, and the only sign of life I could see was a dull
light in a little window over a narrow doorway. While I was wondering at
all this, and the captain standing gloomily, a little dark figure
crossed the moonlight from the shadowy doorway, and the officer made a
step or two, and held out his arms and received it. They seemed to stay
pretty well satisfied thus, the figure being wholly female, until, with
a sudden change of thought, there seemed to be some sobbing. This led
the captain to try again some soft modes of persuasion, such as I could
not see into, even if I would have deigned to do a thing against my
grain so, because I have been in that way myself, and did not want to be
looked at. However, not to be too long over what every man almost goes
through (some honestly, and some anyhow, but all tending to experience),
my only desire was, finding them at it, to get out of the way very
quickly. For, poor as I am, there were several women of Newton, and
Llaleston, and Ewenny, and even of Bridgend, our market-town, setting
their caps, like springles, at me! Whereas I laboured at nothing else
but to pay respect to my poor wife's memory, and never have a poor woman
after her. And now all these romantic doings made me feel uneasy, and
ready to be infected, so as to settle with nothing more than had been
offered me thrice, and three times refused--a 7-foot-and-6-inch mangle;
and (if she proved a tiger) have to work it myself perhaps!
Be that either way, these two unhappy lovers came along, while I was
wondering at them, yet able to make allowance so, until they must have
seen me, if they had a corner of an eye for anything less than one
another. They stood on a plank that crossed the narrow creek or slot
(wherein I lay, under a willow full of brown leaves), and scarcely ten
yards from me. Here there was a rail across, about as big as a
kidney-bean stick, whereupon they leaned, and looked into the water
under them. Then they sighed, and made such sorrow (streaked somehow
with happiness) that I got myself ready to leap overboard if either or
both of them should jump in. However, they had more sense than that;
though they went on very tenderly, and with a soft strain quite unfit to
belong to a British officer. Being, from ancient though humble birth,
gifted with a deal of delicacy, I pulled out two plugs of tobacco, which
happened to be in my mouth just now, and I spared them both to stop my
ears, though striking inwards painfully. I tried to hear nothing for
ever so long; but I found myself forced to ease out the plugs, they did
smart so confoundedly. And this pair wanted some one now to take a
judicious view of them, for which few men, perhaps, could be found
better qualified than I was. For they carried on in so high a manner,
that it seemed as if they could be cured by nothing short of married
life, of which I had so much experience. And the principal principle of
that state is, that neither party must begin to make too much of the
other side. But being now over that sort of thing, I found myself snug
in a corner, and able to view them with interest and considerable
candour.
"Is there no hope of it, then, after all; after all you have done and
suffered, and the prayers of everybody?" This was the maiden, of course
having right to the first word, and the last of it.
"There is hope enough, my darling; but nothing ever comes of it. And how
can I search out this strange matter, while I am on service always?"
"Throw it up, Drake; my dear heart, for my sake, throw it up, and throw
over all ambition, until you are cleared of this foul shame."
"My ambition is slender now," he answered, "and would be content with
one slender lady." Here he gave her a squeeze, that threatened not only
to make her slenderer, but also to make the rail need more stoutness,
and me to keep ready for plunging. "Nevertheless, you know," he went on,
when the plank and the rail put up with it, "I cannot think of myself
for a moment, while I am thus on duty. We expect orders for America."
"So you said; and it frightens me. If that should be so, what ever, ever
can become of us?"
"My own dear, you are a child; almost a child for a man like me, knocked
about the world so much, and ever so unfortunate."
The rest of his speech was broken into, much to my dissatisfaction, by a
soft caressing comfort, such as women's pity yields without any
consideration. Only they made all sorts of foolish promises, and eternal
pledges, touched up with confidence, and hope, and mutual praise, and
faith, and doubt, and the other ins and outs of love.
"I won't cry any more," she said, with several sobs between it; "I ought
not to be so with you, who are so strong, and good, and kind. Your
honour is cruelly wronged at home: you never shall say that your own,
own love wished you to peril it also abroad."
He took her quietly into his arms; and they seemed to strengthen one
another. And to my eyes came old tears, or at any rate such as had come
long ago. These two people stood a great time, silent, full of one
another, keeping close with reverent longing, gazing yet not looking at
the moonlight and the water. Then the delicate young maiden (for such
her voice and outline showed her, though I could not judge her face)
shivered in the curling fog which the climbing moon had brought.
Hereupon the captain felt that her lungs must be attended to, as well as
her lips, and her waist, and heart; and he said in a soft way, like a
shawl--
"Come away, my lovely darling, from the cold, and fog, and mist. Your
little cloak is damp all through; and time it is for me to go.
Discipline I will have always; and I must have the same with you, until
you take command of me."
"Many, many a weary year, ere I have the chance of it, Captain Drake."
The young thing sighed as she spoke, though perhaps without any sense of
prophecy.
"Isabel, let us not talk like that, even if we think it. The luck must
turn some day, my darling; even I cannot be always on the evil side of
it. How often has my father said so! And what stronger proof can I have
than you? As long as you are true to me----"
They were turning away, when this bright idea, which seems to occur to
lovers always, under some great law of nature, to prolong their
interviews;--this compelled them to repeat pretty much the same forms,
and ceremonies, assurances, pledges, and suchlike, which had passed
between them scarcely more than three or four minutes ago, at the
utmost. And again I looked away, because I would have had others do so
to me; and there was nothing new to learn by it.
"Only one thing more, my own," said the lady, taking his arm again; "one
more thing you must promise me. If you care for me at all, keep out of
the way of that dreadful man."
"Why, how can I meet him at sea, my Bell? Even if he dislikes me, as you
tell me perpetually, though I never gave him cause, that I know of."
"He does not dislike you, Drake Bampfylde; he hates you with all the
venomous, cold, black hatred, such as I fear to think of--oh my dear, oh
my dear!"
"Now, Isabel, try not to be so foolish. I never could believe such a
thing, and I never will, without clearest proof. I never could feel like
that myself, even if any one wronged me deeply. And in spite of all my
bad luck, Bell, I have never wronged any one. At least more than you
know of."
"Then don't wrong me, my own dear love, by taking no heed of yourself.
Here, there, and everywhere seems to be his nature. You may be proud of
your ship and people, and of course they are proud of you. You may be
ordered to Gibraltar, where they have done so gloriously, or to America,
or to India. But wherever you are, you never can be out of the reach of
that terrible man. His ways are so crooked, and so dark, and so
dreadfully cold-blooded."
"Isabel, Isabel, now be quiet. What an imagination you have! A man in
holy orders, a man of a good old family, who have been ancient friends
of ours----"
"A bad old family, you mean--bad for generations. It does not matter, of
course, what I say, because I am so young and stupid. But you are so
frank, and good, and simple, and so very brave and careless, and I know
that you will own some day--oh, it frightens mo so to think of it!--that
you were wrong in this matter, and your Isabel was right."
What his answer was I cannot tell, because they passed beyond my hearing
upon their way towards the house. The young lady, with her long hair
shining like woven gold in the moonlight, tried (so far as I could see)
to persuade him to come in with her. This, however, he would not do,
though grieving to refuse her; and she seemed to know the reason of it,
and to cease to urge him. In and out of many things, which they seemed
to have to talk of, he showed her the great chest in the dark corner;
and perhaps she paid good heed to it. As to that, how can I tell, when
they both were so far off, and river-fogs arising? Yet one thing I well
could tell, or at any rate could have told it in the times when my blood
ran fast, and my habit of life was romantic. Even though the light was
foggy, and there was no time to waste, these two people seemed so to
stay with a great dislike of severing.
However, they managed it at last; and growing so cold in my shoulders
now, as well as my knees uncomfortable, right glad was I to hear what
the maiden listened to with intense despair; that is to say, the
captain's footfall, a yard further off every time of the sound. Ho went
along the Braunton road, to find his boat where the river bends. And
much as I longed to know him better, and understand why he did such
things, and what he meant by hankering so after this young lady, outside
his own father's house, and refusing to go inside when invited, and
speaking of his own bad luck so much, and having a chest put away from
the moonlight, likewise his men in the distance so far, and compelled to
keep round the corner, not to mention his manner of walking, and
swinging his shoulders, almost as if the world was nothing to him;
although I had never been perhaps so thoroughly pushed with desire of
knowledge, and all my best feelings uppermost, there was nothing for me
left except to ponder, and to chow my quid, rowing softly through the
lanes and lines of misty moonlight, to my little cuddy-home across the
tidal river.
CHAPTER XXXII.
AMONG THE SAVAGES.
At this moment it became a very nice point to perceive what was really
honest and right, and then to carry it out with all that fearless
alacrity, which in such cases I find to be, as it were, constitutional
to me. My high sense of honour would fain persuade me to keep in
strictest secrecy that which (so far as I could judge) was not, or might
not have been, intended for my eyes, or ears, or tongue. On the other
hand, my still higher sense of duty to my employer (which is a most
needful and practical feeling), and that power of loyalty which descends
to me, and perhaps will die with me, as well as a strong, and no less
ancestral, eagerness to be up to the tricks of all mysterious beings--I
do not exaggerate when I say that the cut-water of my poor mind knew not
which of these two hands pulled the stronger oar.
In short, being tired, and sleepy, and weary, and worn out with want of
perceiving my way, although I smoked three pipes all alone (not from the
smallest desire for them, but because I have routed the devil thus many
and many a night I know--as the priests do with their incense; the
reason of which I take to be, that having so much smoke at home, he
shuns it when coming for change of air--growing dreamy thus), I said,
with nobody to answer me, "I will tumble into my berth, as this dirty
craft has no room for hammocks; and, between Parson and Captain, I will
leave my dreams to guide me."
I played with myself, in saying this. No man ever should play with
himself. It shows that he thinks too troublesomely; and soon may come,
if he carries it on, almost to forget that other people are nothing,
while himself is everything. And if any man comes to that state of mind,
there is nothing more to hope of him.
I was not so far gone as that. Nevertheless, it served me right (for
thinking such dreadful looseness) to have no broad fine road of sleep,
in the depth whereof to be borne along, and lie wherever wanted; but
instead of that to toss and kick, with much self-damage, and worst of
all, to dream such murder that I now remember it. What it was, belongs
to me, who paid for it with a loss of hair, very serious at my time of
life. However, not to dwell upon that, or upon myself in any way--such
being my perpetual wish, yet thwarted by great activity--let it be
enough to say that Parson Chowne in my visions came and horribly stood
over me.
Therefore, arising betimes, I hired a very fine horse, and, manning him
bravely, laid his head east and by south, as near as might be, according
to our binnacle. But though the wind was abaft the beam, and tide and
all in his favour, and a brave commander upon his poop, what did he do
but bouse his stem, and run out his spanker-driver, and up with his
taffrail, as if I was wearing him in a thundering heavy sea. I resolved
to get the upper hand of this uncalled-for mutiny; and the more so
because all our crew were gazing, and at the fair I had laid down the
law very strictly concerning horses. I slipped my feet out of the
chains, for fear of any sudden capsize, and then I rapped him over the
catheads, where his anchor ought to hang. He, however, instead of doing
at all what I expected, up with his bolt-sprit and down with his
quarter, as if struck by a whale under his forefoot. This was so far
from true seamanship, and proved him to be so unbuilt for sailing, that
I was content to disembark over his stern, and with slight concussions.
"Never say die" has always been my motto, and always will be: nailing my
colours to the mast, I embarked upon another horse of less than half the
tonnage of that one who would not answer helm. And this craft, being
broken-backed, with a strange sound at her port-holes, could not under
press of sail bowl along more than four knots an hour. And we adjusted
matters between us so, that when she was tired I also was sore, and
therefore disembarked and towed her, until we were both lit for sea
again. Therefore it must have been good meridian when I met Parson
Chowne near his house.
This man was seldom inside his own house, except at his meal-times, or
when asleep, but roving about uncomfortably, seeing to the veriest
trifles, everywhere abusing or kicking everybody. And but for the
certainty of his witchcraft (ninefold powerful, as they told me, when
conferred upon a parson), and the black strength of his eyes, and the
doom that had befallen all who dared to go against him, the men about
the yards and stables told me--when he was miles away--that they never
could have put up with him; for his wages were also below their deserts.
He came to me from the kennel of hounds, which he kept not for his own
pleasure so much as for the delight of forbidding gentlemen, whenever
the whim might take him so, especially if they were nobly accoutred,
from earning at his expense the glory of jumping hedges and ditches.
Now, as he came towards me, or rather beckoned for me to come to him, I
saw that the other truly eminent parson, the Reverend John Rambone, was
with him, and giving advice about the string at the back of a young
dog's tongue. Although this man was his greatest friend, Master Chowne
treated him no better than anybody else would fare; but signed to the
mate of the hounds, or whatever those fox-hunters call their chief
officer, to heed every word of what Rambone said. Because these two
divines had won faith, throughout all parishes and hundreds: Chowne for
the doctrine of horses; and for discipline of dogs, John Rambone.
His Reverence fixed a stern gaze upon me, because I had not hurried
myself--a thing which I never do except in a glorious naval action--and
then he bade me follow him. This I did; and I declare even now I cannot
tell whither he took me. For I seemed to have no power, in his presence,
of heeding anything but himself: only I know that we passed through
trees, and sate down somewhere afterwards. Wherever it was, or may have
been, so far as my memory serves, I think that I held him at bay some
little. For instance, I took the greatest care not to speak of the fair
young lady; inasmuch as she might not have done all she did, if she had
chanced to possess the knowledge of my being under the willow-tree. But
Parson Chowne, without my telling, knew the whole of what was done; and
what he thought of it none might guess in the shadowy shining of his
eyes.
"You have done pretty well on the whole," he said, after asking many
short questions; "but you must do better next time, my man. You must not
allow all these delicate feelings, chivalry, resolute honesty, and
little things of that sort, to interfere thus with business. These
things do some credit to you, Llewellyn, and please you, and add to your
happiness, which consists largely with you (as it does with all men) in
conceit. But you must not allow yourself thus to coquet with these
beauties of human nature. It needs a rich man to do that. Even add my
five shillings to your own four, and you cannot thus go to Corinth."
I had been at Corinth twice, and found it not at all desirable; so I
could not make out what his Reverence meant, except that it must be
something bad; which at my time of life should not be put into the mind
even by a clergyman. But what I could least put up with was, the want of
encouragement I found for all my better feelings. These seemed to meet
with nothing more than discouragement and disparagement, whereas I knew
them to be sound, substantial, and solid; and I always felt upon going
to bed what happiness they afforded me. And if the days of my youth had
only passed through learned languages, Latin and Greek and Hebrew, I
doubt whether even Parson Chowne could have laid his own will upon me
so.
"Supposing, then, that your Reverence should make it ten," I answered;
"with my own four, that would be fourteen."
"I can truly believe that it would, my man. And you may come to that, if
you go on well. Now go into the house and enjoy yourself. You Welshmen
are always hungry. And you may talk as freely as you like; which is your
next desire. Every word you say will come back to me; and some of it may
amuse me. If you have no sense you have some cunning. You will know what
things to speak of. And be sure that you wait until I come back."
This was so wholly below and outside of the thing which I love to
reconcile with my own constitution (having so long been respected for
them, as well as rewarded by conscience), that I scarcely knew where or
who I was, or what might next come over me. And to complete my
uncomfortable sense of being nobody, I heard the sound of a galloping
horse downhill as wild as could be, and found myself left as if all the
ideas which I was prepared to suggest were nothing. However, that was
not my loss, but his; so I entered the house, with considerable hope of
enjoying myself, as commanded. For this purpose I have always found it,
in the house of a gentleman, the height of luck to get among three young
women and one old one. The elderly woman attends to the cooking, which
is not understood by the young ones, or at any rate cannot be much
expected; while, on the other hand, the young ones flirt in and out in a
pleasant way, laying the table and showing their arms (which are of a
lovely red, as good as any gravy); and then if you know how to manage
them well, with a wholesome deference to the old cook, and yet an
understanding--while she is basting, and as one might almost say, behind
her back--a confidential feeling established that you know how she
treats those young ones, and how harshly she dares to speak, if a coal
comes into the dripping-pan, and in casting it out she burns her face,
and abuses the whole of them for her own fault; also a little shy
suggestion that they must put up with all this, because the old cook is
past sweethearting time, and the parlour-maid scarcely come to it,
accompanied by a wink or two, and a hint in the direction of the
stables--some of the very noblest dinners that ever I made have been
thus introduced. But what forgiveness could I expect, or who would
listen to me, if I dared to speak in the same dinner-hour of the goodly
kitchen at Candleston Court, or even at Court Ysha, and the place that
served as a sort of kitchen, so far as they seemed to want one, at this
Nympton Rectory? A chill came over every man, directly he went into it;
and he knew that his meat would be hocks and bones, and his gravy (if
any) would stand cold dead. However, I made the best of it, as my manner
is with everything; and though the old stony woman sate, and seemed to
make stone of every one, I kept my spirits up, and became (in spite of
all her stoppage) what a man of my knowledge of mankind must be among
womankind. In a word, though I do not wish to set down exactly how I
managed it, in half an hour I could see, while carefully concealing it,
that there was not a single young woman there without beginning to say
to herself, "Should I like to be Mrs Llewellyn?" After that, I can have
them always. But I know them too well, to be hasty. No prospects would
suit me, at my time of life, unless they came after some cash in hand.
The louts from the stables and kennels poured in, some of them very
"degustin" (as my Bardie used to say), nevertheless the girls seemed to
like them; and who was I, even when consulted, to pretend to say
otherwise? In virtue of what I had seen, among barbarous tribes and
everywhere, and all my knowledge of ceremonies, and the way they marry
one another, it took me scarcely half an hour (especially among poor
victuals) to have all the women watching for every word I was prepared
to drop. Although this never fails to happen, yet it always pleases me;
and to find it in Parson Chowne's kitchen go thus, and the stony woman
herself compelled to be bitten by mustard for fear of smiling, and two
or three maids quite unfit to get on without warm pats on their
shoulder-blades, and the dogs quite aware that men were laughing, and
that this meant luck for them if they put up their noses; it was not for
me to think much of myself; and yet how could I help doing it?
In the midst of this truly social joy, and natural commune over
victuals, and easing of thought to suit one another in the courtesies of
digestion; and just as the slowest amongst us began to enter into some
knowledge of me, in walked that great Parson Rambone, with his hands
behind his back, and between them a stout hunting-crop. The maidens
seemed to be taken aback, but the men were not much afraid of him.
"What a rare royster you are making! Out by the kennel I heard you.
However can I write my sermons?"
"Does your Reverence write them in the kennel?" Thus the chief huntsman
made inquiry, having a certain privilege.
"Clear out, clear out," said Rambone, fetching his whip toward all of
us; "I am left in authority here, and I must have proper discipline. Mrs
Steelyard, I am surprised at you. Girls, you must never go on like this.
What will his Reverence say to me? Come along with me, thou villain
Welshman, and give me a light for my pipe, if you please."
It was a sad thing to behold a man of this noble nature, having gifts of
everything (whether of body, or heart, or soul), only wanting gift of
mind; and for want of that alone, making wreck of all the rest. I let
him lead me; while I felt how I longed to have the lead of him. But that
was in stronger hands than mine.
"Come, and I'll show thee a strange sight, Taffy," he said to me very
pleasantly, as soon as his pipe was kindled; "only I must have my horse,
to inspire them with respect for me, as well as to keep my distance.
Where is thy charger, thou valiant Taffy?"
I answered his Reverence that I would rather travel afoot, if it were
not too far; neither could he persuade me, after the experience of that
morning, to hoist my flag on an unknown horse, the command of which he
offered me. So forth we set, the Parson on horseback, and in very high
spirits, trolling songs, leaping hedges, frolicking enough to frighten
one, and I on foot, rather stiff and weary, and needing a glass of grog,
without any visible chance of getting it.
"Here, you despondent Taffy; take this, and brighten up a bit. It is
true you are going to the gallows; but there's no room for you there
just now."
I saw what he meant, as he handed me his silver hunting-flask, for they
have a fashion about there of hanging bad people at cross ways, and
leaving them there for the good of others, and to encourage honesty. And
truly the place was chosen well; for in the hollow not far below it,
might be found those savage folk, of whom I said something a good while
ago. And I did not say then what I might have said; because I felt
scandalised, and unwilling to press any question of doubtful doings upon
thoroughly accomplished people. But now I am bound, like a hospital
surgeon, to display the whole of it.
"Take hold of the tail of my horse, old Taffy," said his Reverence to
me; "and I will see you clear of them. Have no fear, for they all know
me."
By this time we were surrounded with fifteen or twenty strange-looking
creatures, enough to frighten anybody. Many fine savages have I seen--on
the shores of the Land of Fire, for instance, or on the coast of Guinea,
or of the Gulf of Panama, and in fifty other places--yet none did I ever
come across so outrageous as these were. They danced, and capered, and
caught up stones, and made pretence to throw at us; and then, with
horrible grimaces, showed their teeth and jeered at us. Scarcely any of
the men had more than a piece of old sack upon him; and as for the
women, the less I say, the more you will believe it. My respect for
respectable women is such that I scarcely dare to irritate them, by not
saying what these other women were as concerns appearance. And yet I
will confine myself, as if of the female gender, to a gentle hint that
these women might have looked much nicer, if only they had clothes on.
But the poor little "piccaninies," as the niggers call them these poor
little devils were far worse off than any hatch of negroes, or Maroons,
or copper-colours anywhere in the breeding-grounds. Not so much from any
want of tendance or clean management, which none of the others ever got;
but from difference of climate, and the moisture of their native soil.
These little creatures, all stark naked, seemed to be well enough off
for food, of some sort or another, but to be very badly off for want of
washing and covering up. And their little legs seemed to be growing
crooked; the meaning of which was beyond me then; until I was told that
it took its rise from the way they were forced to crook them in, to lay
hold of one another's legs, for the sake of natural warmth and comfort,
as the winter-time came on, when they slept in the straw all together. I
believe this was so; but I never saw it.
The Reverend John Rambone took no other notice of these people than to
be amused with them. He knew some two or three of the men, and spoke of
them by their nicknames, such as "Browny," or "Horse-hair," or "Sandy
boy;" and the little children came crawling on their bellies to him.
This seemed to be their natural manner of going at an early age: and
only one of all the very little children walked upright. This one came
to the Parson's horse, and being still of a tottery order, laid hold of
a fore-leg to fetch up his own; and having such moorage, looked up at
the horse. The horse, for his part, looked down upon him, bending his
neck, as if highly pleased; yet with his nostrils desiring to snort, and
the whole of his springy leg quivering, but trying to keep quiet, lest
the baby might be injured. This made me look at the child again, whose
little foolish life was hanging upon the behaviour of a horse. The rider
perceived that he could do nothing, in spite of all his great strength
and skill, to prevent the horse from dashing out the baby's brains with
his fore-hoof, if only he should rear or fret. And so he only soothed
him. But I, being up to all these things, and full for ever of presence
of mind, slipped in under the hold of the horse, as quietly as possible,
and in a manner which others might call at the same time daring and
dexterous, I fetched the poor little fellow out of his dangerous
position.
"Well done, Taffy!" said Parson Jack; "I should never have thought you
had sense enough for it. You had a narrow shave, my man."
For the horse, being frightened by so much nakedness, made a most sudden
spring over my body, before I could rise with the child in my arms; and
one of his after-hoofs knocked my hat off, so that I felt truly thankful
not to have had a worse business of it. But I would not let any one
laugh at my fright.
"A miss is as good as a mile, your Reverence. Many a cannon-ball has
passed me nearer than your horse's hoof. Tush, a mere trifle! Will your
Reverence give this poor little man a ride?" And with that I offered him
the child upon his saddlebow, naked, and unwashed, and kicking.
"Keep off, or you shall taste my horsewhip. Keep away with your dirty
brat--and yet--oh, poor little devil! If I only had a cloth with me!"
For this parson was of tender nature, although so wild and reckless; and
in his light way he was moved at the wretched plight of this small
creature, and the signs of heavy stripes upon him. Not all over him, as
the Parson said, being prone to exaggerate; but only extending over his
back, and his hams, and other convenient places. And perhaps my jacket
made them smart, for he roared every time I lifted him. And every time I
set him down, he stared with a wistful kind of wonder at our clothes,
and at the noble horse, as if he were trying to remember something.
"Where can they have picked up this poor little beggar?" said Parson
Jack, more to himself than to me: "he looks of a different breed
altogether. I wonder if this is one of Stoyle's damned tricks." And all
the way back he spoke never a word, but seemed to be worrying with
himself. But I having set the child down on his feet, and dusted my
clothes, and cleaned myself, followed the poor little creature's toddle,
and examined him carefully. The rest of the children seemed to hate him,
and he, to shrink out of their way almost; and yet he was the only fine
and handsome child among them. For in spite of all the dirt upon it, his
face was honest, and fair, and open, with large soft eyes of a dainty
blue, and short thick curls of yellow hair that wanted combing sadly.
And though he had rolled in muddy places, as little wild children always
do, for the sake of keeping the cold out, his skin was white, where the
mud had peeled, and his form lacked nothing but washing.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
IN A STATE OF NATURE.
Now all these things contributed, coming as they did so rapidly, to
arouse inside me a burning and almost desperate curiosity. It was in
vain that I said to myself, "these are no concerns of mine: let them
manage their own affairs: the less I meddle, the better for me: I seem
to be in a barbarous land, and I must expect things barbarous. And after
all, what does it come to, compared with the great things I have seen,
ay, and played my part in?" To reason thus, and regard it thus, and seek
only to be quit of it, was a proof of the highest wisdom any man could
manifest: if he could only stick to it. And this I perceived, and thus I
felt, and praised myself for enforcing it so; until it became not only
safe, but a bounden duty to reward my conscience by a little talk or so.
Hence I lounged into the stable-yard--for that terrible Chowne was not
yet come back, neither were maids to be got at for talking, only that
stony Steelyard--and there I found three or four shirt-sleeved fellows,
hissing at horses, and rubbing away, to put their sleeping polish on
them, before the master should return. Also three or four more were
labouring in the stalls very briskly, one at a sort of holy-stoning,
making patterns with brick and sand, and the others setting up the
hammocks for the nags to lie in, with a lashing of twisted straw aft of
their after-heels and taffrails, as the wake of a ship might be. And all
of it done most ship-shape. This amused me mightily; for I never had
seen such a thing before, even among wild horses, who have power to
manage their own concerns. But to see them all go in so snugly, and with
such a sweet, clean savour, each to his own oats or mashings, with the
golden straw at foot, made me think, and forced me to it, of those
wretched white barbarians (white, at least, just here and there), whom
good Parson Jack--as one might almost try to call him--had led me to
visit that same afternoon.
Perceiving how the wind sate, I even held back, and smoked a pipe,
exactly as if I were overseer, and understood the whole of it, yet did
not mean to make rash reproach. This had a fine effect upon them,
especially as I chewed a straw, by no means so as to stop my pipe, but
to exhibit mastery. And when I put my leg over a rail, as if I found it
difficult to keep myself from horseback, the head-man came to me
straightforward, and asked me when I had hunted last.
I told him that I was always hunting, week-days, and Sundays, and all
the year round, because it was our fashion; and that we hunted creatures
such as he never had the luck to set eyes on. And when I had told him a
few more things (such as flow from experience, when mixed with
imagination), a duller man than myself might see that he longed for me
to sup with him. And he spoke of things that made me ready, such as
tripe and onions.
However, this would never do. I felt myself strongly under orders; and
but for this paramount sense of duty, never could I have done the things
modestly mentioned as of yore; and those of hereafter tenfold as fine,
such as no modesty dare suppress. So, when I had explained to him
exactly how I stood about it, he did not refuse to fill his pipe with a
bit of my choice tobacco, and to come away from all idle folk, to a
place in the shelter of a rick, where he was sure to hear the hoofs of
his master's horse returning. I sate with him thus, and we got on well;
and as he was going to marry soon the daughter of a publican, who had as
good as fifty pounds, and nothing that could be set on fire, and lived
fifty miles away almost, he did not mind telling me all the truth,
because he saw that I could keep it; and at his age he could not enter
into the spirit of being kicked so. I told him I should like to see a
man kick me! But he said that I might come to it.
This was a very superior man, and I durst not contradict him; and having
arranged so to settle in life, how could he hope to tell any more lies?
For I have always found all men grow pugnaciously truthful, so to put
it, for a month almost before wedlock; while the women are doing the
opposite. However, not to go far into that, what he told me was much as
follows:--
Parson Chowne, in early life, before his mind was put into shape for
anything but to please itself, had been dreadfully vexed and thwarted.
Every matter had gone amiss, directly he was concerned in it; his
guardians had cheated him, so had his step-mother, so had his favourite
uncle, and of course so had his lawyers done. In the thick of that
bitterness, what did his sweetheart do but throw him over. She took a
great scare of his strange black eyes, when she found that his money was
doubtful. This was instinct, no doubt, on her part, and may have been a
great saving for her; but to him it was terrible loss. His faith was
already astray a little; but a dear wife might have brought it back, or
at any rate made him think so. And he was not of the nature which gropes
after the bottom of everything, like a twisting augur. Having a prospect
of good estates, he was sent to London to learn the law, after finishing
at Oxford, not that he might practise it, but to introduce a new element
to the county magistrates, when he should mount the bench among them.
Here he got rogued, as was only natural, and a great part of his land
fell from him, and therefore he took to the clerical line; and being of
a stern and decided nature, he married three wives, one after the other,
and thus got a good deal of property. It was said, of course, as it
always is of any man thrice a widower, that he or his manner had killed
his wives; a charge which should never be made without strong evidence
in support of it. At any rate there had been no children; and different
opinions were entertained whether this were the cause or effect of the
Parson's dislike and contempt of little ones. Moreover, as women usually
are of a tougher staple than men can be, Chowne's successive liberation
from three wives had added greatly to his fame for witchcraft, such as
first accrued from his commanding style, nocturnal habits, method of
quenching other people, and collection of pots and kettles. The
head-groom told me, with a knowing wink, that in his opinion the Parson
was now looking after wife No. 4, for he never had known him come out so
smart with silver heels and crested head-piece, and even the mark of the
saddle must not show upon his breeches. This was a sure sign, he
thought, that there was a young lady in the wind, possessing both money
and good looks, such as Chowne was entitled to, and always had insisted
on. Upon that point I could have thrown some light (if prudence had
permitted it), or at least I had some shrewd suspicions, after what
happened beside the river; however, I said nothing. But I asked him what
in his opinion first had soured the young man Chowne against the whole
of the world so sadly, as he seemed to retain it now. And he answered me
that he could not tell, inasmuch as the cause which he had heard given
seemed to him to be most unlikely, according to all that he saw of the
man. Nevertheless I bade him tell it, being an older man than he was,
and therefore more able to enter into what young folk call
"inconsistencies." And so he told me that it was this. Chowne, while
still a young boy, had loved, with all the force of his heart, a boy a
few years younger than himself, a cousin of his own, but not with
prospects such as he had. And this boy had been killed at school, and
the matter hushed up comfortably among all high authorities. But Stoyle
Chowne had made a vow to discover and hunt it out to the uttermost, and
sooner or later to have revenge. But when his own wrongs fell upon him,
doubtless he had forgotten it. I said that I did not believe he had done
so, or ever would, to the uttermost.
Then I asked about Parson Jack, and heard pretty much what I expected.
That he was a well-meaning man enough, although without much sense of
right or wrong, until his evil star led him into Parson Chowne's
society. But still he had instincts now and then, such as a horse has,
of the right road; and an old woman of his church declared that he did
feel his own sermons, and if let alone, and listened to, might come to
act up to them. I asked whether Parson Chowne might do the like, but was
told that he never preached any.
We were talking thus, and I had quite agreed to his desire of my company
for supper-time, when the sound of a horse upon stony ground, tearing
along at a dangerous speed, quite broke up our conference. The groom, at
the sound of it, damped out his pipe, and signified to me to do the
same.
"I have fired a-many of his enemies' ricks," he whispered, in his haste
and fright; "but if he were to smell me a-smoking near to a rick of his
own, good Lord!" and he pointed to a hay-rope, as if he saw his halter.
And though he had boasted of speedy marriage, and caring no fig for
Parson Chowne, he set off for the stables at a pace likely to prove
injurious to his credit for consistency.
On the other hand, I, in a leisurely manner, picked myself up from the
attitude natural to me when listening kindly, and calmly asserting my
right to smoke, approached the track by which I knew that the rider must
come into the yard; for all the dogs had no fear of me now, by virtue of
the whistle which I bore. And before I had been there half a minute, the
Parson dashed up with his horse all smoking, and himself in a heavy
blackness of temper, such as I somehow expected of him.
"No Jack here! not a Jack to be seen. Have the kindness to look for my
stable-whip. Ho, Llewellyn is it?"
"Yes, your Reverence, David Llewellyn, once of his Majesty's Royal Navy,
and now of----"
"No more of that! You have played me false. I expected it from a rogue
like you. Restore me that trust-guinea."
This so largely differed from what even Anthony Stew would dare to say
in conversation with me (much less at times of evidence), that I lifted
up my heart to heaven, as two or three preachers had ordered me; and
even our parson had backed it up, with lineage at least as good and
perhaps much better than Parson Chowne's, by right of Welsh blood under
it: the whole of this overcame me so, that I could only say, "What
guinea, sir?"
"What guinea, indeed! You would rob me, would you? Don't you know better
than that, my man? Come to me in two hours' time. Stop, give me that
dog's whistle!"
Taking that heed of me, and no more, he cast the reins to my friend the
head-groom, who came up, looking for all the world as if never had he
seen me, and wondered strangely who I could be. And this air of fright
and denial always pervaded the whole household. All of which was quite
against what I had been long accustomed to, wherever I deigned to go in
with my news to the servants' place, or the housekeeper's room, or
anywhere pointed out to me as the best for entertainment. Here, however,
although the servants seemed to be plentiful enough, and the horses and
the hounds to have as much as they could eat, there was not a trace of
what I may call good domestic comfort. When this prevails, as it ought
to do in every gentleman's household, the marks may be discovered in the
eyes and the mouth of everybody. Nobody thinks of giving way to
injudicious hurry when bells ring, or when shouts are heard, or horses'
feet at the front door. And if on the part of the carpeted rooms any
disquietude is shown, or desire to play, or feed, or ride, at times
outside the convenience of the excellent company down-stairs, there is
nothing more to be said, except that it cannot be done, and should never
in common reason have been thought of. For all servants must enjoy their
meals, and must have time to digest them with proper ease for
conversation and expansion afterwards. At Candleston Court it was always
so; and so it should be everywhere.
However, to return to my groom, whose cordiality revived at the moment
his master turned the corner, perceiving that Chowne had some matter on
hand which would not allow him to visit the stables, just for the
present at any rate, he turned the black mare over to the care of an
understrapper, and with a wink and a smack of his lips, gave me to know
that his supper was toward. Neither were we disappointed, but found it
all going on very sweetly, in a little private room used for cleaning
harness. And he told me that this young cook maid, of unusual abilities,
had attached herself to him very strongly, with an eye to promotion, and
having no scent of his higher engagement: neither would he have been
unwilling to carry out her wishes if she could only have shown a
sixpence against the innkeeper's daughter's shilling. I told him that he
was too romantic, and he said with a sigh that he could not help it; but
all would come right in the end, no doubt.
This honest affection impressed me not a little in his favour, and in
less than half an hour I found him a thoroughly worthy fellow: while he
perceived, through a square-stalked rummer, that my character was
congenial. I told him therefore some foreign stories, many of which were
exceedingly true, and he by this time was ready to answer almost
anything that I chose to ask, even though he knew nothing about it. As
for the people that wore no clothes, but lived all together in the old
mud-house, there need be and could be no mystery. Every one knew that
his Reverence had picked them up in his early days, and been pleased
with their simple appearance and dislike of cultivation. Perceiving even
then how glad he might be, in after-life, to annoy his neighbours, what
did he do but bring these people (then six in number, and all of them
wives and husbands to one another) and persuade them to dig themselves
out a house, and by deed of gift establish them on forty acres of their
own land, so that, as Englishmen love to say, their house was now their
castle. Not that these were perhaps English folk, but rather of a Gipsy
cross, capable, however, of becoming white if a muscular man should
scrub them. The groom said that nobody durst go near them, except Parson
Chowne and Parson Jack, and that they seemed to get worse and worse, as
they began to be persecuted by clothes-wearing people. I asked him what
their manners were; and he said he believed they were good enough, so
long as not interfered with; and who could blame them for maintaining
that whether they wore clothes or not was entirely their own concern:
also, that if outer strangers intruded, from motives of low curiosity,
upon their unclad premises, it was only fair to point out to them the
disadvantages of costume, by making it very hard to wash? There was some
sense in this, because the main anxiety of mankind is to convert one
another; and the pelting of mud is usually the beginning of such
overtures. And these fine fellows having recurred (as Parson Chowne
said) to a natural state, their very first desire would be to redeem all
fellow-creatures from the evils of civilisation. Whereof the foremost
perhaps is clothes, and the time we take in dressing--a twelfth part of
their waking life, with even the wisest women, and with the unwise
virgins, often not less than three-quarters; and with many men not much
better.--But to come back to my savages. I asked this good groom how it
came to pass that none of the sheriffs, or deputies, or even magistrates
of the shire, put down this ungoodly company. He said that they had
tried, but failed, according to the laws of England, on the best
authority. Because these men of the ancient Adam went back to the time
before the beasts had come to Adam to get their names. They brought up
their children without a name, and now all names were dying out, and
they agreed much better in consequence. And how could any writ, warrant,
or summons, run against people without a name? It had once been tried
with a "Nesho Kiss," the meaning of which was beyond me; but Parson
Chowne upset that at once; and the bailiff was fit to make bricks of.
At this I shook my head and smiled; because we put up with many evils on
our side of the water, but never with people so unbecoming in their
manner of life and clothes. And I thought how even mild Colonel Lougher
would have behaved upon such a point, and how sharp Anthony Stew would
have stamped when they began to pelt him; and how I wished him there to
try it!
Nevertheless I desired to know what victuals these good barbarians had;
because, although like the Indian Jogis (mentioned by some great
traveller) they might prove their right to go without clothes, which
never were born upon them, they could not to my mind prove their power
to do so well without victuals. He answered that this was a clever thing
on my part to inquire about; but that I was so far wrong that these
people would eat anything. His Reverence sent them every week the refuse
of his garden, as well as of stable-yard and kennel, and they had a gift
of finding food in everything around them. Their favourite dish--so to
say, when they had never a dish among them--was what they discovered in
the pasture-land; and this they divided carefully; accounting it the
depth of shame, and the surest mark of civilisation, to cheat one
another. But they could not expect to get this every day, in a
neighbourhood of moorland; therefore, instead of grumbling, they did
their best to get on without it. And Providence always sends thousands
of victuals for all whose stomachs have not been ruined by thinking too
much about them; or very likely through the women beginning to make them
delicate. So when a man is sea-sick, he thinks of and hates almost
everything.
On the other hand, these noble fellows hated nothing that could be
chewed. Twenty-one sorts of toad-stool, with the insects which inhabit
them; three varieties of eft, and of frogs no less than seven; also
slugs six inches long, too large to have a house built; moles that live
in lines of decks, like a man-of-war's-man; also rats, and brindled
hedgehogs, and the grubs of hornets (which far surpass all
oysters)--these, and other little things, like goat-moths, leopards, and
money-grubs, kept them so alive as never to come down on the parish.
Neither was there any hen-roost, rick-yard, apple-room, or dairy, on the
farms around them, but in it they found nourishment. Into all this I
could enter, while the groom only showed the door of it.
But while we were talking thus, I heard the stable-clock strike eight,
which brought Hezekiah to my mind, and my own church-clock at Newton. It
struck in such a manner, that I saw the door of my own cottage, also
Bunny in bed, with her nostrils ready to twitch for snoring, and Mother
Jones, with a candle, stooping to ease her by means of a drop of hot
grease; and inside, by the wall, lay Bardie, sleeping (as she always
slept) with a smile of high-born quietude. And what would all three say
to me if ever I got back again?
Thanking this excellent groom for all his hospitality to me, and
promising at his desire to keep it from his master, I took my way (as
pointed out) to the room where his Reverence might be found. I feared
that his temper would be black, unless he had dined as I had supped, and
taken a good glass afterwards. And I could not believe what the groom
had told me concerning one particular. There is a most utterly pestilent
race arising, and growing up around us, whose object is to destroy old
England, by forbidding a man to drink. St Paul speaks against them, and
all the great prophets; and the very first thing that was done by our
Lord, after answering them in the Temple, was to put them to shame with
a great many firkins. Also one of the foremost parables is concerning
bottles, as especially honest things (while bushels are to the
contrary), and the tendency of all Scripture is such--whichever
Testament you take--that no man in his wits can doubt it. And though I
never read the Koran, and only have heard some verses of it, I know
enough to say positively, that Mahomet began this movement to establish
Antichrist.
However, my groom said that Parson Chowne, though not such a fool as to
stop other people, scarcely ever took a drop himself; and his main
delight was to make low beasts of the clergy who had no self-command.
And two or three years ago he had played a trick on his brother parsons,
such as no man would ever have tried who took his own glass in
moderation and enjoyed it heartily, as Scripture even commands us to do,
to promote good-fellowship and discretion. Having a power of visitation,
from some faculty he enjoyed, he sent all round to demand their presence
at a certain time, for dinner. All the parsons were glad enough,
especially as their wives could not, in good manners, be invited,
because there was now no Mrs Chowne. And they saw a rare chance to tell
good stories, and get on without the little snaps which are apt to occur
among ladies. Therefore they all appeared in strength, having
represented it as a high duty, whatever their better halves might think.
When a parson says this, his wife must knock under, or never go to
church again. Being there, they were treated well, and had the good
dinner they all deserved, and found their host very different from what
they had been led to expect of him. He gave them as much wine as they
needed, and a very good wine too. He let them tell their stories, though
his own taste was quite different; and he even humoured them so as to
laugh the while he was despising them. And though he could not bear
tobacco, that and pipes were brought in for them.
All went smoothly until one of them, edged on by the others, called for
spirits and hot water. This Master Chowne had prepared for, of course,
and meant to present the things in good time; but now being gored thus
in his own house, the devil entered into him. His dark face grew of a
leaden colour, while he begged their pardon. Then out he went to Mother
Steelyard, and told her exactly what to do. Two great jacks of brown
brandy came in, and were placed upon the table, and two silver kettles
upon the hobs. He begged all his guests to help themselves, showing the
lemons and sugar-caddy, the bottles, and kettles, and everything: and
then he left them to their own devices, while he talked with Parson
Jack, who had dropped in suddenly.
Now, what shall I tell you came to pass--as a very great traveller
always says--why, only that these parsons grew more drunk than despair,
or even hope. Because, in the silver kettles was not water, but whisky
at boiling-point, and the more they desired to weaken their brandy, the
more they fortified it: until they tumbled out altogether, in every
state of disorder. For this he had prepared, by placing at the foot of
his long steps half-a-dozen butts of liquid from the cleaning of his
drains, meant to be spread on the fields next day. And into the whole of
this they fell, and he bolted the doors upon them.
This made a stir in the clerical circles, when it came to be talked
about; but upon reference to the bishop, he thought they had better say
nothing about it, only be more considerate. And on the whole it
redounded greatly to the credit of Parson Chowne.
CHAPTER XXXIV
WAITING AND LEARNING.
What this great man now said to me had better not be set down perhaps;
because it proved him incapable of forming due estimate of my character.
Enough that he caused me some alarm and considerable annoyance by his
supercilious vein, and assumption of evil motives. Whereas you could not
find anywhere purer or loftier reasons, and I might say, more poetical
ones, than those which had led me to abstain from speaking of the fair
young lady. However, as this Chowne had learned all about her, from some
skulking landsman, whom he maintained as a spy at the back of the
premises, it was certain that I could in no way harm her, by earning a
trifle of money in front, in a thoroughly open and disciplined way. And
it might even lie in my power thereby to defeat the devices of enemies,
and rescue this beautiful young female from any one who would dare to
think of presuming to injure her.
I found my breast and heart aglow with all the fine feeling of younger
days, the moment the above occurred to me; and it would not have cost me
two blows to knock down any man who misunderstood me. However, his
Reverence did not afford me any chance for this exercise; but seemed to
allow me the benefit which such ideas afford a man; and promised to
give me three half-crowns, instead of five shillings a week, as before.
He allowed me a hay-loft to sleep in that night, after taking good care
that I had not even a flint to strike a light with. For, cordially as he
did enjoy the firing of an enemy's barns or stacks, his Reverence never
could bear the idea of so much as a spark coming near his own. And the
following morning I saddled my horse, with a good chain undergirding,
and taking turn and turn about, got home to the Rose of Devon.
And here I found very unjust work, Fuzzy gone, and Ike not to be found,
and the ketch laid up for the winter. Only Bang, the boy, was left, and
the purpose of his remaining was to bear me a wicked message. Namely,
that I had been so much away, both in the boat and on horseback, that
the captain would not be bound to me, except to get home again, how I
might. And if this could not be brought about, and I chose to take care
of the ketch for the winter, two shillings a-week was what I might draw,
also the wood on the wharf, so long as it would last for firing; and any
fish I could catch with lines; and any birds I could shoot on the river,
with a stone of rock-powder that was in the hold.
Bang was ashamed to deliver this message; and I cannot describe to you
my wrath, as slowly I wrung it out of him. His head went into his neck
almost, for fear of my taking it by the handles, which nature had
provided in his two ears, and letting him learn (as done once before)
that the mast had harder knots in it. But I always scorn injustice; and
Bang was not to be blamed for this. So I treated him kindly; as I might
wish a boy of my own to be treated by a man of large experience. And I
let him go home to his mother's house, which was said to be somewhere
within a league, and then I went to see what manners had been shown in
the pickling-tub.
Here I found precious little indeed, and only the bottom stuff of
coxcombs, tails, and nails, and over-harpings, thready bits, and
tapeworm stuff, such as we pray deliverance from, unless it comes to
famine. Nevertheless, in my now condition I grieved that there was not
more of it. Because how could I get across to my native land again? All
the small coasting-craft were laid up, as if they were china for
shelfing, immediately after that gale of wind, which (but for me) must
have capsized us. These fellows up the rivers never get a breath of
seamanship. Sudden squalls are all they think of. Sea room, and the
power of it, they would be afraid of.
At one time I thought of walking home, because none of these traders
would venture it; and if I had only a guinea to start with on the road
to Bristol, nothing could have stopped me. For, say what I might to
myself about it, and reason however carefully, I could not reconcile
with my conscience these things that detained me. The more I considered
only three half-crowns, and the mere chance of wild-ducks on the river,
the less I perceived how my duty lay, and the more it appeared to be
movable. And why was I bound to stop here like this, when their place
was to take me home again, according to stipulation? To apply to the
mayor, as I knew, was useless, especially now that I owed him a bill; as
for the bench of magistrates, one had already a bias against me, because
I went into a wood one night to watch an eclipse of the moon, and took
my telescope; which they all swore was a gun! Being disappointed with
the moon's proceedings, I slammed up my telescope hastily, and at the
same time puffed my pipe; and there was a fellow on watch so vile as to
swear to the sound and the smoke of a gun! And this fellow proved to be
a Welshman of the name of Llewellyn, and a cousin of mine within seven
generations! I acquit him of knowing this fact at the time; and when in
cross-examination I let him know it, and nobody else, he came back to
his duty, and swore white all the black he had sworn before.
Nevertheless I did not like it (though acquitted amidst universal
applause) on account of the notoriety; and finding him one night upon
the barge walk, and his manners irritating, I was enabled to impress him
with a sense of consanguinity. And after that I might bear my telescope,
and take observations throughout the coverts, whenever the pheasants did
not disturb me.
This privilege, and a flight of wild-ducks, followed by a team of geese,
and rumours even of two wild swans, moderated my desire to be back at
home again. There no man can get a shot, except in very bitter weather,
or when the golden plovers come in, unless he likes to take on himself a
strong defiance of public opinion. Because Colonel Lougher is so kind,
and so forbears to prosecute, that to shoot his game is no game at all,
and shames almost any man afterwards. And the glory of all that
night-work is, the sense of wronging somebody.
Moreover, a little thing occurred, which, in my doubt of conclusion, led
me to stay a bit longer. Some people may think nothing of it, but a kind
touch takes a hold on me. I have spoken of a boy, by the name of Bang,
possessing many good qualities, yet calling for education. Of this I
had given him some little, administered not to his head alone, but to
more influential quarters; and the result was a crop of gratitude
watered by humility. When he went home for the winter months, I expected
to hear no more of him, having been served in that manner often by boys
whom I have corrected. Therefore all who have ever observed the want of
thankfulness in the young, will enter into my feelings when an ancient
woman, Bang's grandmother, hailed me in a shaky voice over the side of
my ketch, with Bang in the distance watching her. Between her feet was a
good large basket, which with my usual fine feeling I leaped out to ease
her of. But on no account would she let me touch it, until she knew more
about me.
"Be you the man?" she said.
"Madam," I answered, "I be the man."
"The man as goes on so wicked to Bang, for the sake of his soul
hereafter?"
"Yes, madam, I am he who clothed in the wholesome garb of severity a
deep and parental affection;" for now I smelled something uncommonly
good.
"Be you the chap as wolloped him?"
"That I can proudly say I am."
"Look 'e see, here, this be for 'e, then!"
With no common self-approval, I observed what she turned out; although I
longed much to unpack them myself, for fear of her spoiling anything.
But she put me back in a wholesale manner, and spread it all out like a
market-stand. And really it was almost enough to make a market of; for
she was a very wiry old woman, and Bang had helped carry, as far as the
wharf, when he saw me, and fled. Especially did I admire a goose, fat
with golden fat upon him, trussed, and laid on stuffing-herbs. Also, a
little pig for roasting, too young to object to it, yet with his
character formed enough to make his brains delicious. And as for
sausages--but no more.
The goodness of these things preserved me from going off on the tramp
just yet. That is the last thing a sailor should do, though gifted with
an iron-tipped wooden leg. The Government drove me into it once, when my
wound allowed me to be discharged; but it took more out of my
self-respect than ever I have recovered. And if I do anything under the
mark (which, to my knowledge, I never do), it dates from the time the
King drove me to alms. However, I never do dwell upon that, unless
there is something wrong down in my hold; and when that is right, I am
thankful again. And none of that ever befalls me, when I get my rations
regular. But who cares to hear any more about me, with all these great
things coming on? You may look on me now as nobody.
Because I fell so much beneath my own idea of myself, and all that
others said of me, through my nasty want of strength, when Parson Chowne
came over me. It is easy enough to understand that a man, in
good-nature, may knock under to another man of good-nature also; all in
friendship and in fun, and for the benefit of the world. But for a man
of intellect not so very far under the average--as will now be admitted
of me, in spite of all inborn diffidence--as well as a man of a
character formed and framed by experience, now to be boarded and
violently driven under hatches, without any power to strike a blow, by a
man who was never on board of a ship--at any rate to my knowledge; to
think of this and yet not help it, made me chafe like a fellow in irons.
There was one thing, however, that helped to make me put up with my
present position a little, and that was my hope to be truly of service
to my genuine benefactor, poor Sir Philip Bampfylde. This old gentleman
clearly was not going on very comfortably; and Parson Chowne had given
me to understand, without any words, that the great chest landed at the
end of his house, was full of arms and all other treason. These were to
be smuggled in, after the Captain's departure; and the Captain would not
enter the house, through fear of the servants suspecting something.
I could not reconcile this account with what I had seen the young lady
do, and the Captain's mode of receiving it; but as I would not tell the
Parson a word about that young lady, I could not make that objection to
him. Nor did I say, though I might have done so, that I would not and
could not believe for a moment that any British naval captain would
employ his ship and crew for a purpose of high treason to his lawful
master. That Parson Chowne should dare to think that I would swallow
such stuff as that, made me angry with myself for not having
contradicted him. But all this time I was very wise, and had no call to
reproach myself. Seldom need any man repent for not having said more
than he did; and never so needeth a Welshman.
And now, though I still took observation of Narnton Court (as in honour
bound to deserve my salary), and though the Parson still rode down, and
went the round of the deck at times when nobody could expect him; yet it
was not in my nature to be kept from asking something as to all these
people. You may frighten a man, and scare his wits, and keep him under,
and trample on him, and even beat his feelers down, and shut him up like
a jellyfish; but, after all this, if he is a man, he will want to know
the reason. For this makes half of the difference between man and the
lower animals:--the latter, when punished, accept it as a thing that
must befall them; and so do the negroes, and all proper women: but a man
always wants to know why it must be; though it greatly increases his
trouble to ask, and still more to tell it again, if you please.
Sir Philip Bampfylde, as every one said, was a very nice gentleman
indeed, the head of an ancient family, and the owner of a large estate.
Kind, moreover, and affable, though perhaps a little stately, from
having long held high command and important rank in the army. Some years
ago he had attained even to the rank of general, which is the same thing
among land-forces as an admiral is with us; and he was so proud of this
position that he always wished to be so addressed, rather than by the
title which had been so long in the family. For his argument was that he
had to thank good fortune for being a baronet, whereas good conduct and
perseverance alone could have made him a general. Now if these had made
him an admiral, I would always entitle him so; as it is, I shall call
him "Sir Philip," or "General," just as may happen to come to my mind.
Now this gentleman had two sons, and no other children; the elder was
Philip Bampfylde, Esquire, and the younger Captain Drake Bampfylde, of
whom I have spoken already. Philip, the heir, had been appointed to
manage the family property, which spread for miles and miles away; and
this gave him quite enough to do, because his father for years and years
was away on foreign service. And during this time Squire Philip married
a lady of great beauty, sent home by his father from foreign parts after
rescue from captivity. She was of very good extraction, so far as
foreigners can be, and a princess (they said) in her own right, though
without much chance of getting it. And she spoke the prettiest broken
English, being very sensitive.
Well, everything thus far went purely enough, and the lady had brought
him a pair of twins, and was giving good promise of going on, and
everybody was pleased with her, and most of all her husband, and Sir
Philip was come home from governorship, but only on leave of absence,
and they were trying hard to persuade him now to retire and live in
peace, when who should come with his evil luck to spoil everything, but
Drake Bampfylde? How it came to pass was not clearly known, at least to
the folk on our side of the river, or those whom I met in Barnstaple.
And I durst not ask on the further side, that is to say around Narnton
Court, because the Parson's spies were there. Only the old women felt
pretty sure that they had heard say, though it might be wrong, that
Captain Drake Bampfylde had drowned the children, some said by accident,
some said on purpose, and buried them somewhere on Braunton Burrows. And
the effect of this on the foreign lady, being as she was, poor thing,
might have been foreseen almost. For she fell into untimely pains, and
neither herself nor her babe survived, exactly as happened to my son's
wife.
This was a very sad story, I thought, but they said that the worst of it
still lay behind: for poor Squire Philip had been so upset by the hurry
of all these misfortunes, that nobody knew what to do with him. He
always had been a most warm-hearted man, foolishly fond of his wife and
children, and of a soft and retiring nature. Moreover, he looked on his
younger brother, who had seen so much more of the world than himself,
and was of a bolder character, not with an elder son's usual
carelessness, but with a thorough admiration. And when he found him
behave in this manner (according, at least, to what every one said), and
all for the sake of the property, without a sharp word between them, it
went to his heart, in the thick of his losses, so that he was beside
himself. He let his beard grow and his hair turn white, although he was
not yet forty, and he put up the shutters of his room, and kept candles
around him, and little dolls. He refused to see his brother Drake, and
his father Sir Philip, and everybody, except his own attendant, and the
nurse of his poor children. And finding this, the Captain left the
house, as if cursed out of it.
The only one who took things bravely was the ancient General. Much as he
grieved at the loss of his race, and extinction, perhaps, of the family,
he swore that he never would be cast down, or doubt the honour of his
favourite son, until that son confessed it. This Drake Bampfylde had
never done, although the case was hard against him, and scarcely any
one, except his father, now stood up for him. But of the few who still
held him guiltless, was one especial comforter: Isabel Carey to wit, a
young lady of very good Devonshire family, left as a ward to Sir Philip
Bampfylde, and waiting for three or four years more of age, to come into
large estates in South Devon.
The general people did not know this; but I happened to get ahead of
them; and having a knack in my quiet way of putting two and two
together, also having seen the Captain, and shaped my opinions, I would
have staked my boat against a cuttle-fish that he was quite innocent. If
the children were found buried--although I could never quite get at
this, but only a story of a man who had seen him doing it, as I shall
tell hereafter--but even supposing them deep in the sand (which I was a
little inclined to do, from trusting my spy-glass so thoroughly), yet
there might have been other people quite as likely to put them there as
that unlucky Captain Drake.
It has been my lot to sail under a great many various captains, not only
whom I have hinted at in the days when I was too young for work, but
whom I mean to describe hereafter in my far greater experiences; really
finding (although I have tried to convince people to the contrary) that
what they have told me was perfectly true, and that I come out far
stronger and better whenever my reins are tried and proved; and my loins
as sound as a bell, although hereditary from King David. Let that pass.
I find one fault, and it is the only one to be found with me; it is that
the style of our bards will come out, and spread me abroad in their
lofty allusions.
To come back to these captains. I never found one who would do such a
thing as kill and slay two children, much less dig their graves in the
sand, and come home to dinner afterwards. And of all the captains I had
seen, Drake Bampfylde seemed as unfit as any to do a thing of that
dirtiness. However, as I have not too much trust in human nature (after
the way it has used me, and worst of all when in the Government), I said
to myself that it was important to know at what time this Captain
Bampfylde won the love of that fine Miss Carey. Because, after that, he
had no temptation to put the little ones out of the way; and I quite
settled it in my own mind, that if they had set up their horses
together, before the young children went out of the world, Captain Drake
Bampfylde was not likely to have made them go so. For that fair maiden's
estates, I was told, would feed four hundred people.
No one had seen this, exactly as I did, nor could I beat it into them;
and I found from one or two symptoms that it was high time for me to
leave off talking. Parson Chowne came down one night, as black as a
tarred thunderbolt, and though he said nothing to let me know, I felt
afraid of his meaning. Also Parson Jack rode down, in his headlong
careless way, and filled his pipe from my tobacco-bag, and gave me a
wink, and said, "Keep your mouth shut." It was always a pleasure to me
to behold him; whatever his principles may have been, and if I could
have said a word to stop him from his downward road, or to make it go
less sudden, goodness knows I would have done it, at the risk of three
half-crowns a-week.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE POLITE FERRYMAN.
Now, for a man of my age and knowledge, keeping an eye on his own
concerns, and under the eyes of a good many women (eager to have him,
because confessed superior to the neighbourhood, yet naturally doubtful
how much money would be wanted), for such a man to attend to things
which could not concern him in any way, without neglecting what now he
had found a serious matter at his time of life--this, to my mind, proves
a breadth of sympathy rarely found outside of Wales.
Entering into these things largely, and desiring to do my best, having,
moreover, nought else to do except among dabs and flounders, I was led
by a naturally active mind to try to turn a penny; not for my own good
so much as for the use of Bunny. Therefore, having the punt at command,
and a good pair of oars, and a good pair of arms, what did I do but set
up a ferry, such as had never been heard of before, and never might have
been dreamed of, except for my intelligence? Because we had two miles to
Barnstaple Bridge, and no bridge at all to be found below us, and a good
many houses here and there, on either side of the river. And I saw that
they must know one another, and were longing to dine or to gossip
together, except for the water between them, or the distance to walk all
the way by the bridge. So being left in this desolate state, and
shamefully treated by Captain Fuzzy, and Bang's grandmother now
neglecting me, at a period of sadness, while smoking a pipe, Providence
gave me this brilliant idea.
I never had dreamed for a moment of settling without something
permanent; and not even £30 a-year would tempt me to do any despite to
my late dear wife's remembrance. A year and a day at the very least was
I resolved to mourn for her: still, as the time was drawing on, I
desired to have some prospect. Not to settle rashly, as young people do
in such affairs (which really should be important), but to begin to feel
about, and put the price against the weight, and then take time to think
about it. Only I had made up my mind not to look twice at the very
richest and most beautiful Methodist. Enough had I had for my life of
them, and the fellows that come after them: Church of England, or Church
of Rome, for me this time at any rate; with preference to the latter
because having no chapel in our neighbourhood.
And I worked this ferry, if you will believe me, not for the sake of the
twopence both ways, half so much as because of my thoughts of the
confidence that I must create. I knew for I won't say forty years, but
at any rate good thirty, what women are the very moment they must needs
come into a boat. The very shyest and wisest of them are at the mercy of
a man right out. And I never could help believing that they come for
that very reason. I know all their queerness of placing their toes, and
how they fetch their figures up, and manage to hitch their petticoats,
and try to suppose they are quite on a balance, and then go down plump
on the nearest thwart, and pretend that they did it on purpose.
Nevertheless they are very good; and we are bound to make the best of
them.
When I told Parson Chowne of my ferry-boat, rather than let him find it
out, which of course must have happened immediately, a quick gleam of
wrath at my daring to do such a thing without consulting him moved in
the depth of his great black eyes. At least I believed so, but was not
sure; for I never could bear to look straight at his eyes, as I do to
all other people, especially Anthony Stew, Esquire. I thought that my
ferry would be forbidden; but with his usual quickness he saw that it
might serve his purpose in several ways. Because it would help to keep
me there, as well as account for my being there, and afford me the best
chance in the world of watching the river traffic. So he changed his
frown to an icy smile, such as I never could smile at, and said--
"Behold now what good-luck comes of my service! Only remember, no fares
to be taken when the tide serves for you know what. And especially no
gossiping."
This being settled to my content, I took a great peace of loose
tarpaulin out of the hold of the Rose of Devon, and with a bucket of
thick lime-whiting explained to the public in printing letters, each as
large as a marlinspike, who I was, and of what vocation, and how
thoroughly trustworthy. And let any one read it, and then give opinion
in common fairness, whether any man capable of being considered a spy
would ever have done such a thing as this:--
"David Llewellyn, Mariner of the Royal Navy, Ferryman to King George the
IIId. Each way or both ways only Twopence. Ladies put carefully over the
Mud. Live Fish on hand at an hour's notice, and of the choicest
Quality." This last statement was not quite so accurate as I could have
desired. To oblige the public, I kept the fish too long on hand
occasionally, because I never had proper notice when it might be wanted.
And therefore no reasonable person ever took offence at me.
One fine day towards the frosty time, who should appear at my
landing-stage on the further side of the river, just by the lime-kiln
not far from the eastern end of Narnton Court--who but a beautiful young
lady with her maid attending her? The tide was out, and I was crossing
with a good sixpennyworth, that being all that my boat would hold,
unless it were of children. And seeing her there, I put on more speed,
so as not to keep her waiting. When I had carried my young women over
the mud and received their twopences, I took off my hat to the fair
young lady, who had kept in the background, and asked to what part I
might have the honour of conveying her ladyship.
"I am not a ladyship," she answered, with a beautiful bright smile; "I
am only a common lady; and I think you must be an Irishman."
This I never am pleased to hear, because those Irish are so untruthful;
however, I made her another fine bow, and let her have her own way about
it.
"Then, Mr Irishman," she continued; "you are so polite, we will cross
the water. No, no, thank you," as I offered to carry her; "you may carry
Nanette, if she thinks proper. Nanette has the greatest objection to
mud; but I am not quite so particular." And she tripped with her little
feet over the bank too lightly to break the green cake of the ooze.
"You sall elave me, my good man," said Nanette, who was rather a pretty
French girl; "Mamselle can afford to defigure her dress; but I can no
such thing do at all."
Meanwhile the young lady was in the boat, sitting in the stern-sheets
like a lieutenant, and laughing merrily at Nanette, who was making the
prettiest fuss in the world, not indeed with regard to her legs, which
an English girl would have considered first, but as to her frills and
fripperies; and smelling my quid, she had no more sense than to call me
a coachman, or something like it. However, I took little heed of her,
although her figure was very good; for I knew that she could not have
sixpence, and scarcely a hundred a-year would induce me to degrade
myself down to a real French wife. For how could I expect my son ever to
be a sailor?
Now as I pulled, and this fine young lady, who clearly knew something
about a boat, nodded her head to keep time with me, and showed her white
teeth as she smiled at herself, my own head was almost turned, I
declare; and I must have blushed, if it could have been that twenty
years of the fish-trade had left that power in me. Because this young
lady was so exactly what my highest dreams of a female are, and never
yet realised in my own scope. And her knowledge of a boat, and courage,
and pleasant contempt of that French chit who had dared to call me a
"coachman," when added to her way of looking over the water with fine
feeling (such as I very often have, and must have shown it long ago),
also the whole of this combined with a hat of a very fine texture
indeed, such as I knew for Italian, and a feather that curled over
golden pennon of hair in the wind like a Spanish ensign; and not only
these things, but a face, and manner, and genuine beauty of speech, not
to be found in a million of women,--after dwelling on all these things
both steadily and soberly, over my last drop of grog, before I went into
my berth that night, and prayed for the sins of the day to go upward,
what do you think I said on the half-deck, and with all the stars
observing me--"I'm damned if I'll serve Parson Chowne any more." I said
it, and I swore it.
And when I came to think of it, in a practical manner, next morning, and
to balance the ins and outs, and what I might come to, if thus led
astray, by a man in holy orders (yet whose orders were all unholy, at
any rate, such as he gave to me), and when I reflected on three
half-crowns for finding me in everything, and then remembered how I had
turned two guineas in a day, when poor Bardie came to me, and with a
conscience as clear as a spent cuttle-fish; and never a sign of my heels
behind me, when squeamish customers sat down to dinner; also good
Mother Jones with sweet gossip, while my bit of flesh was grilling, and
my little nip of rum, and the sound of Bunny snoring, while I smoked a
pipe and praised myself; also the pleasure of doubting whether they
could do without me at the "Jolly" through the wall, and the certain
knowledge how the whole of the room would meet me, if I could deny
myself enough to go among them;--these things made me lose myself, as in
this sentence I have done, in longing to find old times and places, and
old faces, once again, and some one to call me "Old Dyo."
Now who would believe that the whole of all this was wrought in my not
very foolish mind, by the sight of a beautiful high-bred face, and the
sound of a very sweet softening voice? Also the elegant manner in which
she never asked what the passage would come to, but gave me a bright and
true half-crown for herself and that frippery French girl. I must be a
fool; no doubt I am, when the spirit of ancestors springs within me,
spoiling all trade; as an inborn hiccough ruins the best pipe that ever
was filled. For though I owed three tidy bills, I had no comfort until I
drilled a little hole in that bright half-crown, and hung it with my
charms and knobs and caul inside my Jersey. And thus the result became
permanent, and my happiness was in my heart again, and all my
self-respect leaped up as ready to fight as it ever had been, when I had
shaped a firm resolve to shake off Chowne, like the devil himself.
I cannot imagine a lower thing than for any man to say--and some were
even to that degree base--that I thus resolved upon calculation, and
ability now to get on without him, and balance of his three half-crowns
against the income of my ferry, with which I admit that his work
interfered. Neither would any but a very vile man dare to cast
reflections upon me, for having created by skill and eloquence a small
snug trade in the way of fish, and of those birds which are sent by the
Lord in a casual way, and without any ownership, for the good of us
unestated folk. While I deny as unequivocally as if upon oath before
magistrates, that more than fifty hares and pheasants--but there! I may
go on for ever rebutting those endless charges and calumnies, which the
mere force of my innocent candour seems to strike out of maliciousness.
Once for all, I never poach, I never stab salmon, I never smuggle, I
never steal boats, I never sell fish with any stink outside of it,--and
how can I tell what it does inside, or what it may do afterwards? I
never tell lies to anybody who does not downright call for it; and you
may go miles and miles, I am sure, to find a more thoroughly honourable,
good-hearted, brave, and agreeable man.
Now I did not mean to say any of this, when I began about it; neither am
I in the habit of deigning even to clear myself; but once beginning with
an explanation, I found it the best to start clear again; because Parson
Chowne, and my manner towards him (which for the life of me I could not
help), also my service under him, and visit at his house, and so on, and
even my liking for Parson Jack (after his sale to Satan, though managed
without his privity), as well as my being had up for shooting pheasants
with a telescope;--these and many other things, too small now to dwell
upon, may have spread a cloud betwixt my poor self and my readers; and a
cloud whose belly is a gale of wind.
It is not that I ever could do any unworthy action. It is simply that I
can conceive the possibility of it seeming so to those who have never
met me; and who from my over-candid account (purposely shaped dead
against myself) may be at a loss to enter into the delicacies of my
conduct. But you shall see by-and-by; and seeing is believing.
Now it was a lucky thing, that on the very morning after I had made my
mind up so, and before it was altered much, down came Chowne in a
tearing mood, with his beautiful black mare all in a lather. I was on
board of the Rose of Devon, smoking my first after-breakfast pipe, and
counting my cash from the ferry business of the day before--except, of
course, the half-crown which lay among my charms, and strengthened me.
The ketch was aground in a cradle of sand, which she had long ago
scooped for herself, and which she seldom got out of now, except just to
float at the top of the springs. She stood almost on an even keel,
unless it were blowing heavily. Our punt (or rather I should call her
mine by this time, for of course she most justly belonged to me, after
all their breach of contract, and desertion of their colours)--at any
rate, there she was afloat and ready for any passenger, while my notice
to the public flapped below the mainboom of the ketch.
"You precious rascal," cried Chowne, from the wharf, with his horse
staring at the tarpaulin, and half inclined to shy from it; "who was it
crossed the river twice in your rotten ferry-boat yesterday?"
"Please your Reverence," I answered, calmly puffing at my pipe, which I
knew would still more infuriate him: "will your Reverence give me time
to think? Let me see--why, let me see--there was Mother Pugsley from up
the hill, and Mother Bidgood from round the corner, and Farmer Skinner,
and young Joe Thorne, and Eliza Tucker from the mill, and Jenny
Stribling, and Honor Jose, first cousin to our captain, and--well I
think that's nearly all that I know the name of, your Reverence."
"I thought you knew me better now than to lie to me, Llewellyn. You know
what I mean as well as I do."
"To be sure, to be sure, your Reverence; I beg your pardon altogether. I
ought to have remembered poor old Nanny Gotobed."
The wharf was high, and our gunwale below it; he put his mare at it,
clapped in the spurs, and before I could think or even wonder, he had me
by the nape of the neck, with his knuckles grinding into me, and his
face, now ashy white with rage, fixed on me, so that I could not move.
"Will you tell me?" he cried.
"I won't," said I; crack came his hunting-whip round my sides--crack,
and wish, and crack again; then I caught up a broken spar, and struck
him senseless over the tail of his horse. The mare ramped all round the
half-deck mad, then leaped ashore, with her legs all bloody, and scoured
away with her saddle off.
Chowne lay so long insensible, that a cold sweat broke through the heat
of my wrath, to think that I had killed him. And but for his hat, I had
done no less, for I struck with the strength of a maddened man, and the
spar was of heavy Dantzic. I untied his neckcloth, and ran for water,
and propped him up, and bathed his forehead, although my hands were
trembling so that I could scarcely hold the swab. And now as I watched
his pale stern face without a weak line in it even from fainting, I was
amazed at having ever dared to lift hand against him. But what Royal
Navyman could ever put up with horsewhip?
At last he fetched a strong breath, and opened the usual wickedness of
his eyes, and knew me at once, but did not know exactly what had
befallen him. I have had a good deal to do with knocking down a good
many men, and know that such is their usual practice; and that if you
take them promptly then, they will sometimes believe things very freely.
Therefore I said, "Your Reverence has contrived to hit yourself very
hard, but I hope you will soon be better again."
"Hit myself! Why, somebody hit me!" and then he went off again into a
doze, from the buzzing of his head perhaps Perceiving that he would
soon come to himself, and desiring to be acquitted of any violent charge
of battery, I jumped down into the hold and fetched an old boom that was
lying there, and hoisted it up in the tackle-fall, so as to hang at
about the right height. Moreover, I put the spar well away; and then,
with a sluice of water, I fetched his Reverence back to himself again. I
found him very correct this time, and beginning to look about pretty
briskly, therefore I turned him away and said, "Your Reverence must not
look at it--it will make your head go round again; either shut your eyes
or look away, your Worship."
He seemed not to notice me, so I went on, "Your Reverence has had a
narrow escape. What a mercy your head is not broken! Your Reverence went
to chastise me, and lo! your horse reared and threw your Reverence
against that great boom which that lubberly Jose has left there ever
since we broke cargo."
"You are a liar," he said; "you struck me. To the last day of your life
you shall rue it."
The voice of his throat ran cold all through me, being so low and so
cold itself; and the strength of his eyes was coming back, and the
bitter disdain of his countenance. The devil, who wanted him for a rare
morsel in the way of cannibalism, stood at my elbow; but luckily thought
it sweeter not to hurry it. The foulest man on all God's earth, who made
a scoff of mercy's self, lay at my mercy for a minute, defied it, took
it, and hated it. For the sake of myself, I let him go. For the sake of
mankind, I should have slain him.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
UNDER FAIRER AUSPICES.
Knowing now what I had to expect from Parson Chowne and from all his
train (whether clothed or naked), and even perhaps from Parson Jack, who
lay beneath his thumb so much, and who could thrash me properly; I
seized the chance of a good high tide, and gave a man sixpence to help
me, and warped the Rose of Devon to a berth where she could float and
swing, and nobody come a-nigh her without a boat or a swimming-bout.
Because I knew from so many folk what a fiend I had to deal with, and
that his first resort for vengeance (haply through his origin) generally
was to fire. They told me that when he condescended to do duty in either
church--for two he had, as I may have said--all the farmers took it for
a call to have their ricks burned. They durst not stay away from church,
to save the very lives of them, nor could they leave their wives behind,
on account of the unclothed people: all they could hope was that no
offence had come from their premises, since last service. The service he
held just as suited his mood; sometimes three months, and the
church-door locked; sometimes three Sundays one after the other, man,
woman, and child demanded. Whenever this happened, the congregation knew
that the parish had displeased him, and that he wanted them all in
church; while his boy was at the stackyards. He never deigned to preach,
but made the prayers themselves a comedy, singing them up to the clerk's
"amen," and the neigh of his mare from the vestry.
I cannot believe even half that I hear from the very best authority;
therefore I set nothing down which may be overcoloured. But the
following story I know to be true, because seven people have told it to
me, and not any two very different. Two or three bishops and archdeacons
(or deacons of arches, I know not which, at any rate high free-masons)
desired to know some little more about a man in their jurisdiction
eminent to that extent, and equally notorious. They meant no harm at
all, but just to take a little feel of him. Because he had come to
visitation, once or twice when summoned, with his huntsman and his
hounds, and himself in leathern breeches. There must have been something
amiss in this, or at any rate they thought so; and his lordship, a
bishop just appointed, made up his mind to tackle him. He came in a
coach-and-four, and wearing all his high canonicals, and they managed
somehow to get up the hill, and appear at Nympton Rectory. Then a
footman struck the door with a gold stick well embossed; and he struck
again, and he struck again, more in dudgeon every time.
Because no man had yet been seen, nor woman on the premises; only dogs
very wild and mad, but kept away from biting. "Strike again," said his
lordship, nodding under his wig, with some courtesy; "we must never be
impatient. Jemmy, strike again, my lad." Jemmy struck a thundering
stroke, and out came Mrs Steelyard. She looked at them all, and then she
said, with her eyes full on the Bishop's, "Are you robbers, or are you
savages? My master in that state and you do this!" And they all saw that
she could not weep, by reason of too much sorrow. "It is the Lord
Bishop," said the footman, keeping a little away from her. "Excellent
female," began his Lordship, spreading his hands in a habit learned
according to his duties, "tell your master that his[C] Jehoshaphat wishes
to see him." "Mr Jehoshaphat," she replied, "you are just in time, and
no more, sir. How we have longed for a minister! You are just in time
and no more, sir. Will you have the kindness to come this way, and to
step as quietly as you can?" His Lordship liked not the look of this;
being, however, a resolute man, he followed the stony woman up the
staircase, and into a bedroom with the window-curtains three quarters
drawn. And here he found a pastille burning, and a lot of medicine
bottles, and a Bible on the table open, and on it a pair of spectacles.
In the bed lay some one, with a face of fire heavily blotched with bungs
of black, and all his body tossing with spasms and weak groaning. "What
means this?" asked his Lordship, drawing considerably nearer to the
door. "Only the[D] plague," said the stony woman; "he was took with it
yesterday; doctor says he may last two hours more almost, particular if
he can get anybody to take the symptoms off him. I expect to be down
with it some time to-night, because I feel the tingling. But your
Highness will stop and help us." "I am damned if I will," cried the
Bishop, sinking both manners and dignity in the violence of alarm; and
he ran down the stairs at such a pace that his apron strings burst, and
he left it behind, and he jumped into the coach with his two feet
foremost, and slammed up the windows, and ordered full speed. Then
Parson Chowne rose, and threw off his mask, and drew back the
window-curtain, and sat in his hunting-clothes, and watched with his
usual bitter smile the rapid departure of his foe. And he had the
Bishop's apron framed, and hung it in the parsonage hall, from a
red-deer's antlers, with the name and date below. And so of that Bishop
he heard no more.
Now a man who had beaten three bishops, and all the archdeacons in the
country, was of course tenfold of a match for me; and when he rode down
smoothly to me, as he did in a few days' time, and never touched on our
little skirmish, except with a sort of playful hit (so far as his
haughty mind could play), and riding another horse without a word about
the mischief which his favourite mare had taken, and demanded, as a
matter of justice, that having quitted his service now, I should pay
back seven-and-sixpence drawn in advance for wages, I was obliged to
touch my hat, as if I had never made stroke at his, or put my knee upon
him. He had flogged me to such purpose that I ever must admire him; for
the flick of the boatswain's lash was a tickle compared to what Chowne
took out of me; and if I must tell the whole truth, I was prouder of
having knocked down such a wonderful man than of all of my victories put
together. But one of my weak and unreasonable views of life is this,
that having thrashed a man, I feel a great power of goodwill to him, and
a desire to give him quarter, and the more so the less he cries for it.
But, on the whole, I was not so young after all that was said by
everybody, as to imagine for a moment that I had felt the last of him.
The very highest in the land had been compelled to yield to him: as when
he turned out my Lord G----'s horses from the stabling ordered at Lord
G----'s inn. Would such a man accept defeat from a crazy old mariner
like me? Feeling my danger, and meaning never to knock under any more, I
refused, as a matter of principle, to restore so much as a halfpenny;
and if I understand law at all, he was bound to give me another week's
wages, in default of notice. However, I could not get it; and therefore
am glad to quit such trifles.
From all experience it was known that this man never hurried vengeance.
He knew that he was sure to get it; and he liked to dwell upon it, thus
prolonging his enjoyment by the means of hope. He loved, as in the case
of that unfortunate Captain Vellacott, to persuade his enemies that he
had forgiven, or at least forgotten them, and then to surprise them, and
laugh to himself at their ignorance of his nature. So I felt pretty sure
that I had some time till my life would be in danger. For, of course, he
knew that my ferry business, growing in profit daily, would keep me
within his reach for the present, over and above the difficulty of
getting across the Channel now. However, he began upon me sooner than I
expected, on account, perhaps, of my low degree.
But in the meanwhile, feeling sure that I could not stand worse with him
than I did--desiring, moreover, to ease my conscience, and perhaps
improve my income, by an act of justice--I crossed the river to Narnton
Court, and getting among the servants nicely, sent word in to Miss
Isabel Carey that the old ferryman begged leave to see her upon business
most particular. For, of course (although, in the hurry of things, I
may have forgotten to mention it), the lovely young lady I ferried
across, and whose name I was thrashed so for not betraying, was Captain
Drake's sweetheart, the ward of Sir Philip.
One of the most hateful things in Chowne was, that he never did anything
in the good old-fashioned manner, unless it were use of the horsewhip.
And it now rejoiced my heart almost to be shown into a fine dark room,
by the side of good long passages, with a footman going before me, and
showing legs of a quite superior order, and then under my instructions
boldly throwing an oaken door wide, and announcing, "Mr David Llewellyn,
ma'am!"
For though I had left Felix Farley behind, from a sort of romantic
bashfulness, I had seen in the hall a coloured gentleman, who seemed
justly popular; therefore I had just dropped a hint (not meant to go any
further) concerning my risk of life and fortitude for the sake of black
men. And this made the women admire me, for it turned out that this
worthy negro stood high in the house, and had saved some cash. The room
which I entered was large and high, with an amazing number of books in
it, and smelling exceeding learned. And there in a deep window sat the
young lady, with the light from the river glancing on the bright
elegance of her hair. And when she rose and came towards me, I felt
uncommonly proud of having been even thrashed for her sake: nor did I
wonder at Captain Drake's warm manner of proceeding, or at Chowne's
resolve to keep so jealous a watch over her. Over and above her beauty,
which was no business of mine, of course, she had such pretty eyebrows
and so sweet a way of looking, that a thrill went to my experienced
heart, in spite of all experience; and women seemed a different thing
from what I was accustomed to.
Therefore I left her to begin; while I made bows, and felt afraid of
giving offence by gazing. She, however, put me at my ease almost
directly, having such a high-bred way, so clarified and gentle, that I
neither could be distant nor familiar with her. Only to be quite at
ease, like, respect, and love her. And this lady was only about
seventeen! It is wonderful how they learn so much.
I need not follow all I said, or even what she said to me. Without for a
moment sacrificing my true sense of dignity, I gave her to understand,
very mildly, that I had seen something, and had taken a vague sense of
its import, when I chanced to be after wild-ducks. Also that strong
attempts had been made to set me spying after her, and that I might have
yielded to them, but for my own lofty sense of being a victorious
veteran, and the way in which I was conquered by her extraordinary
beauty.
She seemed for a moment to doubt how far I should have touched that
subject; and if I had only looked up she would have rung the bell
decidedly. But I bowed, and kept down my eyelashes; which were grey now,
and helped me much in paying innocent compliments to every kind of
woman. Even in the bar of very first-rate public-houses have I been
pressed to take, and not pay for, glasses even of ancient stingo,
because of the way I have paid respects, and looked through my shadows
afterwards. Therefore this young lady said, "I hardly know what to do or
say. Mr Llewellyn, it is a strange tale. Why should any one watch me?"
"That is more than I can say, my lady. I only know that the thing is
done, and by a very wicked man indeed."
"And you have found it out, as ferryman? How clever of you, to be sure!
And how honest to come and tell me! You have been a royal sailor?"
"In the Royal Navy, ma'am! Our captains are the most noble men, so
brave, and glorious, and handsome! If you could only see one of them!"
"Perhaps I have," she said, under her breath, being carried away by my
description, as I hoped to do to her; and then she came back through a
shading of colours to herself, and looked at me, as if to say, "Have you
detected me now?" I touched my lock; and by no means seemed to have
dreamed a suspicion of anything.
"You are a most worthy man," she said; "and wonderfully straightforward.
None but a Royal Navy sailor could have behaved so nobly. In spite of
all the bribes offered you----"
"No, no, no!" I cried; "nothing to speak of! nothing to speak of! What
is a guinea and a half a-week when it touches a man's integrity?"
"Three guineas a-week you shall have at once; because you have behaved
so nobly, and because you have fought for your country so, and been left
with nothing (I think you said), with half of your lungs quite shot
away, except twopence a-day to live upon!"
"One and eightpence farthing a-week, my lady; and to be signed by a
clergyman; and twenty-eight miles to walk for it."
"It vexes mo so to hear such things. Don't tell me any more of it. What
is the use of having money except for the people who want it? Mr
Llewellyn, you must try not to be offended."
I saw that there was something coming, but looked very grave about it. A
man of my rank and mark must never be at all ready, and much less eager,
to lay himself under any form of trifling obligation. And thoroughly as
she had won me over, I tried very hard not to be offended, while she was
going to a small black desk. If she had come thence with a guinea or
two, my mind was made up to do nothing more than gracefully wave it back
again, and show myself hurt at such ignorance of me. But now when she
came with a £5 note (such as Sir Philip seemed to keep in stock), my
duty to Bardie and Bunny rose as upright as could be before my eyes, and
overpowered all selfish niceties. I would not make a fuss about it, lest
I might hurt her feelings, but placed it in my pocket with a bow of
silent gratitude. Perhaps my face conveyed to her that it was not the
money I cared for; only to do what was just and right, as any British
sailor must when delicately handled. Also her confidence in me was so
thoroughly sweet and delicate, that I felt the whole of my heart wrapped
up in saving her from her enemies. We made no arrangements about it; but
I went into her service bodily, being left to my own discretion, as
seemed due to my skill and experience. I was to keep the ferry going,
because of the opportunities, as well as to lull suspicion, and always
at dark I was bound to be (according to my own proposal) near the river
front of the house, to watch against all wicked treachery. And
especially if a spy of Chowne's should come sneaking and skulking there,
whether in a boat or out of it, I gladly volunteered to thrash him
within an inch of his foul base life. The bad man's name never passed
between us; and indeed I may say that the lady forbore from committing
herself against anybody, so that I was surprised to find such wit in one
so youthful.
We settled between us that my duties were to begin that very day, and my
salary of course to run, also how the lady was to let me know when
wanted, and I to tell her when I discovered anything suspicious. And as
I had been compelled to restore the Parson's gun to his gunmaker, Miss
Carey led me to a place you might almost call an armoury, and bade me
choose any piece I liked, and her own maid should place it where I could
find it that same evening, as though it were to shoot wild-fowl for
them. But she advised me on no account to have any talk with Nanette, or
any servants of the household, whether male or female, not only because
of the wicked reports and cruel slanders prevailing, but also that it
might not be known how I was to act in her interest. And then having
ordered me a good hot dinner in the butler's pantry, as often was done
for poor people, she let me go once, and then called me back, and said,
"Oh, nothing;" and then called me again, and said, looking steadily out
of the window, "By the by, I have quite forgotten to say that there is a
boat belonging to a ship commanded by a son of Sir Philip Bampfylde, a
white boat, with three oars on each side, and sometimes an officer
behind them. If they should happen to come up the river, or to go ashore
upon business here, you need not--I mean, you will quite understand that
no harm whatever is intended to me, and therefore that you may--you see
what I mean."
"To be sure, to be sure, my lady. Of course I may quit my duty so long
as there is a man-of-war's boat in the river; even the boldest and worst
of men would venture nothing against you then."
"Quite so," she replied, looking bravely round, with as much of pride in
her bright blue eyes as of colour on her soft fresh cheeks. So I made my
best bow and departed.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
TWO POOR CHILDREN.
By this time I owe it to all the kind people who have felt some pity for
our Bardie and her fortunes, to put off no longer a few little things
which I ought to tell them. In the first place, they must not think of
me, but look upon me as nobody (treat me, in fact, as I treat myself),
and never ask what I knew just now, and what I came to know afterwards.
Only to trust me (as now they must) to act in all things honourably, and
with no regard to self; and not only that, but with lofty feeling, and a
sense of devotion towards the members of the weaker sex.
Captain Drake Bampfylde was the most unlucky of born mortals. To begin
with, he was the younger son of that very fine Sir Philip, and feeling
that he had far more wit and enterprise than his elder brother, while
thankful to nature for these endowments, he needs must feel amiss with
her for having mismanaged his time of birth. Now please to observe my
form of words. I never said that he did so feel, I only say that he must
have done so, unless she had made him beyond herself; which, from her
love for us, she hardly ever tries to do. However, he might have put up
with that mistake of the goddess that sits cross-legged,--I have heard
of her, I can tell you, and a ship named after her; though to spell her
name would be a travail to me, fatal perhaps at my time of life,--I mean
to say, at any rate, that young Drake Bampfylde might have managed to
get over the things against him, and to be a happy fellow, if he only
had common luck. But Providence having gifted him with unusual
advantages of body, and mind, and so forth, seemed to think its duty
done, and to leave him to the devil afterwards.
This is a bad way of beginning life, especially at too young an age to
be up to its philosophy; and the only thing that can save such a man is
a tremendous illness, or the downright love of a first-rate woman.
Thence they recover confidence, or are brought into humility, and get a
bit of faith again, as well as being looked after purely, and finding a
value again to fight for, after abandoning their own. Not that Drake
Bampfylde ever did slip into evil courses, so far as I could hear of
him, or even give way to the sense of luck, and abandon that of duty. I
am only saying how things turn out, with nineteen men out of twenty. In
spite of chances, he may have happened just to be the twentieth. I know
for sure that he turned up well, though vexed with tribulation. Evil
times began upon him, when he was nothing but a boy. He fell into a pit
of trouble through his education; and ever since from time to time new
grief had overtaken him. A merrier little chap, or one more glad to make
the best of things, could not be found; as was said to me by the cook,
and also the parlour-maid. He would do things, when he came out among
the servants, beautifully; and the maids used to kiss him so that his
breath was taken away with pleasing them. And then he went to school,
and all the maids, and boys, and men almost, came out to see the yellow
coach, and throw an old shoe after him. This, however, did not help him,
as was seriously hoped; and why? Because it went heel-foremost, from the
stupidity of the caster. News came, in a little time, that there was
mischief upward, and that Master Drake must be fetched home, to give
any kind of content again. For he was at an ancient grammar-school in a
town seven miles from Exeter, where everything was done truly well to
keep the boys from fighting. Only the habit and tradition was that if
they must fight, fight they should until one fell down, and could not
come to the scratch again. And Drake had a boy of equal spirit with his
own to contend against, not however of bone and muscle to support him
thoroughly. But who could grieve, or feel it half so much as young Drake
Bampfylde did, when the other boy, in three days' time, died from a
buzzing upon his brain? He might have got into mischief now, even though
he was of far higher family than the boy who had foundered instead of
striking; but chiefly for the goodwill of the school, and by reason of
the boy's father having plenty of children still to feed, and consenting
to accept aid therein, that little matter came to be settled among them
very pleasantly. Only the course of young Drake's life was changed
thereby, as follows.
The plan of his family had been to let him get plenty of learning at
school, and then go to Oxford Colleges and lay in more, if agreeable;
and so grow into holy orders of the Church of England, well worth the
while of any man who has a good connection. But now it was seen, without
thinking twice, that all the disturbers and blasphemers of the
Nonconformist tribe, now arising everywhere (as in dirty Hezekiah, and
that greasy Hepzibah, who dared to dream such wickedness concerning even
me), every one of these rogues was sure to cast it up against a parson,
in his most heavenly stroke of preaching, that he must hold his hand,
for fear of killing the clerk beneath him. And so poor Drake was sent to
sea; the place for all the scape-goats.
Here ill fortune dogged him still, as its manner always is, after
getting taste of us. He heeded his business so closely that he tumbled
into the sea itself; and one of those brindle-bellied sharks took a
mouthful out of him. Nevertheless he got over that, and fell into worse
trouble. To wit, in a very noble fight between his Britannic Majesty's
sloop of war "Hellgoblins," carrying twelve guns and two carronades
(which came after my young time), and the French corvette "Heloise," of
six-and twenty heavy guns, he put himself so forward that they trained
every gun upon him. Of course those fellows can never shoot anything
under the height of the moon, because they never stop to think;
nevertheless he contrived to take considerable disadvantage. By a
random shot they carried off the whole of one side of his whiskers; and
the hearing of the other ear fell off, though not involved in it. The
doctors could not make it out: however, I could thoroughly, from long
acquaintance with cannon-balls. Also he had marks of powder under his
skin, that would never come out, being of a coarse-grained sort, and
something like the bits of tea that float in rich folks' tea-cups.
Happening, as he did by nature, to be a fine, florid, and handsome man,
this powder vexed him dreadfully. Nevertheless the ladies said, loving
powder of their own, that it made him look so much nicer.
That, however, was quite a trifle, when compared to his next misfortune.
Being gazetted to a ship, and the whole crew proud to sail under him, he
left the Downs with the wind abaft, and all hands in high spirits. There
was nothing those lads could not have done; and in less than twelve
hours they could do nothing. A terrible gale from south-west arose; in
spite of utmost seamanship they were caught in the callipers of the
Varne, and not a score left to tell of it.
These were things to try a man, and prove the stuff inside him. However,
he came out gallantly. For being set afloat again, after swimming all
night and half a day, he brought into the Portland Roads a Crappo ship
of twice his tonnage, and three times his gunnage; and now his sailors
were delighted, having hope of prize-money. That they never got, of
course (which, no doubt, was all the better for their constitutions),
but their knowledge of battle led them to embark again with him, having
sense (as we always have) of luck, and a crooked love of a man whose bad
luck seems to have taken the turn. And yet their judgment was quite
amiss, and any turn taken was all for the worse. Captain Bampfylde did a
thing, which even I, in my hotter days, would rather have avoided. He
ran a thirty-two gun frigate under the chains of a sixty-four. He
thought that they must shoot over him, while he laid his muzzles to her
water-line, and then carried her by boarding.
Nothing could have been finer than this idea of doing it, and with eight
French ships out of nine, almost, he must have succeeded. But once more
his luck came over, like a cloud, and darkened him. The Frenchmen had
not only courage (which they have too much of), but also what is not
their gift, with lucky people against them, self-command and steadiness.
They closed their lower ports, and waited for the Englishmen to come
up. They knew that the side of their ship fell in, like the thatch of a
rick, from the lower ports, ten feet above the enemy. They had their
nettings ready, and a lively sea was running.
It grieves as well as misbecomes me to describe the rest of it. The
Englishmen swore with all their hearts at their ladders, the sea, and
everything, and their captain was cast down between the two ships, and
compelled to dive tremendously; in a word it came to this, that our
people either were totally shot and drowned, or spent the next Sunday in
prison at Brest.
Now here was a thing for a British captain, such as the possibility of
it never could be dreamed of. To have lost one ship upon a French shoal,
and the other to a Frenchman! Drake Bampfylde, but for inborn courage,
must have hanged himself outright. And, as it was, he could not keep
from unaccustomed melancholy. And, when he came home upon exchange, it
was no less than his duty to abandon pleasure now, and cheerfulness, and
comfort; only to consider how he might redeem his honour.
In the thick of this great trouble came another three times worse. I
know not how I could have borne it, if it had been my case, stoutly as I
fight against the public's rash opinions. For this Captain was believed,
and with a deal of evidence, to have committed slaughter upon his
brother's children, and even to have buried them. He found it out of his
power to prove that really he had not done it, nor had even entertained
a wish that it might happen so. Everybody thought how much their dying
must avail him; and though all had a good idea of his being upright,
most of them felt that this was nothing, in such strong temptation. I
have spoken of this before, and may be obliged again to speak of it;
only I have rebutted always, and ever shall rebut, low ideas. Yet if
truly he did kill them, was he to be blamed or praised, for giving them
good burial? The testimony upon this point was no more than that of an
unclad man, which must of course have been worthless; until they put him
into a sack, and in that form received it. This fellow said that he was
coming home towards his family, very late one Friday night; and he knew
that it was Friday night because of the songs along the road of the folk
from Barnstaple market. He kept himself out of their way, because they
had such a heap of clothes on; and being established upon the sands, for
the purpose of washing his wife and children, who never had seen water
before, and had therefore become visited, he made a short cut across the
sands to the hole they had all helped to scoop out, in a stiff place
where some roots grew. This was his home; and not a bad one for a
sea-side visit. At any rate he seemed to have been as happy there as any
man with a family can experience; especially when all the members need
continual friction.
This fine fellow was considering how he could get on at all with that
necessary practice, if the magistrates should order all his frame to be
covered up; and fearing much to lose all chance of any natural
action--because there was a crusade threatened--he lay down in the
moonlight, and had a thoroughly fine roll in the sand. Before he had
worn out this delight, and while he stopped to enjoy it more, he heard a
sound, not far away, of somebody digging rapidly. Or at any rate, if it
was not digging, it was something like it. The weather was wonderfully
hot, so that the rushes scarcely felt even cool to his breast and legs.
In that utterly lonely place (for now the road was a mile behind him,
and the sands without a track, and the stars almost at midnight), there
came upon him sudden fright, impossible to reason with. He had nothing
to be robbed off, neither had he enemy; as for soul, he never yet had
heard of any such ownership. But an unknown latitude of terror
overpowered him. Nothing leads a man like fear; and this poor savage,
though so naked, was a man of some sort.
Therefore, although he would far liefer have skulked off in the
crannying shadows, leaving the moon to see to it, he could by no means
find the power to withdraw himself like that. The sound came through the
rushes, and between the moonlit hillocks so, that he was bound to follow
it. Crouching through the darker seams, and setting down his toe-balls
first, as naked feet alone can do, step by step he drew more near,
though longing to be further off. And still he heard the heel-struck
spade, and then a cast, and then the sullen sound of sand a-sliding.
Then he came to a hollow place, and feared to turn the corner.
Being by this time frightened more than any words can set before us,
back he stroked his shaggy hair, and in a hat of rushes laid his poor
wild face for gazing. And in the depth of the hollow where the moonlight
scarcely marked itself, and there seemed a softer herbage than of dry
junk-rushes, but the banks combed over so as to bury the whole three
fathoms deep at their very first subsiding--a man was digging a small
deep grave.
On the slope of the bank, and so as to do no mischief any longer, two
little bodies lay put back; not flung anyhow; but laid, as if respect
was shown to them. Each had a clean white night-gown on, and lay in
decorous attitude, only side by side, and ready to go into the grave
together. The man who was digging looked up at them, and sighed at so
much necessity; and then fell to again, and seemed desirous to have done
with it.
So was the naked man who watched him, fright by this time over-creeping
even his very eyeballs. He blessed himself for his harmlessness, and
ill-will to discipline, all the way home to his own sandhill; and a
hundredfold when he came to know (after the dregs of fright had cleared)
that he had seen laid by for coolness, by this awful gravedigger, the
cocked-hat of a British Captain in the Royal Navy. This hat he had seen
once before, and wondered much at the use of it, and obtained an
explanation which he could not help remembering. And fitting this to his
own ideas, he was as sure as sure could be, that Captain Bampfylde was
the man who was burying the children.
Now when this story reached the ears of poor old Sir Philip, whether
before or after his visit to our country matters not, it may be supposed
what his feelings were of sorrow and indignation. He sent for this
savage, who seemed beyond the rest of his tribe in intelligence, as
indeed was plainly shown by his coming to bathe his family, and in spite
of all the difference of rank and manner between them, questions
manifold he put, but never shook his story. And then he sent to Exeter
for a lawyer, thoroughly famous for turning any man inside out and
putting what he pleased inside him. But even he was altogether puzzled
by this man in the sack, wherein he now lived for decorum's sake,
however raw it made him. And the honest fellow said that clothing
tempted him so to forsake the truth, when he could not tell his own legs
in it, that it sapped all principle.
That question is not for me to deal with, nor even a very much wiser
man, except that my glimpses of foreign tribes have all been in favour
of nudity. And the opposite practice is evidently against all the bent
of our civilised women, who are perpetually rebelling, and more and more
eager to open their hearts to their natural manifestation. For the heart
of a woman is not like a man's, "desperately wicked;" and how can they
prove this unless they show its usual style of working? Only the other
day I saw----but back I must go to the heart of my tale. In a word,
this fine male savage convinced every one he came into contact with
(which after his bathing was permitted, if the other man bathed
afterwards), that truly, surely, and with no mistake he must have seen
something. What it was became naturally quite another question; and upon
this head no two people could be found of one opinion. But though it
proved an important point, I will not dwell too long on it.
Captain Drake's boat, to my firm belief, never came once up the river
now; and I thought that my beautiful young lady seemed a little grieved
at this. Every now and then she crossed, on her way to see old women,
and even that old Mother Bang; and the French maid became a plague to
me. She had laid herself out to obtain me, because of the softness with
which I carried her; and her opposition to my quid naturally set her
heart all the more upon me. I will not be false enough to say that I did
not think of her sometimes, because she really did go on in a
tantalising manner. And we seemed to have between us something, when her
lady's back was turned. However, she ought to have known that I never
mean anything by this; and if she chose to lie back like that, and put
her red lips toppermost, the least thing she should have done was first
to be up to our manners and customs.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A FINE OLD GENTLEMAN.
When I came to look round upon this state of things, and consider it, I
made up my mind to tempt Providence, or rather perhaps the most opposite
Power, by holding on where I was, in spite of the Parson and all his
devices. This was a stupid resolve, and one on which he had fully
calculated. I was getting a little perhaps fond of Nanette, though not
quite so much as she fancied; feeling unable to pin my faith to a thing
she had whispered into my ear; to wit, that she would thrice soon
inherit one three grand money, hunder tousand, more than one great
strong man could leeft. I asked her to let me come and try; and she said
it was possible to be. Having a thorough acquaintance with Crappos, and
the small wretched particles of their money, I did not attach much
importance to this; for I like our King's face, and they have not got
it; and they seem to stamp their stuff anyhow. But in spite of all
prejudice, it would be well to look a little into it; particularly as
this girl (whether right or wrong in thousands) had a figure not to be
denied, when you came home to her.
Nevertheless I am not the man to part with myself at random; and there
was a good farmer's daughter now, solid, and two-and-thirty--which is my
favourite ship to sail in, handy, strong, and with guns well up--this
young woman crossed the ferry, at eightpence a-day, for my sake; and I
thought of retaining a lawyer to find what might be her prospects. She
was by no means bad to look at, when you got accustomed; and her nature
very kind, and likely to see to Bunny's clothes; also she never
contradicted; which is cotton-wool to one who ever has rheumatics. But I
did not wish to pay six-and-eightpence, and then be compelled to lose
eightpence a-day, in order to steer clear of her. So I ferried both her
and Nanette alike, and let them encounter one another, and charged no
difference in their weight.
Nothing better fits a man, for dealing with the womankind, than to be
well up in fish. Now I found the benefit of that knowledge where I never
looked for it; and I knew the stale from the fresh--though these come
alike in the pickle of matrimony--also (which is far more to the point)
the soft roes from the hard roes. These you cannot change; but must
persuade yourself to like whichever you happen to get of them. And that
you find out afterwards.
While I was dwelling upon these trifles, and getting on well with my
serious trade, working my ferry, and catching salmon so as to amaze the
neighbourhood, also receiving my well-earned salary from the fair
Mistress Isabel, and surprising the public-houses every night with my
narratives--in a word, becoming the polar-star of both sides of the
river--a thing befell me which was quite beyond all sense of reason.
Through wholesome fear of Parson Chowne, and knowledge of his
fire-tricks, I kept the Rose of Devon in a berth of deep fresh water;
where a bulk of sand backed up, and left a large calm pool of river.
Here the dimpling water scarcely had the life to flow along--when the
tide was well away; and scarcely brought a single bubble big enough to
break upon us. According to the weather, so the colour of the water was.
Only when you understood, it seemed to please you always.
One night I was not asleep, but getting very near it; setting in my mind
afloat (as I felt the young tide flowing) thoughts or dreams, or lighter
visions than the lightest dream that flits, of, about, concerning,
touching, anyhow regarding, or, in any lightest side-light, gleaming,
who can tell, or glancing from the chequers of the day-work. Suddenly a
great explosion blew me out of my berth, and filled the whole of the
cuddy with blaze and smoke. I lay on the floor half-stunned, and with
only sense enough for wondering. Then Providence enabled me, on the
strength of the battles I had been through, to get on my elbow, and look
around. Everything seemed quite odd and stupid for a little while to me.
I neither knew where I was, nor what had happened or would happen me.
It may have been half an hour, or it may have been only half a minute,
before I was all alive again, and able to see to the mischief. Then I
found that a very rude thing had been done, and a most unclerical
action, not to be lightly excused, and wholly Undeserved on my part. A
good-sized kettle of gunpowder had been cast into my cuddy, possibly as
a warning to me; but, to say the least, a dangerous one. My wrath
overcame all fear so much, that in spite of the risk of meeting others,
I rushed through the smoke and up the ladder, and seized my gun from its
sling on the deck, and gazed (or rather I should say stared) in every
direction around me. But whether from the darkness of the night, or the
stinging and stunning turmoil in my eyes and upon my brain, I could not
descry any moving shape, or any living creature. And this even added to
my alarm, so that I got very little more sleep that night, I do assure
you.
However, I kept my own counsel about it, even from my lady patroness,
resolving to maintain a sharp look-out, and act as behoved a gallant
Cymro, thrown amongst a host of savages. To this intent, I took our
tiller, which was just about six feet long, and entirely useless now,
and I put a bit of a bottom to it, so as to stand quite decently, and
fixed a cross-tressel for shoulders, and then dressed it up so with my
old fishing-suit and a castaway hat to encourage my brains, that really,
though the thing was so grave, I could not help laughing at myself; in
the dusk it was so like me. When the labours of the day were over, and
the gleam of the water deadened, I set up this other fine Davy
Llewellyn on board the ketch, now here now there, sometimes leaning over
the bulwarks in contemplation of the river (which was my favourite
attitude, from my natural turn for reflection), sometimes idly at work
with a rope, or anything or nothing, only so as to be seen from shore,
and expose to the public his whereabouts. Meanwhile I crouched in a
ditch hard by, and with both barrels loaded.
You will say this was an unchristian thing, especially as I suspected
strongly that my besiegers wore naked backs, and would therefore receive
my discharge in full. I will not argue that point, but tell you (in
common fairness to myself, and to prevent any slur of the warm
affection, long subsisting between all who have cared to listen to me
and my free self) that whenever I hoped for a chance at those fellows, I
drew the duck-shot from the first barrel, and put a light charge of
snipe-shot in, which no man could object to. The second barrel was
ready, in case that the worst should come to the worst, as we say.
Now it is a proof of my bad luck, and perhaps of my having done a thing
below the high Welsh nature, that Providence never vouchsafed me a
single shot at any one of them. The more trouble I took, the less they
came; until I could scarcely crook my fingers through the rheumatics
they brought on me. Night after night, I said to myself, "If it only
pleases the Lord to save me from the wiles of this anointed one, I vow
to go back to my duty, and teach those other young chits of boys their
work." For I had observed (though I would not tell it, except in a
rheumatic twinge) that even Captain Bampfylde's men had lost the style
of drawing oars through the water properly, and as I used to give the
tune, five-and-twenty years agone.
It is needless to say, that after all the close actions I have conquered
in, a canister of gunpowder was nothing to disturb me. But as they might
do worse next time, whether in joke or earnest, I made me a hutch of
stout strong oak, also cut the bulkhead out, and freed myself into the
hold at once, upon any unjust disturbance. Nigh me was my double gun,
heavily shotted at bedtime, and the spar which had knocked down Parson
Chowne, and might have to do it again perhaps. And now I began to
persuade myself into happy sleep again; for my nature is not vindictive.
One night I lay broad awake, perhaps from having shot a curlew, and
eaten him, without an onion sewn inside while roasting, but he had been
so hard to shoot that I was full of zeal to dine upon him, and had no
onion handy. Whether it were so or not, I lay awake and thought about
the strange things now come over me. To be earning money at a very noble
rate indeed; to be winning the attentions of it may be ten young women
(each of whom believed that never had I been in love before); and to be
establishing a business which could scarcely fail of growing to a
public-house with benches and glass windows looking down upon the river;
and yet with all this prospect brewing, scarcely to have a moment's
peace! What a lucky thing for Parson Chowne that I have no cold black
blood in me! In this medley of vague thoughts (such as all men of large
brain have, and even myself when the moon ordains it) a strong and good
idea struck me, and one to be dwelled upon to-morrow; and if then
approved, to be carried out immediately. This was no less than to beg an
audience of Sir Philip Bampfylde himself, and tell him all that I ever
had seen of Chowne and his devices, and place Sir Philip on his guard,
and learn maybe a little of the many things that puzzled me. Of course I
had thought of this before; but for several reasons had forborne to
carry it any further. In the first place, it seemed such a coarse rude
way of meeting plans that should be met with equal stealth and subtlety,
unless a man were prepared to own himself vanquished in intelligence.
Again, it would have been very difficult to obtain a private interview
without some stir concerning it. Moreover, I felt a delicacy with
respect to my stewardship on behalf of those two children; for a
stranger might not at a glance perceive that prudence and self-denial on
my part, which the worrisome frivolousness of the fish had, for the
time, frustrated. However, I now perceived that a gentleman of Sir
Philip's lofty bearing could not with any grace or dignity allude to his
own beneficence; and as for the second difficulty, I might hope for Miss
Carey's good offices, while I could no longer think to encounter Chowne
with his own weapons, since he had blown me out of bed.
Accordingly I persuaded my beautiful young lady, who had plenty of sense
but not much craft, and was pleased with my straightforwardness, to lead
me into Sir Philip's presence in a lonely part of the grounds near the
river, to the westward, and out of sight of the house; in a word, not
far from the Braunton Burrows.
Here the river made a bend and came to the breast of an ancient
orchard, rich with grass and thick with trees leafless now, but thickly
bearded upon every twig with moss. This was of every form and fashion,
and of almost every hue. I had never seen such a freaksome piece of work
outside the tropics, although in Devonshire common enough, where the
soil is moist and the climate damp. Some of these trees lay down on the
ground, as if they wore tired of standing, and some were in sitting
postures, and some half leaning over; but all alive, in spite of that,
and fruitful when it suited them. And everything being neglected now,
from want of the Squire's attention, heaps of rosy and golden apples lay
where they had been piled to sweat, but never led to the cider-press.
Perceiving no sign of Sir Philip about, and remembering how it was now
beginning to draw on for Christmas-time, I felt myself welcome to one or
two of these neglected apples; for it was much if nobody of the farmers'
wives who crossed the ferry could afford me a goose for Christmas in my
solitary hole. And even if all should fail disgracefully of their duty
towards me, I had my eye on a nice young bird of more than the average
plumpness, who neglected his parents' advice every day, and came for
some favourite grass of his, which only grew just on the river's verge,
within thirty yards of my fusil. It would have shown low curiosity to
ask if he owned an owner. From his independent manner I felt that he
must be public property; and I meant to reduce him into possession right
early in the morning of the Saint that was so incredulous. It is every
man's duty to treat himself well at the time of the Holy Nativity; and
having a knowledge of Devonshire geese, after two months on the
stubbles, I could not do better than store in my boat one or two of
these derelict apples.
Never do I see or taste an apple without thinking of poor Bardie.
"Appledies," she always called them, and she was so fond of them, and
her little white teeth made marks like a small-tooth comb in the flesh
of them. I was thinking of her, and had scarcely embarked more than a
bushel or so, for sauce, in a little snug locker of my own, when I had
the pleasure of seeing the gentleman whom I had come all that way to
see.
At my own desire, and through Miss Carey's faith in me, it had not been
laid before Sir Philip that I was likely to meet him here; only she had
told me when and where to come across him, so as not to be broken in
upon. Now he came down the narrow winding walk, at the lower side of the
orchard, a path overhanging a little brook which murmured under last
summer's growth; and I gazed at him silently for a while, through the
bushes that overhung my boat. He was dressed as when I had seen him last
through my telescope, at the time we came up the river; that is to say,
in black velvet, and with his long sword hanging beside him. A brave,
and stately, and noble man, walking through a steady gloom of grief, and
yet content to walk alone, and never speak of it.
I leaped through the bush at the river's brink, and suddenly stood
before him. He set his calm cold gaze upon me, without a shadow of
surprise, as if to say, "You have no business in my private grounds;
however, it is not worth speaking of." I made him a low bow with my hat
off; and he moved his own, and was passing on.
"Will your Worship look at me," I said, "and see whether you remember
me?" He seemed just a little surprised, and then with his inborn
courtesy complied.
"I have seen you before, but I know not where. Sir, I often need pardon
now for the weakness of my memory."
In a few short words I brought to his mind that evening visit to my
cottage, with Anthony Stew and the yellow carriage.
"To be sure, to be sure! I remember now," he said, with his grave and
placid smile: "David Llewellyn! Both good old names, and the latter, I
daresay, in your belief, both the older and the better one. I remember
your hospitality, your patience, and your love of children. Is there
anything I can do for you?"
"No, your Worship, nothing. I am here for your sake only; although if I
wanted, I would ask you, having found you so good and kind."
"Whence did you get that expression, my friend? The common usage is
'kind and good;' I once knew a very little child--but I suppose it is
the Welsh idiom."
"Your Worship, I can speak English thoroughly; better even than my own
language; and all around us the scholarly people have more English than
of Welsh. But to let your Worship know my cause to come so much upon
you, is of things more to the purpose. I have found a bad man meaning
mischief to your Worship."
"It cannot be so," he replied, withdrawing, as if I were taking a
liberty; "no doubt but you mean me well, Llewellyn, and yourself believe
it. But neither I, nor any one else of all my family, now so small, can
have given reason for any ill-will towards us."
It was not for me to dare to speak, while the General was reflecting
thus, as if in his own mind going through every small accident of his
life; even the servants he might have discharged; or the land-forces
ordered for punishment, whereof to my mind they lack more than they get,
and grow their backs up in a manner beyond all perception of discipline.
For my part, I could not help thinking, as I watched him carefully, how
low and black must be the nature of the heart that could rejoice in such
a man's unhappiness. A man who, at threescore years and five, was
compelled to rack his memory (even after being long in uncontrolled
authority) to find a time when he might have given cause for private
enmity! If I had only enjoyed such chances, I must have had at least a
score of strong enemies by this time. Being a little surprised, I looked
again and again at his white eyebrows, while his eyes were on the
ground; also at his lips and nostrils, which were highly dignified. And
I saw, in my dry low way, one reason why he had never given offence. He
was perhaps a little scant of humour and of quickness; which two things
give more offence to the outer world that has them not, than the longest
course of rigid business carried on without them. I have seen a man who
could not crack nuts fly into a fury with one who could. And these
reflections made me even yet more anxious to serve him, so grave, and
calm, and simple-minded, and so patient was his face.
Nevertheless I did not desire, and would at the point of his sword have
refused, a halfpenny, for the things of import which I now disclosed to
him. He led me to an ancient bench, beneath a well-worn apple-tree; and
sat thereon, and even signed for me to sit beside him. My knowledge of
his rank would not permit me to do this; until I was compelled to argue.
A gentleman more shaped and set inside his own opinions, it had never
been my luck to have to deal with, now and then. There are men you
cannot laugh at, though you get the best of them, unless your conscience
works with such integrity as theirs does. And the sense of this, in some
way unknown, may have now been over me. How I began it, or even showed
my sense of manners, and of all the different rank between us, is beyond
my knowledge now; and must have flowed from instinct then. Enough that I
did lead Sir Philip to have thoughts, and to hearken me.
With a power not expected by myself at first beginning, while in doubt
of throat and words, I contrived to set before him much that had
befallen me. Though I never said a word that lay outside my knowledge,
neither let a spark of heat find entrance to my mind at all, and would
rather speak too little than be thought outrageous, there could be no
doubt that my simple way of putting all I had to say, moved this lofty
man, as if he were one of the children at the well belonging to John the
Baptist. I thought of all those pretty dears (as I beheld him
listening), and the way they sat around me, and their style of moving
toes at any great catastrophe; whiles they kept their hands and noses
under very stiff control; also the universal sigh, when my story killed
any one by any means unfit to die; and their pure contempt of the things
they suck, the whole while they are swallowing. Sir Philip (to whom my
thoughts meant no failure of respect, but feeling of simplicity), this
old gentleman let me speak as one well accustomed to lengthiness. But I
did my best to keep a small helm, and yards on the creak for bracing.
"If I take you aright," he said, as I drew near the end of my story,
"you have not a high opinion of that reverend gentleman, Stoyle Chowne."
"I look upon him, your Worship, as the blackest-hearted son of Belial
ever sent into this world."
Sir Philip frowned, as behoved a man accustomed to authority, and only
to have little words, half spoken out, before him. But at my time of
life, no officer under an admiral on full pay, could have any right to
damp my power of expression. However, my respect was such for the
presence of this noble man, that I rose and made a leg to him.
"I am sorry to say," he answered, bowing to my bow, as all gentlemen
must do; "that this is not the first time I have heard unpleasant things
about poor Stoyle. He is my godson, and has been almost as one of my own
children. I never can believe that he would ever do me injury. If I
thought it, I should have to think amiss of almost every one."
He turned away, as if already he had said more than he meaned; and
feeling how he treated me, as if of his own rank almost, I did not
wonder at the tales of men who gave their lives to save him, in the
bloody battle-time. Knowing the world as I do, I only sighed, and waited
for him.
"You are very good," he said, without a tone of patronage, "to have
thought to help me by delivering your opinions. A heavy trouble has
fallen upon us, and the goodwill of the neighbourhood has many times
astonished me. However, you must indulge no more in any such wild ideas.
They all proceed from the evil one, and are his choicest device to lower
the value of holy orders. The Reverend Stoyle Chowne descends from a
very good old family, at any rate on his father's side; and he has his
dignity to maintain, and his holy office to support him. On this head, I
will hear no more."
The General shut his mouth and closed it, so that I could never dare to
open mine again to him, concerning this one subject. And his manner
stopped me so that I only made my duty. This he acknowledged in a manner
which became both him and me; and then he passed through a little gate
to his usual walk upon Braunton Burrows.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
NOTICE TO QUIT.
We were now come to the time of year which all good Christians celebrate
by goodwill and festivities. Even I, in my humble way, had made some
preparation for this holy period by shooting Farmer Badcock's goose;
which had long been in my mind. Upon plucking, he turned out even whiter
and better than expectation, and the tender down clung to him, in a way
that showed his texture. I hung him up in a fine through-draught, and
rejoiced in the thought of him every time my head came in between his
legs. Neither did he fall away when he came to roasting.
But when I had put him down, upon the Christmas morning, with intent to
stick thereby, and baste him up to one o'clock, dipping bits of bread
beneath him, as he might begin to drip, and winning thus foretaste of
him--all my plans were overset by a merry party coming, and demanding
"ferry." With my lovely goose beginning just to spread his skin a
little, and hiss sweetly at the fire, up I ran, with resolution not to
ferry anybody, but to cook my goose aright.
Nevertheless it might not be so. Here were three young fellows ramping
of the high nobility, swearing to come aboard and stick me, if I would
not ferry them. It was not that I feared of this, but that I beheld a
guinea spinning in the morning sun, which compelled me to forego, and
leave my poor young goose to roll around, and try to roast himself.
Therefore I backed him from the fire, and laid half a pound of slow lard
on his breast, and trusted his honour to keep alive.
These young joyous fellows now were awake to everything. They had begun
the morning bravely with a cup of rum and lemon, then a tender grill of
beef, and a quart of creamy ale, every one accordingly. And they meant
to keep the day up to no less a pattern, being all of fine old birth,
and bound to act accordingly. However, it had been said by some one,
that they ought to go to church; and they happened to feel the strength
of this, and vowed that the devil should catch the hindmost, unless they
struck out for it.
Hence I came to win the pleasure of their company, that day. Their
nearest church was the little, simple, quiet old church at Ashford. From
my ferry I could see it; and it often made me sigh, because it looked so
tranquil. Sweet green land sloped up towards it, with a trace of crooked
footpaths, and the nicks of elbowed hedges, where the cows came down and
stood. Also from it, looking downward through the valley of the Tawe,
may be seen a spread of beauty, and of soft variety, and of largeness
opening larger with the many winding waters, to the ocean unbeheld, that
the sternest man must sigh, and look again and look again.
A genuine parson now was master of this queer old quiet church; a man
who gave his life entire for the good of other men. In a little hut he
lived, which the clerk's house overrode, just at the turning of the
lane, upon the steep ascent, and where the thunder-showers flooded it.
All the poor folk soon began to dwell upon his noble nature, and to feel
that here was some one fit to talk of Saviours. Miles around they came
to hear him, so that he was forced to stand on a stool in the porch, and
speak to them. For speaking it was, and not preaching; which made all
the difference.
These three gay young sparks leaped lightly into the bow of my
ferry-boat, and bade me pull for my very life, unless I desired to be
flung into the water then and there. A strong spring-tide was running
up, and I was forced to pull the starboard oar with all my might to keep
the course. My passengers were carrying on with every sort of quip and
crank, and jokes, that made the boat to tilt, when suddenly a rush of
water flooded their silk stockings. I thought at first that the bung
was out, and told them not to be frightened; but in another breath I saw
that it was a great deal worse than that. The water was rushing in
through a mighty hole in the planks of the larboard bow; and in three
minutes we must be swamped. "All aft, all aft in a moment!" I cried; "it
is our only chance of reaching shore." The gallants were sobered at once
by fright, and I bundled them into the stern-sheets, sat on the aftmost
thwart myself, and for the lives of us all pulled back towards the bank
we had lately quitted. By casting all the weight thus astern, I raised
the leak up to the water-line, except when we plunged to the lift of the
oars, and the water poured in less rapidly now, with the set of the tide
on our starboard beam. However, with all this, and all my speed, and my
passengers showing great presence of mind, we barely managed to touch
the bank and jump out, when down she foundered.
At first I was at a loss altogether even to guess how this thing had
happened; for the boat seemed perfectly sound and dry at the time of our
leaving the shore. But as soon as the tide was out, and I could get at
her, I perceived that a trick of entirely fiendish cunning and atrocity
had been played upon me. A piece of planking a foot in length and from
eight to ten inches wide had been cut out with a key-hole saw, at the
time she was lying high and dry, and doubtless before daybreak. This had
been then replaced most carefully with a little caulking, so that it was
water-tight without strong pressure from outside; but the villain had
contrived it, knowing in what state of tide I was likely next to work
the ferry, so that the rush of water could not fail to beat the piece
in.
It made my blood run cold to think of the stealthiness of this attempt,
as well as the skill it was compassed with, for the chances were ten to
one almost in favour of its drowning me, and leaving a bad name behind
me too, for having drowned my passengers. And to this it must have come
if so much as a single woman had been in the boat that day. For these,
when in danger, always do the very worst thing possible; and the manager
of this clever scheme knew of course that my freight was likely, on the
Christmas morning, to be chiefly female. Luckily I had refused two
boat-loads of young and attractive womankind, not from religious feeling
only, but because I had to chop a trencherful of stuffing.
This affair impressed me so with a sense of awe and reverence, and a
certainty that Parson Chowne must be in direct receipt of counsel from
the evil one, that my mind was good to be off at once, and thank the
Lord for escaping him. For let us see what must have happened but for
the goodness and fatherly care of a merciful Providence over me. The
boat would have sunk in the very midst of the rapid and icy river. David
Llewellyn, with his accustomed fortitude, would have endeavoured to swim
ashore, and yet could not have resisted the claims of three or even four
young women, who doubtless would have laid hold of him, all screaming,
splashing, and dragging him down. The mind refuses to contemplate such a
picture any longer!
This matter could not be kept quiet, as the first attempt had been, but
spread from house to house, and gained in size from each successive
tongue, until the man at the foot of the bridge, who naturally detested
me, whispered into every ear, that it was high time to have a care of
that interloping Welshman, who had drowned six fine young noblemen, for
the sake of their buckles and watches. And my courage was at so low an
ebb, that when he retreated into his house, I could not even bring my
mind to the power of kicking his door in. Hence that calumny, not being
quenched, went the round of the neighbourhood; and I might as well haul
down my sign, and the hopes of any public-house became a fading vision.
And of all the fine young women who had set their hearts upon keeping it
(as I described my intention to them), and who had picked up bits of
Welsh, for an access to my heart in all its patriotism, there was not
one worth looking at, or fit to be a landlady, who took the trouble to
come near me, in the frosty weather.
When a man is forsaken by the world, he must have recourse to reason.
And if only borne up thereby, and with a little cash in hand, he can
wait till the world comes round again. This was my position now. I never
had behaved so well in all my life before, I think; though always
conscientious. But of late I had felt, as it were, in one perpetual
round of bitter wrestling with the evil one. Men of a loose kind may not
see that this was tenfold hard upon me, from my props being knocked
away. I mean my entire trust and leaning upon the ancient Church of
England, which (perhaps by repulsion from those fellows that came after
our old ham, as well as our proper parson's knowledge of soles and the
way to fry them) had increased upon me so, that my heart leaped up
whenever I heard the swing of a bell on Sunday. Some of this perhaps
was owing to my thoughts of Newton clock, and twelve shillings now due
to me from my captainship thereof: but how could this loyal and
ecclesiastical fervour thrive, while a man in holy orders did such
unholy things to me?
The only one with faith enough, and sense enough, to stand by me now,
through this bitter trial, was that beautiful young lady, whom I did
admire so. And if till now I admired only, now I did adore her. Nanette
did for herself with me, and all her hopes of ever being Mrs David
Llewellyn, by poking up her little toes,--and I saw that they were all
square almost,--and with guttural noises crying that on board my boat
she would not dare. Miss Carey laughed at her, and stepped with her
beautiful boots on board of me; and from that moment she might do
exactly as she pleased with me.
However my ferry was knocked on the head; and all the hopes of a wife
and family, and even a public-house and skittles, which I had long been
building up, as well as to train our Bunny for barmaid; which must
always be done quite young, to get the proper style of it, and thorough
acquaintance with measures, how to make them look quite brim up when
they are only three-parts full. All golden dreams will vanish thus; no
life of smiling Boniface, but of gun-muzzles was before me; no
casting-up of shot by pence, but ramming down on pounds of powder. Let
that pass; my only wish is to conceal, in the strictest manner, little
trifles about myself.
Isabel Carey was so shocked at hearing of our danger (as by me
distinctly told without a word of flourish), that she made me promise
strongly to give up my ferrying. This I was becoming ready, more and
more every day, to do; especially as nobody ever now came down for
porterage. But I told the lady how hard it was to have formed such a
valuable trade, or you might say an institution; and then to lose it
all, because of certain private enmities. What she said or did hereon is
strictly a family question, and can in no way concern the public, since
I hauled my flag down.
And now I gained more insight into my great enemy's schemes and doings,
than I could have acquired while engaged so much at ferry. For time
allowed me to maintain that strict watch upon Narnton Court, which was
now become my duty, as well as an especial pleasure, for the following
reason. I began to see most clearly that the foul outrage upon my boat
must have been perpetrated by one or both of those savage fellows who
were employed as spies upon this great house, from the landward side.
They must have forded the river, which is not more than three feet deep
in places, when the tide is out, and no floods coming down. These two
cunning barbarians came of course from the Nympton rookery, but were
lodging for the present in a hole they had scooped for themselves in the
loneliest part of Braunton Burrows. Of course they durst not go about in
a peopled and civilised neighbourhood, with such an absence of apparel
as they could indulge at home. Still they were unsightly objects; and
decent people gave them a wide berth, when possible. But my firm
intention was to grapple with these savage scoundrels, and to prove at
their expense what a civilised Welshman is, and how capable of asserting
his commercial privileges. Only as they carried knives, I durst not meet
them both at once; and even should I catch them singly, some care was
advisable, so as take them off their guard; because I would not lower
myself to the use of anything more barbarous than an honest cudgel.
However, although I watched and waited, and caught sight of them more
than once, especially at night-time when they roved most freely, it was
long before I found it prudent to bear down on the enemy. Not from any
fear of them, but for fear of slaying them, as I might be forced to do,
if they rushed with steel at me.
One night, after the turn of the days, and with mild weather now
prevailing, and a sense of spring already fluttering in the valleys, I
sat in a dark embrasure at the end of Narnton Court. There had been more
light than usual in the windows of the great dining-room, which now was
very seldom used for hospitable purposes. And now two gentlemen came
forth, as if for a little air, to take a turn on the river-terrace. It
did not cost me long to learn that one was good Sir Philip Bampfylde,
and the other that very wicked Chowne. The latter had manifestly been
telling some of his choicest stories, and held the upper hand as usual.
"General, take my arm. The flags are rough, and the night is of the
darkest. You must gravel this terrace, for the sake of your guests,
after your port-wine."
"Dick," said the General, with a sigh, for he was a most hospitable man,
and accustomed to the army; "Dick, thou hast hardly touched my port; and
I like not to have it slighted, sir."
What excuse the Parson made I did not hear, but knew already that one of
his countless villanies was his rude contempt of the gift of God, as
vouchsafed to Noah, and confirmed by the very first rainbow, which
continues the colours thereof up to this time of writing.
Sir Philip leaned on the parapet some twenty yards to windward of me,
and he sniffed the fine fresh smell of sea-weed and sea-water coming up
the river with a movement of four knots an hour. And in his heart he
thanked the Lord, very likely without knowing it. Then he seemed to sigh
a little, and to turn to Chowne, and say--
"Dick, this is not as it should be. Look at all this place, and up and
down all this length of river; every light you can see burning, is in a
house that 'longs to me. And who is now to have it all? It used to make
me proud; but now it makes me very humble. You are a parson; tell me,
Dick, what have I done to deserve it all?"
The Rev. Richard Stoyle Chowne had not--whatever his other vices
were--one grain of pious hypocrisy in all his foul composition. If he
had, he might have flourished, and with his native power, must have been
one of the foremost men of this, or any other age. But his pride allowed
him never to let in pretence religious into the texture of his ways. A
worse man need not be desired: and yet he did abhor all cant, to such a
degree that he made a mock of his own church-services.
"General, I have nought to say. You have asked this question more than
once. You know what my opinion is."
"I know that you have the confidence, sir, every honourable man must
have, in my poor son's innocence. You support it against every one."
"Against all the world: against even you, when you allow yourself to
doubt it. Tush! I would not twice think of it. However many candles
burn"--this was a touch of his nasty sarcasm, which he never could deny
himself--"up and down the valley, General, no son of yours, however
wild, and troubled in expenditure, could ever shape or even dream of
anything dishonourable."
"I hope not--I hope to God, not," Sir Philip said, with a little gasp,
as if he were fearing otherwise: "Dick, you are my godson, and you have
been the greatest comfort to me; because you never would believe----"
"Not another word, General. You must not dwell on this matter so. The
children were fine little dears of course, very clever and very
precious----"
"Oh, if you only knew the words, Dick, my little granddaughter could
come out with! Scarcely anything you could think of would have been too
big for her little mouth. And if she could not do it once, she never
left it till she did. Where it came from I could not tell, for we are
not great at languages: but it must have been of her mother's race. And
the boy, though not with gifts of that sort--oh, you ought to have seen
his legs, Dick--at least till he took the whooping-cough!" The stately
old gentleman leaned, and dropped a tear perhaps into the river Tawe.
"General, I understand it all," said Chowne, though he never had a
child, by reason of the Almighty's mercy to the next generation: "of
course these pretty children were a great delight to every one. But
affairs of this sort happen in all ancient families. The mere extent of
land appears to open for clandestine graves----"
"That wicked devilish story, Dick! Did you tell me, or did you not, to
take it as the Fiend's own lie?"
"A lie, of course, as concerns the Captain: from their want of
knowledge. But concerning some one else, true enough, I fear, I fear."
Both men had by this time very nearly said their say throughout. The
General seemed to be overcome, and the Parson to be growing weary of a
subject often treated in discourse between them. "Before you go in the
morning, Dick," said the old man, now recovering, "I wish to consult you
about a matter nearly concerning young Isabel. She is a distant cousin
of yours. You thoroughly understand the law, of which I have very little
knowledge. Perhaps you will meet me in the book-room, for half an hour's
quiet talk, before we go to breakfast."
"I cannot do it, Sir Philip. I have my own affairs to see to: I must be
off when the moon is up. I cannot sleep in your house, this night."
CHAPTER XL.
FORCIBLE EJECTMENT.
Those things which have been settled for us by long generations of
ancestors, all of whom must have considered the subjects, one after the
other painfully, and brought good minds of ancient strength (less led
away than ours are) to bear upon what lay before them, also living in a
time when money went much further, and got a deal more change in
honesty, which was then more plentiful--to rush, I say, against the
bulwarks of our noble elders (who showed the warmth of their faith by
roasting all who disagreed with them), would be, ay and ever will be, a
proof of a rebellious, scurvy, and perpetually scabby nature. The above
fine reflection came home to me, just as my pipe grew sweet and rich,
after an excellent dinner, provided by that most thoughtful and bright
young lady, the Honourable Isabel Carey, upon a noble New Year's Day, in
the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three. Her
ladyship now had begun to feel that interest in my intelligence and
unusual power of narrative, as well as that confidence in my honour and
extreme veracity, which, without the smallest effort or pretence on my
part, seem to spring by some law of nature in every candid mind I meet.
Combining this lady's testimonials, as presented weekly, with some
honourable trifles picked up here and there along shore, in spite of all
discouragement, perhaps I congratulated myself on having turned the
corner of another year not badly. I counted my money, to the tune of
five-and-twenty level pounds; an amount of cash beyond all experience!
Yet, instead of being dazzled, I began to see no reason for not having
fifty. Not that I ever thought of money; but for the sake of the
children. The tears came into my eyes, to think of these poor little
creatures; Bardie with all her fount of life sanded up (as one might
say) in that old Sker warren; and Bunny with her strength of feeding
weakened over rice and fowl-food; such as old Charles Morgan kept, who
had been known to threaten to feed his family upon sawdust. A most
respectable man, as well as churchwarden and undertaker; but being bred
a pure carpenter, he thought (when his money came in fast, and great
success surprised him) that Providence would be offended at his waste of
sawdust.
Now this was the man who had Bunny to keep, entirely from his own wish
of course, or the sense of the village concerning her; and many times I
had been ready to laugh, and as many times to cry almost, whenever I
thought of the many things that were likely to happen between them. To
laugh, when I thought of Churchwarden's face regarding our Bunny at
breakfast-time, and the way she would say, "I want some more," through
his narrow-shouldered children. To cry, when I thought of my dear son's
child (and as dear to me as my own almost) getting less of victuals
daily, as her welcome should grow staler, and giving way to her old
trick of standing on the floor with eyes shut, and with shut mouth to
declare, "I won't eat, now you have starved me so;" and no one in that
house with wit to understand and humour her. And then I could see her go
to bed, in a violent temper anyhow: and when the wind boxed round to
north, I could hear her calling, "Granny."
This very tender state of mind, and sense of domestic memories, seems to
have drawn me (so far as I can, in a difficult case, remember it)
towards a very ancient inn having two bow-windows. When I entered, no
man could be in a stricter state of sobriety: and as if it were
yesterday, I remember asking the price of everything. The people were
even inclined to refuse to draw anything in the small-liquor line for a
man with so little respect for trade as to walk so straight upon New
Year's Day. After a little while, I made them see that this was not so
much my fault as my misfortune; and when I declared my name, of course,
and my character came forward, even rum-shrub out of a cask with golden
hoops around it scarcely seemed to be considered good enough for me,
gratis. But throughout the whole of this, I felt an anxious and burning
sense of eager responsibility, coupled with a strong desire to be
everywhere at once.
Right early, to the very utmost of my recollection, I tumbled into my
lonely berth, after seeing my fusil primed, and praying to the Lord for
guidance through another and a better year. I had clean sheets, which
are my most luxurious gift of feeling; and having no room to stretch my
legs, or roll, I managed space to yawn, and then went off deliciously.
Now I was beginning to dream about the hole I had placed my money in--a
clever contrivance of my own, and not in the cuddy at all, because the
enemy might attack me there--when a terrible fit of coughing came and
saved my life by waking me. The little cuddy was full of
smoke--parching, blinding, choking smoke--so thick that I could scarcely
see the red glare of fire behind it, through the brattice of the
bulkhead.
"Good Lord," I cried, "have mercy on me! Sure enough, I am done for now.
And nobody ever will know or care what the end was of old Dyo!"
I did not stop still to say all this, that you may be quite sure of, and
it argues no small power of speech that I was able to say anything. For
with a last desire for life, and despairing resolve to try again, I
broke my knuckles against the hatch which I had made so heavy for the
purpose of protecting me. To go out through my door would have been to
rush into the fire itself; and what with the choking, and the thickness,
and the terror of the flames violently reddening and roaring a few feet
away, I felt my wits beginning to fail me, which of course was certain
death. So I sate down on a three-legged stool, which was all my
furniture; and for a moment the rushing smoke drew, by some draught,
otherwhere; and whether I would or no, a deal of my past life came up to
me. I wondered whether I might have been too hard sometimes on any one,
or whether I might have forgotten to think of the Lord, upon any Sunday.
And then my thoughts were elevated to the two dear children.
Now what do you think happened to me, when I thought of those two
darlings, and the tears from smoke made way for the deep-born tears of a
noble heart? Why simply that a flash of flame glanced upon the iron
crowbar, wherewith I had opened hatch. I could not have been in pure
bright possession of my Maker's gifts to me when I chanced, before going
to bed, to lay that crowbar for my pillow-case. Nevertheless I had done
it well: and in the stern perception of this desperate extremity, I
could not help smiling at the way I had tucked up my head on the
crowbar. But (though no time is lost in smiling) I had not a moment to
lose even now, although with my utmost wits all awake and coughing. I
prised the hatch up in half a moment, where it was stuck in the
combings; and if ever a man enjoyed a draught, I did so of air that
moment. Many men might have been frightened still, and not have known
what to do with themselves. But I assure you, in all honour, that the
whole of my mind came back quite calmly, when I was out of smothering.
People may say what they like; but I know, after seeing every form of
death (and you need not laugh at me very much, if I even said feeling
it)--I know no anguish to be compared to the sense of being pressed
under slowly; and the soul with no room to get away.
But I was under the good stars now, and able to think and to look about;
and though the ketch could not last long, being of 92 tons only, I found
time enough to kneel and thank my God for His mercy to me. There was no
ice in the river now, and to swim ashore would have been but little,
except for rheumatics afterwards. But it seemed just as well to escape
even these; and having been burned out at sea before, I was better
enabled to manage it. The whole of the waist of the ketch was in flames,
curling and beginning now to indulge their desire of roaring; but the
kindness of the Lord prevented wind from blowing. Had there been only a
four-knot breeze, you would never have heard of me again; surely which
would grieve you.
In this very sad state of mind, combined with a longing for
thankfulness, and while I was thinking about the fire--to say the truth,
very stupidly, and wondering instead of working--quite an old-fashioned
affair restored me to my wits and my love of the world again. This was
the strong sour sound of the air when a bullet comes through it hastily,
and casting reproach upon what we breathe, for its want of a stronger
activity. A man had made a shot at me, and must have been a lubber by
his want of range and common-sense. Before I could think, I was all
alive, and fit to enjoy myself almost, as if it were a fight with
Frenchmen. The first thing I thought of was the gun lent to me by Miss
Carey. To rescue this, I went down even into the cuddy which had so
lately proved my very grave almost; and after this I saw no reason why I
should not save my money, if the Lord so willed it. From a sense of all
the mischief even now around me, I had made a clever hole in the
bow-knees of the ketch (where the wood lay thickest), and so had plugged
my money up, with the power to count it daily. And now in spite of
flame, and roar, and heat of all the 'midships, and the spluttering of
the rock-powder bags too wet to be unanimous, I made my mind up just to
try to save my bit of money.
Because, although a man may be as coarse, and wicked, and vile-hearted,
as even my very worst enemies are, he cannot fail of getting on, and
being praised, and made the best of, if he only does his best to stick
tight to his money. Therefore, having no boat within reach, and the
'midship all aflame, I made a raft of the cuddy-hatch, and warped along
by the side of the ketch, and purchased my cash from its little nest;
and then with a thankful heart, and nothing but a pair of breeches on,
made the best of my way ashore, punting myself with a broken oar.
This desire to sacrifice me (without the trouble even taken to count
what my value was) gave me such a sense of shock, and of spreading
abroad everywhere, without any knowledge left of what might have become
of me, and the subject liable to be dropped, if ever entered into by a
Jolly Crowner, and a jury glad to please him, that for the moment I
sate down upon a shelf of clay, until the wet came through my want of
clothes. Suddenly this roused me up to make another trial for the sake
of my well-accustomed and familiar suit of clothes, so well beloved;
also even my Sunday style, more striking but less comfortable; in lack
of which the world could never have gone on in our neighbourhood.
Therefore I ran to my little punt, and pushed off and was just in time
to save my kit, with a little singeing.
The ketch burned down to the water's edge, and then a rough tide came up
and sank her, leaving me in a bitter plight, and for some time quite
uncertain how to face the future. From knowledge of the Parson's style
of treating similar cases, I felt it to be a most likely thing that I
should be charged with firing her, robbing her, and concealing booty.
And this injustice added to the bitterness of my close escape. "It is no
use," I said aloud; "it is useless to contend with him. He has sold
himself to Satan, and, thank God, I have no chance with him." Therefore
by the time the fire had created some disturbance in the cottage
bedrooms, I had got my clothing on, in a decent though hasty manner, and
slipped into a little wood with my spy-glass, happily saved, and
resolved to watch what happened in among the bumpkins.
These came down, and stared and gawked, and picked up bits of singed
spars, and so on, and laid down the law to one another, and fought for
the relics, and thought it hard that no man's body was to be found with
clothes on. I saw them hunting for me, up and down the river channel,
with a desperate ignorance of tide (although living so close to it), and
I did not like to have my body hunted for like that. But I repressed all
finer feelings, as a superior man must do, and chewed the tip of a
bullock's tongue, which luckily was in my waistcoat-pocket, ready for
great emergency; and which, if a man keeps going on with, he may go,
like the great Elijah, forty days, and feel no hunger. At least, I have
heard so, and can believe it, having seen men who told me so; but I
would rather have it proved by another man's experience.
While I was looking on at these things, down came Parson Chowne himself,
in a happy mood, and riding the black mare, now brought out of dock
again. The country folk all fell away from their hope of stealing
something, and laid fingers to their hats, being afraid to talk of him.
He, however, did no more than sign to the serving-man behind him, to
acknowledge compliments (which was outside his own custom), and then he
put spurs to his horse and galloped right and left through the lot of
them. In my anxiety to learn what this dreadful man was up to, I slipped
down through the stubs of the wood, where the faggot-cutters had been at
work, gliding even upon my jersey, because of the Parson's piercing
eyes, and there in the ditch I found some shelter, and spied through a
bushy breastwork.
"No more than I expected," he cried, "from what I have seen of the
fellow; he has fired the ship, and run away with all he could lay hands
on. As a Justice of the Peace, I offer ten pounds reward for David
Llewellyn, brought before me, alive or dead. Is there one of you
rantipoles can row? Oh, you can. Take this shilling, and be off with
that big thief's ferry-boat, and leave it at Sam Tucker's shipyard, in
the name of the Reverend Stoyle Chowne."
It went to my heart that none of the people to whom I had been so "good
and kind"--to use pretty Bardie's phrase--now had the courage to stand
up, and say that my character was most noble, and claim back my boat for
me. Instead of that, they all behaved as if I had never ferried them;
and the ingratitude of the young women made me long to be in Wales
again. Because, you may say what you like; but the first point in our
people is gratitude.
"Of course," cried Chowne, and his voice, though gently used, came down
the wind like a bell; "of course, good people, you have not found the
corpse of that wretched villain."
"Us would giv' un up, glad enough, if us only gat the loock, for tan
zhilling, your Raverance. Lave aloun tan poond."
When that miserable miser said a thing so low as that, my very flesh
crept on my bones, and my inmost heart was sick with being made so very
little of. To myself I always had a proper sense of estimation; and to
be put at this low figure made me doubt of everything. However, I came
to feel, after a bit, that this is one of the trials which all good men
must put up with: neither would a common man find his corpse worth ten
pounds sterling.
Betwixt my sense of public value (a definite sum, at any rate) and
imagination of what my truly natural abilities might lead me to, if
properly neglected, I found it a blessed hard thing to lie quiet until
dark, and then slip out. And the more so, because my stock of food was
all consumed by middle day; and before the sun went down, hunger of a
great shape and size arose and raged within me. This is always
difficult to discipline or to reason with; and to men of the common
order it suggests great violence. To me it did nothing of that kind, but
led me into a little shop, where I paid my money, and got my loaf. My
flint and steel and tinder-box lay in my pocket handy. These I felt and
felt again, and went into the woods and thought, and found that even
want of food had failed to give me a thorough-going and consistent
appetite. Because, for the first time in my life, I had shaped a strong
resolve, and sworn to the Lord concerning it--to commit a downright
crime, and one which I might be hanged for. Although every one who has
entered into my sufferings and my dignity must perceive how right I was,
and would never inform against me, I will only say that on Saturday
evening Parson Chowne had fourteen ricks, and on Sunday morning he had
none, and might begin to understand the feelings of the many farmers who
had been treated thus by him. Right gladly would I have beheld his face
(so rigid and contemptuous at other people's trouble) when he should
come to contemplate his own works thus brought home to him. But I could
not find a hedge thick enough to screen me from his terrible piercing
eyes.
This little bit of righteous action made a stir, you may be sure,
because it was so contrary to the custom of the neighbourhood. Although
I went to see this fire, I took the finest care to leave no evidence
behind me; and even turned my bits of toggery inside out at starting.
But there was a general sense in among these people, that only a
foreigner could have dared to fly in the Parson's face so. I waited long
enough to catch the turn of the public feeling, and finding it set hard
against me, my foremost thought was the love of home.
Keeping this in view, and being pressed almost beyond bearing now, with
no certainty, moreover, as to warrants coming out, and the people
looking strangely, every time they met me, I could have no peace until I
saw the beautiful young lady, and to her told everything. You should
have seen her eyes and cheeks, as well as the way her heart went; and
the pride with which she gathered all her meaning up to speak; even
after I had told her how the ricks would burn themselves.
"You dear old Davy," she said, "I never thought you had so much courage.
You are the very bravest man--but stop, did you burn the whole of them?"
"Every one burned itself, your ladyship; I saw the ashes dying down, and
his summer-house as well took fire, through the mischief of the wind,
and all his winter stock of wood, and his tool-house, and his----"
"Any more, any more, old David?"
"Yes, your ladyship, his cow-house, after the cows were all set free,
and his new cart-shed fifty feet long, also his carpenter's shop, and
his cider-press."
"You are the very best man," she answered, with her beautiful eyes full
upon me, "that I have seen, since I was a child. I must think what to do
for you. Did you burn anything more, old Davy?"
"The fire did, your ladyship, three large barns, and a thing they call a
'linhay;' also the granary, and the meal-house, and the apple-room, and
the churn-room, and only missed the dairy by a little nasty slant of
wind."
"What a good thing you have done! There is scarcely any man I know, that
would have shown such courage. Mr Llewellyn, is there anything in my
power to do for you?"
Nothing could have pleased me more than to find this fair young lady
rejoicing in this generous manner at the Parson's misadventure. And her
delight in the contemplation made me almost feel repentance at the
delicate forbearance of the flames from the Rectory itself. But I could
not help reflecting how intense and bitter must be this young harmless
creature's wrong received and dwelling in her mind, ere she could find
pleasure from wild havoc and destruction.
"There is one thing you can do," I answered very humbly; "and it is my
only chance to escape from misconstruction. I never thought, at my time
of life, to begin life so again. But I am now a homeless man, burned out
of my latest refuge, and with none to care for me. Perhaps I may be
taken up to-morrow, or the next day. And with such a man against me, it
must end in hanging."
"I never heard such a thing," she said: "he tries to burn you in your
bed, after blowing you up, and doing his very best to drown you; and
then you are to be hanged because there is a bonfire on his premises! It
is impossible, Mr Llewellyn, to think twice of such a thing."
"Your ladyship may be right," I answered; "and in the case of some one
else, reasoning would convince me. But if I even stop to think twice, it
will lead to handcuffs; and handcuffs lead to halter."
At this she began to be frightened much, and her fright grew worse, as I
described the unpleasantness of hanging; how I had helped myself to run
up nine good men at the yard-arm. And a fine thing for their souls, no
doubt, to stop them from more mischief, and let them go up while the
Lord might think that other men had injured them.
"Your ladyship," I began again, when I saw all her delicate colour
ebbing; "it is not for a poor hunted man to dare to beg a favour."
"Oh yes, it is, it is," she cried; "that is the very time to do it.
Anything in my power, David, after all you have done for me."
"Then all that I want of your ladyship is to get me rated aboard of
Captain Drake Bampfylde's ship."
She coloured up so clearly that I was compelled to look away: and then
she said--
"How do you know--I mean who can have told you that--but are you not
too--perhaps a little----"
"Too old, your ladyship? Not a day. I am worth half-a-dozen of those
young chips who have got no bones to their legs yet. And as for
shooting, if his Honour wants a man to train a cannon, I can hit a
marlinspike with a round-shot, at a mile and a half, as soon as I learn
the windage."
For I knew by this time that Captain Bampfylde's ship, the Alcestis, was
in reserve, as a feeder for the Royal Navy, to catch young hands and
train them to some knowledge of sealife, and smartness, and the styles
of gunnery. And who could teach them these things better than a veteran
like me?
Miss Carey smiled at my conceit, as perhaps she considered it; "Well,
Davy, if you can fire a gun, as well as you can a hay-rick----"
"No more, your ladyship, I beseech you. Even walls like these have ears;
and every time I see my shadow, I take it for a constable. I am sure
there are two men after me----"
"Have you then two shadows?" she asked, in her peculiar pleasant way:
"at any rate no one will dare to meddle with you, or any of us, I should
hope, in the General's own house. Come in here. I expect, or at least I
think, there is some prospect of a boat from the Alcestis coming up the
river this very evening. Perhaps you have some baggage."
"No, your ladyship, not a bit. They burned me out of all of it. But I
saved some money kindly, by special grace of God, at the loss of all my
leg-hair."
I ought not to have said that, I knew, directly after uttering it, to a
young lady who could not yet be up to things of that kind.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE RIGHT MAN IN THE RIGHT PLACE.
The very next day, I was afloat as a seaman of the Royal Navy of the
United Kingdom. None but a sailor can imagine what I felt and what I
thought. Here for years I had been adrift from the very work God shaped
me for, wrecked before my time by undue violence of a Frenchman. Also I
had bred my son up to supply my place a little; and a very noble fellow,
though he could not handle cutlash or lay gun as I had done. But he
might have come to it if he ever had come to my own time of life. This
however had been cut short by the will of Providence; and now I felt
bound to make good for it. Only one thing grieved me, viz., to find the
war declining. This went to my heart the more, because our Navy had not
done according to its ancient fame, anywhere but at Gibraltar and with
Admiral Rodney, in the year before I rejoined it. Off the coast of
America, things I could not bear to hear; also the loss of the Royal
George, the capture of the Leeward Islands, and of Minorca by the
French; and even a British sloop of war taken by a French corvette. Such
things moved me to the marrow, after all I had seen and done; and all
our ship's company understood that I returned to the service in the hope
to put a stop to it. This reclaiming of me to the thing that I was meant
for took less time than I might use to bring a gun to its bearings. That
beautiful Miss Carey managed everything with Captain Drake, and in less
than fifty kisses they had settled my affairs. I could have no more
self-respect, if I said another word.
But the King and the nation won the entire benefit of this. It came to
pass that I was made a second-instructor in gunnery, with an entire new
kit found me, and six-and-twopence a-week appointed, together with
second right to stick a fork into the boiler. Of course I could not have
won all this by favour; but showed merit. It had however been allowed
me, under an agreement (just enough, yet brought about by special love
of justice) that I should receive a month ashore at Newton-Nottage, in
the course of the spring, whenever it might suit our cruising. My
private affairs demanded this; as well as love of neighbours, and
strong desire to let them know how much they ought to make of me.
How I disdained my rod and pole, and the long-shore life and the
lubberly ways, when I felt once more the bounding of the open water, the
spring of the buoyant timbers answering every movement gallantly, the
generous vehemence of the canvas, and the noble freedom of the ocean
winds around us! The rush up a liquid mountain, and the sway on the
balance of the world, then the plunge into the valley, almost out of the
sight of God, though we feel Him hovering over us. While the heart leaps
with the hope of yet more glorious things to come--the wild delight, the
rage, suspense, and majesty of battle.
Nothing vexed me now so much as to hear from private people, and even
from the public sailors, that the nation wanted peace. No nation ever
should want peace, until it has thoroughly thrashed the other, or is
bound by wicked luck to knock under hopelessly. And neither of those
things had befallen England at this period. But I have not skill enough
to navigate in politics. And before we had been long at sea, we spoke a
full-rigged ship from Hamburg, which had touched at Falmouth; and two
German boys, in training for the British Navy, let us know that peace
was signed between Great Britain, France, and Spain, as nearly as might
be on Valentine's Day of the year 1783. A sad and hard thing we found to
believe it, and impossible to be pleased after such practice of gunnery.
Nevertheless it was true enough, and confirmed by another ship; and now
a new Ministry was in office under a man of the name of Fox, doubtless
of that nature also, ready always to run to earth. Nothing more could be
hoped except to put up with all degradation. A handful of barbarous
fellows, wild in the woods and swamps of America, most of them sent from
this home-country through their contempt of discipline, fellows of this
sort had been able (mainly by skulking and shirking fight) to elude and
get the better of His Britannic Majesty's forces, and pretend to set up
on their own account, as if they could ever get on so. No one who sees
these things as clearly as I saw them then and there, can doubt as to
the call I felt to rejoin the Royal Navy.
Of course I could not dream that now there was rising in a merchant-ship
captured from the Frenchmen, and fitted with two dozen guns, a British
Captain such as never had been seen before, nor will ever be again; and
whose skill and daring left the Frenchmen one hope only--to run ashore,
and stay there.
However, not to dwell too long on the noblest and purest motives, it did
not take me quite three weeks to supersede the first instructor, and to
get him sent ashore, and find myself hoisted into his berth, with a rise
of two-and-two per week. This gave me eight-and-fourpence, with another
stripe on my right arm, and what was far more to the purpose, added
greatly to the efficiency of the British Navy. Because the man was very
well, or at any rate well enough, in his way and in his manners, and
quite worth his wages; but to see him train a gun, and to call him First
Instructor! Captain Bampfylde saw, in twenty minutes, that I could shoot
this fine fellow's head off, unwilling as I was to give offence, and
delicate about priming. And all the men felt at once the power of a
practised hand set over them. I saw that the Navy had fallen back very
much in the matter of gunnery, in the time of the twenty years, or so,
since I had been Gun-captain; and it came into my head to show them many
things forgotten. The force of nature carried me into this my proper
position; and the more rapidly, because it happened to occur to me that
here was the very man pointed out, as it were by the hand of Providence,
for Parson Chowne to blow up next. Our Captain had the very utmost
confidence that could be in him, and he stood on his legs with a breadth
that spoke to the strength of his constitution; a man of enduring
gravity. Also his weight was such that the Parson never could manage to
blow him up, with any powder as yet admitted into the Royal Dockyards. I
liked this man, and I let him know it; but I thought it better for him
to serve his country on shore a little, after being so long afloat; if
(as I put it to his conscience) he could keep from poaching, and from
firing stackyards, or working dangerous ferries. He told me that he had
no temptation towards what I had mentioned; but on the other hand felt
inclined, after so many years at sea, to have a family of his own; and a
wife, if found consistent. This I assured him I could manage; and in a
few words did so; asking for nothing more on his part than entire
confidence. My nature commanded this from him; and we settled to
exchange our duties in a pleasant manner. I gave him introduction to the
liveliest of the farmers' daughters, telling him what their names were.
And being over-full of money, he paid me half-a-crown apiece, for
thirteen girls to whom I gave him letters of commendation. This was far
too cheap, with all of them handsomer than he had any right to; and
three of them only daughters, and two with no more than grandmothers.
But I love to help a fellow-sailor; and thus I got rid of him. For our
Captain had the utmost faith in this poor man's discretion, and had
thought, before I said it, of laying him up at Narnton Court, to keep a
general look-out, because his eyes were failing. I did not dare to offer
more opinion than was asked for, but it struck me that if Parson Chowne
had been too clever for David Llewellyn, and made the place too hot for
him, he was not likely to be outwitted by Naval Instructor Heaviside.
However, I could not see much occasion for Chowne to continue his plots
any longer, or even to keep watch on the house, unless it were from
jealousy of our Captain's visits. As far as any one might fathom that
unfathomable Parson, he had two principal ends in view. The first was to
get possession of Miss Carey and all her property, by making her Mrs
Chowne, No. 4; the second, which would help him towards the first, was
to keep up against poor Captain Drake the horrible charge of having
killed those two children, whose burial had been seen as before related.
And here I may mention what I had forgotten, through entire want of
vindictive feeling--to wit, that I had, as a matter of duty, contrived
to thrash very heavily both of those fellows on Braunton Burrows, who
had been spying on Narnton Court, and committed such outrages against
me. Without doing this, I could not have left the county
conscientiously.
And now on board the Alcestis, a rattling fine frigate of 44 guns, it
gave me no small pleasure to find that (although the gunnery-practice
was not so good as I was accustomed to), in seamanship, and discipline,
and general smartness, there was little to be reasonably complained of;
especially when it was borne in mind what our special duty was, and why
we were kept in commission when so many other ships were paid off, at
the conclusion of the war. Up to that time the Alcestis had orders to
cruise off the western coasts, not only on account of some French
privateers, which had made mischief with our shipping, but also as a
draft-ship for receiving and training batches of young hands, who were
transferred, as occasion offered, to Halifax, or the West Indies
station. And now as the need for new forces ceased, Captain Drake was
beginning to expect orders for Spithead to discharge. Instead of that,
however, the Admiralty had determined to employ this ship, which had
done so much in the way of education, for the more thorough settlement
of a question upon which they differed from the general opinion of the
Navy, and especially of the Ordnance Board. This was concerning the
value of a new kind of artillery invented by a clever Scotchman, and
called a "Carronade," because it was cast at certain iron-works on the
banks of the river Carron. This gun is now so thoroughly well known and
approved, and has done so much to help us to our recent triumphs, that I
need not stop to describe it, although at first it greatly puzzled me.
It was so short, and light, and handy, and of such large caliber,
moreover with a great chamber for the powder, such as a mortar has, that
at first it quite upset me, knowing that I must appear familiar, yet not
being so. However, I kept in the background, and nodded and shook my
head so that every one misunderstood me differently.
That night I arose and studied it, and resolved to back it up, because
only Captain Drake was in its favour, and the first-lieutenant.
Heaviside was against it strongly, although he said that six months ago
the Rainbow, an old 44, being refitted with nothing else but carronades
of large caliber, had created such terror in a French ship of almost
equal force, that she fired a broadside of honour, and then surrendered
to the Rainbow. But to come back to our Alcestis, at the time I was
promoted to first place in gunnery. Over and above her proper armament
of long guns, eighteen and twelve pounders, she carried on the
quarter-deck six 24-pounder carronades, and two of 18 in the forecastle.
So that in truth she had fifty-two guns, and was a match in weight of
metal for a French ship of sixty guns, as at that time fitted.
Afterwards it was otherwise; and their artillery outweighed ours, as
much as a true Briton outweighs them.
Now Naval Instructor Mr Llewellyn had such a busy time of it, and was
found so indispensable on board the Alcestis, that I do assure you they
could not spare him for even a glimpse of old Newton-Nottage, until the
beginning of the month of May. But as I always find that people become
loose in their sense of duty, unless girt up well with money (even as
the ancients used to carry their cash in their girdles), I had taken
advantage of a run ashore at Pembroke, to send our excellent Parson
Lougher a letter containing a £5 note, as well as a few words about my
present position, authority, and estimation. I trusted to him as a
gentleman not to speak of those last matters to any untrustworthy
person whatever; because there would be six months' pension falling due
to me at Swansea, at the very time of writing; and which of course I
meant to have; for my zeal in overlooking my wound could not replace me
unwounded, I trow. But knowing our Government to be thoroughly versed in
every form of stinginess and peculation (which was sure to be doubled
now a Fox was in), I thought that they might even have the dishonesty to
deny me my paltry pittance on account of ancient merit and great valour,
upon the shabby plea that now I was on full pay again! They would have
done so, I do believe, if their own clumsy and careless ways had allowed
them to get scent of it. But they do things so stupidly, that a clever
man need never allow them to commit roguery upon him. And by means of
discreet action, I was enabled for fourteen years to draw the pension I
had won so nobly, as well as the pay I was earning so grandly. However,
these are trifles.
The £5 note was for Mother Jones, to help our Bunny with spring-clothes,
and to lay out at her discretion for my grandchild's benefit, supposing
(as I must needs suppose) that Churchwarden Morgan, in face of his
promise, would refuse indignantly to accept a farthing for the child's
nourishment. He disappointed me, however, by accepting four pound ten,
and Mrs Jones was quite upset; for even Bunny never could have eaten
that much in the time. Charles was a worthy man enough (as undertakers
always are), but it was said that he could not do according to his
lights, when fancy brought his wife across them. Poor Mother Jones was
so put out, that she quite forgot what she was doing until she had spent
the ten shillings of change in drawers for her middle children. And so
poor Bunny got nothing at all; nor even did poorer Bardie. For this
little dear I had begged to be bought, for the sake of her vast
imagination, nothing less than a two-shilling doll, jointed both at knee
and elbow, as the Dutchmen turn them out. It was to be naked (like
Parson Chowne's folk), but with the girls at the well stirred up to make
it more becoming. And then Mother Jones was to go to Sker, and in my
name present it.
All things fail, unless a man himself goes and looks after them. And so
my £5 note did; and when I was able to follow it, complaint was too
late, as usual. But you should have seen the village on the day when our
Captain Drake--as we delighted to call him--found himself for the first
time able to carry out his old promise to me, made beneath the very
eyes of his true-love, Isabel. The thought of this had long been chafing
in between his sense of honour, and of duty set before him by the
present Naval Board. And but for his own deeper troubles, though I did
my best for ease, he must have felt discomfort. If I chose, I could give
many tokens of what he thought of me, not expressed, nor even hinted;
yet to my mind palpable. But as long as our Navy lasts, no man will dare
to intrude on his Captain.
Be it enough, and it was enough, that his Majesty's 44-gun ship Alcestis
brought up, as near as her draught allowed, to Porthcawl Point, on the
5th of May 1783. This was by no means my desire, because it went against
my nature to exhibit any grandeur. And I felt in my heart the most warm
desire that Master Alexander Macraw might happen to be from home that
day. Nothing could have grieved me more, than for a man of that small
nature to behold me stepping up in my handsome uniform, with all the
oars saluting me, and the second-lieutenant in the stern-sheets crying,
"Farewell, Mr David!" also officership marked upon every piece of my
clothes in sight; and the dignity of my bearing not behind any one of
them. But as my evil luck would have it, there was poor Sandy Mac
himself, and more half-starved than ever. Such is the largeness of my
nature, that I sank all memory of wrongs, and upon his touching his hat
to me I gave him an order for a turbot, inasmuch as my clothes were now
too good, and my time too valuable, to permit of my going fishing.
This, however, was nothing at all, compared with what awaited me among
the people at the well. All Newton was assembled there to welcome and
congratulate me, and most of them called me "Captain Llewellyn," and
every one said I looked ten years younger in my handsome uniform. I gave
myself no airs whatever--that I leave for smaller men--but entered so
heartily into the shaking of hands, that if I had been a pump, the well
beneath us must have gone quite dry. But all this time I was looking for
Bunny, who was not among them; and presently I saw short legs of a size
and strength unparalleled, except by one another, coming at a mighty
pace down the yellow slope of sand, and scattering the geese on the
small green patches. Mrs Morgan had kept her to smarten up,--and really
she was a credit to them, so clean, and bright, and rosy-faced. At first
she was shy of my grand appearance; but we very soon made that right.
Now I will not enlarge upon or even hint at the honour done me for
having done such honour to my native place, because as yet I had done
but little, except putting that coat on, to deserve it. Enough that I
drew my salary for attending to the old church clock, also my pension at
Swansea, and was feasted and entertained, and became for as long as
could be expected the hero of the neighbourhood. And I found that Mother
Jones had kept my cottage in such order, that after a day or two I was
able to go to Sker for the purpose of begging the favour of a visit from
Bardie.
But first, as in duty bound, of course, I paid my respects to Colonel
Lougher. As luck would have it, both the worthy Colonel and Lady Bluett
were gone from home; but my old friend Crumpy, their honest butler,
kindly invited me in, and gave me an excellent dinner in his own pantry;
because he did not consider it proper that an officer of the Royal Navy
should dine with the maids in the kitchen, however unpretending might be
his behaviour. And here, while we were exchanging experience over a fine
old cordial, in bursts the Honourable Rodney, without so much as
knocking at the door. Upon seeing me his delight was such that I could
forgive him anything; and his admiration of my dress, when I stood up
and made the salute to him, proved that he was born a sailor. A fine
young fellow he was as need be, in his twelfth year now, and come on a
mitching expedition from the great grammar-school at Cowbridge. To drink
his health, both Crumpy and myself had courage for another glass; and
when I began to tell sea-stories, with all the emphasis and expression
flowing out of my uniform, he was so overpowered that he insisted on a
hornpipe. This, although it might be now considered under dignity, I
could not refuse as a mark of respect for him, and for the service; and
when I had executed, as perhaps no other man can, this loyal and
inimitable dance, his feelings were carried away so strongly that he
offered all the money left him by a course of schoolwork (and amounting
to fourpence-halfpenny) if I would only agree to smuggle him on board
our Alcestis, when she should come to fetch me.
This, of course, I could not think of, even for a hundred pounds; and
much as I longed for the boy to have the play of his inclination. And in
the presence of Crumpy too, who with all his goodwill to me, would be
sure to give evidence badly, if his young master were carried away! And
under such love and obligation to the noble Colonel, I behaved as a man
should do, when having to deal with a boyish boy; that is to say, I told
his guardians on the next opportunity.
But to break away at once from all these trifling matters, only one day
came to pass before I went for Bardie. All along the sea-coast I was
going very sadly; half in hopes, but more in fear, because I had bad
news of her. What little they could tell at Newton was that Delushy was
almost dead, by means of a dreadful whooping-cough, all throughout the
winter, and the small caliber of her throat. And Charles Morgan had no
more knowledge of my warm feeling thitherway, than to show me that he
had been keeping some boards of sawn and seasoned elm, two feet six in
length, and in breadth ten inches, from what he had heard about her
health, and the likelihood of her measurement. When I heard this, you
might knock me down, in spite of all my uniform, with a tube of
macaroni. People have a foolish habit, when a man comes home again, of
keeping all the bad news from him, and pushing forward all the good. If
this had not been done to me, I never could have slept a wink, ere going
to Sker Manor.
To me that old house always seemed even more desolate and forlorn with
the summer sunshine on it, than in the fogs and storms of winter;
perhaps from the bareness of the sandhills, and the rocks, and
dry-stone walls, showing more in the brightness, and when woods and
banks are fairest. I looked in vain for a moving creature; there seemed
to be none for miles around, except a sullen cormorant sleeping far away
at sea. Only little Dutch was howling in some lonely corner slowly, as
when her five young masters died.
As I approached the door in fear of being too late to say good-bye to my
pretty little one, yet trying to think how well it might be for her poor
young life to flutter to some guardian angel, my old enemy Black Evan
stood and barred the way for me. I doubt if he knew me, at first sight;
and beyond any doubt at all, I never should have known him, if I had
chanced to meet him elsewhere. For I had not set eyes on his face from
the day when he frightened us so at the Inquest; and in those ten
months, what a change from rugged strength to decrepitude!
"You cannot see any one in this house," he said very quietly, and of
course in Welsh; "every one is very busy, and in great trouble every
one."
"Evan Black, I feel sorrow for you. And have felt it, through all your
troubles. Take the hand of a man who has come with goodwill, and to help
you."
He put out his hand, and its horn was gone. I found it flabby, cold, and
trembling. A year ago he had been famous for crushing everything in his
palm.
"You cannot help us; neither can any man born of a woman," he answered,
with his black eyes big with tears: "it is the will of the Lord to slay
all whom He findeth dear to me."
"Is Delushy dead?" I asked, with a great sob rising in my throat, like
wadding rammed by an untaught man.
"The little sweetheart is not yet dead; but she cannot live beyond the
day. She lies panting with lips open. What food has she taken for five
days?"
Any one whose nature leads him to be moved by little things, would have
been distressed at seeing such a most unlucky creature finishing her
tender days in that quiet childish manner, among strangers' tenderness.
In her weak, defeated state, with all her clever notions gone, she lay
with a piece of striped flannel round her, the lips, that used to
prattle so, now gasping for another breath, and the little toes that
danced so, limp, and frail, and feebly twitching. The tiny frame was too
worn to cough, and could only shudder faintly, when the fit came through
it. Yet I could see that the dear little eyes looked at me, and tried to
say to the wandering wits that it was Old Davy; and the helpless tongue
made effort to express that love of beauty, which had ever seemed to be
the ruling baby passion. The crown and stripes upon my right arm were
done in gold--at my own expense, for Government only allowed yellow
thread. Upon these her dim eyes fastened, with a pleasure of surprise;
and though she could not manage it, she tried to say, "How boofely!"
CHAPTER XLII.
THE LITTLE MAID, AND THE MIDSHIPMAN.
In this sad predicament, I looked from one to other of them, hoping for
some counsel. There was Moxy, crying quite as if it were her own child
almost; and there was Peggy the milking-maid, allowed to offer her
opinion (having had a child, although not authorised to produce one);
also myself in uniform, and Black Evan coming up softly, with a
newly-discovered walk. And yet not one had a word to say except "poor
little dear!" sometimes; and sometimes, "we must trust in God."
"I tell you," I cried; "that never does. And I never knew good come of
it. A man's first place is to trust to himself, and to pray to the Lord
to help him. Have you nothing more to say?"
"Here be all her little things," Black Evan whispered to his wife; "put
them ready to go with her." His two great hands were full of little odds
and ends which she had gathered in her lonely play along the beach, and
on the sandhills.
"Is that all that you can do? Watkin could do more than that. And now
where is young Watkin?"
They assured me there was no more to do. They were tired of trying
everything. As for Watkin, he it was who had brought the malady into the
house, and now they had sent him for change of air to an uncle he had at
Llynvi. Concerning Delushy, there was nothing for her to do, but to die,
and to go to heaven.
"She shan't die, I tell you," I cried out strongly: "you are a set of
hopeless ones. Twice have I saved her life before, when I was only a
fisherman. I am a man in authority now; and please God, I am just in
time to save her life, once more, my friends. Do you give her up, you
stupids?"
They plainly thought that I was gone mad, by reason of my rise in life;
and tenfold sure of it they were, when I called for a gown of red
Pembrokeshire flannel, belonging to Moxy for ten years now. However poor
Moxy herself went for it; and I took the child out of her stuffy bed,
and the hot close room containing it, and bore her gently in my arms
with the red flannel round her, and was shocked to find how light she
was. Down the great staircase I took her, and then feeling her breath
still going, and even a stir of her toes, as if the life was coming back
to her, what did I do but go out of doors, into the bright May sunshine?
I held her uncommon and clearly-shaped face on my bosom, to front the
sunlight, and her long eyelashes lifted, and her small breast gave three
sighs.
"Good-bye all of you," I cried: "she comes away with me this minute.
Peggy may come, if she likes, with half a sheep on her back to-morrow."
And so she did: and I could not give her less than half-a-crown for it;
because of the difference and the grace of God to darling Bardie. In my
arms the whole way home, she lay like a new-born lamb almost, with her
breath overcome at first, and heavily drawn, while her eyes were waking.
Then as the air of the open heaven found its way to her worn-out lungs,
down her quiet eyelids dropped, with a sleepy sense of happiness, and
her weak lips dreamed of smiling, and her infant breast began to rise
and fall quite steadily. And so she fell into a great deep sleep, and so
I took her to my home, and the air of Newton saved her.
Our Bunny was very good. There could hardly have been any better child,
when her victuals were not invaded. She entered into Bardie's condition,
and took quite a motherly attitude towards her. And while the tiny one
lay so weak, Bunny felt that the lead of mind was hers for the present,
and might be established by a vigorous policy. However in this point she
was wrong, or at any rate failed to work it out. In a fortnight Bardie
was mistress again; and poor Bunny had to trot after her.
Now although it was very pleasant to see the thankfulness of Black Evan,
when he came over every day, and brought his pockets full of things, and
tried to look pleased when truthful Bardie refused downright to kiss
him; pleasant also for me to be begged not only to fish, but even to
shoot--perhaps because now the wrong time of year--in and over and
through a place, where the mere sight of my hat had been sure to lead to
a black eye under it; in despite of all these pleasures, I perceived
that business must be thoroughly attended to. And taking this view I was
strengthened in my own opinions, by the concurrence of every neighbour
possessing a particle of sense. Not only Mother Jones--who might be
hard, from so much family--but also the landlord of the Jolly quite
agreed with the landlady, and even Crumpy, a man of the utmost
tenderness ever known almost, and who must admire children, because he
never yet had owned any--all these authorities agreed that I must take
care what I was about. For my part, finding their opinions go beyond my
own almost, or at any rate take a form of words different from my own,
and having no assurance how it might end, I felt inclined to go back,
and give fair-play to both sides of the argument.
But, as often happens when a man desires to see the right, and act
strictly up to it, the whole affair was interrupted, and my attention
called away by another important matter, and the duties springing out of
it. And this came to pass in the following manner. It happened upon
Oak-apple morning that I was down on a little sandhill, smoking a
pipe, and with both children building houses upon my pumps. These pumps
had lovely buckles of the very latest regulation; and it was a pleasure
to regard them when at leisure, and reflect upon their quality, as well
as signification. The children, however, took this matter from another
point of view; and there was scarcely anything to their little minds
more delightful than to obscure my pumps with sand, and put up a tower
over them. And then if I moved, down came the whole; and instead of
themselves, they laughed at me. I had worked very hard in the Alcestis,
and for almost a week after landing found it a most delicious thing,
because so incomprehensible, to have nothing whatever to do. But long
before now, I was tired of it, and yearned to put on my old slops again,
and have a long day of fishing as if Bunny's life and mine hung on it.
And when I gave a feast of turbot caught by that excellent Sandy Macraw
(and paid for at just what he chose to charge), you would not have
guessed it, but such were my feelings, that I only could make believe to
eat. And Sandy himself, by special desire, took the foot of the table,
and went largely into everything; but behaved uncommonly well, for him.
Now this is just the way I keep on going out of the proper track. If I
could not train a gun, much straighter than I can tell a story, France
would have conquered England, I believe, in spite of Nelson. It is the
excess of windage, coming down to me from great bards, which prevents my
shot from flying point-blank, as it ought to do. Nevertheless the
village children loved my style, especially since his Majesty had
embellished me. And this was why I shunned the well, and sate among the
sandhills; for really it was too hard to be expected to have in throat
a new story, never heard before, every time a little pitcher came on the
head of a little maid, to be filled, and then to go off again. Bardie
and Bunny knew better than that, and never came for stories, till the
proper time--the twilight.
Now, as I was longing much to sacrifice all dignity, and throw off
gold-lace and blue-cloth, and verily go at the congers (which I did the
next day, and defied the parish to think what it chose of me), I beheld
a pair of horses, with a carriage after them, coming in a lively manner
towards my nest of refuge.
"It is useless now," I cried aloud; "I can hope for no more peace.
Everybody knows me, or believes it right to know me."
Nevertheless, on the whole, I felt pleased, when I saw that the harness
was very bright, and the running-gear knopped with silver. And my
amazement was what you may enter into, when really the driver proved to
be no bigger than that little Master Rodney Bluett. He had the proper
coachman by his side, for fear of accidents; but to me, who had seen so
much of horses now in Devonshire, it appeared a most rash thing to allow
such a boy to navigate.
However, having caught me thus, he jumped out without accident, while
the coachman touched his hat to me, or to his Majesty as now represented
by me.
Then that noble boy--as he ought no doubt to be entitled, being the son
of a nobleman, although in common parlance styled an honourable boy,
which to my mind is no more than a simple contradiction--up he ran with
his usual haste, expecting to find only Bunny and me. But his
astonishment was worth seeing, on account of his being such a fair young
chap, when suddenly he beheld poor Bardie, standing weakly on her legs
not quite re-established yet, and in her shy manner of inner doctrine
taking observation of him. A more free-and-easy schoolboy there could
scarcely be than Rodney; and as for our Bunny, he used to toss her,
until her weight overpowered him. But with this little lady looking so
pale, and drawn, and delicate, he knew (as if by instinct) that he must
begin very gingerly.
"Captain Llewellyn," he said; "I am come to tell you that my mind is
quite made up. I mean to go to sea as soon as I can have my clothes
made."
"But, young sir," I answered, with a wish to humour this fine boy, yet a
desire to escape the noble Colonel's anger; "it is useless now to go to
sea. There is no war. We must wait, and trust the Lord to send one."
"And how shall I be fit to manage a ship, and fight our enemies, unless
I begin at once, and practise, Captain Llewellyn?"
In this there was so much truth, as well as sense of discipline,
moreover such fine power of hope for another good bout at the French,
that I looked at my pocket-lappets for an answer; and found none.
"I can stand a great deal," he cried; "on account of my age, and so on.
But I can't stand Latin and Greek, and I cannot stand being put off
always. I know what they want me to do. They want me to grow too old for
the Navy! And I do believe they will manage it. I am getting twelve,
every day almost, and I can pull a pair of oars, and fire a cannon nine
inches long, and sail a boat, if it doesn't blow."
"For all that I can answer, sir," my words were, being proud of him;
"and you know who taught you this, and that. And you know that he always
did impress upon your early mind the necessity of stern discipline, and
obedience to superiors. Your first duty is to your King and country, in
the glorious time of war. But with a wretched peace prevailing, your
duty is to the powers placed by Providence to look after you."
"I have heard that till I am sick of it," he answered rather rudely, for
I seemed to myself to have put it well: "is that all you can do for me?
I had better not have come at all. Look, I have five guineas here, given
me yesterday, and all good ones. I will put them just in there--and my
word of honour----"
"My boy, if it were fifty, five hundred, or five thousand, would an
officer of the Royal Navy think of listening to them? You have hurt my
sense of honour."
"I beg your pardon, Captain Llewellyn," he said, hanging down his head:
"but you used not to be quite so proud. You used to like five shillings
even."
"That is neither here nor there," I answered very loftily, and
increasing his confusion: "five shillings honourably earned no man need
be ashamed of. But what you have offered me is a bribe, for the low
purpose of cheating your good uncle and dear mother. You ought to sink
into the sand, sir."
He seemed pretty nearly fit to do so, for I put a stern face on, though
all the time I could hardly keep from laughing most good-naturedly; when
a little hand went into his, and a little face defied me. Poor sick
Bardie had watched every word, and though unable to understand, she took
hot sides with the weaker one.
"'E san't sink into 'e sand, I tell 'a, 'e yicked bad old Davy. 'Hot's a
done to be 'colded so? I's very angy with 'a indeed, to go on so to a
gentleyum."
By what instinct could she tell that this was a young gentleman? By the
same, I suppose, by which he knew that she was a young lady. And each of
them ready to stand up for the other immediately! It made me laugh: and
yet it is a sad thing to go into.
"Now, my boy," I began for fear of losing the upper hand of them; "you
are old enough to understand good sense when put before you. It is true
enough that if you mean to walk the planks like a sailor, you can hardly
begin too soon at the time of life you are come to. I was afloat at
half your age, so far as I can remember. But I am bound to lay before
you two very serious questions. You will have to meet, and never escape
from, every kind of dirt, and hardship, narrowness, and
half-starving--not an atom of comfort left, such as you are accustomed
to. Danger I will not speak of, because it would only lead you on to it.
But the other thing is this: By going to sea, you will for ever grieve
and drive out of your prospects not only your good uncle, but perhaps
almost your mother."
I thought I had made a most excellent speech, and Bardie looked up with
admiration, to know when I meant to finish. But to my surprise, young
Rodney took very little heed of it.
"That shows how much you know, old Davy! Why I was come on purpose to
tell you that they are tired out at last: and that I may go to sea, if
only you will appoint me a place on board of your ship Alcestis. Now do,
Captain Llewellyn, do, and I will never forgot it to you, if ever I
become a great man."
"My dear boy, I would do it this minute if I had the power. But though
they call me 'Captain' here, I am only Captain of a gun, and Instructor
of Artillery. And even our Captain himself could not do it. He could
only take you as a volunteer, and now there is no call for them. You
must get your appointment as midshipman in the regular way from London.
And the chances are fifty to one against your joining the Alcestis. That
is to say, of course, unless you have some special interest."
His countenance fell to the lowest ebb, and great tears stood in his
bold blue eyes; but presently the hopeful spirit of youth and brave
lineage returned.
"I will write to my brother in London," he said; "he has never done me a
good turn yet; perhaps he will begin this time."
Not to be too long about it, either by that or some other influence, he
obtained his heart's desire, and was appointed midshipman, with orders
to join the Alcestis, upon her next appearance off our coast. You should
have seen the fuss he made, and his mother too, about his outfit; and
even Colonel Lougher could not help being much excited. As for me, I was
forced to go to and fro betwixt Newton and Candleston Court every day,
and twice a-day, for the purpose of delivering judgment upon every box
that came. But when Master Rodney made me toss his spelling-books and
grammar at his breast, to practise parrying with his little dirk, I
begged him to let me take them home, as soon as he was tired. I have
them now with his little stabs in them, and they make me almost
independent of the schoolmaster in writing.
Not only was I treated so that I need not have bought any food at
all--except for Bardie and Bunny--but also employed at a pleasant price
to deliver lessons every morning as to the names of sails and ropes and
the proper style of handling them. We used to walk down to the hard
sea-shore, with a couple of sharp sticks, whenever the tide allowed fair
drawing-room. And the two little children enjoyed it almost as much as
the rising hero did. The difficulty was to keep the village children,
who paid nothing, from taking the benefit of my lecture as much as
Midshipman Bluett did. And they might have done so, if they cared to do
it, for I like a good large audience; but they always went into playing
hopscotch, in among my ropes and yards, when all done beautifully in
fine sand, and ready to begin almost--for the proper way is to have a
ship spread naked first, and then hoist sail, if you want to show its
meaning. I could not bear to be hard upon these young ones--and some of
them good Mother Jones's own--all in a mess of activity; and I tried to
think that it was all right, because money was earning anyhow. But I
could not reconcile it with my sense of duty to make a game of well-paid
work; therefore I kept the children out, in a manner I need not now
describe, only you may rely upon it for real ingenuity; for children are
worse to manage than folk who have been through having them.
CHAPTER XLIII.
A FINE PRICE FOR BARDIE.
Now our own two little darlings had behaved so beautifully, gazing at
the bad works of the others from a distance only, though sadly pushed to
share in them, and keeping their little garters up, when the others were
hopscotching; also feeling, and pointing out, and almost exaggerating
the ruin wrought by the other small ones (which they durst not come down
to help), that I determined to give them both a magnificent Sunday
dinner. I would gladly have had the young midshipman down--for on Sunday
he was such an ornament, as good as the best church-window!--but now our
time was almost up; and though his mother would have let him come to
grace my humble cottage, the Colonel insisted that he must go to take
farewell of some excellent aunts, from whom he had large expectations,
and who had ordered him up for the Sunday to the neighbourhood of
Cardiff. However, we could get on very well with our own aristocracy
only, which I was sure poor Bardie was, though without any aunts to dine
her, and it only made me the more determined to have a family party fed
on good fare. We envied nobody as we sate down, and the little ones put
up both hands, according to some ancient teaching. For the first course,
we had conger, baked; a most nourishing, excellent dish, full of jelly
and things for children. And this one was stuffed, like a loaded cannon,
with meat-balls, pork fat, and carraways. Bunny went at him as if she
had never secured such a chance in her life before, but Bardie seemed
inclined to wait for what was coming afterwards, and spent the time in
watching Bunny with admiration and contempt mixed, as they are on a
child's face only.
Then I brought in the dish of the day, with Bunny skipping and going
about, and scorching her fingers to help me; but Bardie (having gone
into her grandeur) sitting at table steadfastly, and with a resolute
mind to know what it was before approval. She had the most delicate
nostrils, but what I brought made her open them. Because I had the very
best half of the very best ham ever cured in our parish, through a whole
series of good-luck. Luck, and skill, and the will of the Lord, must all
combine for a first-rate ham; and here they were met, and no mistake,
both by one another and by excellent cooking afterwards. It would not
become me to say any more, when it comes to my mind that the delicate
gold of infant cabbage, by side of it, was also of my own planting, in a
bit of black mould in a choice niche, ere Bethel Jose had tempted me. In
spite of all this wonderful cheer, and the little ones going on
famously, the sight of that young cabbage struck a vein of sorrow in me
somewhere. To go away, and leave my house and garden for whole years
perhaps, and feel that it was all behind me, in neglect and loneliness,
with no one to undo the windows, or to sow a row of peas, or even dib a
cabbage in, and perhaps myself to find no chance of coming back to it,
and none to feel the difference! Like a knife all this went through me;
so that I must look upward quite, for fear of the little ones watching
me.
Those two little creatures ate with a power and a heartiness enough to
make anybody rejoice in the harmless glory of feeding them. After the
very first taste, they never stopped to wipe their lips, or to consider
anything, but dealt with what they had won, and felt, and thoroughly
entered into it. Only every now and then they could not help admiring
what I take to be the surest proof of a fine ham and good cookery; that
is to say, bright stripes of scarlet in between fat of a clear French
white, not unlike our streaky jaspers interlaid with agate. To see that
little thing, who scarce could lift a finger three weeks ago, now
playing so brisk a knife and fork, filled me with gratitude and joy, so
that I made up my mind to finish my dinner from the conger, and keep the
rest of the ham for her.
I gave the little souls their wine--as they called it--of
gooseberry-water, a good egg-cup full apiece; and away they went, like
two little women, into the garden to play with it, and see who would
keep it the longest. Then I put the rest of the ham in the cupboard, and
returning to the conger, began to enjoy the carver's privilege of ten
minutes for his own fork. But just as I had done handsomely well, and
was now preparing to think about a pipe of fine Navy tobacco, and a
small nip of old rum and water, suddenly my door was darkened, and there
stood the very last man (save one) whom, for my comfort and calm Sabbath
feeling, I could ever have wished to see.
"Peace be to this house," he began, with his hands spread out, and his
eyes turned up, but his nostrils taking sniff of things: "peace be to
this humble home, and the perishing flesh contained in it! Brother Davy,
is it well with thee?"
"Brother Hezekiah," said I, perceiving what he was up to: "no flesh does
this house contain; for that it is too humble. But in the name of the
Lord, right welcome art thou to cold conger! Brother, I pray thee, arise
and eat; and go forty days hence on the strength of it."
"It hath been done," replied Hezekiah, "by Divine grace and unceasing
prayer. But come, old chap, I am sure you have got something better in
that cupboard. Stinking fish hast thou often sold me, and lo I have
striven to like it! therefore give me good meat now, and let us rejoice
at thy great doings."
This speech was so full of truth that it got the upper hand of me, both
by the sense of compunction and the strength of hospitality, and I could
no longer deny to Perkins all that remained of poor Bardie's ham. "I
have expounded the word of the Lord, I have been as Lot in your little
Zoar," he cried, going on for the third help of ham; "my spirit was
mighty within me, David; and Hepzibah took up the wondrous tale.
Backsliding brother, where hast thou been? There is a movement and
revival set afoot from my burning words and Hepzibah's prophecies such
as shall make your rotten old Church----"
"Have a drop of beer," I said, for I did not like to see him shake his
fist at our church-tower.
"Well, I don't mind if I do," he answered, "now I come to think of it.
Everything in its season, brother. And a drop of your old rum
afterwards."
I pretended not to hear this last; for though I might stand him in
twopenny ale, I saw no reason for spoiling the tops of a bottle or two
that I scorned to open, even when my rheumatics had leapt from my double
half-ribs to my ear-drops. So, after observing that things were locked
up, I ran into the Jolly, and fetched a pint of small ale, very rapidly.
Not expecting me back so soon, he had made a good round, with his knife
in his hand, to see what might be hoped for. Now back he came with a
groan, and said that he knew not what he was fit for. When the power of
the Word came upon him, he had such spasms afterwards.
I never love to be in company with a man of this sort. When my time is
come for thanking God for a fine dinner, I would rather be alongside of
a simple man and a stupid one, who can sit and think with me, and say no
more about it. He knew my feelings, I do believe, and enjoyed them like
pickles with his meat; and after finishing every morsel, even down to
the mark of the saw upon the very knuck of it, up he put his tallowy
thumbs with the black nails outwards, and drew a long breath, and
delivered, "In the name of the Lord, Amen. And now, Brother David,
rejoice a little, as behoves a Christian man, upon the blessed
Sabbath-day."
"Hezekiah, I have rejoiced to behold your joy in feeding, and to
minister thereto. Now, having fruition of fleshly things, take the word
of the Lord, oh my brother, and expound doctrinally; though it be but a
score of chapters. I will smoke, and hearken thee."
"Strong meat is not for babes, my son; and a babe art thou, old Dyo.
Chaps like you must wait and watch for the times of edification. There
is a time for sowing, and there is a time for reaping. Small ale is not
meat for such as bear the burden of the day."
"'Kiah, the smith," I asked, very shortly, "what is it you would have of
me?"
"Brother Davy, I have offered a blessing on thy flesh-pots; and good
they were, though not manifold. It is comely that I should offer another
blessing on thy vessels, Davy."
What could I do with such a man in my own house? Brother Hezekiah
became, at my expense, most hospitable. I found no escape from my own
bottle, without being rude to my visitor's glass; and yet I enjoyed not
a single drop, for want of real companionship. For all my wits were up
in arms, as if against Parson Chowne almost; because I knew that Master
Perkins wanted to make a fool of me. So I feigned to be half-seas-over,
that he might think he had done it.
"Ancient friend," he began at last, when he thought that I was ripe for
it; "thou hast lifted me above the height of edification. Peradventure I
say words that savour not of wisdom, beloved brother, the fault is
thine: here I am, and there you are."
"How can any man having a smithy of his own go on so? An thou wert not
tipsy, 'Kiah, thou couldst see the contrary. I am here, and thou art
there."
"Just so. You have put it wonderfully," he answered, after thinking: "we
may both say right is right, which is the end of everything. Keziah said
to me, 'Go seek where he is, and how he is; because I have seen noble
visions of his exaltation.' And yet, you see, exalted brother, scarce
the tenth part came to her."
"She knows what she is about," said I; "she dreamed of a red-hot cradle,
and the hoof of Satan rocking me. Now I see the whole of it. It was
Parson Chowne, and the ferry-boat, and the ketch I was all but burned
in. Perkins, tell me more, my friend. I have groaned much for neglecting
the warning of the prophetess."
"How many men have groaned in vain for that same cause, old Dyo!
Vainglorious males, they doubt her gift, because she is a female! Out of
the mouths of babes and women--brother, I forget the passage, but it
comes to that, I think. And now she hath been again in trouble."
"Concerning what, old Hezekiah? As concerning what, I pray thee?"
"Even touching the child Delushy, in the godless house of Sker. In a
holy trance it hath been vouchsafed her to behold that poor kid of the
flock bearing in her mouth a paper, whereupon in letters of blood was
written, 'Come over, and help us.' And we have found a way to help her,
with thy faithful testimony."
In his crafty sheep's-eyed manner, made of crawling piety mixed with
sharp and spiteful worldliness, he began to feel my soundings towards a
scheme so low and infamous, that my blood within me boiled for being
forced to bear with him. He had prepared the whole plot well, and what
it came to was just this: Inland there lived a wealthy smelter of the
Methodist tribe, and Hezekiah was deep in his books for long supply of
material. Rees ap Rees was his name, and he longed, as every year he
grew older, to make up for an ancient wrong, which was coming home to
him. In the early days when he was poor, and clever, and ambitious, he
had ousted his elder brother from his father's hearth, and banished him.
This poor fellow fled to the colonies; and for many years no token and
no news came home of him. Meanwhile Rees ap Rees was growing elderly,
and worn out with money, which is a frightful thing to feel. But about a
year ago, a half-cast sailor had come to his house, bringing a wretched
death-scrawl from this supplanted, but never yet forgotten, and only
brother. There were not a dozen lines, but they told a tale that made
the rich man weep and eat dry bread for days and days. His brother
having been born without the art of getting on at all, was dying for
want of food and comfort, having spent his last penny to keep the mouths
of his two little babes at work. These poor children had lost their
mother, and were losing their father now, who with his last breath
almost, forgetting wrongs, as we do in death, very humbly committed them
to the charge of his rich brother. And he said that his only remaining
friend, captain of the Nova Scotia, had promised to deliver them safe in
Bristol, to be sent for. The dying father had no strength to speak of
their names, or age, or any other particulars.
Now it so happened that Rees ap Rees was dearly fond of children, as all
rich childless people are, on account of being denied them: and since
his wife died, he had often thought of adopting some one. But being
rich, he was fidgety now; and none of the children in his neighbourhood
ever blew their noses. So here he found, as it were from heaven, two
little dears coming down upon him, his next of kin and right heirs, and
also enabling him to go to his parish churchyard, with a sense of duty
done, although preferring to rest elsewhere, if by law allowable. You
may suppose how he waited and watched; but those two little dears never
came. Upon that he longed for them so much more that he offered a reward
of £100 for any tidings of them, and of £200 for both or either, brought
to his house in safety. Hence it will be clear enough what Hezekiah's
scheme was; and half the reward was to be my own.
"All thou hast to say, good Dyo, is what thou saidest at the very time;
that the ship was not called Andalusia, but to the best of thy belief
was more like Nova Scotia. Also that she was bound for Bristol, and that
the other baby's clothes bore no coronet, as they fancied, but the
letter R. done fancifully, as might be by a freemason, such as the poor
father was said to be. That garment must be destroyed of course. I have
one prepared for the child Delushy, with 'Martha ap Rees' in faint
writing upon it. This the old man must find out for himself, after our
overlooking it. He will then believe it tenfold. And after the sight of
thy uniform, Dyo----ha! how sayest thou, old friend? A snug little sum
to invest for old age. Thou knowest the old saying, 'Scurvy in the Navy;
but the Navy's self more scurvy!' When thou art discharged with three
halfpence a-day, one hundred pound with accumulations, say £150 then,
will help to buy sulphur for thy rheumatics. Myself will give thee ten
per cent for it, upon sound security."
"It sounds very well," said I, to lead him; "one hundred and fifty
pounds have a fine sound."
"Not only that, my noble boy: but the hold thou wilt have on a rich
young maiden, such as Martha ap Rees will be. The old fellow can't last
very long: none of those smelters ever do, and he hath heart-disease as
well. Little Martha will come into £20,000 or more, and every penny of
it hanging upon thee, and me, my lad. Is it well devised, is it grand,
my boy; is it worthy of old 'Kiah?"
"That it is," I cried; "most worthy!"
He flourished his glass in the pride of his heart, and even began to
sing a song with a chorus of "Spankadilloes," forgetting whose holy day
it was. Unfortunately I did the same; for my nature can never resist a
song: moreover I wanted to think a little. Not from any desire to dwell
for a moment on my own interest, but from the great temptation to make
the fortunes of our poor castaway. But while I was nursing my left
knee, with the foot giving time for another chorus (which was just
beginning), I heard a tiny pipe, and turned round, and there was the
little thing herself, dancing on one foot, and jerking the other in
mockery of my attitude, nodding her head to keep time as well, and for
her very life singing out, "Pankydillo, dillo, dillo," while Bunny
peeping round the door-post, with a power of Sabbath feeling, looked as
if the world were ending. It was clear that Bardie had not seen Perkins,
whom she never could endure, else would she not have run in from the
garden, to bear a share in our melody; and that good brother was so full
of his noble scheme, and his song, and my rum, that he never noticed her
baby voice; and her quick light figure was out of his sight, from the
corner of his boozing. Therefore I managed to get her away, and send her
for a good walk with Bunny, to look for water-cress at Bruwys Well; for
I thought it wiser to keep that Perkins ignorant of her whereabouts; and
Bunny could be trusted now to see to any one anywhere.
Off went the heavy one very gravely, and the light one full of antics,
even in front of the cottages singing "Pankydillo" (which hit her
fancy), so that I feared some disrepute, at such a thing going forth
from our house upon a Sabbath evening. I tried to frown, but she made me
laugh by turning round and clapping her knee, exactly as she had seen me
do; and it seemed the best thing to go back out of sight, ere neighbours
got the key to it. Little she guessed that the fate of her life was
dancing in the balance, and that her own lightsome play had turned it,
whether for good or evil.
How could I let such a spring of life, such a mischievous innocence, and
thoroughly earnest devotion to play, sink and be quenched by a formal
old Methodist in the iron district? Sker House was dull enough for dry
bones: but there at least she had the sands, and sea, and shells, and
rabbits, and wild-fowl: nor any one to terrify her with religious
terrors--which to the young are worst of all--unless it were a ghost or
two of wicked abbots repenting. Whereas I knew what an old compunctious
Methodist is, who has made some money, and devotes his last years to
"the service of Jehovah." Even £20,000 could not make it up to her.
Therefore I shook Master Perkins up, for he really had been a little too
free, and was going to sleep with his spectacles stuck for a corkscrew
into another bottle, and I made him understand that his plan was a great
deal too crooked for me, and that the sooner he went to seek Hepzibah
(who was prophesying on a stool for pickling pork, down at Betsy
Matthew's), and to prepare for his midnight service, with a strong
Revival rising, the better chance he would have of escaping my now
rapidly-growing desire to afford him total immersion (which is the only
salvation of one highly respectable lot of them) in the well of John the
Baptist. Hezekiah dreaded water so much that this hint was enough for
him; and off he set in a tipsy shamble, to lie down on the sandhills,
ere he came face to face with the prophetess. When I had put things a
little aright, and brushed up the hearth to a bit of fire (to warm the
milk for the little ones), and by opening doors and windows sweetened
all the place with summer flowing in and nestling round the relics of
the sunset, and when the neighbours' chairs (whereon the very old men
had been sitting for their Sunday evening) creaked, as if carried in and
dusted for another Sunday, and there was not one child left (except a
bad child by the well, whose loose mind was astray with stars, and took
no heed of supper-time), then the two best children in the village,
neighbourhood, or county, hand-in-hand came to my door. They were
wonderfully silent, and they stole (each in her own manner) just a
little glimpse at me, to feel how my temper lay; then they looked at one
another, to exchange opinions on that all-important matter. They knew
they had been out too late, and had frightened Granny a little perhaps,
and therefore now had angered him. And in their simple way, they thought
it wiser not to broach the question. I meant to scold them, but could
not find it, when I beheld their pretty ways, within my power to do so.
And lucky for them that I did not know, until next day, when too late to
scold, what a dreadful mess their clothes were in. In that light I could
only see their pretty faces glowing, and their bright eyes full of
doubt, and their little bodies shrinking back. Also bundles of
water-cress put forward to mitigate righteous wrath. I felt that I had
been having my spree, and these small creatures had only had theirs. So
I kissed them both, and gave them good supper, and blessed them into
their little bed.
CHAPTER XLIV.
PROVIDES FOR EDUCATION.
Having before me several years of absence from home, if it should please
the Lord so long to spare me, I now took measures for the welfare of
those who would chiefly miss me. The little cottage was my own from many
generations, and in a new will made by a clever man (no less than our
new schoolmaster), I left it to Bunny, and all my effects, except my
boat, and the sum of ten guineas, which two items, as honour demanded,
were for Miss Delushy. But what is wealth without education? No more
than a plummet without the line. Knowing this, I provided as follows.
A thoroughly fine new schoolmaster had arisen, as aforesaid, for the
purpose of educating all our Newton children. Our good parson had
brought him in, not because the old one, being challenged by the village
tailor to spell the word "horse" without the picture, proved his command
of the alphabet by accomplishing it in nine different ways, all wrong
(for that was entered to his credit, when the tailor failed to do the
like), but because he horsed a boy and left him there for the afternoon,
having fallen asleep without thrashing him. And it shows what the public
confusion of mind is, that there were not three people in all the parish
who could help jumbling these stories together, because each of them had
a horse in it! However the poor old man had to go, and Colonel Lougher,
having nothing to do with the spelling of the children, thought it so
hard on his brother's part, that he made the old man his head gardener,
so as to double his wages, and enable him to sleep not half, but the
whole of the afternoon.
His successor in the school had been sought out very diligently, and he
could spell almost as well as Bardie could pronounce a word. But when we
found that he came from a distance more than a quick man could walk in a
day, and that he could not through all his forefathers (although they
were quite at his finger-ends) claim so much even as intermarriage with
any of our third-rate families, much less with any Llewellyns, or
Hopkins, or Bevans, or even Thomases, we saw that even Parson Lougher
had gone a little too far for us, and not a woman in the place would let
a bedroom to that man. However we could not bolt him out of his own
schoolroom, and there he slept, contented with a pile of slates for
bedstead, and of copy-books for bolster and for pillow. For a week at
least he had no school, but he went to church and sang beautifully
(which brought half the women over), and the children began to be such a
plague, at home, before Monday morning, that eight or nine were sent
back to school, as if with halters round their necks. With these he took
so much kind trouble, that in three hours they learned more than the
parish had learned for a generation; so much that they could not keep it
down when they went home for dinner. In the afternoon there were twenty
pupils, and by the end of the week three dozen. But how could they prove
him to their parents qualified for a bedroom?
Upon the strength of my present position, and unrivalled experience, I
found it my duty to come to the fore, and take the command of the
householders. And knowing of course what a waste of time it is to reason
with anybody, I seized the bull by the horns, and offered Master Roger
Berkrolles the occupancy of my cottage upon most liberal conditions.
"That is to say for rent per quarter, one sea-snail, and per annum one
cockleshell, to preserve the title; provided nevertheless and upon this
express condition that my lawful granddaughter Bunny should be fed,
alimented, sufficiently nourished, clothed, clad, apparelled, and in
garments found; also taught, instructed, indoctrined, educated and
perfected in every branch of useful knowledge by the said Roger
Berkrolles. Item, that if a certain child of tender years known as
'Delushy,' should at any time appear on the premises and demand
instruction, instruction of the highest order, and three slices of
bread-and-butter, should be imparted to her without charge, _de die in
diem_." I objected to these "dies," as being of a nasty churchyard
sound; but Master Roger convinced me soon, and must have convinced a far
tougher fellow, that to put our latter end out of sight and out of mind
so, is a bad example and discouragement for the young ones, whose place
it is to dwell on it.
A man of far coarser tone of mind than mine would be required to
describe Master Roger's sense of gratitude towards me. When I do a
handsome thing, I cannot bear to tell of it, nor even to receive the
praise accruing from what neighbours know. "Do it, and be done with it,"
in all such cases is my rule; and if Roger chose to give me an inventory
of goods and chattels, he can bear me out in saying that I scorned to
call a witness in to put his name to it. Business is not my strong
point, and it never is with a man of largeness.
The next thing for me to see to was to get some wicked warrants quashed;
which a deep ignorance of my character, and the lies of very low
villains, had induced some weak or vicious magistrates to issue; so that
in the sporting season (when I might have done my best), I was forced to
decamp with my telescope. This has been mentioned perhaps before; but
not my strong resolution to face it out, as soon as ever the sense of a
strong position enabled me. No doubt they had meant to do their duty;
and I forgave them altogether. There were three of them. Two names I
quite forget. How can one think of such trifles at sea? But the third
was one Master Anthony Stew, who had tyrannised over me dreadfully, in
the times of my tribulation. Up to this man's gate I went, and rang the
great bell, with my three stripes on, and a cap of fronted tapestry.
Squire Anthony was about, somewhere on the premises, would my honour
mind waiting while the boy went round to look for him? This maid never
guessed how often she had told me my fish was bad, and what a shame it
was to make them eat it up in the kitchen, or starve; and where did I
hope to go to? Neither did she recollect how she had as good as made me
kiss her behind the meat-screen, when my glory began to grow for saving
those drowned niggers. And yet I could not be sure that she did not know
it all, and hide it all, for the joy of boasting afterwards. I
understand everything, except women.
When I was shown into the drawing-room, and Mrs Stew with a curtsy went
out, as if afraid to trust herself in a presence so imposing, I had a
great mind to take a nip at some of the rubbish upon the table. The
whole of these nick-nacks could never have paid me half what this fellow
had cost me in fines, expenses, costs, and so on; without a bit of
evidence from any man of character. However, I only looked at them.
When that low Anthony Stew came in, he knew me (before I could speak
almost); he gave a quick glance at the table, and then without another
word showed me out, in spite of all my uniform, to his dirty little
justice-room. With such a man, I should think it wrong to go into
his ribaldry; only he said this, at last; "Davy, thou thief, we will
withdraw them, because we cannot execute them; now thou art in Royal
Service. Five there are, if I remember. Does your conscience plead to
more?"
"My conscience pleads to none, your Worship. Perjured scoundrels all of
them. Five was the number, I do believe. Alas! what may we come to?"
"The gallows, Dyo, the gallows, thou rogue! Thou hast had some shavings.
But when thy turn comes, good Dyo, I will do thee a good turn, if I
can."
"Will your Worship tell me why? I never looked for anything but the
flint-edge from your Worship."
"Because thou art the only rogue I never was a match for. There, go thy
way now; go thy way; or I shall be asking thee to dinner."
"Nay, your Worship, God forbid! What food have I had since
breakfast-time?" And so I won the last word of him.
After this provision for my good repute, and defiance of magisterial
scandal on behalf of Bunny, my next act was one of pure generosity
towards an ancient enemy. Poor Sandy Macraw had a very hard fight to
maintain himself and his numerous and still increasing family. Sometimes
they did not taste so much as a rind of bacon for months together, but
lived on barley-bread and dog-fish, or such stuff as he could not sell,
with oatmeal cakes for a noble treat every other Sunday. What did I do
but impart to him, under document drawn by Berkrolles, that licence to
fish off and on Sker Point which my courage had well established, with
authority to him and covenant by him to attack and scare all poachers;
the whole to be void upon my return, if so I should think proper. And
not only this, but I put him in funds to replace all his tackle, by
enabling him to sell his boat. For I went so far as to lease him my own,
at a moderate yearly rental, upon condition that he should keep her in
thorough repair and as good as new. And for the further validity (as the
lease said) of this agreement, two years' rent became due at once, and
was paid from the price of the other boat. My boat went twice as fast as
Sandy's, and was far more handy, so that this bargain was fair and
generous, and did honour to all concerned.
The next and last thing, before starting, was to provide for poor Bardie
herself. For I feared that Hezekiah, or some other unprincipled fellow,
might trump up a case, and get hold of her, and sell, or by other means
turn into money my little pet, to the loss of my rights, and perhaps her
own undoing. Resolved as I was to stop all chances of villany of that
kind, I went direct to Colonel Lougher and to Lady Bluett. Here I made
the cleanest breast that ever was scooped out almost. I may declare
that I kept in nothing, except about painting the boat, and one or two
infinite trifles of that sort, which it would have been a downright
impertinence to dwell upon. Nevertheless Colonel Lougher said that some
blame might attach to me in spite of all pure intentions.
But Lady Bluett said no, no. She would not hear of it for a moment. The
only thing that surprised her was Llewellyn's thorough unselfishness,
and chivalrous devotion to a child who was nothing to him. She was a
bewitching little dear; no one who saw her could doubt that; still it
showed a very soft side to a wonderfully gallant character, when through
all modesty it appeared what womanly tenderness there had been. And this
proved how entirely right her opinion had been from the very first, and
what a mistake the good Colonel had made, in declining to let her even
argue.
"My dear Eleanor, my dear Eleanor," cried the Colonel, with his eyes
wide open, and his white hand spread to her; "I am surprised to hear you
say so. But we cannot go into that question now. Llewellyn begged for my
opinion. Yours, my dear (as you have proved), is of course more
valuable: still I thought that it was mine----"
"To be sure it was, dear Henry. Yours is what was asked for. My rule is
never to interrupt you, but to listen silently."
"To be sure, Eleanor, to be sure! And we always agree in the end, my
dear. But so far as I can judge at present, Llewellyn, although with the
very best meaning----"
"And a display of the greatest valour. Come, Colonel, even by his own
account----"
"Yes, my dear, great valour, no doubt, coupled with very sound
discretion. Yet when I come to consider the whole, I really do think
that your hero might have entered more fully into these particulars
about the boat. Of course, he had no motive, and it was simply an error
of judgment----"
"Henry, there was no error at all. What could he do when they would not
even listen to him about the name of the ship? If they would not listen
about a ship, is it likely they would listen about a boat? And a very
small atom of a boat! The thing is too ridiculous."
Perceiving a pause, I made my bow; for the very last thing I could
desire would be to sow a controversy between the gentleman and lady,
whom of all the county I esteemed the most and loved the best. And I
knew that if I caused dissension in a pair so well united, each would
think the less of me, when they came to make it up together. Moreover,
my object was attained. Their attention was drawn to the child again:
the Colonel, as the nearest magistrate, was put in legal charge of her:
I was now quit of all concealment: and Lady Bluett had promised to see
to the poor thing's education, if ever she should need any.
This I hoped with all my heart that she would do, and quickly too. And
indeed she was growing at such a pace after that long illness, also
getting so wonderfully clever about almost everything, and full of
remarks that might never strike a grown man till he thought of them,
that the only way or chance I saw of taking the genius out of her, was
to begin her education. Forgetting just now a good deal of my own, and
being so full of artillery, I got Master Berkrolles to make the first
start, and show her the way to the alphabet. Our Bunny now could spell
"cat" and "dog," and could make a good shot at some other words, and
enjoyed a laugh at children (head and shoulders over her) whenever they
went amiss, and she from the master's face was sure of it. But Bardie
had never been to school; for I thought it below her rank so much; and
now I contrived for our great schoolmaster to come to my cottage, and
there begin.
It must have made the very gravest man, ever cut from a block of wood,
laugh to behold Master Roger, and her. He with his natural dignity, and
well-founded sense of learning, and continual craving for a perfect form
of discipline; yet unable to conceal his great wonder at her ways: she
on her side taking measure of him in a shy glance or two, and letting
her long eyelashes fall, and crossing her feet with one shoulder towards
him, for him to begin with her. He vowed that he never had such a pupil;
instead of learning, she wanted to know the reason why of everything.
Why had A two legs and a girdle, while B had two stomachs and no leg at
all? C was the moon, from the shape of it. It was no good to tell her
that C was the cat; a cat had four legs and C had none: and as for D
being a dog, she would fetch dear Dutch, if he would not believe her,
and show him what a dog was like. And then perceiving how patient he
was, and understanding his goodness, the poor little fatherless soul
jumped up on his knee, and demanded a play with him. He did not know how
to play very well, because he was an ancient bachelor; but entering into
her sad luck, from knowledge of her history, he did the very best thing
(as I thought) that ever had been done to her. He put her on a stool
between his knees, and through the gloss of her hair he poured such very
beautiful and true stories, that one could almost see her mind (like the
bud of a primrose) opening. She pushed up her little hands and tossed
her thick hair out of the hearing way, and then, being absorbed in some
adventures like her own almost, round she turned and laid her eyes upon
his furrowed yet beaming face, and her delicate elbows on his knees, and
drank in every word, with sighs, and short breath, and a tear or two.
Although, from one point of view, I did not like to be superseded so,
especially in my own department, as might be said, of story-telling, yet
I put small feelings away, and all the jaundice of jealousy. If I were
bound to go wherever Government might order me, for the safety of our
native land, and with moderate pay accruing, also with a high position,
and good hopes of raising it, the least I could do was to thank the Lord
for sending those two poor children a man, so wise, and accomplished,
and kind-hearted, bound over to look after them. And yet I would almost
as lief have committed them into the hands of Mother Jones, who could
scarcely vie with me. But they promised never to forget me; and the
night before I went away, I carried Bardie back to Sker, and saw that
Black Evan was dying.
CHAPTER XLV.
INTRODUCES A REAL HERO.
My orders were to rejoin at Pembroke on the 10th of June, where the
Alcestis lay refitting, and taking in stores for an ocean-cruise. Of
course I was punctual to the day, and carried with me a fine recruit,
Master Rodney Bluett. I received not only minute directions from his
lady-mother, but also a tidy little salary, to enable me to look after
him. This was a lady of noble spirit, and ready to devote her son for
the benefit of his country; because there was no fighting now, nor any
war in prospect. Also Colonel Lougher came as far as the gate, where the
griffins are, and patted his nephew's curly head; and said that although
it was not quite as he himself could have wished it, he could trust the
boy to be an honour to a loyal family, and to write home every now and
then, for the sake of his poor mother. For his own sake also, I think
the Colonel might have very truly said; because while he was talking so,
and trying to insist on duty, as the one thing needful, I could not for
a moment trust my own eyes to examine him. So we all tried to say
"good-bye," as if there was nothing in it.
It was a very long "good-bye," even longer than we could by any stretch
have dreamed of. Two or three years was the utmost that we then looked
forward to: but I tell you simple truth, in saying that not one of us
had the chance of seeing England, much less any part of Wales, for a
shorter period than seven years and two months added. You may doubt me,
and say, "Pooh, pooh! that was your fault;" and so on. But you would be
wholly wrong; and from the Admiralty records our Captain could prove it
thoroughly. And what is much clearer than all, do you think that Captain
Drake Bampfylde would have been seven years, or even seven days, away,
without sight of his beautiful lady, Isabel Carey, if it could have been
managed otherwise?
It was a mixture of bad luck. I can explain a good deal of it, but not
all the ins and outs. We were ordered here, and ordered there, and then
sometimes receiving three contradictions of everything. Until we should
scarcely have been surprised at receiving signal, "H.M.S. Alcestis to
the moon; to wait for orders."
And if we had received that signal, I believe we should have tried it,
being by this time the best-trained and finest ship's company in the
world. We had ceased to be a receiving-ship, as soon as the war was
over, and now were what they begin to call--though it sounds against the
grain to me--an "Experimental Ship." And the Lord knows that we made
experiments enough to drown, or blow up, or blow arms off, every man
borne on our blessed books. They placed me at the head of it all, until
the others were up to it; and a more uneasy or ticklish time I never
have known, before or since. Over and over again I expected to go up to
the sky almost; and you may pretty well conceive how frequent was my
uneasiness. Nevertheless I still held on; and Government had to pay for
it.
In four years' time the old frigate began to be knocked almost to
pieces; and we made up our minds to be ordered home, and set our
memories at work upon all who were likely to meet us, if still in the
land of the living. While at Halifax thinking thus, and looking forward
to Christmas-time among our own families, a spick and span new frigate
came, of the loveliest lines we had ever seen, and standing-gear the
most elegant. She took our eyes so much at once, and she sat the water
so, that there was not a man of us able to think of anything else till
all hands piped down. This was the Thetis, if you please, taken from the
Crappos in the very last action of the war, a 46-gun frigate, but larger
than an English 60-gun ship. The French shipbuilders are better than
ours, but their riggers not to be compared; which is the reason perhaps
why they always shoot at our rigging instead of our hulls. At any rate,
having been well overhauled, and thoroughly refitted at Chatham, and
rigged anew from step to truck, she presented an appearance of most
tempting character.
It was a trick of the Naval Board to keep us together, and it succeeded.
Those gentlemen knew what we were by this time, the very best ship's
company to be found in all the service; and as there were signs already
of some mischief brewing, their desire was still to keep together such a
piece of discipline. My humble name had been brought forward many times
with approval, but without any effect so far upon wages or position.
Now, however, my Lords had found it expedient to remember me, and David
Llewellyn was appointed master's mate to the Thetis, if he should think
fit to join her; for the whole after our long service was a matter of
volunteering.
There was not a man of us dared to leave Captain Drake Bampfylde
shabbily. We turned over to the Thetis, in a body, with him; and the
crew that had manned her from England took the old Alcestis home again.
And junior Lieutenant Bluett, now a fine young fellow, walked the
quarter-deck of the Thetis, so that you should have seen him. But first
and foremost was to see our great Captain Drake; as ready as if he were
always looking out for an enemy's ship from the foretop. He walked a
little lame, on account of the piece the shark took out of him;
nevertheless we had not a man to equal him for activity. I remember once
when a violent gale caught us on the banks of Newfoundland, and the sky
came down upon us black as any thunder-cloud. The wind grew on us so
towards nightfall, that after taking in reef after reef, the orders were
to make all snug, send down the topgallant-masts, and lie-to under
close-reefed main-topsail and fore-topmast staysail. Captain Drake was
himself on deck, as he always was in time of danger, and through the
roar of the gale his orders came as clear as a bell almost, from the
mouth of his speaking-trumpet. "Main-top men, to station! Close reef the
main-topsail. Mr Bluett, clew up, clew up. There is not a moment to
lose, my men. Spit to your hands and stick like pitch. What! are you
afraid then, all of you?"
For the sail was lashing about like thunder, having broken from the
quarter-gasket, and when the men came to the topsail-yard they durst not
go upon it. Then a black squall struck them with blinding rain, and they
scarce could see one another's faces, till a cheery voice came from the
end of the yard, "Hold on, my lads--hold on there! You seem so skeery of
this job, I will do it for you." "'Tis the devil himself!" cried old Ben
Bower, captain of the main-top; "let him fly, let him fly, my lads!" "It
is our Captain," said I, who was coming slowly up to see to it, myself
prepared to do the job, and shame all those young fellows; "skulk below,
you jelly-pots, and leave it to me and the Captain." "A cheer for the
Captain, a cheer for the Captain!" they cried before I could follow
them, and a score of men stood against the sky, in the black pitch of
the hurricane, as if it were a review almost. For they guessed what the
Captain must have done, and it made a hero of each of them. While they
came slowly up the ratlins, he clomb the rigging like a cat, and before
they got to the lubber's hole he was at the topmasthead, whence he slid
down by the topping-lift to the very end of the mainyard. Such a thing
done in a furious gale, and the sea going mountains high almost, beat
even my experience of what British captains are up to. After that, if he
had cried, "Make sail to"--Heligoland, with no landing to it--there was
not a man of us but would have touched his hat, and said, "Ay, ay, sir!"
And now we first met Captain Nelson in command of the Boreas, a poor
little frigate; we could have sunk her as easily as we outsailed her.
But as senior to Captain Drake, he at once assumed command of us;
although it was not in our instructions to be at his disposal. The
Americans then were carrying on with the privileges of British subjects,
in trading with the Leeward Islands; although they had cast off our
authority in a most uncourteous, and I might say headstrong manner.
Captain Nelson could never put up with the presumptuous manners of this
race, and he felt bitterly how feeble had been our behaviour to them.
These are people who will always lead the whole world, if they can;
counting it honour to depart from and get over old ideas. And now they
were doing a snug bit of roguery with the Leeward Islands, pretending
to have British bottoms, while at bottom Yankees.
Nelson set his face against it; and whenever he set his face, his hand
came quickly afterwards. We soon cut up that bit of smuggling, although
the Governor of the Islands was himself against us. Captain Nelson's
orders were to enforce the Navigation Act; and we did it thoroughly.
Ever so many times I met him, as he now came to and fro; and he took the
barge-tiller out of my hand, at least a dozen times, I think. For he
never could bear that another man should seem to do his work for him,
any more than he could bear to see a thing done badly. Not that he found
fault with my steering (which was better than his own, no doubt), but
that he wanted to steer himself. And he never could sit a boat quietly,
from his perpetual ups and downs, and longing to do something. He knew
my name; he knew every one's name; he called me "old Dyo," continually,
because the men had caught it up; and in my position, I could not
perceive what right he had to do so. I had him on my lap, I won't say
fifty times, but at least fifteen: for he never had sea-legs at all when
a heavy sea was running: and I never thought it any honour, but
cherished some hopes of a shilling, or so. As for appearance, at first
sight he struck me as rather grotesque-looking than imposing, in spite
of his full-laced uniform, and the broad flaps of his waistcoat. His
hair, moreover, was drawn away from his forehead, and tied in a lanky
tail, leaving exposed, in all its force, rather a sad face, pale and
thin, and with the nose somewhat lop-sided. Also the shoulders badly
shaped, and the body set up anyhow; and the whole arrangement of his
frame nervous, more than muscular.
In spite of all this, any man who knows the faces of men, and their true
meaning, could not fail to perceive at once that here was no common
mortal. The vigour and spirit of his eyes were such that they not only
seemed to be looking through whatever lay before them, but to have
distinct perception of a larger distance, and eagerness to deal with it.
And the whole expression of his face told of powerful impatience, and a
longing for great deeds, dashed with melancholy. The entire crew of his
ship, I was told, were altogether wrapped up in him, and would give
their lives for him without thought; and there was not one of them but
was mad with our Government for being at peace, and barring Captain
Nelson from the exploits he was pining for. One of them struck at me
with an oar, when I said how puny Nelson was, compared with our Drake
Bampfylde, and only the strong sense of my position enabled me to put up
with it. And what I said was all the time the very truest of the true;
and that was why it hurt them so. We being now the finest and smartest
frigate in the service, looked down upon that tub of a Boreas, and her
waddle-footed crew, and her pale, pig-tailed commander, with a power of
ignominy which they were not pleased with. And all the time we were at
their orders, and they took care to let us know it! We would have fought
them with pleasure, if the rules of the service allowed it.
Enough of that uncomfortable discontent and soreness. The hardest point
is for a very great man to begin to set forth his greatness. We could
not, at the moment, see why Horatio Nelson should thus sweep off with
the lead so. But after he had once established what he was, and what he
meant, there was no more jealousy. To this I shall come in its proper
place; I am only now picking up crumbs, as it were, and chewing small
jobs honourably.
But against one thing I must guard. Our Captain Drake was never for a
moment jealous of Captain Nelson. It was one of the things that annoyed
us most, when we looked down on the Boreas, and would gladly have had a
good turn with those fellows who assumed such airs to us, to find that
our beloved Captain was as full of Nelson as the worst of the Boreasses.
And one of our men who went on strongly, took six dozen, and no mistake,
and acknowledged how well he deserved it. That is the way to do things,
and makes all of us one family.
It is time for me now to crowd all sail for Spithead, as we did at last.
Seven round years and two months were gone since I had seen old Cymru,
and I could fill seven thousand pages with our whole adventures. But
none of them bore much on my tale, and nobody cares for my adventures,
since I ceased to be young and handsome; and sometimes I almost thought
(in spite of all experience) that I had better have gone into matrimony
with a young woman of moderate substance. But (as is the case with those
things) when I had the chance I scorned it; not being touched in the
heart by any one, and so proud of freedom. Moreover, the competition for
a man amongst young women may become so lively as to make him bear away
large down wind. Exactly what had happened to me in the land of
Devonshire.
Three quarters of my pay had been assigned to Roger Berkrolles, under
my hand and signature, for the maintenance of our Bunny (so far as the
rent might not provide it), and for the general management of things,
and then to accumulate. So that, after all, I had not any amazing sum to
draw, remembering, too, that from time to time we had our little tastes
of it. Nevertheless, when added up, I really was surprised to find that
the good clerks thought it worth so much quill-chop over it. And now I
had been for several years on the pay of a petty officer (master's
mate), and looking forward to be master, if he were good enough to drop
off.
He was truly tough, and would never drop off; and I felt it the more
because he was ten years my junior, and unseasoned. He drew half again
as much as I did, though he knew that I had done all the work. He gave
me two fingers to say good-bye, which is a loathsome trick to me; so I
put out my thumb, which was difficult to him: and the next time I saw
him, he lay dead in the cockpit of the Goliath.
In a word, I got so little after all my long endeavours to secure the
British nation from its many enemies, that verily I must have fallen to
the old resource again, and been compelled to ask for alms to help me
home in 1790, as had happened to me in the year of grace 1759. We
sailors always seem to be going either up or down so much, without
seeming to know why. Perhaps it is a custom from our being on the waves
so much. However, I was saved from doing such disgrace to the uniform
and to my veteran aspect, and the hair by this time as white as snow,
simply through the liberality of our Captain Bampfylde. For he made me
an offer both kind and handsome, though not more perhaps than might be
expected, after our sailing together so long. This was to take me home
with him to Narnton Court, or the neighbourhood, according to how the
land might lie, and thence to secure me a passage (which is easy enough
in the summer-time) by one of the stone-boats to Newton Nottage. I felt
that I might have come home in grander style than this was like to be;
and yet it was better than begging my way; and scarcely any man should
hope to be landed twice in all his life, at his native village from a
man-of-war. Of course, if Master Rodney Bluett had still been with us,
he would have seen to my return, and been proud of it; but he had been
forced to leave us, having received his appointment as 3d lieutenant to
the Boadicea, 74.
Therefore I travelled with Captain Drake, and made myself useful upon
the road, finding his coxswain (who came with us in a miserably menial
manner) utterly useless, whenever a knowledge of life and the world was
demanded. And over and over again, my assistance paid my fare, I am sure
of it, whether it were by coach or post. Because the great mass of
seaman appear, whenever they come on shore, to enjoy a good cheating
more than anything. The reason is clear enough--to wit, that having seen
no rogues so long, they are happy to pay for that pleasure now.
It was said that even the Admiralty had been playing the rogue with us,
stopping our letters, and our news, to keep us altogether free from any
disturbances of home. At any rate, very few of us had heard a word of
England, except from such old papers as we picked up in the colonies.
And now, after seven years, how could we tell what to expect, or how
much to fear?
CHAPTER XLVI.
AFTER SEVEN YEARS.
From Exeter to Barnstaple, we crowded sail with horses' tails, and a
heavy sea of mud leaping and breaking under the forefoot of our coach.
Also two boys on the horses, dressed like any admirals, one with horn on
his starboard thigh, and the other with jack-boots only. It was my
privilege to sit up in the foretop, as might be, with Coxswain Toms in
the mizentop, and the Captain down in the waist by himself. We made
about six knots an hour perhaps; whenever we got jerks enough to keep up
the swearing.
But the impatience of our Captain showed how very young he was, now at
forty years of age, according to chronology, though nobody would believe
it! Surely he might have waited well, after so long waiting; and if he
could not chew a quid--which breeds a whole brood of patience--at any
rate he had fine pipes, and with common-sense might have kindled them. I
handed him down my flint and steel, and my hat to make a job of it; but
he shut up the glass, and cried, "More sail!" in a voice that almost
frightened me.
It was as dark as main-top-tree holes by the time we got to Barnstaple;
but we found no less than four fine lamps of sperm-oil burning, and
tallow-candles here and there, in shops of spirit and enterprise. The
horses were stalled, and the baggage housed in a very fine inn, looking
up the street, and then the Captain told Toms and me to house up our
jibs, while he went out. This we were only too glad to do after so much
heavy rolling upon _terra firma_, as those landsmen love to call it, in
spite of all earthquakes, such as killed thirty thousand Italian people,
when first I took to the sea again.
But before long, Toms and I began to feel that we had no right to
abandon our commander so. Here we were in a town that hardly ever saw a
royal sailor, and could not be supposed to know for a moment what his
duties were, or even to take a proper pride in seeing him borne
harmless. And here was our Captain gone out in the dark, with his
cocked-hat on, and his gold lace shining wherever a tallow-candle hung;
also with a pleasant walk as if he were full of prize-money; though the
Evil One had so patched up a peace that we never clinked a halfpenny.
When old Jerry Toms and my humble self had scarcely gone through three
glasses, he said to me, and I said to him, that we were carrying on too
coolly in a hostile town like this. And just at this moment the Navy was
down in popular estimation; for such is the public urgency, whenever we
are paid for, without being killed or wounded. Therefore Jerry and I
were bound to steer with a small helm, and double the watch.
We beat up the enemy's quarters calmly, finding none to challenge us;
and then we got tidings of our Captain out upon the Braunton road. Jerry
was a man of valour, and I could not hang back to be far behind him; and
we had been concerned in storming many savage villages. So we stormed
this little town, carrying our hangers, and nobody denied us. But before
we were half a mile entirely out of hearing, the mayor arose from his
supper, and turned out the watch, and beat the drums, and bred such
alarm that in one street there were three more people alive ere morning.
Meanwhile Jerry Toms and I shaped our course for the Braunton road, and
hit it, and held on to it. And, because no man, in strange places, knows
what the air may contain for him, Jerry sang a song, and I struck
chorus; with such an effect that the cows were frightened all along the
hedgerows. This put us quite on our legs again; and a more deeply sober
couple could not, or at any rate need not, be seen, than that which
myself and Jerry were, after two miles of walking.
In this manner, steering free, yet full of responsibility, we doubled
the last point of the road, where it fetches round to Narnton Court. And
here we lay to, and held council, out of the tide of the road, and in
what seemed to be a lime-kiln.
The coxswain wanted to board the house, and demand our Captain out of
it; we had carried all public opinion thus, and the right thing was to
go on with it. But I told him very strongly (so that he put down his
collar from his ears to listen) that no doubt he was right enough upon a
hundred thousand subjects, yet was gone astray in this. And if we
boarded a house at night, after carrying all the town by storm, what
ship had we to bear us away from the mayor and his constables to-morrow?
In this dilemma, who should appear but the Captain himself, with his
head bowed down, and his walk (which was usually so brisk in spite of a
trifling lameness), his very walk expressing that his heart was full of
sadness.
"How much longer? How much longer?" he was saying to himself, being so
troubled that he did not see us in the shadow there. "My own brother to
have sworn it! Will the Lord never hold His hand from scourging and from
crushing me? Would that I were shot and shrouded! It is more than I can
bear."
In this gloomy vein he passed us; and we looked at one another, daring
not to say a word. How could a pair of petty officers think of intruding
upon the troubles and private affairs of a post-captain, even though,
since our ship was paid off, we could hardly be said to serve under him?
"Blow me out of the mouth of a gun," cried Coxswain Toms, in a shaking
voice, "if ever I was so amazed before! I would have sworn that our
Skipper was not only the handsomest but the happiest man in all the
service."
"Then, Jerry, I could have set you to rights. How many times have I
hinted that our Skipper had something on his mind, and none of you would
hearken me?"
"True for you, my lad. I remember, now you come to speak of it. But we
paid no heed; because you looked so devilish knowing, and would go no
further. Old Dyo, I beg your pardon now; there is good stuff in you,
friend Dyo--thoroughly good stuff in you."
"I should rather think there was," I replied, perhaps a little drily,
for he ought to have known it long ago: "Jerry, I could tell you things
that would burst the tar of your pig-tail. Nevertheless I will abstain,
being undervalued so. Ho, shipmate! Haul your wind, and hail! I am
blessed if it isn't old Heaviside!"
Even in the dark, I knew by the walk that it was a seaman, and now my
eyes were so accustomed to look out in all sorts of weather, that day or
night made little difference to my sense of vision, which (as you may
see hereafter) saved a British fleet, unless I do forget to tell of it.
"Heaviside is my name, sir. And I should like to know what yours may
be."
"David Llewellyn." And so we met; and I squeezed his hand till he longed
to dance; and I was ready to cut a caper from my depth of feeling.
I introduced him to Jerry Toms, according to strict formality; and both
being versed in the rules of the service, neither would take precedence;
but each of them hung back for the other fellow to pretend to it, if he
dared. I saw exactly how they stood; and being now, as master's mate,
superior officer to both, I put them at their ease, by showing that we
must not be too grand. Thus being all in a happy mood, and desirous to
make the best of things, we could not help letting our Captain go to
dwell upon his own fortunes. Not that we failed of desire to help him,
but that our own business pressed.
Gunner Heaviside led us down to a little cabin set up by himself on the
very brink of Tawe high-water mark, as a place of retirement when hard
pressed, and unable to hold his own in the bosom of his family. You may
well be surprised--for I was more, I was downright astonished--to find
that this was my old ferry-boat, set up (like a dog begging) on shores,
with the poop channelled into the sand, and the sides eked out with
tarpaulin. A snugger berth I never saw for a quiet man to live in: and
though Heaviside scorned to tell us, and we disdained to ask him,
that--as I guessed from the first--was the true meaning of it. This poor
fellow had been seduced--and I felt for his temptations--(when he came
fresh from salt water, and our rolling ideas of women) into rapid
matrimony with that sharp Nanette. He ought to have known much better;
and I ought to have given him warning; but when he had made up his mind
to settle, I thought it was something solid. I gave him the names, as I
may have said, of good substantial farmers' daughters, owning at least a
good cow apiece from the date of their majority, also having sheets and
blankets, and (as they told me many a time) picked goosefeathers enough
for two. And yet he must go and throw himself away upon that Nanette so!
But when I came to hear his case, and he for a moment would not admit
that it was worse than usual, or that he wanted pity more than any other
men do, and scarcely knew how far he ought, or dared even, to accept it;
and then at the gurgling of his pipe, fancied that he heard somebody;
Jerry and I squeezed hands for a moment, and were very careful not to
tantalise this poor man, with our strong-set resolution. "Give a wide
berth to all womankind," was what we would have said, if we could when
now it was too late for him; "failing that, stand off and on, and let
the inhabitants come down, and push off their boats, and victual you."
Poor Heaviside fetched a sigh enough to upset all arrangements; for
Jerry and I (good widowers both) were not likely to be damped, at the
proper time for jollifying, by the troubles of a man who was meant to
afford us rather a subject for rejoicing. Therefore we roused him up,
and said, or at least conveyed to him, that he must not be so sadly down
upon his luck like this. And hearing that he had six children now, and
was in fear of a seventh one, I was enabled to recollect more than
twenty instances of excellent women who had managed six, and gone off at
the seventh visitation.
This good news put such sudden spirit into my old shipmate, that he
ceased for a long time to be afeared of all that his wife could do to
him. He never said a word to show what his mind suggested to him,
whether good or evil. Only he made me tell those cases of unmerited
mercy (as he put it) such a number of times that I saw what comfort he
was deriving. And then we challenged him to tell us what was going on
with him.
He seemed rather shy of discussing himself, but said that he was in Sir
Philip's service, as boatman, long-shoreman, and river-bailiff, also
pork-salter (as a son of the brine), and watercress-picker to the
family. In a word, he had no work whatever to do; as you may pretty
safely conclude, when a man is compelled to go into a catalogue of his
activities. This sense of ease overweighed him no doubt, and made the
time hang heavily, after so much active service, so that Naval
Instructor Heaviside moved about, and began to gossip, and having no
business of his own, spent his mind upon other folks'. Now, as we began
to see through him, and the monotony of a fellow who is under his wife's
thumb (without the frankness to acknowledge, and enlist our sympathies
for this universal burden), both Jerry and I desired to hear something a
little more new than this. All things are good in their way, and devised
by a finely careful Providence; so that no man, whose wife is a plague
to him, can fail of one blessed reflection--to wit, that things are
ordered so for the benefit of his fellow-creatures.
Thus our noble Heaviside, not being satisfied with the state of things
at home--especially after he had appealed to Nanette's strong sense of
reason (which bore sway in the very first week of half the honeymoon
gloriously), and after he had yielded slowly all his outworks of
tobacco, coming down from plugs to pipes, and from pipes to paper
things, without stink enough to pay for rolling, and so on in the
downward course, till he would have been glad of dry sugar-canes, or the
stems of "old-man's beard,"--this poor but very worthy fellow gallantly
surrendered, and resolved to rejoice, for the rest of his time, in his
neighbours' business mainly.
Herein he found great and constant change from his own sharp troubles.
Everybody was glad to see him; and the wives who were the very hardest
upon their own husbands, thought that he showed himself much too soft in
the matter of Madame Heaviside. It was not his place, when that subject
arose, to say either "yes" or "no;" but to put aside the question, as
one that cannot be debated, out of the house, with dignity. Only every
one liked him the more, the moment they remembered how contagious his
complaint was.
Regard this question as you will (according to lack of experience), it
was much for our benefit that the Naval Instructor was henpecked. He had
accumulated things, such as no man can put together, whose wife allows
him to have his talk. If he may lay down the law, or even suggest for
consideration, he lets out half his knowledge, and forgets the other
half of it. Whereas, if all his utterance is cut short at beginning, he
has a good chance to get something well condensed inside him. Thus, if
you find any very close-texture and terseness in my writings, the credit
is due to my dear, good wife, who never let me finish a sentence. I
daresay she had trouble with me; and I must be fair to her. It takes a
very different man to understand a different woman; and these things
will often touch us too late, and too sadly. I gave her a beautiful
funeral, to my utmost farthing; and took her headstone upon credit,
almost before the sexton would warrant that the earth was settled.
That night my old friend Heaviside (who has led me, from like
experience, into a wholly different thing) showed some little of himself
again, before our whale-oil light began to splutter and bubble too
violently. Our society quite renewed his hope of getting away again;
especially when I explained to him that (according to my long
acquaintance with law), no one could hold him accountable for any
quantity of children which a Frenchwoman might happen to have. An alien,
to wit, and a foreigner, worst of all a Frenchwoman, could not expect
all her froggy confinements to hold good in England. He had committed a
foolish and unloyal act in buckling to with an alien enemy, and he
deserved to pay out for it; but I thought (and Coxswain Toms was of the
same opinion) that poor Heaviside now had suffered ever so much more
than even a Frenchwoman could expect of him. And we begged him to go
afloat again.
He shook his head, and said that he had not invited our opinions, but to
a certain extent endeavoured to be thankful for them. Yet he suggested
delicately that after being so long at sea, we might have waited for our
land-legs, before we became so positive. And if we would not mind
allowing him to see to his own concerns, he would gladly tell all he
knew about those of other people. This appeared to me to be a perfectly
fair offer; but Jerry Toms took a little offence, on account of not
knowing the neighbourhood. As superior officer of the three, I insisted
upon silence, especially as from old times I knew what villany might be
around us. And as soon as Heaviside could descry quite clearly what tack
I stood upon, he distinctly gave his pledge to be open as the day.
Therefore we all filled our pipes again, and took fresh lights for them,
and looked at one another, while this old chap told his story. And
please to mind that he had picked up a prawn-netful of little trifles,
such as I never could stoop to scoop, because he won such chances
through the way the women pitied him. Only I must in ship-shape put his
rambling mode of huddling things. If you please, we are now going back
seven years, and more than that, to the very date of my escape from
Devonshire; so as to tell you what none of us knew, until we met with
Heaviside.
CHAPTER XLVII.
MISCHIEF IN A HOUSEHOLD.
It seems that no sooner did Parson Chowne discover how cleverly I had
escaped him (after leaving my mark behind, in a way rather hard to put
up with), than he began to cast about to win the last stroke somehow.
And this, not over me alone, but over a very much greater man, who had
carried me off so shamefully--that is to say, Captain Bampfylde.
Heaviside was not there as yet, but with us in the Alcestis, so that he
could not describe exactly the manner of Chowne's appearance. Only he
heard from the people there, that never had such terror seized the house
within human memory. Not that Chowne attempted any violence with any
one; but that all observed his silence, and were afraid to ask him.
What was done that night between Sir Philip and the Parson, or even
between the Parson and Sir Philip's heir, the Squire (whose melancholy
room that Chowne had dared to force himself into), nobody seemed to be
sure, although every one craved to have better knowledge. But it was
certain that Isabel Carey went to her room very early that night, and
would have no Nanette for her hair; and in the morning was "not fit for
any one to look at," unless it were one who loved her.
Great disturbances of this sort happen (by some law of nature), often in
large households. Give me the quiet cottage, where a little row, just
now and then, comes to pass, and is fought out, and lapses (when its
heat is over) into very nice explanations, and women's heads laid on
men's shoulders, and tears that lose their way in smiles, and reproach
that melts into self-reproach. However, this was not the sort of thing
that any sane person could hope for in thirty miles' distance from
Master Stoyle Chowne, after once displeasing him. And what do you think
Parson Chowne did now, or at least I mean soon afterwards? That night he
had pressed his attentions on the beautiful young lady, so that in
simple self-defence she was forced to show her spirit. This aroused the
power of darkness always lurking in him, so that his eyes shone, and his
jaws met, and his forehead was very smooth. For he had a noble forehead;
and the worse his state of mind might be, the calmer was his upper brow.
After frightening poor Miss Carey, not with words, but want of them
(which is a far more alarming thing, when a man encounters women), he
took out his rights in the house by having an interview with Sir Philip;
and no one could make any guess about what passed between them. Only it
could not be kept from knowledge of the household, that Parson Chowne
obtained or took admission to Squire Philip also.
Of this unhappy gentleman very little has been said, because I then knew
so little. I am always the last man in the world to force myself into
private things; and finding out once that I must not ask, never to ask
is my rule of action, unless I know the people. However, it does not
look as if Master Heaviside had been gifted with any of this rare
delicacy. And thus he discovered as follows.
Squire Philip's brain was not so strong as Captain Bampfylde's. He had
been very good at figures, while things went on quietly; also able to
ride round and see the tenants, and deal with them, as the heir to a
large estate should do. The people thought him very good: and that was
about the whole of it. He never hunted, he never shot, he did not even
care for fishing. A man may do without these things, if he gets repute
in other ways (especially in witchcraft), but if he cannot show good
cause for sticking thus inside four walls, an English neighbourhood is
apt to set him down for a milksop. And tenfold thus, if he has the means
to ride the best horse, and to own the best dogs, and to wear the best
breeches that are to be bought.
Squire Philip must not be regarded, however, with prejudice. He had good
legs, and a very good seat, and his tailor said the same of him. Also,
he took no objection to the scattering of a fox, with nothing left for
his brush to sweep up, and his smell made into incense; nor was the
Squire, from any point of view, or of feeling, squeamish. Nevertheless
he did not give satisfaction as he should have done. He meant well, but
he did not outspeak it; only because to his quiet nature that appeared
so needless. And the rough, rude world undervalued him, because he did
not overvalue himself. This was the man who had withdrawn, after deep
affliction, into a life, or a death, of his own, abandoning hope too
rapidly. He had been blessed, or cursed, by nature, with a large, soft
heart; and not the flint in his brains there should be for a wholesome
balance. I know the men. They are not very common; and I should like to
see more of them.
This Squire Philip's hair was whiter than his father's now, they said;
and his way of sitting, and of walking, growing older. No wonder, when
he never took a walk, or even showed himself; rather like a woman
yielding, who has lost her only child. It is not my place to defend him.
All our ways are not alike. To my experience he seemed bound to grieve
most about his children. For a man may always renew his wife more easily
than his children. But Squire Philip's view of the matter took a
different starting-point. It was the loss of his wife that thus unwisely
overcame him.
Accordingly he had given orders for women alone to come near him,
because they reminded him of his wife, and went all around in a
flat-footed way, and gave him to see that they never would ask, yet
gladly would know, his sentiments. And living thus, he must have grown a
little weak of mind, as all men do, with too much of a female circle
round them.
What Parson Chowne said to this poor gentleman, on the night we are
speaking of, was known to none except themselves and two or three maids
who listened at the door, because their duty compelled them thus to
protect their master. And all of these told different stories, agreeing
only upon one point; but the best of them told it, as follows. Chowne
expressed his surprise and concern at the change in his ancient friend's
appearance, and said that it was enough to make him do what he often had
threatened to do. Squire Philip then asked what he meant by this; and he
answered in a deep, low voice, "Bring to justice the villain who, for
the sake of his own advantage, has left my poor Philip childless: and
with all the fair Isabel's property too! Greedy, greedy scoundrel!" They
could not see the poor Squire's face, when these words came home to him;
but they knew that he fell into a chair, and his voice so trembled that
he could not shape his answer properly.
"Then you too think, as I have feared, as I have prayed, as I would die,
rather than be forced to think. My only brother! And I have been so kind
to him for years and years. That he was strong and rough, I know--but
such a thing, such a thing as this----"
"He began to indulge his propensities for slaughter rather early--I
think I have heard people say."
"Yes, yes, that boy at school. But this is a wholly different
thing--what had my poor wife done to him?"
"Did you ever hear that Drake Bampfylde offered himself to the Princess,
while you were away from home, and a little before you did?"
"I never heard anything of the kind. And I think that she would have
told me."
"I rather think not. It would be a very delicate point for a lady.
However, it may not be true."
"Chowne, it is true, from the way you say it. You know it to be true;
and you never told me, because it prevents any further doubt. Now I see
everything, everything now. Chowne, you are one of the best of men."
"I know that I am," said the Parson, calmly; "although it does not
appear to be the public opinion. However, that will come right in the
end. Now, my poor fellow, your wisest plan will be to leave yourself
altogether to a thoroughly trustworthy man. Do you know where to find
him?"
"Only in you, in you, my friend. My father will never come to see me,
because--you know what I mean--because--I dared to think what is now
proved true."
"Now, Philip, my old friend, you know what I am. A man who detests every
kind of pretence. Even a little inclined perhaps to go too far the other
way."
"Yes, yes; I have always known it. You differ from other men; and the
great fault of your nature is bluntness."
"Philip, you have hit the mark. I could not have put it so well myself.
My fine fellow, never smother yourself while you have such abilities."
"Alas! I have no abilities, Chowne. The whole of them went, when my
good-luck went. And if any remained to me, how could I care to use them?
After what you have told me too. My life is over, my life is dead."
All the maids agreed at this point, and would scorn to contradict, that
poor Squire Philip fell down in a lump, and they must have run in with
their bottles and so on, only that the door was locked. Moreover, they
felt, and had the courage to whisper to one another, that they were a
little timid of the Parson's witchcraft. There had been a girl in
Sherwell parish who went into the Parson's service, and because she
dared to have a sweetheart on the premises, she had orders for half an
hour, before and after the moon rose, to fly up and down the river Yeo,
from Sherwell Mill to Pilton Bridge; and her own mother had seen her.
Therefore these maids only listened.
"All this shows a noble vein of softness in you, my good friend"--this
was the next thing they could hear--"it is truly good and grand. What a
happy thing to have a darling wife and two sweet children, for the
purpose of having them slain, and then in the grandeur of soul
forgiving it! This is noble, this is true love! How it sets one
thinking!" This was the last that the maids could hear; for after that
all was whispering. Only it was spread in every street, and road, and
lane around, in about twelve hours afterwards, that a warrant from
Justices Chowne and Rambone, and, with consent of Philip Bampfylde, was
placed in the hands of the officers of the peace for the apprehension of
Captain Drake, upon a charge of murder.
When Sir Philip heard of this outrage on himself--and tenfold
worse--upon their blameless lineage, he ordered his finest horse to be
saddled, and put some of his army-clothes on; not his best, for fear of
vaunting, but enough to know him by. Then he rode slowly up and down the
narrow streets of Barnstaple, and sent for the mayor and the
town-council, who tumbled out of their shops to meet him. To these he
read a copy of the warrant, obtained from the head-constable, and asked,
upon what information laid, such a thing had issued. Betwixt their
respect for Sir Philip Bampfylde and their awe of Parson Chowne, these
poor men knew not what to say, but to try to be civil to every one. Sir
Philip rode home to Narnton Court, and changed his dress, and his horse
as well, and thus set off for Chowne's house.
What happened there was known to none except the two parsons and the
General; but every one was amazed when Chowne, in company with Parson
Jack, rode into Barnstaple at full gallop, and redemanded his warrant
from the head-constable, who held it, and also caused all entries and
copies thereof to be destroyed and erased, as might be; and for this he
condescended to assign no reason. In that last point he was consistent
with his usual character; but that he should undo his own act, was so
unlike himself that no one could at first believe it. Of course people
said that it was pity for Sir Philip's age and character and position,
that made him relent so: but others, who knew the man better, perceived
that he had only acted as from the first was his intention. He knew that
the Captain could not be taken, of course, for many a month to come, and
he did not mean to have him taken or put upon his trial; for he knew
right well that there was no chance of getting him convicted. But by
issue of that warrant he had stirred up and given shape to all the
suspicions now languishing, and had enabled good honest people to lay
their heads together and shake them, and the boldest of them to whisper
that if a common man had done this deed, or been called in question of
it, the warrant would have held its ground, until he faced an impartial
jury of his fellow-countrymen. And what was far more to Chowne's
purpose, he had thus contrived to spread between Sir Philip and his
eldest son a deadly breach, unlikely ever to be bridged across at all,
and quite sure to stand wide for healing, up to the dying hour. Because
it was given to all to know that this vile warrant issued upon oath of
Squire Philip and by his demanding; and the father's pride would never
let him ask if this were so.
Now people tried to pass this over, as they do with unpleasant matters,
and to say, "let bygones go;" yet mankind will never have things
smothered thus, and put away. When a game is begun, it should be played
out: when a battle is fought, let it be fought out--these are principles
quite as strong in the bosoms of spectators, as in our own breasts the
feeling--"let us live our lives out."
But Isabel Carey's wrath would not have any reason laid near it. Her
spirit was as fine and clear almost as her lovely face was, and she
would not even dream that evil may get the upper hand of us.
She said to Sir Philip, "I will not have it. I will not stay in a house
where such things can be said of any one. I am very nearly eighteen
years old, and I will not be made a child of. You have been wonderfully
kind and good, and as dear to me as a father; but I must go away now; I
must go away."
"So you shall," said poor Sir Philip; "it is the best thing that can be
done. You have another guardian, more fortunate than I am; and, my dear,
you shall go to him."
Then she clung to his neck, and begged and prayed him not to think of it
more, only to let her stop where she was, in the home of all her
happiness. But the General was worse to move than the rock of Gibraltar,
whenever his honour was touched upon.
"My dear Isabel," he answered, "you are young, and I am old. You were
quicker than I have been, to see what harm might come to you. That is
the very thing which I am bound to save you from, my darling. I love you
as if you were my own daughter; and this sad house will be, God knows,
tenfold more sad without you. But it must be so, my child. You ought to
be too proud to cry, when I turn you out so."
Not to dwell upon things too much--especially when grievous--Narnton
Court was compelled to get on without that bright young Isabel, and the
female tailors who were always coming after her, as well as the noble
gallants who hankered, every now and then, for a glimpse of her beauty
and property. Isabel Carey went away to her other guardian, Lord
Pomeroy, at a place where a castle of powder was; and all the old people
at Narnton Court determined not to think of it; while all the young folk
sobbed and cried; and take it on the average, a guinea a-year was lost
to them.
All this had happened for seven years now: but it was that last piece of
news, no doubt, almost as much as the warrant itself, that made our
Captain carry on so when we were in the lime-kiln. Because Lord Pomeroy
had forbidden Isabel to write to her lover, while in this predicament.
He, on the other hand, getting no letters, without knowing why or
wherefore, was too proud to send any to her.
We saw the force of this at once, especially after our own
correspondence (under both mark and signature) had for years been like
the wind, going where it listeth. So we resolved to stop where we were,
upon receipt of rations; and Heaviside told us not to be uneasy about
anything. For although he durst not invite us to his own little cottage,
or rather his wife Nanette's, he stood so well in the cook's good graces
that he could provide for us; so he took us into the kitchen of Narnton
Court, where they made us very welcome as Captain Drake's retainers, and
told us all that had happened since the departure of Miss Isabel,
between Narnton Court and Nympton. In the first place, Parson Chowne had
been so satisfied with his mischief, that he spared himself time for
another wedlock, taking as Mrs Chowne No. 4 a young lady of some wealth
and beauty, but reputed such a shrew that nobody durst go near her.
Before she had been Mrs Chowne a fortnight, her manners were so much
improved that a child might contradict her; and within a month she had
lost the power of frowning, but had learned to sigh. However, she was
still alive, having a stronger constitution than any of the Parson's
former wives.
Parson Jack had also married, and his wife was a good one; but Chowne
(being out of other mischief) sowed such jealousies between them for his
own enjoyment, that poor Master Rambone had taken to drink, and his wife
was so driven that she almost did the thing she was accused of. Very
seldom now did either of these two great parsons come to visit Sir
Philip Bampfylde. Not that the latter entertained any ill-will towards
Chowne for the matter of the warrant. For that he blamed his own son,
the Squire, having received Chowne's version of it, and finding poor
Philip too proud and moody to offer any explanation.
We had not been at Narnton Court more than a night, before I saw the
brave General; for hearing that I was in the house, and happening now to
remember my name, he summoned me into his private room, to ask about the
Captain, who had started off (as I felt no doubt) for the castle of Lord
Pomeroy. I found Sir Philip looking of course much older from the seven
years past, but as upright and dignified, and trustful in the Lord as
ever. Nevertheless he must have grown weaker, though he did his best to
hide it; for at certain things I told him of his favourite son, great
tears came into his eyes, and his thin lips trembled, and he was forced
to turn away without finishing his sentences. Then he came back, as if
ashamed of his own desire to hide no shame, and he put his flowing white
hair back, and looked at me very steadily.
"Llewellyn," he said, "I trust in God. Years of trouble have taught me
that. I speak to you as a friend almost, from your long acquaintance
with my son, and knowledge of our story. My age will be three score
years and ten, if I live (please God) till my next birthday. But I tell
you, David Llewellyn, and I beg you to mark my words, I shall not die
until I have seen the whole of this mystery cleared off, the honour of
my name restored, and my innocent son replaced in the good opinion of
mankind."
This calm brave faith of a long-harassed man in the goodness of his
Maker made me look at him with admiration and with glistening eyes; for
I said to myself that with such a deep knave as Chowne at the bottom of
his troubles, his confidence even in the Lord was very likely to be
misplaced. And yet the very next day we made an extraordinary discovery,
which went no little way to prove the soundness of the old man's faith.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
A BREATHLESS DISINTERMENT.
By this time we were up to all the ins and outs of everything. A sailor
has such a knowledge of knots, and the clever art of splicing, that you
cannot play loose tricks, in trying on a yarn with him. Jerry Toms and I
were ready, long before that day was out, to tie up our minds in a
bow-line knot, and never more undo them. Jerry went even beyond my
views, as was sure to be, because he knew so much less of the matter; he
would have it that Parson Chowne had choked the two children without any
aid, and then in hatred and mockery of the noble British uniform, had
buried them deep in Braunton Burrows, wearing a cockade for a shovel
hat, purely by way of outrage.
On the other hand, while I agreed with Jerry up to a certain distance, I
knew more of Parson Chowne (whom he never had set eyes upon) than to
listen to such rubbish. And while we agreed in the main so truly, and
thoroughly praised each other's wisdom, all the people in the house made
so highly much of us, that Jerry forgot the true line of reasoning, even
before nine o'clock at night, and dissented from my conclusions so
widely, and with so much arrogance, that it did not grieve me (after he
got up) to have knocked him down like a ninepin.
However, in the morning he was all right, and being informed upon every
side that the cook did it with the rolling-pin, he acknowledged the
justice of it, having paid more attention to her than a married lady
should admit, though parted from her husband. However, she forgave him
nobly, and he did the same to her; and I, with all my knowledge of
women, made avowal in the presence of the lady-housekeeper, that my only
uneasiness was to be certain whether I ought to admire the more Jerry's
behaviour or Mrs Cook's. And the cook had no certainty in the morning,
exactly what she might have done.
This little matter made a stir far beyond its value; and having some
knowledge of British nature, I proposed to the comitatus, with deference
both to the cook and housekeeper, also a glance at the first housemaid,
that we should right all misunderstanding by dining together
comfortably, an hour before the usual time. Because, as I clearly
expressed it, yet most inoffensively, our breakfast had been ruined by a
piece, I might say, of misconstruction overnight between two admirable
persons. And Heaviside came in just then, and put the cap on all of it,
by saying that true sailors were the greatest of all sportsmen;
therefore, in honour of our arrival, he had asked, and got leave from
the gamekeepers, to give a great rabbiting that afternoon down on
Braunton Burrows; and he hoped that Mrs Cockhanterbury, being the
lady-housekeeper, would grace the scene with her presence, and let every
maid come to the utmost.
Heaviside's speech, though nothing in itself, neither displaying any
manner at all, was received with the hottest applause; and for some time
Jerry and I had to look at one another, without any woman to notice us.
We made allowance for this, of course, although we did not like it. For,
after all, who was Heaviside? But we felt so sorely the ill effects of
the absence of perfect harmony upon the preceding evening (when all our
male members of the human race took more or less the marks of knuckles),
that a sense of stiffness helped us to make no objection to anything.
And tenfold thus, when we saw how the maids had made up their minds for
frolicking.
These young things must have their way, as well as the nobler lot of us:
for they really have not so very much less of mind than higher women
have; and they feel what a woman is too well to push themselves so
forward. They know their place, and they like their place, and they
tempt us down into it.
Be that either way--and now unwomanly women waste their good brains upon
a trifle of this kind--rabbiting was to be our sport; and no sooner was
the dinner done, and ten minutes given to the maids to dress, than every
dog on the premises worth his salt was whistled for. It would have
amused you to see the maids, or I might say all the womankind, coming
out with their best things on, and their hair done up, and all
pretending never even to have seen a looking-glass.
Madame Heaviside (as she commanded all people to entitle her) was of the
whole the very grandest as regards appearance. Also in manner and
carrying on; but of this I have no time to speak. Enough that the former
Naval Instructor thought it wiser to keep his own place, and let her
flirt with the game keepers. We had dogs, and ferrets, and nets, and
spades, and guns for those who were clever enough to keep from letting
them off at all, and to frighten the women without any harm. There must
have been five-and-twenty of us in number altogether, besides at least a
score of children who ran down from Braunton village, when they saw what
we were at. There was no restraint laid upon us by any presence of the
gentry; for Sir Philip was not in the humour for sport, and the Squire
of course kept himself to his room; and as for the Captain, we had no
token of his return from South Devon yet.
Therefore we had the most wonderful fun, enjoying the wildness of
the place, and the freshness of the river air, and wilfulness of
the sandhills, also the hide-and-seek of the rushes, and the many
ups and downs and pleasure of helping the young women in and out,
also how these latter got (if they had any feet to be proud of)
into rabbit-holes on purpose to be lifted out of them, and fill the
rosettes of their shoes, and have them dusted by a naval man's very
best pocket-handkerchief--together with a difficulty of standing on one
foot while doing it, or having it done to them, and a fear of breathing
too much out--after smothered rabbit at dinner-time--which made their
figures look beautiful. Enough that I took my choice among them, for
consideration; and jotted down the names of three, who must have
some cash from their petticoats. Let nobody for a moment dream that
I started with this intention. The rest of my life was to be devoted
to the Royal Navy, if only a hot war should come again; of which we
already felt simmerings. But I could not regard all these things, after
so many years at sea, without some desire for further acquaintance with
the meaning of everything. At sea we forget a great deal of their ways.
When we come ashore--there they are again!
This is a very childish thing for a man like me to think of.
Nevertheless I do fall back from perfect propriety sometimes; never as
regards money; but when my feelings are touched by the way in which
superior young women try to catch me; or when my opinion is asked
conscientiously as to cordials. And this same afternoon the noble
clearness of the sun and air, and the sound of merry voices glancing
where all the world (unless it were soft sand) would have echoed them,
and the sense of going sporting--which is half the game of it--these and
other things, as well as the fatness of the rabbits' backs, and great
skill not to bruise them, led the whole of us, more or less, into
contemplation of Nature's beauties. We must have killed more than a
hundred and fifty coneys, in one way and another, when Heaviside came
up, almost at a run, to a hill where Jerry Toms and I were sitting down,
to look about a bit, and to let the young women admire us.
"What's the matter?" said I, not liking to be interrupted thus.
"Matter enough," he panted out; "where is Madame? The Lord keep her
away."
"Madame is gone down to the water-side," said Jerry, though I frowned at
him, "together with that smart young fellow--I forget his
name--under-keeper they call him."
"Hurrah, my hearties!" cried Heaviside; "that is luck, and no mistake.
Now lend a hand, every lubber of you. Her pet dog Snap is in the sand;
'with the devil to pay, and no pitch hot,' if we take long to get him
out again."
We knew what he meant; for several dogs of an over-zealous character had
got into premature burial in the rabbit-galleries, through the stupidity
of people who crowded upon the cone over them. Some had been dug out
alive, and some dead, according to what their luck was. And now we were
bound to dig out poor Snap, and woe to us all if we found him dead!
I took the biggest spade, as well as the entire command of all of us,
and we started at quick step for the place which Heaviside pointed out
to us. He told us, so far as his breath allowed, that his small brown
terrier Snap had found a rabbit of tender age hiding in a tuft of
rushes. Snap put all speed on at once, but young bunny had the heels of
him, and flipped up her tail at the mouth of a hole, with an air of
defiance which provoked Snap beyond all discretion. He scarcely stopped
to think before he plunged with a yelp into the hole, while another and
a wiser dog came up, and shook his ears at it. For a little while they
heard poor Snap working away in great ecstasy, scratching at narrow
turns, and yelping when he almost got hold of fur. Heaviside stood, in
his heavy way, whistling into the entrance-hole, which went down from a
steep ascent with a tuft of rushes over it. But Snap was a great deal
too gamesome a dog to come back--even if he heard him. Meanwhile a lot
of bulky fellows, who could do no more than clap their hands, got on the
brow of the burrow and stamped, and shouted to Snap to dig deeper. Then
of a sudden the whole hill slided, as a hollow fire does, and cast a
great part of itself into a deep gully on the north of it. And those
great louts who had sent it down so, found it very hard (and never
deserved) to get their clumsy legs out.
No wonder that Heaviside had made such a run to come and fetch us. For
Snap must be now many feet underground, and the Naval Instructor knew
what it would be to go home to Nanette without him. He stood above the
slip and listened, and there was no bark of Snap; while to my mind came
back strangely thoughts of the five poor sons of Sker, and of the little
child dwelling in sand, forlorn and abandoned Bardie.
"Dig away, my lads, dig away!" I cried, from force of memory, and
setting example to every one; "I have seen a thing like this before; it
only wants quick digging." We dug and dug, and drove our pit through
several decks of rabbit-berths; and still I cried "Dig on, my lads!"
although they said it was hopeless. Then suddenly some one struck
something hard, and cried "Halloa!" and frightened us. We crowded round,
and I took the lead, and made the rest keep back from me, in right of
superior discipline. And thence I heaved out a beautiful cocked-hat of a
British Captain of the Royal Navy, with Snap inside of it and not quite
dead!
Such a cheer and sound arose (the moment that Snap gave a little sniff),
from universal excitement and joy, with Heaviside at the head of it,
that I feared to be hoisted quite out of the hole, and mounted on human
shoulders. This I like well enough now and then, having many a time
deserved without altogether ensuing it; but I could not stop to think of
any private triumph now. The whole of my heart was hot inside me,
through what I was thinking of.
That poor honest fellow, who so eschewed the adornment of the outward
man, and carried out pure Christianity so as to take no heed of what he
wore, or whether he wore anything whatever; yet who really felt for
people of a weaker cultivation, to such an extreme that he hardly ever
went about by day much,--this noble man had given evidence such as no
man, who had lost respect by keeping a tailor, could doubt of. In
itself, it was perspicuous; and so was the witness, before he put up
with a sack, in order to tender it.
The whole force of this broke upon me now; while the others were showing
the hat round, or blowing into the little dog's nostrils, and with a
rabbit's tail tickling him; because in a single glance I had seen that
the hat was our Captain Bampfylde's. And then I thought of old Sir
Philip, striding sadly along these burrows, for ever seeking something.
"Dig away, dig away, my lads. Never mind the little dog. Let the maidens
see to him. Under our feet there is something now, worth a hundred
thousand dogs."
All the people stood and stared, and thought that I was off my wits; and
but for my uniform, not one would ever have stopped to harken me. It was
useless to speak to Heaviside. The whole of his mind was exhausted by
anxiety as to his wife's little dog. No sleep could he see before him
for at least three lunar months, unless little Snap came round again. So
I had to rely on myself alone, and Jerry Toms, and two gamekeepers.
All these were for giving up; because I can tell you it is no joke to
throw out spadeful after spadeful of this heavy deceitful sand, with
half of it coming back into the hole; and the place where you stand not
steadfast. And the rushes were combing darkly over us, showing their
ginger-coloured roots, and with tufts of jagged eyebrows threatening
overwhelment. For our lives we worked away--with me (as seems to be my
fate) compelled to be the master--and all the people looking down, and
ready to revile us, if we could not find a stirring thing. But we did
find a stirring thing, exactly as I will tell you.
For suddenly my spade struck something soft, something which returned no
sound, and yet was firm enough to stop, or at any rate to clog the tool.
Although it was scarcely twilight yet, and many people stood around us,
a feeling not of fear so much as horror seized upon me. Because this was
not like the case of digging out poor bodies smothered by accident or
the will of God, but was something far more dreadful; proof, to wit, of
atrocious murder done by villany of mankind upon two little helpless
babes. So that I scarce could hold the spade, when a piece of white
linen appeared through the sand, and then some tresses of long fair
hair, and then two little hands crossed on the breast, and a set of
small toes sticking upward. And close at hand lay another young body, of
about the same size, or a trifle larger.
At this terrible sight, the deepest breath of awe drew through all of
us, and several of the women upon the hill shrieked and dropped, and the
children fled, and the men feared to come any nearer. Even my three or
four fellow-diggers leaped from the hole with alacrity, leaving me all
by myself to go on with this piteous disinterment. For a moment I
trembled too much to do so, and leaned on my spade in the dusky grave,
watching the poor little things, and loath to break with sacrilegious
hands such innocent and eternal rest. "Ye pure and stainless souls," I
cried, "hovering even now above us, in your guardian angel's arms, and
appealing for judgment on your icy-hearted murderer, pardon me for thus
invading, in the sacred cause of justice, the calm sleep of your
tenements."
In this sad and solemn moment, with all the best spectators moved to
tears by my deep eloquence, as well as their own rich sympathies, it
struck me that the legs of one of the corpses stuck up rather strangely.
I had not been taken aback, at all, by the bright preservation of hands
and toes, because I knew well what the power of sand is when the air is
kept far away; but it was dead against all my experience, that even a
baby, eight years buried, should have that muscular power of leg.
Without any further hesitation, up I caught the nearest of them, being
desperate now to know what would be the end of it.
Three or four women, whose age had passed from lying in to laying out,
now ran down the hill in great zealousness; but though their profession
is perhaps the most needful of all yet invented by human nature, there
was no exercise for it now. For behold, in the evening light, and on the
brink of the grave, were laid two very handsome and large Dutch dolls,
clad in their night-gowns, and looking as fresh as when they left the
doll-maker's shop. The sand remained in their hair of course, and in
their linen, but fell away (by reason of its dryness) from their faces,
and hands, and feet, the whole of which were of fine hard wax. But the
joints of their arms and legs had stiffened, from having no children to
work them, also their noses had been spoiled at some stage of their
obsequies; and upon the whole it seemed hard to say whether their
appearance was more ludicrous or deplorable.
However, that matter was settled for them by the universal guffaw of the
fellows who had been scared of their scanty wits not more than two
minutes since, but all of whom now were as brave as lions to make
laughter at my expense. This is a thing which I never allow, but very
soon put a stop to it. And so I did now, without any hard words, but
turning their thoughts discreetly.
"Come, my lads," I said, "we have done a better turn to the gentleman
who feeds us, than if we had found two thousand babies, such as you ran
away from. Rally round me, if you have a spark of courage in your
loutish bodies. You little know how much hangs on this; while in your
clumsy witless way, you are making a stupid joke of it. Mr Heaviside, I
pray you, seek for me Mistress Cockhanterbury; while I knock down any
rogue who shows the impudence to come near me."
Every man pulled his proud stomach in, when I spoke of the
lady-housekeeper, who was a Tartar, high up on a shelf, allowing no
margin for argument. She appeared in the distance, as managing-women
always do when called upon; and she saw the good sense of what little I
said, and she laid them all under my orders.
CHAPTER XLIX.
ONE WHO HAS INTERRED HIMSELF.
Such an effect was now produced all over all around us, that every man
pressed for his neighbour's opinion, rather than offer his own, almost.
This is a state of the public mind that cannot be long put up with; for
half the pleasure goes out of life when a man is stinted of argument.
But inasmuch as I was always ready for all comers, and would not for a
moment harken any other opinion, the great bulk of conclusion ran into
the grooves I laid for it.
This was neither more nor less than that Satan's own chaplain, Chowne,
was at the helm of the whole of it. Some people said that I formed this
opinion through an unchristian recollection of his former rudeness to
me; I mean when he blew me out of bed, and tried to drown, and to burn
me alive. However, the great majority saw that my nature was not of this
sort, but rather inclined to reflect with pleasure upon any spirited
conduct. And to tell the whole truth, upon looking back at the Parson, I
admired him more than any other man I had seen, except Captain Nelson.
For it is so rare to meet with a man who knows his own mind thoroughly,
that if you find him add thereto a knowledge of his neighbours' minds,
certain you may be that here is one entitled to lead the nation. He may
be almost too great to care about putting this power in exercise, unless
any grand occasion betides him; just as Parson Chowne refused to go into
the bishopric; and just as Nelson was vexed at being the supervisor of
smugglers. Nevertheless these men are ready, when God sees fit to
appoint them.
However, to come back to these dolls, and the opening now before them.
The public (although at first disappointed not to have found two real
babies strangled in an experienced manner) perceived the expediency of
rejoicing in the absence of any such horror. Only there were many
people, of the lower order, so disgusted at this cheat, and strain upon
their glands of weeping, with no blood to show for it, that they
declared their firm resolve to have nothing more to do with it.
For my part, being some little aware of the way in which laurels are
stolen, I kept my spade well up, and the two dolls in my arms, with
their heads down, and even their feet grudged to the view of the
gossipers. In the midst of an excited mob, a calm sight of the right
thing to do may lead them almost anywhere. And I saw that the only
proper thing was to leave everything to me. They (with that sense of
fairness which exists in slow minds more than in quick ones) fell behind
me, because all knew that the entire discovery was my own. Of course
without Snap I could never have done it; nor yet without further
accidents: still there it was; and no man even of our diffident Welsh
nation, can in any fairness be expected to obscure himself.
My tendency, throughout this story, always has been to do this. But I
really did begin to feel the need of abjuring this national fault, since
men of a mixture of any sort, without even Celtic blood in them, over
and over again had tried to make a mere nobody of me.
Hence it was, and not from any desire to advance myself, that among the
inferior race, I stood upon my rights, and stuck to them. If ever there
had been any drop of desire for money left in me, after perpetual
purification (from seven years of getting only coppers, and finding most
of them forgeries), this scene was alone sufficient to make me glad of
an empty purse. For any man who has any money must long to put more to
it; as the children pile their farthings, hoping how high they may go. I
like to see both old and young full of schemes so noble; only they must
let an ancient fellow like me keep out of them.
These superior senses glowed within me, and would not be set aside by
any other rogue preceding me, when I knocked at Sir Philip's door, and
claimed first right of audience. The other fellows were all put away by
the serving-men, as behoved them; then I carried in everything, just as
it was, and presented the whole with the utmost deference.
Sir Philip had inkling of something important, and was beginning to
shake now and then; nevertheless he acknowledged my entrance with his
wonted dignity; signed to the footman to refresh the sperm-oil lamps in
the long dark room; and then to me to come and spread my burden on a
table. Nothing could more clearly show the self-command which a good man
wins by wrestling long with adversity. For rumour had reached him that I
had dug up his son's cocked-hat, and his two grandchildren, all as fresh
as the day itself. It is not for me (who have never been so deeply
stirred in the grain of the heart by heaven's visitations) to go through
and make a show of this most noble and ancient gentleman's doings, or
feelings, or language even. A man of low station, like myself, would be
loath to have this done to him, at many and many a time of his life; so
(if I could even do it in the case of a man so far above me, and so far
more deeply harrowed) instead of being proud of describing, I must only
despise myself.
Enough to say that this snowy-haired, most simple yet stately gentleman,
mixed the usual mixture of the things that weep and the things that
laugh; which are the joint-stock of our nature, from the old Adam and
the young one. What I mean--if I keep to facts--is, that he knelt on a
strip of canvas laid at the end of the table, and after some trouble to
place his elbows (because of the grit of the sandiness), bowed his white
forehead and silvery hair, and the calm majesty of his face, over those
two dollies, and over his son's very best cocked-hat, and in silence
wept thanksgiving to the great Father of everything.
"David Llewellyn," he said, as he rose and approached me as if I were
quite his equal; "allow me to take your hand, my friend. There are few
men to whom I would sooner owe this great debt of gratitude than
yourself, because you have sailed with my son so long. To you and your
patience and sagacity, under the mercy of God, I owe the proof, or at
any rate these tokens of my poor son's innocence. I--I thank the Lord
and you----"
Here the General for the moment could not say another word.
"It is true, your Worship," I answered, "that none of your own people
showed the sense or the courage to go on. But it is a Welshman's honest
pride to surpass all other races in valour and ability. I am no more
than the very humblest of my ancestors may have been."
"Then all of them must have been very fine fellows," Sir Philip replied,
with a twinkling glance. "But now I will beg of you one more favour.
Carry all these things, just as they are, to the room of my son, Mr
Philip Bampfylde."
At first I was so taken aback that I could only gaze at him. And then I
began to think, and to see the reason of his asking it.
"I have asked you to do a strange thing, good David; if it is an
unpleasant one, say so in your blunt sailor's fashion."
"Your honour," I answered, with all the delicacy of my nature upwards;
"say not another word. I will do it."
For truly to speak it, if anything had been often a grief and a care to
me, it was the bitterness of thinking of that Squire Philip deeply, and
not knowing anything. The General bowed to me with a kindness none could
take advantage of, and signalled me to collect my burden. Then he
appointed me how to go, together with a very old and long-accustomed
servitor. Himself would not come near his son, for fear of triumph over
him.
After a long bit of tapping, and whispering, and the mystery servants
always love to make of the simplest orders, I was shown with my arms
well aching (for those wooden dolls were no joke, and the Captain's hat
weighed a stone at least, with all the sand in the lining) into a dark
room softly strewn, and hung with ancient damask. The light of the
evening was shut out, and the failure of the candles made it seem a
cloudy starlight. Only in the furthest corner there was light enough to
see by; and there sate, at a very old desk, a white-haired man with his
hat on.
If I can say one thing truly (while I am striving at every line to tell
the downright honesty), this truth is that my bones and fibres now grew
cold inside of me. There was about this man, so placed, and with the
dimness round him, such an air of difference from whatever we can reason
with, and of far withdrawal from the ways of human nature, as must send
a dismal shudder through a genial soul like mine. There he sate, and
there he spent three parts of his time with his hat on, gazing at some
old grey tokens of a happy period, but (so far as could be judged)
hoping, fearing, doing, thinking, even dreaming--nothing! He would not
allow any clock or watch, or other record of time in the chamber, he
would not read or be read to, neither write or receive a letter.
There he sate, with one hand on his forehead pushing back the old dusty
hat, with his white hair straggling under it and even below the gaunt
shoulder-blades, his face set a little on one side, without any kind of
meaning in it, unless it were long weariness, and patient waiting God's
time of death.
I was told that once a-day, whenever the sun was going down over the
bar, in winter or summer, in wet or dry, this unfortunate man arose, as
if he knew the time by instinct without view of heaven, and drew the
velvet curtain back and flung the shutter open, and for a moment stood
and gazed with sorrow-worn yet tearless eyes upon the solemn hills and
woods, and down the gliding of the river, following the pensive footfall
of another receding day. Then with a deep sigh he retired from all
chance of starlight, darkening body, mind, and soul, until another
sunset.
Upon the better side of my heart, I could feel true pity for a man
overwhelmed like this by fortune; while my strength of mind was vexed to
see him carry on so. Therefore straight I marched up to him, when I
began to recover myself, having found no better way of getting through
perplexity.
As my footsteps sounded heavily in the gloomy chamber, Squire Philip
turned, and gazed at first with cold displeasure, and then with strong
amazement at me. I waited for him to begin, but he could not, whether
from surprise or loss of readiness through such long immurement.
"May it please your Honour," I said; "the General has sent me hither to
clear my Captain from the charge of burying your Honour's children."
"What--what do you mean?" was all that he could stammer forth, while his
glassy eyes were roving from my face to the dolls I bore, and round the
room, and then back again.
"Exactly as I say, your Honour. These are what the wild man took for
your two children in Braunton Burrows; and here is the Captain's
cocked-hat, which some one stole, to counterfeit him. The whole thing
was a vile artifice, a delusion, cheat, and mockery."
I need not repeat how I set this before him, but only his mode of
receiving it. At first he seemed wholly confused and stunned, pressing
his head with both hands, and looking as if he knew not where he was.
Then he began to enter slowly into what I was telling him, but without
the power to see its bearing, or judge how to take it. He examined the
dolls, and patted them, and added them to a whole school which he kept,
with two candles burning before them. And then he said, "They have long
been missing: I am pleased to recover them."
Then for a long time he sate in silence, and in his former attitude,
quite as if his mind relapsed into its old condition: and verily I began
to think that the only result of my discovery, so far as concerned poor
Squire Philip, would be a small addition to his gallery of dolls.
However, after a while he turned round, and cried with a piercing gaze
at me--
"Mariner, whoever you are, I do not believe one word of your tale. The
hat is as new and the dolls are as fresh as if they were buried
yesterday. And I take that to be the truth of it. How many years have I
been here? I know not. Bring me a looking-glass."
He pointed to a small mirror which stood among his precious relics.
Being mounted with silver and tortoise-shell, this had been (as they
told me afterwards) the favourite toy of his handsome wife. When I
handed him this, he took off his hat, and shook his white hair back, and
gazed earnestly, but without any sorrow, at his mournful image.
"Twenty years at least," he pronounced it, in a clear decided voice;
"twenty years it must have taken to have made me what I am. Would twenty
years in a dripping sandhill leave a smart gentleman's laced hat and a
poor little baby's dolls as fresh and bright as the day they were
buried? Old mariner, I am sorry that you should lend yourself to such
devices. But perhaps you thought it right."
This, although so much perverted, made me think of his father's goodness
and kind faith in every one. And I saw that here was no place now for
any sort of argument.
"Your Honour is altogether wrong," I answered, very gently: "the matter
could have been, at the utmost, scarcely more than eight years ago,
according to what they tell me. And if you can suppose that a man of my
rank and age and service would lend himself to mean devices, there are
at least thirty of your retainers, and of honest neighbours, who have
seen the whole thing and can swear to its straightforwardness. And your
Honour, of course, knows everything a thousand times better than I do;
but of sand, and how it keeps things everlasting (so long as dry), your
Honour seems, if I may say it, to have no experience."
He did not take the trouble to answer, but fell back into his old way of
sitting, as if there was nothing worth argument.
People say that every man is like his father in many ways; but the
first resemblance that I perceived between Sir Philip and his elder son
was, that the squire arose and bowed with courtesy as I departed.
Upon the whole, this undertaking proved a disappointment to me. And it
mattered a hundredfold as much that our noble General was not only
vexed, but angered more than one could hope of him. Having been treated
a little amiss, I trusted that Sir Philip would contribute to my
self-respect by also feeling angry. Still I did not desire more than
just enough to support me, or at the utmost to overlap me, and give me
the sense of acting aright by virtue of appeasing him. But on the
present occasion he showed so large and cloudy a shape of anger, wholly
withdrawn from my sight (as happens with the Peak of Teneriffe)--also he
so clearly longed to be left alone and meditate, that I had no chance to
offer him more than three opinions. All these were of genuine value at
the time of offering; and must have continued so to be, if the facts had
not belied them. Allowing for this adverse view, I will not even state
them.
Nevertheless I had the warmest invitation to abide, and be welcome to
the best that turned upon any of all the four great spits, or simmered
and lifted the pot-lids suddenly for a puff of fine smell to come out in
advance. To a man of less patriotic feeling this might thus have
commended itself. But to my mind there was nothing visible in these
hills and valleys, and their sloping towards the sea, which could make a
true Welshman doubt the priority of Welshland. For with us the sun is
better, and the air moves less in creases, and the sea has more of rapid
gaiety in breaking. The others may have higher diffs, or deeper valleys
down them, also (if they like to think so) darker woods for robbers'
nests--but our own land has a sweetness, and a gentle liking for us, and
a motherly pleasure in its bosom when we do come home to it, such as no
other land may claim--according to my experience.
These were my sentiments as I climbed, upon the ensuing Sunday, a lofty
hill near the Ilfracombe road, commanding a view of the Bristol Channel
and the Welsh coast beyond it. The day was so clear that I could follow
the stretches and curves of my native shore, from the low lands of Gower
away in the west through the sandy ridges of Aberavon and the grey rocks
of Sker and Porthcawl, as far as the eastern cliffs of Dunraven and the
fading bend of St Donat's.
The sea between us looked so calm, and softly touched with shaded lights
and gentle variations, also in unruffled beauty so fostering and
benevolent, that the white sailed coasters seemed to be babies fast
asleep on their mother's lap.
"How long is this mere river to keep me from my people at home?" I
cried; "it looks as if one could jump it almost! A child in a
cockleshell could cross it."
At these words of my own, a sudden thought, which had never occurred
before, struck me so that my brain seemed to buzz.
But presently reason came to my aid; and I said, "No, no; it is out of
the question; without even a thread of sail! I must not let these clods
laugh at me for such a wild idea. And the name in the stern of the boat
as well, downright 'Santa Lucia!' Chowne must have drowned those two
poor children, and then rehearsed this farce of a burial with the
Captain's hat on, to enable his man to swear truly to it. Tush, I am not
in my dotage yet. I can see the force of everything."
CHAPTER L.
A BRAVE MAN RUNS AWAY.
It may be the power of honesty, or it may be strength of character
coupled with a more than usual brightness of sagacity--but whatever the
cause may be, the result seems always to be the same, in spite of inborn
humility--to wit, that poor old Davy Llewellyn, wherever his ups and
downs may throw him, always has to take the lead! This necessity, as
usual, seemed to be arising now at Narnton Court--the very last place in
the world where one could have desired it. Since the present grand war
began (with the finest promise of lasting, because nobody knows any
cause for it, so that it must be a law of nature), I have not found much
occasion to dwell upon common inland incidents. These are in nature so
far below all maritime proceedings, that a sailor is tempted to forget
such trifles as people are doing ashore.
Even upon Holy Scripture (since the stirring times began for me
henceforth to chronicle), it has not been my good-luck to be able to sit
and think of anything. Nevertheless I am almost sure that it must have
been an active man of the name of Nehemiah, who drew for his rations
every day, one fat ox, and six choice sheep, and fowls of order various.
All of these might I have claimed, if my capacity had been equal to this
great occasion. Hence it may be well supposed that the kitchen was my
favourite place, whenever I deigned to enter into converse with the
servants. At first the head-cook was a little shy; but I put her soon at
her ease by describing (from my vast breadth of experience) the proper
manner to truss and roast a man--and still better a woman. The knowledge
I displayed upon a thing so far above her level, coupled with my tales
of what we sailors did in consequence, led this excellent creature so to
appreciate my character, and thirst for more of my narratives, that I
never could come amiss, even at dishing-up time.
But here I fell into a snare, as every seaman is sure to do when he
relaxes his mind too much in the charms of female society. Not
concerning the cook herself--for I gave her to understand at the outset
that I was not a marrying man, and she (possessing a husband somewhere)
resolved not to hanker after me--but by means of a fair young maid,
newly apprenticed to our head-cook, although of a loftier origin.
More than once, while telling my stories, I had obtained a little
glimpse of long bright ringlets flashing and of shy young eyes just
peeping through the hatch of the scullery-door, where the huckaback
towel hung down from the roller. And then, on detection, there used to
ensue a very quick fumbling of small red hands, as if being dried with a
desperate haste in the old jack-towel; and then a short sigh, and light
feet retiring.
When this had happened for three or four times, I gave my head-cook a
sudden wink, and sprang through the scullery-door and caught the little
red hands in the fold of the towel, and brought forth the owner, in
spite of deep blushes, and even a little scream or two. Then I placed
her in a chair behind the jack-chains, and continued my harrowing
description of the way I was larded for roasting once; by a score of
unclothed Gabooners. Also how the skewers of bar-wood thrust in to make
me of a good rich colour, when I should come to table, had not that
tenacity which our English wood is gifted with; so that I was enabled to
shake (after praying to God for assistance) my right arm out, and then
my left; and after clapping both together (to restore circulation), it
came providentially into my head to lay hold of the spit and charge
them. And then ensued such a scene as I could not even think of laying
before young and delicate females.
This young girl, whoso name was "Polly," always (at this pitch of
terror) not only shivered but shuddered so, and needed support for her
figure beyond the power of stays to communicate, also let such tears
begin to betray themselves and then retreat, and then come out and defy
the world, with a brave sob at their back almost,--that I do not
exaggerate in saying how many times I had the pleasure of roasting
myself for the sake of them.
However it always does turn out that pleasures of this sort are
transient; and I could not have been going on with Polly more than ten
days at the utmost, when I found myself in a rare scrape, to be sure.
And this was the worse, because Sir Philip so strongly desired my
presence now, perhaps in the vain hope of my convincing that obstinate
Squire of his brother's innocence, when that brother should return.
Now I need not have spoken as yet of Miss Polly if she had been but a
common servant, because in that case her peace of mind would have been
of no consequence to the household. But, as it happened, she was a
person of no small importance, by reason of the very lofty nature of her
connections: for she was no less than genuine niece to the
lady-housekeeper Mrs Cockhanterbury herself. And hence she became the
innocent cause of my departure from Narnton Court, before I had time to
begin my inquiries about the two poor little children.
This I had made up my mind to do, as soon as that strange idea had
crossed it, while I was gazing upon the sea; and my meaning was to go
through all the traces that might still be found of them, and the mode
of their disappearance. It is true that this resolve was weakened by a
tempest which arose that very same evening after the Channel had looked
so insignificant, and which might have been expected after that
appearance. Nevertheless I must have proceeded according to my
intention, if my heart had not been too much for me in the matter of
Polly Cockhanterbury.
Being just now in my sixtieth year, I could not prove such a coxcomb, of
course, as to imagine that a pretty girl of two-and-twenty could care
for me, so that no course remained open to me as an honourable man and
gallant British officer who studies his own peace of mind, except to
withdraw from this too tempting neighbourhood.
And in this resolution I was confirmed by Mrs Cockhanterbury's
reluctance to declare in a binding manner her intentions towards her
niece. Also by finding that somehow or other the whole of the
ground-floor at Narnton Court had taken it into their heads to regard me
as a man of desirable substance. It is possible that in larger moments,
when other people were boasting, I may have insisted a little too much
upon my position as landowner in the parish of Newton Nottage. Also I
may have described too warmly my patronage of the schoolmaster, and
investment of cash with a view to encourage the literature of the
parish. But I never could have said--what all of them deposed to--such a
very strong untruth, as to convey the conclusion (even to a Devonshire
state of mind), that Colonel Lougher and I divided the whole of the
parish between us!
Be that as it may, there was not any maid over thirty who failed to set
her cap at me, and my silver hair was quite restored to a youthful tinge
of gold. Hence I was horrified at the thought that Polly might even
consent to have me for the sake of my property, and upon discovering its
poetical existence, lead me a perfectly wretched life, as bad as that of
poor Heaviside.
So that, in spite of all attractions, and really serious business,
and the important duty of awaiting the Captain's return from Pomeroy
Castle, and even in spite of Jerry Toms' offer to take Polly off my
hands--as if she would say a word to him!--and all the adjurations of
poor Heaviside, who had defied his wife (all the time I was there to
back him up), and now must have to pay out for it--what did I do but
agree to doff my uniform, and work my passage on board the Majestic, a
fore-and-aft-rigged limestone boat of forty-eight tons and a half? Of
course she was bound on the usual business of stealing the good Colonel
Lougher's rocks, but I distinctly stipulated to have nothing to do with
that.
My popularity now was such, with all ranks of society, also I found
myself pledged for so many stories that same evening, that I imparted to
none except Sir Philip, and Polly, and Jerry Toms, and Heaviside, and
one or two more, the scheme of my sudden departure. My mind was on the
point of changing when I beheld sweet Polly's tears, until I felt that I
must behave, at my time of life, as her father would; because she had no
father.
When I brought the Majestic into shallow water off the Tuskar, every
inch of which I knew, it was no small comfort to me that I could not
see the shore. For years I had longed to see that shore, and dreamed of
it perpetually, while tossing ten thousand miles away; and now I was
glad to have it covered with the twilight fogginess. It suited me better
to land at night, only because my landing would not be such as I was
entitled to. And every one knows how the Navy and Army drop in public
estimation, when the wars seem to be done with. Therefore I expected
little; and I give you my word that I got still less.
It may have been over eleven o'clock, but at any rate nothing to call
very late, just at the crest of the summer-time, when I gave three good
strong raps at the door of my own cottage, knowing exactly where the
knots were. I had not met a single soul to know me, or to speak my name,
although the moon was a quarter old, and I found a broken spar, and bore
it as I used to bear my fishing-pole.
No man who has not been long a-roving can understand all the fluttering
ways of a man's heart when he comes home again. How he looks at every
one of all the old houses he knows so well; at first as if he feared it
for having another piece built on, or grander people inside of it. And
then upon finding this fear vain, he is almost ready to beg its pardon
for not having looked at it such a long time. It is not in him to say a
word to, or even about, the children coming out thus to stare at him.
All the children he used to know are gone to day's work long ago; and
the new ones would scarcely trust him so as to suck a foreign lollipop.
He knows them by their mothers; but he cannot use their names to them.
There is nothing solid dwelling for a poor man long away, except the big
trees that lay hold upon the ground in earnest, and the tomb-stones
keeping up his right to the parish churchyard. Along the wall of this I
glanced, with joy to keep outside of it; while I struck, for the third
time strongly, at not being let into mine own house.
At last a weak and faltering step sounded in my little room, and then a
voice came through the latch-hole, "Man of noise, how dare you thus? you
will wake up our young lady."
"Master Roger, let me in. Know you not your own landlord?"
The learned schoolmaster was so astonished that he could scarcely draw
back the bolt. "Is it so? Is it so indeed? I thank the Lord for sending
thee," was all he could say, while he stood there shaking both my hands
to the very utmost that his slender palms could compass.
"Friend Llewellyn," he whispered at last, "I beg thy pardon heartily,
for having been so rude to thee. But it is such a business to hush the
young lady; and if she once wakes she talks all the night long. I fear
that her mind is almost too active for a maid of her tender years."
"What young lady do you mean?" I asked; "is Bunny become a young lady
now?"
"Bunny!" he cried, with no small contempt; then perceiving how rude this
was to me, began casting about for apologies.
"Never mind that," I said; "only tell me who this wonderful young lady
is."
"Miss Andalusia, the 'Maid of Sker,' as every one now begins to call
her. There is no other young lady in the neighbourhood to my knowledge."
"Nor in the whole world for you, I should say, by the look of your eyes,
Master Roger Berkrolles. Nevertheless put your coat on, my friend, and
give your old landlord a bit to eat. I trow that the whole of my house
does not belong even to Miss Delushy. Have I not even a granddaughter?"
"To be sure, and a very fine damsel she is, ay, and a good and comely
one; though she hath no turn for erudition. What we should do without
Bunny I know not. She is a most rare young housewife."
The tears sprang into my eyes at this, as I thought of her poor
grandmother, and I gave Master Berkrolles' hand a squeeze which brought
some into his as well.
"Let me see her," was all I said; "it is not easy to break her rest,
unless she is greatly altered."
"She is not in bed; she is singing her young friend to sleep. I will
call her presently."
This was rather more, however, than even my patience could endure: so I
went quietly up the stairs, and pushing the door of the best room
gently, there I heard a pretty voice, and saw a very pretty sight. In a
little bed which seemed almost to shine with cleanliness, there lay a
young girl fast asleep, but lying in such a way that none who had ever
seen could doubt of her. That is to say, with one knee up, and the foot
of the other leg thrown back, and showing through the bed-clothes, as if
she were running a race in sleep. And yet with the back laid flat, and
sinking into the pillow deeply; while a pair of little restless arms
came out and strayed on the coverlet. Her full and lively red lips were
parted, as if she wanted to have a snore, also her little nose well up,
and the rounding of the tender cheeks untrimmed to the maiden oval. Down
upon these dark lashes hung, fluttering with the pulse of sleep; while
heavy clusters of curly hair, dishevelled upon the pillow, framed the
gentle curve of the forehead and smiling daintiness of the whole.
Near this delicate creature sate, in a bending attitude of protection, a
strong and well-made girl, with black hair, jet-black eyes, and a rosy
colour spread upon a round plump face. She was smiling as she watched
the effect of an old Welsh air which she had been singing--"Ar hyd y
nos." To look at her size and figure, you would say that her age was
fourteen at least; but I knew that she was but twelve years old, as she
happened to be our Bunny.
You may suppose that this child was amazed to see her old Granny again
once more, and hardly able to recognise him, except by his voice, and
eyes, and manner, and a sort of way about him such as only relations
have. For really, if I must tell the truth, the great roundness of the
world had taken such a strong effect upon me, that I had not been able
to manage one straight line towards Newton Nottage for something over
six years now. Perhaps I have said that the Admiralty did not encourage
our correspondence; and most of us were very well content to allow our
dear friends to think of us. So that by my pay alone could my native
parish argue whether I were alive or dead.
It would not become me to enter into the public rejoicing upon the
morrow, after my well-accustomed face was proved to be genuine at the
"Jolly." There are moments that pass our very clearest perception, and
judgment, and even our strength to go through them again. And it was too
early yet--except for a man from low latitudes--to call for
rum-and-water. The whole of this I let them know, while capable of
receiving it.
CHAPTER LI.
TRIPLE EDUCATION.
Master Roger Berkrolles had proved himself a schoolmaster of the very
driest honesty. This expression, upon afterthought, I beg to use
expressly. My own honesty is of a truly unusual and choice character;
and I have not found, say a dozen men, fit anyhow to approach it. But
there is always a sense of humour, and a view of honour, wagging in
among my principles to such an extent that they never get dry, as the
multiplication-table does. Master Berkrolles was a man of too much mind
for joking.
Therefore, upon the very first morning after my return, and even before
our breakfast-time, he poured me out such a lot of coin as I never did
hope to see, himself regarding them as no more than so many shells of
the sea to count. All these he had saved from my pay in a manner wholly
beyond my imagination, because, though I love to make money of people, I
soon let them make it of me again. And this was my instinct now; but
Roger laid his thin hand on the heap most gravely, and through his
spectacles watched me softly, so that I could not be wroth with him.
"Friend Llewellyn, I crave your pardon. All this money is lawfully
yours; neither have I, or anybody, the right to meddle with it. But I
beg you to consider what occasions may arise for some of these coins
hereafter. Also, if it should please the Lord to call me away while you
are at sea, what might become of the dear child Bunny, without this
mammon to procure her friends? Would you have her, like poor Andalusia,
dependent upon charity?"
"Hush!" I whispered; too late, however, for there stood Bardie herself,
a slim, light-footed, and graceful child, about ten years old just then,
I think. Her dress of slate-coloured stuff was the very plainest of the
plain, and made by hands more familiar with the needle than the
scissors. No ornament, or even change of colour, was she decked with,
not so much as a white crimped frill for the fringes of hair to dance
upon. No child that came to the well (so long as she possessed a mother)
ever happened to be dressed in this denying manner. But two girls
blessed with good stepmothers, having children of their own, were
indued, as was known already, with dresses cut from the self-same
remnant. Now, as she looked at Roger Berkrolles with a steadfast wonder,
not appearing for the moment to remember me at all, a deep spring of
indefinite sadness filled her dark grey eyes with tears.
"Charity!" she said at last: "if you please, sir, what is charity?"
"Charity, my dear, is kindness; the natural kindness of good people."
"Is it what begins at home, sir; as they say in the copy books?"
"Yes, my dear; but it never stops there. It is a most beautiful thing.
It does good to everybody. You heard me say, my dear child, that you are
dependent on charity. It is through no fault of your own, remember; but
by the will of God. You need not be ashamed to depend on the kindness of
good people."
Her eyes shone, for a moment, with bright gratitude towards him for
reconciling her with her pride; and then being shy at my presence
perhaps, she turned away, just as she used to do, and said to herself
very softly--"I would rather have a home though--I would rather have a
home, and a father and mother of my own, instead of beautiful charity."
Master Berkrolles told me, when she was gone, that many children of the
place had no better manners than to be always shouting after her, when
coming back from the sandhills, "Where's your father? Where's your
mother? Where's your home, Delushy?"
This, of course, was grievous to her, and should never have been done;
and I let Roger know that his business was to stop any scandal of this
kind. But he declared that really the whole of his mind was taken up,
and much of his body also, in maintaining rule and reason through the
proper hours. After school-time it was not the place of the
schoolmaster, but of the parson of the parish, or by deputy
churchwardens, or failing them the clerk, and (if he were out of the
way) the sexton, to impress a certain tone of duty on the young ones.
Especially the sexton need not even call his wife to help, if he would
but have the wit to cultivate more young thoughtfulness, by digging a
grave every other day, and trusting the Lord for orders.
It was not long before Delushy learned some memory of me, partly with
the aid of Bunny, partly through the ship I made--such as no other
man could turn out--partly through my uniform, and the rest of it by
means of goodness only can tell what. A man who is knocked about, all
over rounds, and flats, and sides of mountains, also kicked into and out
of every hole and corner, and the strong and weak places of the earth,
and upset after all the most by his fellow-creatures' doings, although
he may have started with more principle than was good for him, comes
home, in the end, to look at results far more than causes.
This was exactly mine own case. I can hardly state it more clearly. I
wanted no praise from anybody; because I felt it due to me. A fellow who
doubts about himself may value approbation; and such was the case with
me, perhaps, while misunderstood by the magistrates. But now all the
money which I had saved, under stewardship of Berkrolles, enabled all my
household to stand up and challenge calumny.
There is a depth of tender feeling in the hearts of Welshmen, such as
cannot anywhere else be discovered by a Welshman. Heartily we love to
find man or woman of our own kin (even at the utmost nip of the calipers
of pedigree) doing anything which reflects a spark of glory on us. Of
this man, or woman even, we make all the very utmost, to the extremest
point where truth assuages patriotism. The whole of our neighbourhood
took this matter from a proper point of view, and sent me such an
invitation to a public dinner, that I was obliged to show them all the
corners of the road, when the stupid fellows thought it safer to conduct
me home again.
Upon that festive occasion, also, Sandy Macraw took a great deal too
much, so entirely in honour of me that I felt the deepest goodwill
towards him before the evening was over, even going so far, it appears,
as to discharge him from all backrent for the use of my little frigate.
I certainly could not remember such an excess of generosity, upon the
following morning; until he pulled off his hat and showed me the
following document inscribed with a pencil on the lining: "Dearest and
best of friends,--After the glorious tribute paid by the generous
Scotchman to the humble but warm-hearted Cambrian, the latter would be
below contempt if he took a penny from him. Signed DAVID LLEWELLYN;
witness Rees Hopkins, chairman, his mark."
After this, and the public manner of my execution, there was nothing to
be said, except that Sandy Macraw was below contempt for turning to
inferior use the flow of our finest feelings. Therefore I went, with
some indignation, to resume possession of my poor boat, which might as
well have been Sandy's own, during the last five years and more.
However, I could not deny that the Scotchman had kept his part of the
contract well, for my boat was beautifully clean and in excellent
repair; in a word, as good as new almost. So I put Miss Delushy on board
of her, with Bunny for the lady's-maid, and finding a strong ebb under
us, I paddled away towards Sker and landed bravely at Pool Tavan.
For poor Black Evan lay now in our churchyard by the side of his live
bold sons, having beheld the white horse as plainly as any of the
Coroner's jury. The reason was clear enough to all who know anything of
medicine, to wit, his unwise and pernicious step in prostituting his
constitution to the use of water.
If any unfortunate man is harassed with such want of self-respect, and
utter distrust of Providence, as well as unpleasancy of behaviour
towards all worthy neighbours, and black ingratitude to his life, as to
make a vow for ever never to drink any good stuff again, that man must
be pitied largely; but let no one speak harshly of him; because he must
so soon be dead. And this in half the needful time, if formerly he went
on too much.
Poor Moxy now, with young Watkin only, carried on this desert farm. It
was said that no farmer, ever since the Abbots were turned out, could
contrive to get on at Sker. One after the other failed to get a return
for the money sunk into the desolate sandy soil. Black Evan's father
took the place with a quarter of a bushel heaped with golden guineas of
Queen Anne. And very bravely he began, but nothing ever came of it,
except that he hanged himself at last, and left his son to go on with
it. What chance was there now for Moxy, with no money, and one son only,
and a far better heart than head?
Nevertheless she would not hear for one moment of such a thing as giving
up Delushy. This little maid had a way of her own of winding herself
into people's hearts, given to her by the Lord Himself, to make up for
hard dealings. Moxy loved her almost as much as her own son Watkin, and
was brought with the greatest trouble to consent to lose her often, for
the sake of learning. Because there never could be at Sker the smallest
chance of growing strongly into education. And everybody felt that
Bardie was of a birth and nature such as demanded this thing highly.
However, even this public sentiment might have ended in talk alone, if
Lady Bluett had not borne in mind her solemn pledge to me. Roger
Berkrolles would have done his best, of course, to see to it; but his
authority in the parish hung for a while upon female tongues, which
forced him to be most cautious. So that I, though seven years absent, am
beyond doubt entitled to the credit of this child's scholarship. I had
seen the very beginning of it, as I must have said long ago, but what
was that compared with all that happened in my absence? Berkrolles was a
mighty scholar (knowing every book almost that ever in reason ought to
have been indited or indicted), and his calm opinion was, that "he never
had led into letters such a mind as Bardie's!"
She learned more in a week almost, than all the rising generation sucked
in for the quarter. Not a bit of milching knowledge could he gently
offer her, ere she dragged the whole of it out of his crop, like a young
pigeon feeding. And sometimes she would put such questions that he could
do nothing more than cover both his eyes up!
All such things are well enough for people who forget how much the body
does outweigh the mind, being meant, of course, to do so, getting more
food, as it does, and able to enjoy it more, by reason of less
daintiness. But for my part, I have always found it human prudence to
prevent the mind, or soul, or other parts invisible, from conspiracy to
outgo, what I can see, and feel, and manage, and be punished for not
heeding--that is to say, my body.
Now the plan arranged for Bardie was the most perfect that could be
imagined, springing from the will of Providence, and therefore far
superior to any human invention. Master Berkrolles told me that a human
being may be supposed to consist principally of three parts--the body,
which is chiefly water (this I could not bear to hear of, unless it were
salt water, which he said might be the case with me); the mind, which
may be formed of air, if it is formed of anything; and the soul, which
is strong spirit, and for that reason keeps the longest.
Accordingly this homeless maiden's time was so divided, that her three
parts were provided for, one after other, most beautifully. She made her
rounds, with her little bag, from Sker to Candleston Court, and thence
to Master Berkrolles at my cottage, and back again to Sker, when Moxy
could not do without her. She would spend, perhaps, a fortnight at
Candleston, then a fortnight in Newton village, and after that a month
at Sker, more or less, as might be, according to the weather and the
chances of conveyance.
At Candleston, of course, she got the best of bodily food as well; but
Lady Bluett made a point of attending especially to her soul, not in a
sanctimonious way, but concerning grace, and manners, and the love of
music, and the handling of a knife and fork, and all the thousand little
things depending on that part of us. And here she was made a most
perfect pet, and wore very beautiful clothes, and so on; but left them
all behind, and went as plain as a nun to Newton, as soon as the time
arrived for giving her mind its proper training.
Now when her mind was ready to burst with the piles of learning stored
in it, and she could not sleep at night without being hushed by means of
singing, Moxy would come from Sker to fetch her, and scold both the
Master and Bunny well, for the paleness of Delushy's face, and end by
begging their pardon and bearing the child away triumphantly, with
Watkin to carry the bag for her.
And then for a month there was play, and sea-air, and rocks to climb
over, and sandhills, and rabbits and wild-fowl to watch by the hour, and
bathing throughout the summer-time, and nothing but very plain food at
regular intervals of fine appetite.
So the over-active mind sank back to its due repose, and the tender
cheeks recovered, with kind Nature's nursing, all the bloom the flowers
have, because they think of nothing. Also the lightsome feet returned,
and the native grace of movement, and the enjoyment of good runs, and
laughter unrepressed but made harmonious by discipline. And then the
hair came into gloss, and the eyes to depths of brightness, and all the
mysteries of wisdom soon were tickled out of her.
This was the life she had been leading, now for some six years or more;
and being of a happy nature, she was quite contented. In the boat I did
my utmost, that day, to examine her as to all her recollections of her
early history. But she seemed to dwell upon nothing now, except the most
trifling incidents, such as a crab lifting up the cover one day when Old
Davy was boiling him, or "Dutch" being found with a lot of small
Dutches, and nobody knew where they came from. She had no recollection
of any boat, or even a Coroner's inquest; and as to papa, and mama, and
brother--she put her hand up to her beautiful forehead, to think, and
then wondered about them.
Having cleverly brought you thus to a proper acquaintance with the
present situation, I really think that you must excuse me from going
into all Moxy's transports, called forth by the sight of me.
In spite of all that, I always say in depreciation of myself (ay, and
often mean it too), nobody can have failed to gather that my countrymen
at large, and (which matters more) my countrywomen, take a most kind
view of me. And it would have been hard indeed if Moxy could not find a
tear or two. And Watkin now was a fine young fellow, turned of twenty
some time ago, straight as an arrow, and swift as a bird, but shy as a
trout in a mountain-stream. From a humble distance he admired Miss
Delushy profoundly, and was ever at her beck and call; so that of course
she liked him much, but entertained a feminine contempt for such a
fellow.
CHAPTER LII.
GREAT MARCH OF INTELLECT.
Now I come to larger actions, and the rise of great events, and the
movements of mankind, enough to make their mother earth tremble, and
take them for suicides, and even grudge her bosom for their naked
burial. Often had I longed for war, not from love of slaughter, but
because it is so good for us. It calls out the strength of a man from
his heart, into the swing of his legs and arms, and fills him with his
duty to the land that is his mother; and scatters far away small things,
and shows beyond dispute God's wisdom, when He made us male and female.
The fair sex (after long peace) always want to take the lead of us,
having rash faith in their quicker vigour of words and temper. But they
prove their goodness always, coming down to their work at once, when the
blood flows, and the bones are split into small splinters, and a man
dies bravely in their arms, through doing his duty to them.
But though war is good, no doubt (till men shall be too good for it),
there was not one man as yet in Great Britain, who would have gone of
his own accord into the grand and endless war at this time impending.
Master Roger Berkrolles told me that throughout all history (every in
and out of which he knew, while pretending otherwise) never had been
known such war, and destruction of God's men, as might now be looked
for. He said that it was no question now of nation against nation, such
as may be fought out and done with, after rapid victory; neither a piece
of mere covetousness for a small advance of dominion; nor even a contest
of dynasties, which might prove the tougher one. But that it was
universal clash; half of mankind imbittered to a deadly pitch with the
other half; and that now no peace could be, till one side was crushed
under.
These things were beyond my grasp of widest comprehension, neither could
I desire a war, begun about nothing, anyhow. If the Frenchmen insulted
our flag, or wanted back some of their islands, or kept us from
examining their customs (when imported), no true Briton could hesitate
to keep his priming ready.
But at present they were only plucking up courage to affront us, being
engrossed with their own looseness, and broad spread of idiocy. For they
even went the length of declaring all men to be equal, the whole world
common property, and the very names of the months all wrong! After this
it was natural, and one might say the only sensible thing they ever did,
to deny the existence of their Maker. For it could hardly be argued that
the Almighty ever did lay hand to such a lot of scoundrels.
Now if these rats of the bilge-hole had chosen to cock their tails in
their dirt, and devour one another, pleasure alone need have been the
feeling of the human race looking down at them. But the worst of it was
that real men, and women, far above them, took up their filthy tricks
and antics, and their little buck-jumps, and allowed their judgment so
to be taken with grimaces--even as a man who mocks a fit may fall into
it--that in every country there were "sympathisers with the great and
glorious march of intellect."
In Devonshire, I had heard none of all this, for none of the servants
ever set eyes, or desired to do so, on "public journals." They had heard
of these, but believed them to be very dangerous and wicked things; also
devoid of interest, for what was the good of knowing things which
anybody else might know?[E]
And even if they had taken trouble ever to hear of the great outbreak,
they would have replied (until it led to recruiting in their own
parish), "Thiccy be no consarn to we."
But in our enlightened neighbourhood things were very different. There
had long been down among us ever so many large-minded fellows, anxious
to advance mankind, by great jumps, towards perfection. And in this they
showed their wisdom (being all young bachelors) to strive to catch the
golden age before they got rheumatics.
However, to men whose life has been touched with the proper grey and
brown of earth, all these bright ideas seemed a baseless dance of
rainbows. Man's perfection was a thing we had not found in this world;
and being by divine wisdom weaned from human pride concerning it, we
could be well content to wait our inevitable opportunity for seeking it
in the other world. We had found this world wag slowly; sometimes
better, and sometimes worse, pretty much according to the way in which
it treated us. Neither had we yet perceived, in the generation newly
breeched, any grand advance, but rather a very poor backsliding, from
what we were at their time of life. We all like a strong fellow when we
see him; and we all like a very bright child, who leaps through our
misty sense of childhood. To either of these an average chap knocks
under, when quite sure of it. And yet, in our parish, there was but one
of the one sort, and one of the other. Bardie, of course, of the new
generation; and old Davy of the elder. It vexes me to tell the truth so.
But how can I help it, unless I spoil my story?
Ever so many people got a meeting in the chapel up, to sign a paper, and
to say that nobody could guess the mischief done by all except
themselves. They scouted the French Revolution as the direct work of the
devil; and in the very next sentence vowed it the work of the seventh
angel, to shatter the Church of England. They came with this rubbish for
me to sign; and I signed it (and some of them also) with my
well-attested toe and heel.
After such a demonstration, any man of candid mind falls back on
himself, to judge if he may have been too forcible. But I could not see
my way to any cross-road of repentance; and when I found what good I had
done, I wished that I had kicked harder. By doing so, I might have
quenched a pestilential doctrine; as every orthodox person told me, when
they heard how the fellows ran. But--as my bad luck always conquers--I
had but a pair of worn-out pumps on, and the only toe which a man can
trust (through his own defects of discipline) happened to be in hospital
now, and short of spring and flavour. Nevertheless some good was done.
For Parson Lougher not only praised me, but in his generous manner
provided a new pair of shoes for me, to kick harder, if again so
visited. And the news of these prevented them.
But even the way these fellows had to rub themselves was not enough to
stop the spreading of low opinions; for the strength of my manifestation
was impressive rather than permanent. Also all the lower lot of
Nonconformists and schismatics ran with their tongues out, like mad
dogs, all over the country raving, snapping at every good gentleman's
heels, and yelping that the seventh vial was open, and the seventh seal
broken. To argue with a gale of wind would show more sense than to try
discussion with such a set of ninnies; and when I asked them to
reconcile their admiration of atheism with their religious fervour, one
of them answered bravely that he would rather worship the Goddess of
Reason than the God of the Church of England.
However, the followers of John Wesley, and all the respectable
Methodists, scouted these ribalds as much as we did; and even Hezekiah
had the sense to find himself going too far with them, and to repair the
seventh seal, and clap it on Hepzibah's mouth. For how could he sell a
clock, if time was declared by the trumpet to be no more?
Amid this universal turmoil, uproar, and upheaving, I received a letter
from Captain Bampfylde, very short, and without a word of thanks for
what I had done for him, but saying that he was just appointed to the
Bellona, 74, carrying 6 carronades on the poop; that she was fitting now
at Chatham, and in two months' time would be at Spithead, where he was
to man her. He believed that the greater part of the fine ship's company
of the Thetis would be only too glad to sail under him, and he was
enabled to offer me the master's berth, if I saw fit. He said that he
knew my efficiency, but would not have ventured to take this step but
for what I had told him about my thorough acquirement of navigation
under the care of a learned man. After saying that if I reported myself
at Narnton Court by the end of October he would have me cared for and
sent on, he concluded with these stirring words:--
"There is a great war near at hand; our country will want every man,
young or old, who can fight a gun."
These last words fixed my resolve. I had not been very well treated,
perhaps; at any rate, my abilities had not been recognised too highly,
lest they should have to be paid for with a little handsomeness. But a
man of large mind allows for this, feeling that the world, of course,
would gladly have him at half-price. But when it came to talking of the
proper style to fight a gun, how could I give way to any small
considerations?
Fuzzy and Ike were stealing rock at this particular period in a new
ketch called the Devil (wholly in honour of Parson Chowne); and through
these worthy fellows, and Bang (now the most trustworthy of all), I sent
a letter to Narnton Court, accepting the mastership of his Majesty's
ship of the line, Bellona.
Now everybody in earnest began to call me "Captain Llewellyn"--not at my
own instigation, but in spite of all done to the contrary. The master of
a ship must be the captain, they argued, obstinately; and my well-known
modesty had the blame of all that I urged against it. But I need not say
any more about it; because the war has gone on so long, and so many
seamen have now been killed, that the nation has been stirred up to
learn almost a little about us.
While I was dwelling on all these subjects, who should appear but Miss
Delushy, newly delivered from Candleston Court, on her round of high
education? And to my amazement, who but Lieutenant Bluett delivered her?
I had not even heard that he was come home; so much does a man, when he
rises in life, fail in proper wakefulness! But now he leaped down from
the forecastle, and with a grave and most excellent courtesy, and his
bright uniform very rich and noble, and his face outdoing it, forth he
led this little lady, who was clad in simple grey. She descended quite
as if it was the proper thing to do; and then she turned and kissed the
tips of her fingers to him gracefully. And she was not yet eleven years
old! How can we be amazed at any revolutions after this?
"Bardie!" I cried, with some indignation, as if she were growing beyond
my control; and she stood on the spring of her toes exactly as she had
done when two years old, and offered her bright lips for a kiss, to
prove that she was not arrogant. None but a surly bear could refuse her;
still my feelings were deeply hurt, that other people should take
advantage of my being from home so much, to wean the affections of this
darling from her own old Davy, and perhaps to set up a claim for her.
Berkrolles knew what my rights were; and finding him such a quiet man,
I gave it to him thoroughly well, before I went to bed that night. I let
him know that his staying there depended wholly upon myself; not only as
his landlord, but as holding such a position now in Newton, and Nottage,
and miles around, that the lifting of my finger would leave him without
a scholar or a crust. Also I wished him to know that he must not, as a
wretched landsman, take any liberties with me, because I had allowed him
gratis to impart to me the vagueness of what he called "Mathematics," in
the question of navigation. Of that queer science I made out some; but
the rest went from me, through the clearness of my brain (which let
things pass through it); otherwise I would have paid him gladly, if he
had earned it. But he said (or I may myself have said, to suggest some
sense to him) that my brain was now too full of experience for
experiments. And of all the knowledge put into me by this good man
carefully, and I may say laboriously, I could not call to mind a letter,
figure, stroke, or even sign, when I led the British fleet into action,
at the battle of the Nile. Nevertheless, it may all have been there,
steadily underlying all, coming through great moments, like a quiet
perspiration.
But if I could not take much learning, here was some one else who could;
and there could be no finer sight for lovers of education than to watch
old Mr Berkrolles and his pupil entering into the very pith of
everything. I could not perceive any cause for excitement, in a dull
matter of this sort; nevertheless they seemed to manage to get stirred
up about it. For when they came to any depth of mystery for fathoming,
it was beautiful to behold the long white hair and the short brown curls
dancing together over it. That good old Roger was so clever in every
style of teaching, that he often feigned not to know a thing of the
simplest order to him; so that his pupil might work it out, and have a
bit of triumph over him. He knew that nothing puts such speed into
little folk and their steps--be they of mind or body--as to run a race
with grown-up people, whether nurse or tutor.
But in spite of all these brilliant beams of knowledge now shed over
her, our poor Bardie was held fast in an awkward cleft of conscience. I
may not have fully contrived to show that this little creature was as
quick of conscience as myself almost; although, of course, in a smaller
way, and without proper sense of proportions. But there was enough of it
left to make her sigh very heavily, lest she might have gone too far in
one way or the other. Her meaning had been, from her earliest years, to
marry, or be married. She had promised me through my grey whiskers often
(with two years to teach her her own mind), never, as long as she lived,
to accept any one but old Davy. We had settled it ever so many times,
while she sate upon my shoulder; and she smacked me every now and then,
to prove that she meant matrimony. Now, when I called to her mind all
this, she said that I was an old stupid, and she meant to do just what
she liked; though admitting that everybody wanted her. And after a
little thought she told me, crossing her legs (in the true old style),
and laying down her lashes, that her uncertainty lay between Master
Roger and Mr Bluett. She had promised them both, she did believe,
without proper time to think of it; and could she marry them both,
because the one was so young and the other so old? I laid before her
that the proper middle age of matrimony could not be attained in this
way; though in the present upside-down of the world it might come to be
thought of. And then she ran away and danced (exactly as she used to
do), and came back with her merry laugh to argue the point again with
me.
Before I set off for Narnton Court, on my way to join the Bellona,
Lieutenant Bluett engaged my boat and my services, both with oar and
net, for a day's whole pleasure off shore and on. I asked how many he
meant to take, for the craft was a very light one; but he answered, "As
many as ever he chose, for he hoped that two officers of the Royal Navy
knew better than to swamp a boat in a dead calm such as this was." My
self-respect derived such comfort from his outspoken and gallant way of
calling me a brother officer (as well as from the most delicate air of
ignorance which he displayed when I took up a two-guinea piece which
happened to have come through my roof at this moment perhaps, or at any
rate somehow to be lying in an old tobacco-box on my table), that I
declared my boat and self at his command entirely.
We had a very pleasant party, and not so many as to endanger us, if the
ladies showed good sense. Colonel Lougher and Lady Bluett, also the
lieutenant, of course, and a young lady staying at Candleston Court, and
doing her utmost to entrap the youthful sailor--her name has quite
escaped me--also Delushy, and myself. These were all, or would have been
all, if Master Rodney had not chanced, as we marched away from my
cottage, with two men carrying hampers, to espy, in the corner of the
old well, a face so sad, and eyes so black, that they pierced his happy
and genial heart.
"I'll give it to you, you sly minx," I cried, "for an impudent, brazen
trick like this. What orders did I give you, Miss? A master of a ship of
the line, and not master of his own grandchild!"
The young lieutenant laughed so that the rushes on the sandhills shook,
for he saw in a moment all the meaning of this most outrageous trick.
Bunny, forgetting her grade in life, had been crying, ever since she
awoke, at receiving no invitation to this great festivity. She had even
shown ill-will and jealousy towards Bardie, and a want of proper
submission to her inevitable rank in the world. I perceived that these
vile emotions grew entirely from the demagogic spirit of the period,
which must be taken in hand at once. Wherefore I boxed her ears with
vigour, and locked her into an empty cupboard, there to wait for our
return, with a junk of bread and a cheese-rind. However, she made her
way out, as her father had done with the prison of Dunkirk; and here she
was in spite of all manners, good faith, and discipline.
"Let her come; she deserves to come; she shall come," Master Rodney
cried; and as all the others said the same, I was forced to give in to
it; and upon the whole I was proud perhaps of our Bunny's resolution.
Neither did it turn out ill, but rather a good luck for us, because the
young lady who wooed the lieutenant proved her entire unfitness for a
maritime alliance, by wanting, before we had long been afloat, although
the sea was as smooth as a duck-pond, some one to attend upon her.
Every one knows what the Tuskar Rock is, and the caves under Southern
Down; neither am I at all of a nature to dwell upon eating and drinking.
And though all these were of lofty order, and I made a fire of
wreck-wood (just to broil some collops of a sewin, who came from the
water into it, through a revival of my old skill; and to do a few
oysters in their shells, with their gravy sputtering, to let us know
when they were done, and to call for a bit of butter), no small
considerations, or most grateful memories of flavour could have
whispered to me twice, thus to try my mouth with waterings over such a
cookery. But I have two reasons for enlarging on this happy day; and
these two would be four at once, if any one contradicted them.
My chief reason is that poor dear Bardie first obtained a pure
knowledge of her desolate state upon that occasion;--at least so far as
we can guess what works inside the little chips of skulls that we call
babyish. Everybody had spoiled her so (being taken with her lovingness,
and real newness of going on, and power to look into things, together
with such a turn for play as never can be satiated in a world like ours;
not to mention heaps of things which you must see to understand), let me
not overdo it now, in saying that this little dear had taken such good
education, through my liberal management, as to long to know a little
more about herself, if possible.
This is a very legitimate wish, and deserving of more encouragement than
most of us care to give to it; because so many of us are not the waifs
and strays, and salvage only, but the dead shipwrecks of ourselves;
content with the bottom of the great deep, only if no shallow fellows
shall come diving down for us.
Having the joy of sun and sea, and the gratitude for a most lovely
dinner, such as none could take from me, I happened to lie on my oars
and think, while all my passengers roved on the rock. They were astray
upon bladder-weed, pop-weed, dellusk, oar-weed, ribbons, frills, kelp,
wrack, or five-tails--anything you like to call them, without falling
over them. My orders were to stand off and on, till the gentry had
amused themselves. Only I must look alive; for the Tuskar rock would be
two fathoms under water, in about four hours, at a mile and a half from
the nearest land.
The sunset wanted not so much as a glance of sea to answer it, but lay
hovering quietly, and fading beneath the dark brows of the cliffs; which
do sometimes glorify, and sometimes so discourage it. The meaning of the
weather and the arrangement of the sky and sea, was not to make a show
for once, but to let the sunset gently glide into the twilight, and the
twilight take its time for melting into starlight. This I never thus
have watched except in our old island.
There was not a wave to be seen or felt, only the glassy heave of the
tide lifted my boat every now and then, or lapped among the wrinkles of
the rocks, and spread their fringes. Not a sound was in the air, and on
the water nothing, except the little tinkling softness of the drops that
feathered off from my suspended oar-blades.
Floating round a corner thus, I came upon a sight as gently sad as sky
and sea were. A little maid was leaning on a shelf of stone with her
hair dishevelled as the kelp it mingled with. Her plain brown hat was
cast aside, and her clasped hands hid her face, while her slender feet
hung down, and scarcely cared to paddle in the water that embraced them.
Now and then a quiet sob, in harmony with the evening tide, showed that
the storm of grief was over, but the calm of deep sorrow abiding.
"What is the matter, my pretty dear?" I asked, after landing, and
coaxing her. "Tell old Davy; Captain David will see the whole of it put
to rights."
"It cannot be put to yights," she answered, being even now unable to
pronounce the _r_ aright, although it was rather a lisp than any clear
sound that supplied its place; "it never can be put to yights: when the
other children had fathers and mothers, God left me outside of them; and
the young lady says that I must not aspiya ever to marry a gentleman. I
am ony fit for Watkin, or Tommy-Toms, or nobody! Old Dyo, why did I
never have a father or a mother?"
"My dear, you had plenty of both," I replied; "but they were
shipwrecked, and so were you. Only before the storm came on, you were
put into this boat somehow, nobody living can tell how, and the boat
came safe, though the ship was wrecked."
"This boat!" she cried, spreading out her hands to touch it upon either
side--for by this time I had shipped her--"was it this boat saved me?"
"Yes, you beauty of the world. Now tell me what that wicked girl had the
impudence to say to you."
This I need not here set down. Enough that it flowed from jealousy,
jealousy of the lowest order, caused by the way in which Lieutenant
Rodney played with Bardie. This of course interfered with the lady's
chances of spreading nets for him, so that soon she lost her temper,
fell upon Delushy, and upbraided her for being no more than an utterly
unknown castaway.
CHAPTER LIII.
BEATING UP FOR THE NAVY.
My other reason for setting down some short account of that evening was
to give you a little peace, and sense of gratitude to the Lord, for our
many quiet sunsets, and the tranquillity of our shores. It really seems
as if no other land was blest as ours is, with quiet orderly folk inside
it, and good rulers over it, and around it not too much of sun or moon,
or anything, unless it may be, now and then, a little bit of cloudiness.
And this love of our country seems ever to be strongest, whether at
departing for the wars with turbulent nations, or upon returning home,
as soon as we have conquered them. But now for a long time, I shall have
very little peace to dwell upon.
At Narnton Court I found no solace for my warmth of feeling. Polly had
been sent out of the way, on purpose, because I was coming; which was a
most unhandsome thing on the part of Mrs Cockhanterbury. For the very
expectation which had buoyed me up at a flattish period, and induced me
to do without three quids of cross-cut negrohead, was my simple and
humble looking forward to my Polly. I knew that I was a fool, of course;
but still I could not help it; and I had got on so well among young
women always, that I found it very hard to miss the only chance I cared
for. I feared that my age was beginning to tell; for often, since I had
been ashore, my rheumatics had come back again. Neither was that my only
grief and source of trouble at this time; but many other matters quite
as grave combined against me. Heaviside was not there to talk, and make
me hug my singleness; nor even Jerry Toms, nor the cook, who used to let
me teach her. It was not that all these had left the place for any
mischief. In an ancient household such a loss is not allowable. All
meant to come back again, when it suited their opportunities, and each
perceived that the house was sure to go to the dogs in the absence of
themselves and one another. Heaviside had found Nanette (in spite of my
best prognostics) overget her seventh occasion of producing small
Crappos, and his natural disappointment with her led to such words that
he shouldered his bundle and made off for Spithead, in company with
Jerry, who was compelled to forsake his creditors. And as for the cook,
I did hear, though unable to believe it, that she was in trouble about a
young fellow scarcely worthy to turn her jack.
In other respects I found that nothing of much importance had occurred
since I was there in the summer-time. Sir Philip continued to trust in
the Lord, and the Squire to watch the sunsets; neither had the latter
been persuaded to absolve his brother. The Captain had been at home one
or two days, inquiring into my discovery of the buried dolls. He did
not attach so much importance to this matter as his father had done, but
said that it made a mysterious question even more mysterious. And
failing, as a blunt sailor would, to make either head or tail of it, and
being disgusted with his brother for refusing to see him, he vowed to
remain in the house no longer, but set off for Pomeroy Castle again,
where he had formed a close friendship with the eldest son of the owner.
His lady-love, the fair Isabel, was not living there now, but might very
easily be met with; for on coming of age three years ago, she had taken
possession of her domain, "Carey Park," a magnificent place adjoining
the Pomeroy property. It was said that the Earl had done his best to
catch the young heiress for his son, and therefore had made a pretext of
the old charge against the Captain, for the purpose of putting a stop to
communication with him. But his son, Lord Mohun, upon finding how the
young lady's heart was settled, withdrew his suit (like a man of
honour), and all the more promptly, perhaps, because he had made up his
mind to another lady before Miss Carey came to them.
It was said that the Captain might now have persuaded the beautiful
heiress to marry him, and finish their long affection, if he could have
thoroughly made up his mind that honour would bear him out in it. For
her confidence was so perfect in him, that she left it to his own
judgment, herself perhaps longing to put an end to their wearisome
uncertainty. Sir Philip heard of it, and came down, to implore them thus
to settle themselves. And Captain Bampfylde was so hard set by the
nature of the case, that he might have been enticed away from what his
conscience told him. This was that the solemn oath which he had taken in
the church, with Isabel beside him, to purge himself of all foul charges
(ere he made another guilty, if himself were guilty), could not thus be
laid aside without a loss of honour. Sir Philip would be the last man in
the world to counsel dishonest actions; but being an old man, and
reluctant that his race should all expire, he looked upon that sacrament
as no more than a piece of sacrilege, or a hasty pledge of which the
Lord would never take advantage.
Nobody knows what might have happened with Captain Bampfylde so beset,
and longing to think that he ought to act as everybody told him: but he
begged for a night to think over it; and in the morning he received his
appointment to the Bellona. Even Sir Philip could not deny that the
hand and the will of the Almighty must herein be recognised. And there
was a chance of a brush with Spain, about the Nootka Sound, just then;
and if anything makes a sailor's fortune, it is a fight with these fine
old Dons. A Frenchman is sure to be captured, but not half so sure as a
Spaniard; and the hidalgoes do turn out good gold, with good manners
behind it. Many ships have I boarded, but with brightest alacrity always
a good fat old Spaniard.
Therefore the Captain brushed away any little weakness, and set out for
Spithead bravely, in a bachelor condition. And after trying to collect
what news there was at Narnton, and finding that I must not think of
meeting my dear Polly, I quietly drew my travelling-money, and set forth
to join him.
Only every one will reproach me, and have right to do so, if I fail to
tell the latest tidings of that Parson Chowne. People seemed to like
this man, because they never could make him out, and nearly all the
world is pleased to hear of the rest being vanquished. It seems that a
wholly new bishop arose, by reason of the other dying, and this
gentleman swore on the Bible to have things in order. When he heard of
Chowne, and his high defiance of all former bishops, he said, "Fie, fie!
this must not be; I will very soon put this to rights." To follow up
this resolution he appointed Tiverton, and the old church of St Peter,
for Chowne to bring his young people up to a noble confirmation; also
for a visitation of the clergy all around; such as they have now and
then, to stop the spread of king's evil.
His holiness the Bishop was surprised to receive this answer: "My dear
Lord,--My meet is at Calverly on the day you speak of. We always find a
fox hard by; and if he should make for Stoodleigh coverts, I may come
down the Bolham road in time to meet your Lordship. At any rate, I shall
dine at 'The Angel,' somewhere between three and five o'clock, and hope
to find you there, and have a pleasant evening with you.--Yours very
truly, R. S. CHOWNE.
"_P.S._--If you bring your two Archdeacons, we will have a rubber: but I
never go beyond guinea points."
The whole of this was written with Cumberland lead, on the back of a
paper, showing how to treat hounds in distemper; and the Bishop was
displeased about it, and declined his society; especially as he had
invitation to the good Tidcombe Rectory. And there he was treated so
hospitably by a very handsome family, that he put up his glass of a
noble wine, and saw the sun set through it, and vowed that his Magna
Charta, or Habeas Corpus, or Writ of Error--I never can remember
which--but at any rate that his royal orders should fall out of his
apron-pocket, if he failed to execute them.
In this state of mind he received a letter from Parson Chowne himself,
full of respect, and most cleverly turned, as well as describing the
Parson's grief at being unable to bring to his holiness any one fit to
lay hands upon. The standard set before them had been (before laying on
of hands) to say the Lord's Prayer backwards; and there was not one of
them up to it. This angered the Bishop to such a degree, that he ordered
out his heavy coach with the six long-tailed black horses, and the
coachman with cocked-hat and flowing wig, and four great footmen
shouldering blunderbusses; himself sate inside with his crosier and
mitre, and lawn sleeves, and all the rest of it. Now this was just the
very thing the refractory Parson expected; therefore he rode round
overnight and bade every farmer in the neighbourhood send all his hands
with pickaxes and shovels, by four o'clock the next morning: also he
gathered all his own men there, as well as the unclad folk who were
entirely at his orders. Then he sent for Parson Jack, as being the
strongest man about there, and imparted his intention to him, and placed
him over the workmen.
Early in the afternoon the Bishop's state-carriage was descried moving
up the Tiverton highroad, with a noble and imposing aspect. Before he
arrived at the cross-road leading off to Nympton Rectory, his Lordship
was surprised to see a great collection of people standing on a hill
above the road, and all saluting him with the deepest respect. "Not so
bad after all," he exclaimed; "brother Chowne has brought his men into
good order, which is the noblest use of the Church. Ah! they don't see a
bishop every day, and they know when a thing is worth looking at, for
their faces are black with astonishment. Holloa, Bob! what's that?"
"Up with the glass, your Lordship," the coachman shouted back; "or it
will be all over with you. We are in a damned slough, and no mistake."
And so they were. His Lordship had no time to slam the windows up,
before the coach lay wallowing in a bog of nighty blackness. In it
poured, and filled the coach, and nearly smothered his Lordship, who was
dragged out at last with the greatest trouble, as black as if he were
dipped in pitch. For the Parson had done a most shameful thing, and too
bad for even him to think of. He had taken up his private road, and dug
out the ground some six feet deep, and then (by means of carts and
harrows) transferred to it the contents of a quagmire, which lay handy,
and spread the surface again with road-dirt, so that it looked as sound
as a rock. Having seen with a telescope from his window the grand
success of his engineering, he sent down a groom in smart livery, to
present his compliments to the traveller who had happened to lose his
way, and fall into a moor-hole, and was there anything he could do to
mitigate that misfortune? But the Bishop sputtered out through his
chattering teeth that he hoped to hear no more of him, and that none but
a Devonshire man was fit to oversee Devonshire parsons. And this made
the fifth bishop conquered by Chowne.
To return to our noble selves--that is to say, to the better people
dealt with in our history. At the close of this year 1790, to wit, upon
Christmas-day of that excellent year of grace, no less than three of us
dined together (of course, with a good many others also) in the
Captain's cabin of the Bellona, 74-gun ship of the British Navy,
carrying also six carronades. These three were, Captain Drake Bampfylde,
of course, the Honourable Rodney Bluett, now our second lieutenant, and
the Master of the ship, whose name was something like "David Llewellyn."
This latter was now remarkable for the dignity of his appearance and the
gravity of his deportment; and although he was only ranked after the
youngest of the lieutenants, and just before chits of reefers (called by
some people "midshipmen"), and though upon any but festive occasions you
might not have spied him at the Captain's table, you could scarcely have
found any officer more satisfied with his position and more capable of
maintaining it.
We were cruising off the south coast of Ireland, under orders to search
all ships that might be likely to carry arms; but as a frigate would
have done for that service, as well as, or better than, a 74, we knew
that our true commission was to shake together and fall into discipline,
and bring other seamen into the same, if we could get any to join us.
Having a light wind and plenty of sea-room, we resolved to enjoy
ourselves that day; and a very delightful party it was, especially after
I was called on to spin a few of the many true yarns which make me such
a general favourite.
After filling our glasses and drinking the health of his Majesty, and of
the Navy at large, and especially of our Captain, we began to talk of
the state of affairs and the time at which the war might be expected to
declare itself. That it must come to a great war with France, not even a
fool could doubt, although he might desire to doubt it, ever since the
destruction of the Bastile in July 1789. And throughout all the year and
a half since that, a wild and desperate multitude had done nothing but
abolish all the safeguards of their country, and every restraint upon
the vilest rabble. Our wisest plan was to begin at once, before this
cruel monster should learn the use of its fangs and the strength of its
spring; but, as usual, Great Britain was too slow to seize the cudgel,
which might haply have saved a million lives. However, we were preparing
quietly for the inevitable conflict, as even our presence that day in
the cabin of the Bellona might indicate.
"Master, we are sadly short of hands," said Captain Bampfylde,
addressing me; "I shall have a poor report to make, unless we do
something. Do you think that we could get on without you, if I sent you
on a cruise for a week or so?"
"I think you might, sir," I answered humbly; "if it does not come on to
blow, and if you keep well away from land. I have trained Mr Sebright
with so much skill, that you may always rely upon him, except in any
difficulty."
Nobly I spoke; and the Captain's reply was not very far behind me. "If
we carried 750 men," he exclaimed, with generous candour, "we could not
hope to have more than one Master David Llewellyn; so diffident, so
truthful, so entirely free from jealousy. Gentlemen, is it not so?"
All the officers assented with a pleasant smile to me, and then to one
another, so that I hardly knew what to say, except that I could not
deserve it.
"Our tender the Sealark is to meet us in the Cove of Cork on New Year's
Day," continued Captain Bampfylde; "and after shipping all our stores,
she will be for a fortnight at my disposal. Now you know as well as I
do, that our complement for war-time is 650 men and boys, and that our
present strength is more than 200 short of that. War may be declared any
day almost, and a pretty figure we should cut against a French liner of
80 guns. Therefore, unless the Sealark should bring us a very large
draft, which I do not expect, my resolve is to man and victual her, for
a fortnight's cruise, under some one who is a good hand at recruiting.
Would you like the berth, Master Llewellyn?"
"Sir, I know not anything which I should like better."
Our Captain perceived that the junior lieutenants looked rather glum at
being so passed over, from Master Rodney downwards; and though he had
the perfect right to appoint any officer he pleased, he knew the true
wisdom of shunning offence, by giving some good reason. Therefore he
went on again:--
"There is not one of us, I daresay, who would not enjoy this little
change. But I think that Llewellyn is our man, simply for this reason.
The part to be beaten up first is the Welsh coast, from St David's Head
to Penarth. I have heard of many good seamen there, and especially at
Llanelly. I think that none of our officers can speak Welsh, except
Master David. Even you, Bluett, though coming from Wales, are not up to
the lingo."
This settled it in the best-natured manner; and all congratulated me,
and wished me good speed in getting hold of old salts, if possible, or
else fresh young ones. Not to be too long about it, somewhere about
Epiphany Day in the year 1791, I stretched away for the coast of Wales,
being in command of the Sealark, a rattling cutter of 100 tons, with two
6-pound bow-chasers, and a score of picked men under me. I have no time
now to describe emotions, even of the loftiest order, such as
patriotism, modesty, generosity, self-abasement, and many others which I
indulged in, when I cast anchor off Porthcawl, and they thought that I
meant to bombard them. I ordered a boat ashore at once, to reassure the
natives, when I had given a waft of my flag, and fired a gun to salute
it. But being now in such a position, and the parish to its utmost
corners raving on the subject, ashore I durst not trust myself; because
without rupture of ancient ties, and a low impression left behind, I
could not have got aboard sober again. And after that, could I knock
down any of my crew for being tipsy? Nevertheless, I had Bardie, and
Bunny, and Mother Jones with her children, and Master Berkrolles, and
Charles Morgan, and Betsy Matthews, and Moxy Thomas, all brought in a
boat to visit me, besides a few others who came without leave. They all
seemed to be very well and happy, and I entertained them beautifully.
That same afternoon we made a hit enough to encourage anybody. We
impressed not only my foe the tailor, but also Hezekiah! That is to say,
it was not quite what might be called impressment; because, with no war
raging yet, we could not resort to violence: but we made them both so
entirely drunk, that we were compelled, for their own sake, to weigh
anchor while having their bodies on board. I had a stern fellow of noble
mind to back me up at all hazard, and seeing what a sneak Hezekiah was,
he gave him six dozen out of hand, with my official sanction. The
Horologist to the Royal Family took his allotment worse than almost any
man I ever saw; however, for old acquaintance' sake, I would not have
him salted. In spite of this, the effect was such that it brought him
round to the English Church, and cured him of all French doctrine. And
as he gradually began to lose fat, and to dwell upon gunnery, we found
his oiliness most useful to prevent corrosion.
Having worked this coast to our utmost power, and gathered a good deal
of human stuff (some useful and some useless), pretty near threescore in
all, and put upon short rations, we thought that we might as well finish
our job by slanting across to Devonshire. Because for the most part, you
there may find more body but less mind than ours, which is the proper
state of things for the substance of our Navy. Therefore we drafted off
to Cork all our noble Welshmen, and made sail for Devonshire.
Now, before telling what we did, I really must guard against any nasty
misconstruction. Whatever had been done to me on the part of Parson
Chowne, was by this time so wholly gone out of my heart, and mind, and
everything any man can feel with, that nothing was further from my
intention than to stir at all in that matter again. I knew that in spite
of all the deference paid me now on every side (and too much for my
comfort), Chowne would turn me inside out, ten thousand times worse than
Stew could. This I like to see done, when anything wrong can be found
inside a man. But a thoroughly honest fellow should stick on his
honesty, and refuse it.
So when Providence, in a dream, laid before me the great mercy, and I
might say miracle, of impressing the naked people, and bringing them
under our good chaplain, to be trained from the error of their ways and
live, I felt a sort of delicacy as to trespassing thus upon Parson
Chowne's old freehold.
These naked folk belonged to him, and though he did not cultivate them
as another man might have done, it was not difficult to believe that he
found fine qualities in them. And to take them from under his very nose,
might seem like a narrow vexation. However, times there are when duty
overrides all delicacy; the Bellona was still short of her number by a
hundred hands or more: and with this reflection I cast away all further
hesitation.
We left the Sealark off Heddon's Mouth, a wild and desolate part of the
coast, for my object was to pounce unawares on the Parson's savage
colony. For what we were going to do was not altogether lawful just at
present, although it very soon would be. My force consisted of no less
than fifteen jolly well-seasoned tars, all thoroughly armed, all up for
a spree, and ready to do any mortal thing at a word or a signal from me.
If we could only surprise the wild men, I had no fear as to our retreat,
because the feeling of the country would be strongly in our favour, as
the abaters of a nuisance long pronounced unbearable.
For five or it may have been six leagues we marched across the moors as
straight as possible by compass, except when a quagmire or a ridge of
rugged stone prevented us. We forded several beautiful streams of the
brightest crystal water, so full of trout that I longed to have a turn
at my old calling; and we came in view of Nympton steeple just as the
sun was setting. I remembered the lie of the land quite well, ever since
that night when the fire happened; so I halted my men in a little wood,
and left them to eat their suppers, while I slung my spy-glass and
proceeded to reconnoitre the enemy. Lying flat upon the crest of a
hummocky ridge of moorland, I brought my glass to bear through the
heather first upon the great Parson's house, which stood on a hill to
the left of me, and then on the barbarous settlement. The Rectory looked
as snug and quiet as the house of the very best man could be; with a
deal more of comfort than most of these contrive to gather around them.
The dens of the tribe that objected to raiment were quite out of sight
from his windows; nor were they allowed to present themselves to Mrs
Chowne, unless she had done anything to vex him. Shaping my glass upon
these wretches, I saw that they were in high festival. Of course I could
not tell the reason, but it turned out afterwards that the Parson's
hounds were off their feed through a sudden attack of distemper, and
therefore a cartload of carrion had been taken down to the settlement.
It was lucky that I knew it not, for I doubt whether we should have
dared to invade their burrows at such a period.
However, I thought that nothing could be more suitable for our
enterprise. Of course they would all overgorge themselves, and then
their habit of drinking water, which alone would establish their
barbarism, was sure to throw them into deep untroubled sleep till
sunrise. As soon as one could strike a line from the pointers to the
Pole-star (which is a crooked one, by the by), and as soon as it was
dark enough for a man to count the Pleiads, I called my men with a long
low whistle, and advanced in double file. The savages lay as deeply
sleeping as if their consciences were perfect, whereas they could have
had none at all. We entered their principal cuddy, or shanty, or
shieling, or wigwam, or what you will (for it was none of these exactly,
but a mixture of them all), and to our surprise not one awoke, or was
civilised enough to snore. Higgledy-piggledy they lay in troughs scooped
out of the side of the hill, or made by themselves, of clay and straw
(called "cob," I believe, in Devonshire), with some rotten thatch above
them, and the sides of their den made of brushwood. Some of the elders
had sheepskins over them, but the greater part trusted to one another
for warmth, and to their hairiness.
All this we saw by a blue-light which I ordered to be kindled--for at
first it was as dark as pitch--and a stranger or a sadder sight has
rarely been seen in England. Poor creatures! they were all so cowed by
the brilliant light and the armed men standing in their filthy hovel,
that they offered no resistance, but stared at us in a piteous manner,
as if we were come to kill them. Escape was impossible, save for the
children, and most of them thought (as we found out afterwards) that
Chowne was tired of them and had ordered their destruction.
"Choose all the males from ten years to thirty," I shouted to my men,
who were almost as scared as the savages: "don't touch the females, or
I'll cut you down. Set another blue-light burning: we don't want any
cripples."
Not to be too long with it, I only found three men worth impressing; the
others were so badly built, or even actually deformed, and of appearance
so repulsive that we could not bear to think of turning them into
messmates.
"Now for the boys!" I cried; "we want boys even more then men almost;"
but I found that all the children save one had slipped through the
sailors' legs adroitly while we were dealing with the men. We could not
have caught them in the dark; and more than this, the best-sized of them
had popped, like snakes, into burrow-holes, or like a fox into his
earth.
But the one who stood his ground, and faced us, was a noble-looking boy,
in spite of dirt and nakedness, with long thick tangles of golden hair,
and a forehead like a man's almost. He looked up at me in a bold steady
manner, wholly unlike their savage stare, and it struck me that here was
the little fellow whom I had saved eight or nine years ago from the
horse of Parson Jack. But though he appeared to be twelve years old, I
could not make out what he said, except "Yes, yes;" and "me come with
oo." Such was his state of education!
I hoisted him on a strong man's back, for the long march had made me
feel my years, and perceiving no call to molest the residue, or injure
their home--such as it was--we simply handcuffed the three best fellows,
and borrowed three pig-whips of their own (made right down ingeniously)
so as to drive them to Heddon's Mouth. We durst not halt for a rest
until there were three leagues between us and Nympton Moor; then
hurrying on at the break of day, we found the Sealark at anchor; and she
sent us a boat, at our signal.
Scarcely were we on board of the boat, and pushing off with our capture,
when the clash of a horse's hoofs upon rock rang through the murmuring
of the waves. We turned and gazed with one accord, for the boat lay
broadside on to shore, through the kicking of the naked men when they
felt salt water under them, and our quitting good stroke to attend to
them. At furious speed a horseman dashed out of the craggy glen, and
leaped the pool where the brook is barred up and vanishes. Down the
shingle, and shelves of wrack, he drove his horse into the sea, until
there was no firmness under him. He almost laid hold of our boat--not
quite; for I struck with an oar at the horse, and scared him, shouting
to all of my crew to pull.
Finding himself just a little too late, Chowne gave a turn to his
horse's head, and the lather and foam of the spirited animal made a
white curdle in the calm blue sea. The horse sprang gladly up the
shingle crest--for the shore is very steep there--and he shook himself
and scattered brine; and there were three other horses behind him. On
one of these sate Parson Jack, and two huntsmen on the other twain, and
the faces of these were as red as fire with hurry and indignation.
Only Chowne's wicked face was white, and settled with calm fury; and his
style of address to us, just as if we were nothing but dogs of his
kennel.
"Ho, you scoundrels!" he shouted out, "hold oars, and let me parley
you."
At this I made a signal to my crew to slack from rowing; and I stood up
in the boat, and said, "What can we do for your Reverence?"
"Nothing for me, rogues; but much for yourselves. I will give you five
pounds for that child in the stern. I want him for knife-cleaning."
"Would your Worship think fifty too much for him? We put him at fifty,
your Worship."
"Fifty, you robbers! Well, then, fifty. Ten times his value to any one.
But I have a fancy for him."
"Would your Worship mind saying five hundred down? Look at his hair: he
is worth it." For we had washed him in the brook; and his hair in drying
was full of gold.
"Who are you?" he shouted, controlling himself, as his habit was, when
outbreak became useless. For the dignity of my demeanour, and the
nobility of my uniform, also the snowiness of my hair, combined to
defeat the unerring quickness of his rapid and yet cold eyes. And so I
replied with an elegant bow--
"Your Reverence, it so happens that my name is 'Old Davy Llewellyn.'"
CHAPTER LIV.
TAMING OF THE SAVAGES.
After a most successful cruise, we returned to our Bellona, and were
received as behoves success, with ever so many rounds of cheers. It was
true that we had sent before us, and now brought in, an awkward lot; but
it is beautiful to see how in a large ship's company, and under a good
commander, mere coaster fellows become true seamen, and even
land-lubbers learn how to walk. Captain Drake Bampfylde did me the
honour of asking my advice, as soon as his own opinion was settled; and
I said no more than "Bay of Biscay," which was his own opinion. Here the
very utmost of a noble sea awaited us, and none of our landsmen had any
heart for fat, or even for lean stuff. We let them go on for a day,
perpetually groaning, and after that we provided for each a gallon of
salt water, and gave it them through the ship's trumpet, until they
entirely ceased from noise.
These prudent measures brought them into such a wholesome state of
mind, that really a child might lead them, as by one of the prophets
mentioned, when I read my Bible. All of our new hands, I mean, except
Hezekiah, and the three wild men.
Unfortunate Master Perkins could not enter into the spirit of our
exertions for his benefit; because his mind was unsettled with knowing
the hardship both of his back and front. For his back was covered with
raw places sitting amiss to the fit of his clothes, while the forward
part of his body became too hollow to yield him comfort. But, strange to
say, his wrath was kindled not against us for these misfortunes, but
against his wife Hepzibah, because she had not predicted them. And for
the greater part of a week, the poor fellow lay in a perfect craze upon
the orlop-deck, while the ship was rolling heavily. Nothing could
persuade him but that he was the prophet Jonah in the belly of the
whale, and he took the stowage of our cables for the whale's intestines.
You could hear him even from the main deck screaming at the top of his
voice, "Wallow not, O whale! O whale! Lord, Thy servant repenteth, only
let not this whale wallow so." So that in spite of all his tricks,
hypocrisy, pride, and gluttony, I could not help taking compassion upon
him, and having a hammock rigged tenderly for him, so that his empty and
helpless body fell into a deep sleep as long as the prophet himself
could have had it. For I never could show myself at Bridgend, if through
my means Hezekiah found the sea his churchyard. On the other hand, the
three wild men took their visitation from a wholly different point of
view. They had never heard either of God or the devil, and could not
believe themselves even worth the interference of either Power. For they
did not believe that their souls were immortal (as I suppose they must
have been), nor were they even aware of possessing anything more than a
body apiece. My own idea of treatment was, that to bring them into
self-respect, we should flog the whole three very soundly, and
handsomely pickle them afterwards; nor could I see any finer method of
curing them of their hairiness. But Captain Bampfylde, who showed the
strangest interest in these savages, would on no account have them
flogged until they gave occasion. He said that their ideas of justice
might be thrown into a crooked line, if the cat-and-nine-tails were
promiscuously administered. Whereas I knew that the only way to make a
man dwell upon justice is to give him a taste of the opposite. He values
the right after this, because he thinks there is none of it left upon
earth.
So for the present these three "Jack Cannibals," as our tars entitled
them, sate apart and messed apart--and a precious mess it was of it.
They soon got over the "Marly Mary," as the Crappos call it; and we
taught them how to chew tobacco, which they did, and swallowed it. Only
their fear of the waves was such that they could not look over the side
of the ship, or even out of a porthole. After a few days we fell in with
pelting showers of hail and sleet, with a bitter gale from the
north-north-west. I saw the beauty of this occasion to show mankind
their need of clothes; therefore I roused up these three poor fellows,
and had them thrown into a salting-tub full of ice-cold water. This made
their teeth chatter bravely, and then we started them up the rigging,
with a taste of rope's end after them. They ran up the ratlines faster
than even our very best hands could follow them, because of the power
still left in their feet, through never having owned a shoemaker; but in
the main-top they pulled up, and the wind went shivering through them.
Meanwhile I was sedately mounting (as my rank required now) with a very
old pilot's coat, well worn out, hanging over my left arm.
"Here, Jack!" I cried to the biggest one; "take this, and throw it over
you, to keep your poor bones warm."
The sheaves of the blocks were white with snow (which they always seem
to be first to take), and so were the cleats and the weather side of
topmast and top-gallant-mast. When you see this, you may make up your
mind to have every rope frosted ere morning. Therefore Jack Cannibal
looked at the coat, and around it, as a monkey does.
"Put it on," I cried; "poor fellow! put it on to cover you."
He nodded and laughed, as if I were making some joke which he ought to
understand, and then he threw the warm coat round his body (now quite
blue from cold), but without any perception of sleeves, or skirts, or
anything else, except, as it were, like a bit of thatching. And after
that he helped us to civilise the rest; so that in course of time we had
them in decency far superior to the average show of Scotchmen. And in
about the same course of time, Cannibal Jack, I do assure you, became a
very good seaman, and a wonderfully honest fellow, without any lies in
him. And yet he said things better than the finest lies that could be
told, all coming out of his oddness, and his manner of taking tameness.
And if a roaring sound of laughter came to the ears of an officer (such
as never could be allowed in the discipline of war-time), the officer
always lifted lip, to have a smile accordingly, and said to himself, "I
should like to know what Cannibal Jack has said to them."
The two other naked ones, Dick and Joe--as we christened them out of a
bucket of tar, without meaning any harm to them--never could be entirely
cured of their hereditary shortcomings. We taught them at last to wear
clothes, by keeping a sharp leather strap always handy, against which
their only protection was a good watch coat, or a piece of sailcloth; so
that after a great deal of pleasantry, we set the ship tailor to work
for them. But no possible amount of strap, nor even cat-and-nine-tails
administered by our boatswain's mate (a most noble hand at wielding it),
could prevail upon them to abandon their desire for the property of
their messmates. They even had the arrogance, as their English grew more
fluent, to attempt to reason it out with us.
"Father David," said Cannibal Dick, for they had agreed that now I was
their patron, even as Chowne had been; "you take the Crappo ship, the
enemy you call it, and then you leave them all their goods, not touch
one of anything, and hand back the ship to him."
"Dick, none but a savage would talk such rubbish. We keep the ship, and
all it holds, and put the men in prison."
"There for you now, there for you! And you beat us because we take not a
great ship, but some little thing lying about in a ship, from our
enemies."
"Will you never see things aright, Dick? We are not your enemies, we are
your friends; and to steal things from us is robbery."
"You call it friends to steal us from our place, and people, and warm
dry sands, and put us on this strange great wetness, where no mushrooms
grow, and all we try to eat goes into it. And then you beat us, and
drive us up trees such as we never saw before, and force us to hide in
these dreadful things!"
Here he pointed to his breeches with a gaze of such hopeless misery,
that I felt it would be an unkind thing to press him with further
argument. However, the boy was enough to make up for a far worse lot
than these were. We soaped him most powerfully, to begin with, even up
to the skin of his eyelids, and he made no more objection than a
Christian child might have offered. And after we had scraped him dry
with the rough side of a spencer, he came out bright, I do assure you,
and was such a model figure that we said to one another that he had some
right to go naked. For his skin was now as fair and soft as the opening
out of a water-lily, while his golden curls spread out, like flowers of
the frogbit. Also his shoulders so nicely turned, and the slope of his
sides so clever, with arms and legs of such elegant mould, being thick
and thin in the proper places, and as straight as a well-grown parsnip;
then, again, his ankles clear, and feet of a character never beheld
after any shoemaking.
Our common fellows made so much of this superior little chap, that I was
compelled to interfere, and show my resolution: and this required to be
done with some small sense of how to do it; otherwise the boy might take
the turn of sour grapes with them, and be bullied even more than he had
been petted thitherto. Moreover, all the other boys in the ship were
longing to fight with him, which (as he was the smallest of all, and not
brought up in a Christian manner) would have afforded him no fair play
for his nice short nose, or his soft blue eyes. The little dear was as
brave as a lion, and ready to fight any one of them; and he used to
stand up to my elbow, suing for permission. And now he began to talk so
well, that it was very hard upon him not to be allowed to fight a bit;
according to the natural issue of all honest converse. However, I would
not be persuaded, loving his pretty face as I did; and I fear that he
had unhappy times, through the wickedness of the other boys. Having a
stronger sense of mistake than afforded me any happiness--in the thick
of my rank and comforts--I could not find any ease until everything,
looked at anyhow, and from all bearings contemplated, lay before our
Captain. He thought, enough to look wise; and then, he said that really
I was fit to see to such little things myself. He had heard of a small
boy covered over with a great deal of yellow hair; this should have been
fetched off long ago; and what was the barber kept for? Thus it always
does befall me, to be thrown back, without guidance, on my own
resources. And even Lieutenant Bluett, with whom I next went to hold
counsel, was more inclined to stretch and gape, after a heavy spell on
deck, than to bring his mind to bear upon this child's adventures.
"Send the poor little beggar in," he said, "and let me look at him, if I
can keep my eyes open. Llewellyn, you always did love savages."
"Lieutenant, you would not like me to account you in the number."
"Davy, you might fairly do it, when I come off deck, like this. Send him
in, ere I snooze, old fellow."
This I did; and when the boy entered, shyly putting one hand to his
forelocks (as I had instructed him), a beam of the newly-risen sun broke
in through a bull's eye, and made a golden frame for him. In the middle
of this he looked so innocent and so comely, and at the same time so
well bred, that Master Rodney's sleepy eyes fell open with wonder at
him. This was my doing, of course, entirely. "Soap and discipline" is my
signal to the next generation; and nothing else can counteract all the
heresies around us. Therefore this little boy's cheeks were brighter
than any rose, from towelling; and his beautiful eyes without speck of
dirt; and the top of his head as sweet and curly as a feathering
hyacinth.
When I perceive that I have had the luck to make an impression my rule
is to say nothing at all, but appear to be unaware of it. This rule is
founded on common-sense; and it took me so long to find it out, that it
ought to be worth something. Otherwise, what offence one gives! And not
only that, but consider how seldom the man who succeeds deserves it. Any
modest man, like me, upon any moderate success, is bound to examine
himself, and feel less confidence than he used to have. His success is
enough to prove, according to the ways of the world, that he never can
have deserved it.
This remembrance led me now to abstain from even patting "Harry" (as we
had named this little fellow) on his golden head at all, lest I should
manifest undue pride in a creature of my creation. For such he was,
beyond all mistake; and it would have given me pleasure to back him for
a crown against any boy in our fleet, or any three in the whole French
navy; taking age, of course, and size, into consideration.
"What a fine little fellow!" said Rodney Bluett; "why, he ought to be a
midshipman. I had no idea your savages could turn out such young ones. I
must see what I can do for him, Davy. Only I can't think of anything
now."
Perceiving that I was likely to do more harm than good by pressing the
matter just then, I took little Harry away with me, and found him quite
full of the young lieutenant's brave appearance and kindly smile. In a
word, they were pleased with one another so heartily, and so lastingly,
that it was the luckiest day, perhaps, of poor little Harry's unlucky
career, when I first commended him to the notice of the Honourable
Rodney.
For this latter was now not only a general favourite in the ship, but
also a great power; being our second luff, and twice as active as our
first was. He took the boy under his special care, and taught him all
sorts of ennobling things--how to read, and write, and spell, and clean
boots, and wait at breakfast. So that I felt many qualms sometimes,
quite apart from all narrow methods of regarding anything, and springing
from the simple fear that the child might be spoiled for his station in
life, and fail to become a good seaman.
CHAPTER LV.
UPON FOREIGN SERVICE.
At length, when all sailors' hearts were sick with vain hopes of some
enterprise, France did a truly bold thing by declaring war against Great
Britain. Those people before this had given occasion for the strongest
scandal, by taking their King and Queen in a dastardly manner, and
cutting their heads off. Indignation and hot hatred ran throughout
England and Wales, at the news; but our Government did no more than
politely request that the London agent of these cut-throats should
withdraw.
Nevertheless I cannot be wrong--as my pension comes from Government--in
saying that to my mind the British Government, at this noble crisis,
behaved in a most forbearing, prudent, Christian, generous, glorious,
and magnanimous manner. They waited for war to be proclaimed by France,
before they accepted it. And then they proved themselves as wholly
unready as they ought to be. What finer state of feeling can be shown by
any country?
It must have been either the end of February, or the early part of
March, in the year of grace 1793, when we heard of this grand and
momentous affair. And I remember the date by this, that the onions were
sprouted, and we were compelled to make shift with shallots. For calling
at Falmouth to victual a little, we sent three boats ashore, and I of
course was in command of one. And though we spread abroad and ransacked
all the Cornish gardeners' hoards, and gave them a taste of boat-hooks,
because they had no proper things, not an onion could we find, except
with a crooked thumb to it. Nor were the young ones yet fit to pull;
and this fixes the date to a week or so.
And now we found that the whole of us were to be turned over, while the
Bellona was refitting, to the 74-gun ship Defence, with orders for the
West Indies at once--as was generally believed--to protect our shipping
and commerce there.
For although the war had been so very long looked forward to, our
Government was not ready yet, but had to send squadrons right and left,
to see to our foreign interests; while Portsmouth, Chatham, and even
London, had very few ships to defend them. Our charity never begins at
home; as poor Bardie's did in her copy-book. However, it chanced to turn
out all right, because the other side was quite as much abroad as we
were.
Some of our men were inclined to grumble, at having barely a spree
ashore, when they longed for a turn at home again. But the Admiralty
settled that, by not paying their back-wages; which is the surest way of
all for keeping a fellow well up to his work. His temptation for running
is gone, because he has no cash to run with; neither do his people want
him while in that condition. This he knows well, and it makes him think;
and nine times out of ten he resolves to double what is due to him, and
really pocket it when again due, and almost be admired by his own wife.
Therefore most part of us tumbled over from the Bellona into the
Defence, after some liberty ashore--which, for a godly man like me, was
nothing more than a trial. Captain Drake Bampfylde worked harder than
even Parson Chowne's horses were said to do; and as for me----but I
will not say, for it now becomes unbecoming. Enough that the Defence
cleared outward of the No-man buoy, the very day three weeks from the
date of the Bellona standing inwards. We had the wind at E.N.E., as it
always is in spring-time.
Now it may seem out of place, and even very rude on my part; but I could
not altogether help a strong desire to know how our Captain this time
managed in the matter of the female sex. I had my own feelings towards
poor young Polly, and a hankering to let her see me (which, however,
must not now be gratified on either side), and of course a man feels,
when this is the case, that another man must be like him. However, the
rules of the service forbade me to put any questions on private affairs
to an officer thus set over me; and as for observing him, that was
below me, even if time had availed for it. Heaviside also had shown such
ill feeling and even downright ingratitude towards me, simply because my
position and rank had compelled me to teach him his distance, which he
was somehow too stupid to learn (especially since his rash elevation,
and appointment as our chief boatswain, which made it the more incumbent
upon me to preserve a firm attitude); this fellow, I say, was so utterly
wanting in that deference which the Master of a line-of-battle ship not
only has a right to expect, but is even bound to exact, that I could not
now approach him with inquiries about our Captain. And this became
tenfold more painful, as soon as I saw that he knew something.
What French sailors could have a chance with a fleet under Sir John
Jervis? I cannot tell how many islands we took, for we could not stop to
count them. We caught just the tail of the hurricane of the 12th and
13th of August, which ever will be remembered as the most terrible ever
known. None of us had the luck to see the pine bulkhead blown through
the palm-tree, or the whole of a sugar-estate set down on the other side
of the mountain; but a sailor asks credit for his stories, because he
has given it: and otherwise no tales can go on.
I need not dwell on our victories here, except for the sake of Harry
Savage, as we had dubbed the poor Nympton boy, for want of legitimate
surname. In one little skirmish ashore somewhere, I think in San
Domingo, this little fellow, by genuine courage and unusual nimbleness,
saved the life of his friend and protector, our Lieutenant Bluett. For
while the lieutenant was engaged, sword to sword, with one vile
republican, another of yet more rampant nature made at him, as it were
flankwise, and must have given him a bitter stab, if Harry had not with
a sudden jump grappled the rogue by the leg so tightly, that down he
came on his face with a curse, so far as their language enables them.
And we were so enraged, I assure you, at the duplicity of this fellow,
that we borrowed a dirk from a little middy, and gave it to Harry to
stick him with. But this our young savage refused to do, and turned
quite pale at the thought of it, so that we placed that Equality man at
the mercy of the French Royalists, who were acting with us at that
period: and these made very short work with him, as justice demanded
with a ringleader of pestilential principles.
Also, in a manner which true modesty forbids to dwell upon--because
neither of us had clothes on--I saved the life, before very long, of our
new boatswain Heaviside. This worthy fellow was swimming along in his
usual independent style, after kicking his good wife's shackles off,
when I--having taken the inside of him, as his superior
officer--discovered a shark of unusual size desirous to swallow our
boatswain. That this should never come to pass was my resolve
immediately, although I could not quite see how to be in time to stop
it. For Heaviside, with his usual conceit, and desire to show himself
off, was floating on his back, with arms laid square, and beard on
breast, and legs spread out like rolling-pins. And the shark at twenty
knots an hour split the blue water towards him.
Any man but myself would have given him over, or left all the rest to
help him, especially after his utterly republican want of deference. To
me, however, such want of sympathy was almost impossible, so that I swam
with all speed to Heaviside, where he lay floating grandly.
"Look there!" I shouted; "all up with you, Ben, unless you capitulate."
And with these words, I pointed out the fin of the shark advancing.
Royal sharks we always called them, being the largest sharks in the
world, in and around Port Royal. Heaviside had his fat legs foremost,
and the royal shark stopped to look at them.
"Will you or will you not?" I asked, while preserving with some
difficulty a proper position behind him--for even a royal shark could
have wanted nothing more after Heaviside.
"Oh, Davy, Davy, I will," he answered; "only, only save me."
The look which he gave was now enough to make me sink small questions,
especially as the poor fellow managed, being a first-rate swimmer, to
offer me almost foremost to the jaws of the shark just opening.
Therefore, as this latter creature rolled on his side to make at us,
what did I do but a thing which none except a great fisherman could have
done? To wit, I plucked from its strings the boatswain's heavy periwig
(which had often vexed me, on account of its pretension), and clapping
it on a piece of sugar-cane, which lay floating handy, down the wide
jaws of the shark I thrust it, to improve his appetite.
Faithless people may doubt my word, when solemnly I declare to them that
this great monster of the waters coughed and sneezed like a Christian.
And we found him rolling dead the next morning, with this obstruction in
his throat. Thus by much caution and presence of mind, I saved our
boatswain not only from the jaws of a shark, but from a far more fatal
error, arrogance and downright contumacy, which had made him refuse to
touch his hat to his superior officer. Now I need not have mentioned
this little affair, except that it bears upon my story, inasmuch as it
reconciled Master and boatswain, and enabled them both to work together
for the benefit of their Captain. Among poor Heaviside's many weak
qualities, one of the most conspicuous was a resolute curiosity. This
compelled him to open a great part of the breadth of his nature to the
legitimate, or otherwise, affairs of his fellow-creatures.
And being an orthodox champion of wedlock (from the moment he left his
wife and children, without any power to draw on him), he helped all the
rest of the world in this way, as a host recommends his hot pickles.
Therefore he had been chosen, by very bad taste upon somebody's part,
and an utter forgetfulness of me, to be up at our Captain's snap of a
wedding, and to say "Amen" to it. What could be worse than a huddle of
this kind, and a broad scattering afterwards? If they had only invited
me, both sense and honesty would have been there; as well as a man not
to be upset by things, however female.
That was their own concern, of course; and it misbecame me to think of
it; and I saw, upon further consideration, that my sturdy honesty might
not quite have suited them. For women are able, with the help of men, to
work themselves up to anything. You may call them the shot and men the
powder; or you may take quite another view, and regard them as the
powder, with a superior man at the touchhole. Anyhow, off they go; and
who shall ask the reason?
For from what Heaviside told me, it seems that the Captain and his fair
Isabel, before our present cruise began, had resolved that no one should
ever be able legally to sever them. But one special term of the compact
was that the outer world should have no acquaintance with things that
happened between them. In other words, that they should leave their
excellent friends and relatives all in the dark about this matter, as
well as save the poor Captain's oath, by quitting each other
immediately. It is to the utmost extent beyond my own experience to
deny, that this is the wisest of all arrangements (if there can be
anything wise) after the deed of wedlock; for what can equal severance
in the saving of disagreement? However, they had not the wisdom as yet
to look at it in this light, and the one wept and the other sighed, when
they parted at the churchyard gate; for the Defence must sail at 1 P.M.
The lady had been content to come and dwell in a very dirty village of
the name of Gosport, so that the licence might be forthcoming from
proper people when paid for. Because, of course, in her own county,
nothing could have been done without ten thousand people to talk of it.
And thus they were spliced, without hoisting flag; for ever spliced,
both in soul and in law (which takes the lead of the other one), and yet
in body severed always, till there should come fair repute.
A common man of my rank in life, and having no more than common-sense,
must often find himself all abroad with wonder about his superiors. They
seem to look at things as if everything and every person were looking
back at them again, instead of trusting to the Lord to oversee the whole
of it. If I had been of the proper age, and a lovely rich maid in love
with me, would I have stopped even twice to think what the world might
say about us? Heaviside's opinion was that the lady wished to hide
nothing whatever, but proclaim before all people where and when, and
whom she wedded, and how proud she was of him. But the Captain, in his
kind regard and tenderness for her feelings, durst not expose her to the
pain and sense of wrong which might ensue upon his name coming forward
thus, with the county thinking as it did, and himself not there to
vindicate. And of course he knew with what vigour and skill vile Parson
Chowne would set to at once to blacken his character, and to make his
bride a most unhappy one. Therefore Sir Philip Bampfylde and the ancient
Earl of Pomeroy were the only persons present of their rank and kindred;
and both of these confessed the wisdom of the Captain's arguments.
Now on the 30th of April 1794, at about the hour of sundown, our anchor
was scarcely beginning to bite in Cawsand Bay, when the barge of the old
Port-Admiral was alongside of us. We had long been foregathering what we
would do as soon as we got ashore again; but now we could only shake
heads and fear that the whole would be disappointment. And thus it
proved, and even worse for many of our company, inasmuch as our orders
were to make sail at once for St Helens and there to join the Channel
fleet under Admiral Lord Howe. Therefore we carried on again with a gale
from south-west to favour us, and on the first of May we brought up in
the midst of a large society.
CHAPTER LVI.
EXILES OF SOCIETY.
A finer sight was never seen than we had now around us; for all the
convoy was come together, as well as the British fleet empowered to
protect them. I stood in our foretop and counted 152 large sail, nearly
50 of which were men-of-war, and all the rest goodly merchantmen. A
sight like this not only strengthens a Briton's faith in Providence, but
puts him into a quiet pride concerning his King and country.
We had scarcely swung to our moorings ere we had signal from the
Admiral, "Not a man to be allowed ashore. Water and victual all night,
and be ready to weigh again at daybreak." Of course we did so, though a
hard thing upon us; and new hands desired to grumble, until Captain
Bampfylde rigged the gratings. Heaviside now was known to have such a
swing of arm, with a flick to it, never being satisfied with his mate's
administration, that never a man of patriotic sentiments encroached on
him. We all determined to sail once more, and let the French see what
our nature was (although they might hope to find it spoiled, by our
being away from home so much); especially when we heard that they had
350 sail or more of merchantmen coming home, all very rich, and fattened
up for capture. What we wanted, therefore, was to see our own good
traders free from any chance of piracy, and at the same time to stop
those French from wicked importations. If in both points we might
succeed, and give battle afterwards, our gratitude to the Lord would
almost equal our own glory. And we heard that the mob in Paris would
starve, failing of all this American fleet.
On the 2d of May the wind fetched back to its proper place at that time
of year, north-north-east, with snow-clouds always ready to endorse it;
and thus we slipped from our moorings and went quietly down Channel.
Concerning the rest, we have no cause to plead for man's indulgence.
The Lord continued to baffle us, and would not give us any help to close
quarters with the enemy. We fought three days of rolling battle, ending
on the 1st of June, after two days of fog interrupting, and not a breath
of sleep four nights. Every one says that we fought very well, having
everything so much against us, and the French fleet far superior,
carrying also a representative of the human race, large and fat and
fluent, of the name of John Bone Andrews, who wrote a noble account of
this action, although before it began his feelings led him to seek
security in a hole far below the water-line.
But one of the strangest things ever seen, and thoroughly worth
considering, was the behaviour of our two savages under heavy fire. Two,
I say, although we had three, because Cannibal Jack behaved most
steadily, and like a thorough Christian. But the two others most
strongly proved their want of civilisation and gross ignorance of war,
inasmuch as no sooner did they see the opening of bloodshed round them,
than mad they became--as mad, I assure you, as any March hares, the
brace of them. In the thick of our combat with the Towerful, up and down
the deck these fellows danced in the most conspicuous places, as if
inviting every shot, and cracking their knuckles and jabbering. I was
for lashing them to the mainmast, but Captain Bampfylde would not allow
it; he said that their spirited conduct might encourage and cheer the
rest of us. And indeed it was strange to see how the shot flew around
without striking them.
Now these poor fellows showed so much attachment and strong confidence
towards me, that when we cast anchor in Plymouth Sound (being detached
for refitment there, together with eight other ships of the line), I
took it entirely upon myself to see them safe home, and to answer for
them. Our ship had been knocked about so much, that she needed a
thorough good overhauling, and many of us had a month's leave of
absence, while carpenters, caulkers, and riggers were working. And these
three savages outwent all of us in longing to see their homes again. So
it struck me that I might both satisfy them and also gratify myself a
little, by taking them under my escort as far as their native mud-holes,
and then for a week perhaps enjoying good young Polly's society. Captain
Bampfylde not only agreed to this, but said that he should not care
twopence if he never saw two of their number again. He meant, of course,
Dick and Joe, whose habits of larceny never could be thrashed out;
whereas Cannibal Jack was now become as honest a hand as myself almost,
and a valuable fore-topman. Having pledged my word to bring this one
back safe, and the others as well (if they chose to come), I set forth
afoot for a cruise across Devon, than which, in the summer, with plenty
of money, what can be more delightful? I would gladly have taken young
Harry Savage, now a fine lad of fifteen years, so far as one might guess
it; but Jack declared that he must not come, for some reason not to be
told to me.
Now it was the flush of summer, very nearly twelve years from the time I
first began with. Sunny hedges spread their overlap of roses over us,
while the glad leaves danced in time with light and shade to foster
them. Every bank of every lane was held at home with flowers, nourished
by some flitting rill that made a tinkle for them. And through every
gate almost, whenever there was a man to look, the spread of feathered
grasses ran, like water with the wind on it.
Even a sailor may see such things, and his heart rejoice and be glad in
them, and his perilous life for a while have rest without any thought of
anything. Be that so, neither Dick nor Joe ever made glance at anything
except the hen-roosts near the road, or the haunt of a young rabbit in
the hedge, or the nesting of a partridge. I kept the poor fellows from
doing harm, by precept and example too; yet we had a roast fowl every
night, except when it was a boiled one. And finding myself in my
sixty-fourth year, what could I do but put up with it?
It must be threescore miles, I think, even according to the shortest
cut, from Plymouth to Nympton-on-the-Moors, and we wandered out of the
way, of course, especially after guinea-fowls, which are most deluding
creatures, but roast even better than their eggs boil. Also, we got into
cherry orchards of a very noble breed; so that we spent a whole day and
two nights, without any power to say farewell. And though the farmer's
wife put up both hands to us at the window, she sent out the maid to say
that we need not be frightened, if we were real sailors. After giving
this girl a kiss (to let her know what our profession was), I sent in
word that here was the Master of his Majesty's ship Defence, which had
defended the British Empire, in the late great victory. That night they
made all of us drunk, except me.
Upon these sweet little incidents I must venture to dwell no longer,
while having so much of my yarn in the slack, and none but myself to
tauten it. Enough that we came in about ten days to the genuine naked
colony, without any meaning of surprise, but now as great ambassadors.
And the least that we all expected was a true outburst of wild
welcoming. Cannibal Jack had announced his intention to convert his
relatives, while Dick and Joe only shook their heads, and seemed to
doubt the advantage of it. But we need not have thought of the matter
twice, for, strange to say, not one of the savages would for a moment
acknowledge us. All the barbarous tribe stood aloof and scowled at their
old members with utter abhorrence and contempt, as if at some vast
degeneracy. Even Jack's wife, or the woman who might in humanity have
been called so, stood moping and mowing at him afar, as if his clothes
made a sheep of him, while he with amazement regarded her as if she were
only a chimpanzee. Whereupon all of them set up a yell, and rushed with
such pelting of mud at us, that we thought ourselves lucky to make our
escape without any further mischief.
After hauling out of action in this most inglorious manner, we brought
up to refit and revictual at the nearest public-house, a lonely hut
where four roads met, and the sign hung from an ancient gibbet. Here we
were treated very kindly, and for very little money, so that I was quite
astonished after all our feeding. And I happened to say to the landlady
that I was surprised to find honesty within a league of Parson Chowne.
"Oh, sir, do you know that dreadful man?" she answered, with her apron
up; "or would you like to see him, sir?"
"Madam," said I, with that bow of mine which takes the women captive, "I
should like to see him wonderfully; only without his seeing me."
"Of course, of course. All people say that, because of the evil eye he
hath. This house doth belong to him. He be coming for the rent again at
two o'clock, and he never faileth. Every farthing will be ready now,
through your honour's generosity; and if so be you steps in here, when
you hear me give three knuckles at the door, you may see him and welcome
for nothing; only you must not speak for ever so."
The landlady showed me a little cellar, opening from our sitting-room,
and having a narrow half-boarded hatchway bearing upon her sanded
parlour, where she designed to receive the Parson. And then she was half
afraid lest I might make a noise and so betray her. But almost before I
had time to assure her of my perfect secrecy, the dash of horse's hoofs
was heard, and the sound of a man's voice shouting.
"Well done!" said I to myself; "good Parson, years have not decreased
thee."
His strong step rang on the lime-ash floor, and his silver spurs made a
jingle, and lo, there he stood in the sanded parlour, as noble a Chowne
as ever. There was not the sign of a spot of weakness or relenting about
him; on his shaven face no bloom of greyness, nor in his coal-black hair
one streak. As vigorous, springy, and strenuous seemed he, as when he
leaped on board and thrashed me, nearly twelve years agone, as I do
believe.
"Woman, where is my money?" he cried, with the old pale frown overcoming
him; "twice I have given you time. You know what I always do
thereafter."
"Yes, sir, I know what your Reverence doth. Your Reverence never calleth
law, but taketh horsewhip to the mans of us."
"Your memory is correct," he answered; "my usual course is to that
effect. I have brought my heaviest whip this time, for your husband has
shown arrogance. Can you show cause why he should not have it?"
"Yes, your Reverence, here it is. And God knows how we have scraped for
it."
With the glow of triumph which a man's face hardly ever shows, but a
woman's cannot be denied of, she spread before him all his rent upon an
ancient tray, and every piece of it was copper. Thirty-six shillings she
had to pay, and twenty-four times thirty-six was there for his Reverence
to count. The hostess looked at him, with a chuckle brewing now under
her apron strings, and ready to rise to her ample breast, and thence to
her mouth, if expedient. But she mistook her customer.
"Woman," said Chowne, in his deep low voice, which had no anger in it;
"I am tired of signing warrants."
"Warrants, your Worship! For what, if you please?"
"Warrants for thieves who are foisting sham Irish halfpennies on the
public. I see no less than seven of them in this sterling stuff of
yours. Three months at the treadmill now for yourself and your husband.
Say no more. You have tried a trick. Tiverton jail for you both
to-morrow."
And there, if you wanted either of them, you must go to find them, only
two days afterward, according to what I was told of it. No Welsh
gentleman would have dreamed of behaving to his tenants thus, for trying
a little joke with him; but Chowne had no sense of any joke, unless
himself began it.
Our three cannibals had been trembling at the sound of the Parson's
voice, believing that he would drive them back, and feeling that they
had no power to withstand his orders. But luckily we had made such a
smoke--all our savages having taken to the use of tobacco
gloriously--that when the Parson put his head in, as he must do
everywhere, he drew it back in double-quick time, for he hated the weed
as Old Nick does. And then after calling his groom as a witness to the
Irish coinage, he made him tie the whole of the rent-money in his
pocket-handkerchief, and off he set at a good round gallop to make out
the warrant. You may depend upon it that we four were very soon off as
well, and in the opposite direction, after subscribing a guinea among us
to comfort the poor woman, who was sobbing her heart out at her mistake,
and at the prospect (as seemed to me) of being confined, in more senses
than one, within the walls of a prison. For some time I found myself
much at a loss about harbouring my convoy; for though I could trust Jack
Wildman--as I now began to call him--anywhere and with anything, this
was not the case with the other two, who could never be kept from
picking up small things that took their fancy. We were shaping a course
for Narnton Court, where I intended to sling my own hammock, and Jack's
as well, if agreeable; but I durst not offer to introduce Dick and Joe,
for the cause aforesaid. Moreover, they had not yet acquired the manners
of good society, which were no little insisted upon in Sir Philip
Bampfylde's kitchen. Therefore I thought myself very clever, when a
settlement of this question suddenly occurred to me.
This was no less than to settle them both under my old ferry-boat, if
still to be found as two years back, shored up and turned into a
residence. Their rations might be sent down to them, and what happier
home could they wish for, with the finest air in the world around them,
as well as beautiful scenery? And if it should happen to leak a little
(as seems only natural), what a blessed reflection for a man of due
sentiments towards the Lord, that this water is dropping from heaven
upon him, instead of rushing up to swallow him into that outrageous sea!
Accordingly so we contrived this affair. Mr Jack Wildman was introduced,
under my skilful naval tactics, into the most accomplished circle on the
quarter-deck of our head-cook. And he looked so very gently wild, and
blushed in his clothes so beautifully, that there was not a maiden all
over the place but longed to glance, unbeknown, at him. So that it
seemed a most lucky thing that Polly was down with the small-pox, at a
place called Muddiford; wherein she had an uncle. Meanwhile Cannibals
Dick and Joe lived in the boat, as happily as if they had been born in
it, and devoted their time to the slaying and cooking of Sir Philip's
hares and rabbits. It was in vain that the gamekeepers did their best to
catch them. Dick and Joe could catch hares, as they boasted to me,
almost under the watchers' noses; so noble was the result of uniting
civilised cunning with savage ingenuity.
I can well believe that no other man, either of my rank or age, would
have ventured on the step which now I did resolve upon. This was no less
than to pay a visit to my poor little Polly, and risk all probabilities
of being disfigured by small-pox. For several times it had crossed my
mind, that although she was among relatives, they were not like a father
or mother to her, and perhaps she might be but poorly tended, and even
in need of money perhaps. For her very own aunt, our Mrs Cockhanterbury,
would not go nigh her, and almost shuddered when her name was mentioned.
Now it seemed to be only fair and honest to let Sir Philip know my
intention, so that he might (if he should see fit) forbid me to return
to his mansion, bringing the risk of infection. But the General only
shook his head, and smiled at that idea. "If it be the will of God, we
shall have it, of course," he said; "and people run into it all the more
by being over-timorous. And I have often thought it sinful to mistrust
the Lord so. However, you had better keep smoking a pipe, and not stay
more than five minutes; and perhaps you might just as well change your
clothes before you come back, and sink the others to air for a week in
the river." I was grieved to see him so entirely place his faith in
Providence, for that kind of feeling (when thus overdone) ends in what
we call "fatalism," such as the very Turks have. So that I was pleased
when he called me back, and said, "Take a swim yourself, Llewellyn. I
hear that you can swim five miles. Don't attempt that, but swim two, if
you like. Swim back to us from Barnstaple bridge, and I will have a boat
to meet you, with a wholesome wardrobe."
Thus was the whole of it arranged, and carried out most cleverly. I took
poor Polly a bunch of grapes, from one of the Narnton vineries, as well
as a number of nice little things, such as only a sailor can think of.
And truly I went not a day too soon, for I found her in that weak
condition, after the fury of the plague is past, when every bit of
strengthening stuff that can be thought of, or fancied by, the feeble
one may turn the scale, and one cheering glance or one smiling word is
as good as a beam of the morning. Then after a long walk, I made my
swim, and a change of clothes, exactly as the General had commanded me.
In a fortnight afterwards where was I? Why, under the boat, in a burning
madness, without a soul to come nigh me, except Jack Wildman and Sir
Philip. These two, with the most noble courage, visited me through my
sad attack of small-pox, as I was told thereafter, although at the time
I knew no one. And at a distance around the boat, a ring of brushwood
was kept burning, day and night, to clear the air, and warn the unwary
from entering. Everybody gave me up for a living Christian any more, and
my coffin was ordered at a handsome figure (as a death upon Narnton
premises), ay, and made also, like that of the greatest man that I ever
did meet with. Not only this, but two Nonconformist preachers found out
(as they always do) that in a weak period of my life, when dissatisfied
with my pension, I had been washed away by my poor wife into the
scuppers of Dissent. Therefore they prepared two sermons on this
judgment of the Lord, and called me a scapegoat; while goodness knows
what care they took never to lay hands on me.
CHAPTER LVII.
MANY WEAK MOMENTS.
Nothing less than steadfast faith, and an ancient British constitution,
can have enabled me to survive this highly-dappled period. It was not in
my body only, or legs, or parts I think nothing of, but in my brain that
I felt it most, when I had the sense to feel it. And having a brain
which has no right to claim exemption from proper work, because of being
under average, I happened to take a long time to recover from so many
spots striking inwards. An empty-headed man might have laughed at the
little drills into his brain-pan; but with me (as with a good bee-hive
early in October) there could not be the prick of a brad-awl but went
into honey. And so my brain was in a buzz for at least a twelvemonth
afterwards.
Therefore I now must tell what happened, rather as it is told to me,
than as myself remember it. Only you must not expect such truth, as I
always give, while competent.
After the master of the ship Defence had proved so unable to defend
himself, General Sir Philip Bampfylde, with his large and quiet mind
forbidding all intrusion, opened out a little of his goodness to Jack
Wildman. There are men of the highest station, and of noble intellect,
who do this, and cannot help it, when they meet a fellow-man with
something in him like them. There is no vanity in it, nor even desire to
conciliate; only a little touch of something understood between them.
And now being brought so together perhaps by their common kindliness,
and with the door of death wide open, as it were, before them, the
well-born and highly-nurtured baronet, and the lowly, neglected, and
ignorant savage, found (perhaps all the more clearly from contrast)
something harmonious in each other. At any rate they had a good deal of
talk by the side of the lonely river, where even the lighters kept
aloof, and hugged to the utmost the opposite shore. And the General,
finding much amusement in poor Jack's queer simplicity, and strange
remarks upon men and things, would often relax without losing any of his
accustomed dignity. So while they were speaking of death one day, Jack
looked at Sir Philip with an air of deep compassion and feeling, and
told him with tearful eyes how heartily he was grieved at one thing.
Being pressed as to what it was, he answered that it was Sir Philip's
wealth.
"Because," said he, "I am sad when I think that you must go to hell,
sir."
"I go to hell!" Sir Philip exclaimed, with a good deal of rather
unpleasant surprise; "why should I do that, Jack? I never thought that
you entertained so bad an opinion of me."
"Your Honour," said Jack, having picked up some of my correct
expressions, "it is not me; it is God Almighty. I was told afore ever I
learned to read, or ever heard of reading, how it was. And so it is in
the Bible now. Poor men go to heaven, rich men go to hell. It must be so
to be fair for both."
The General had too much sense to attempt to prove the opposite, and
would have thought no more about it, if Jack had dropped the subject.
But to do this at the proper moment requires great civilisation; while
on the other hand Jack sought comfort, needless to men of refinement.
"Your Honour must go there," he said, with a nod of his head which was
meant to settle it; "but there is one of your race, or family"--or
whatever word of that sort he employed, for he scarce could have come to
any knowledge of things hereditary--"who will go to heaven."
"Many are gone there already--too many," answered Sir Philip, devoutly;
"but tell me whom you mean, Jack. Do you mean my son the Captain?"
"Him! no, no. I know better than that. It is plain where he must go to."
"Your Captain! you disloyal fellow. Why, you ought to be lashed to the
triangles. But who is it you are thinking of?"
"I know, I know," said Jack, nodding his head; and no more could Sir
Philip get out of him. And whenever he tried to begin again, Jack
Wildman was more than a match for him, by feigning not to understand, or
by some other of the many tricks which nature supplies, for
self-defence, to the savage against the civilised. If I had been well, I
must have shelled this poor Jack's meaning out of him; whereas, on the
other hand, but for my illness he might never have spoken. So it came to
pass that he was sent, entirely at Sir Philip's cost, and with a
handsome gratuity, to rejoin our Captain in Plymouth Sound, and to carry
back Cannibals Dick and Joe, who had scoured away at great speed upon
hearing of my sudden misfortune.
Now I will tell you a very strange thing, and quite out of my
experience: even after small-pox, which enlarged and filled me with
charity, as well as what I had scarcely room for--increase of humility.
This is, that though Captain Bampfylde had some little spare time at
Plymouth, he had such command of himself that he never went near his
beloved Isabel. Nothing could have so checked a man of heartiness and
bravery, except the strongest power of honour, and a long time of
chastisement. There was a lovely young woman, and here a fine though
middle-aged man, her husband; they loved one another with heart and
soul, and they never met, but through a telescope! It may have been
right, or it may have been wrong--I should have thought it wrong,
perhaps, if the case had been my own--but they pledged their honour and
kept it. Drake Bampfylde (like his father) had a strength of trust in
Providence. But this trust has no landed security, now that the Lord
has found the world so clever, that He need not interfere with it.
The 74-gun ship Defence was known to be the fastest sailer in the
British Navy; not from her build alone, or balance, but from my careful
trim of her sails, and knowledge of how to handle her. Hours and hours I
spent aloft, among lifts, and braces, and clue-garnets, marking the draw
of every sail, and righting all useless bellying. So that I could now
have warranted her the first of our Navy to break the line, if rigged
according to my directions, and with me for her master. However (while I
lay docked like this, careened I might say, and unlikely ever to carry a
keel again), the Defence, without my knowledge even, being new-masted,
sailed to join the Channel Fleet, with Heaviside acting as her master;
and as might have been expected, fell to leeward one knot in three. And
even worse than this befell her; for in the second of those two
miserable actions, under Hotham in the year 1795, when even Nelson could
do nothing, the Defence having now another captain as well as a stupid
master, actually backed her mizzen-topsail, in the rear of the enemy,
when the signal was to fill and stand on. However, as even that famous
ship the Agamemnon did nothing that day, through getting no opportunity,
we must forgive poor Heaviside, especially as he was not captain. But
the one who ground his teeth the hardest, and could forgive nobody, was
the Honourable Rodney Bluett, now first lieutenant of the Defence. By
this time every one must desire to know why Captain Bampfylde was not
there, as he might have been, and might have made himself famous, but
for his usual ill-fortune. This had carried him to the East Indies,
before the Defence had finished refitting; and there, with none of his
old hands near him, he commanded a line-of-battle ship, under Commodore
Rainier; and after some hard work, and very fine fighting, drove the
brave Dutchmen out of the castle of Trincomalee, in August 1795, which
we came to hear of afterwards.
Thus it was that everybody seemed to be scattered everywhere. None of us
happened to hold together, except those three poor savages; and they, by
a sort of instinct, managed to get over accidents. For they stuck, with
that fidelity which is lost by education, to Rodney Bluett, as soon as
ever poor Father Davy failed them. But this is a melancholy subject, and
must soon be done with.
Let me, then, not dwell upon this visitation of the Lord for a moment
longer than the claims of nation and of kin combine to make it needful.
Nor did it seem to matter much for a long time what became of me. The
very first thing I remember, after months of wandering, has something to
do with the hush of waves, and the soft breath of heaven spread over me.
Also kind young voices seemed to be murmuring around me, with a dear
regard and love, and sense of pretty watchfulness; and the sound of my
native tongue as soft as the wool of a nest to my bosom.
Because I was lying in a hammock, slung, by Colonel Lougher's orders,
betwixt the very same mooring-posts (at about half-tide in Newton Bay)
which truly enabled the sons of Devon to make such a safe job of
stealing his rocks. Not only the Colonel, but Lady Bluett, who generally
led his judgment, felt by this time the pleasure of owing true gratitude
to somebody. My fatherly care of the young lieutenant had turned him out
so nobly.
It misbecomes me to speak of this; and it misbecame me to speak at all,
with the sea-breeze flowing over me, the first words of knowledge that I
had spoken for how long I know not. Nothing can be too high, or too low,
for human nature at both ends; but I ought to have known better than to
do the thing I did.
"Give me a pipe," was all I said; and then I turned away, and cared not
whether I got my pipe, or whether the rising tide extinguished me.
"Here is your pipe, sir," came in a beautiful voice from down below me;
"and we have the tinder ready. Bunny, let me do it now."
That pipe must have saved my life. Everybody said so. It came and went
in curls of comfort through the hollow dying places of my head, that had
not even blood enough to call for it; and then it never left my soul
uneasy about anything. Hammock and all must have gone afloat, with the
rapid rise of the spring, except for Colonel Lougher's foresight.
Who was it that watched me so, and would have waited by my side, until
the waves were over her? Who was it that kept on listening, to let me
know, while I could not speak? Who was it that gave a little bit of a
sigh, every now and then, and then breathed hard to smother it? Who was
it, or who could it be, in the whole wide world, but Bardie?
Not only this, but when I began to be up to real sense again, the
kindness of every one around me made me fit for nothing. In the
weakness of expecting all to take advantage of me (as is done in health
and spirits), all the weakness I could find was in my friends and
neighbours always labouring to encourage me. This to my mind proves
almost the wrongness of expecting people to be worse than we are.
That winter was the most severe, all over Western Europe, known for
five-and-fifty years. I well remember the dreadful winter A.D. 1740,
when the Severn was frozen with a yard of ice, and the whole of the
Bristol Channel blocked with icebergs like great hay-ricks. Twelve
people were frozen to death in our parish, and seven were killed through
the ice on the sea. The winter of 1795 was nothing to be compared to
that; nevertheless it was very furious, and killed more than we could
spare of our very oldest inhabitants.
And but for the extraordinary kindness of Colonel Lougher, that winter
must have killed not only me in my weak and worn-out condition, but also
the poor maid of Sker, if left to encounter the cold in that iceberg.
For, truly speaking, the poor old house was nothing else through that
winter. The snow in swirling sheets of storm first wrapped it up to the
window-sills; and then in a single night overleaped gables, roofs, and
chimney-tops. Moxy and Watkin passed a month of bitter cold and
darkness, but were lucky enough to have some sheep, who kept them warm
outside, and warmed their insides afterwards. And after that the thaw
came. But all this time there was nobody in my little cottage at Newton,
but poor Roger Berkrolles, and how he kept soul and body together is
known to none save himself and Heaven. For Colonel Lougher and Lady
Bluett, at the very beginning of the frost, sent down my old friend,
Crumpy the butler, to report upon my condition, and to give his candid
opinion what was the best thing to do with me. After that long struggle
now (thanks to a fine constitution and the death of the only doctor
anywhere on our side of Bridgend), I had begun to look up a little and
to know the time of day. Crumpy felt my pulse, and nodded, and then
prescribed the only medicine which his own experience in life had ever
verified. Port wine, he said, was the only thing to put me on my legs
again. And this he laid before the Colonel with such absence of all
doubt, that on the very same afternoon a low and slow carriage was sent
for me, and I found myself laid in a very snug room, with the firelight
dancing in the reflection of the key of the wine-cellar. Also here was
Bardie flitting, light as a gnat in spring-time, and Bunny to be had
whenever anybody wanted her. Only her scantling and her tonnage unfitted
her for frigate-service.
What had a poor old fellow like me--as in weak moments I called
myself--ever done, or even suffered, to deserve to find the world an Inn
of good Samaritans? I felt that it was all of pure unreasonable
kindness; the very thing which a man of spirit cannot bear to put up
with. I have felt this often, when our Parson discoursed about our
gracious Lord, and all the things He did for us. A man of proper
self-respect would like to have had a voice in it.
This, however (as Hezekiah told us in the cockpit, after we had pickled
him), might be safely attributed to the force of unregeneracy; while a
man who is down in luck, and constitution also, trusts to any stout
mortal for a loan of orthodoxy. And so did I to our Rector Lougher,
brother of the Colonel, a gentleman who had bought my fish, and felt my
spiritual needs. To him I listened (for well he read), especially a
psalm to which I could for ever listen, full of noble navigation, deeper
even than our soundings in the Bay of Biscay.
Every night we used to wonder where Lieutenant Bluett was, knowing as we
did from my descriptions (when the hob was hot) what it is to be at sea
with all the rigging freezing. When the blocks are clogged with ice and
make mysterious groanings, and the shrouds have grown a beard as cold as
their own name is, and the deck begins to slip; and all the watch with
ropes to handle, spit upon their palms, and strike them (dancing with
their toes the while) one man to another man's, hoping to see sparks
come out. So it is, I can assure you, who have never been at sea, when
the barbs of icy spray by a freezing wind are driven, like a volley of
langrel-shot raking the ship from stem to stern, shrivelling blue cheeks
and red noses, shattering quids from the chattering teeth. Many a time
in these bitter nights, with the roar of east wind through the
fir-trees, and the rattle of doors in the snow-drift, I felt ashamed of
my cozy berth, and could not hug my comfort, from thinking of my ancient
messmates turned to huddled icicles.
But all was ordained for the best, no doubt: for supposing that I had
been at sea through the year 1795, or even 1796, what single general
action was there worthy of my presence? It might have been otherwise
with me there, and in a leading position. However, even of this I cannot
by any means be certain, for seamen quite as brave and skilful were
afloat at that very time. However, beyond a few frigate actions, and
matters far away from home, at the Cape, or in the East Indies, I did
not hear of anything that I need have longed much to partake in. So that
I did not repent of accepting a harbour-appointment at Plymouth, which
(upon my partial recovery) was obtained for me by Sir Philip Bampfylde,
an old friend of the Port-Admiral there.
For that good Sir Philip was a little uneasy, after shipping me off last
autumn, lest he might have behaved with any want of gratitude towards
me. Of course he had done nothing of the kind; for in truth I had raved
for my country so--as I came to learn long afterwards--that when all the
risk of infection was over, the doctor from Barnstaple said that my only
chance of recovering reason lay in the air of my native land. But at any
rate this kind baronet thought himself bound to come and look after me,
in the spring of the year when the buds were awake, and the iron was
gone from the soul of the earth. He had often promised that fine old
tyrant Anthony Stew to revisit him; so now he resolved to kill two birds
with one stone, as the saying is.
I had returned to my cottage now, but being still very frail and stupid,
in spite of port wine every day, I could not keep the tears from
starting, when this good and great landowner bent his silver head
beneath my humble lintel, and forbade me in his calm majestic manner to
think for a moment of dousing my pipe. And even Justice Stew, who of
course took good care to come after him, did not use an uncivil word,
when he saw what Sir Philip thought of me.
"Sir," said the General to the Squire, after shaking hands most
kindly with me, "this is a man whom I truly respect. There seems to
be but one opinion about him. I call him a noble specimen of your
fellow-countrymen."
"Yes, to be sure," answered Anthony Stew: "but my noble
fellow-countrymen say that I am an Irishman."
"No doubt whatever about that, your Worship," was the proper thing for
me to reply; but the condition of my head forbade me almost to shake it.
If it had pleased the Lord to give me only a dozen holes and
scars--which could not matter at my time of life--there would not by any
means have arisen, as all the old women of Newton said, this sad
pressure on the brain-pan, and difficulty of coping even with a man of
Anthony Stew's kind. But, alas! instead of opening out, the subtle
plague struck inwards, leaving not a sign outside, but a delicate
transparency.
This visit from Sir Philip did not end without a queer affair, whereof I
had no notice then, being set down by all the village as only fit to
poke about among the sandhills, and then to die. But no one could take
the church-clock from me, till the bell should be tolling for me; and as
a matter of duty I drew some long arrears of salary.
It seems that Sir Philip drove down one day from Pen Coed to look after
me, and having done this with his usual kindness, spread word through
the children (who throughout our lane abounded) that really none of his
money remained for any more sticks of peppermint. It was high time for
them to think, he said, after ever so much education, of earning from
sevenpence to tenpence a-week, for the good of the babies they carried.
All the children gathered round him at this fine idea, really not
believing quite that the purse of such a gentleman could have nothing
more to say. And the girls bearing babes were concave in the back, while
the boys in the same predicament stuck out clumsily where their spines
were setting.
"Drive me away," said Sir Philip to the groom; "drive me straight away
anywhere: these Welsh children are so clever, I shall have no chance
with them."
"Indeed, your Honour, they is," said the groom with a grin, as behoved a
Welshman. "Would your Honour like to go down by the sea, and see our
beautiful water-rocks, and our old annshent places?"
"To be sure," said Sir Philip; "the very thing. We have four hours' time
to dinner yet; and I fear I have worn out poor Llewellyn. Now follow the
coast-line if you are sure that your master would like it, Lewis, with
this young horse, and our weight behind."
"Your Honour, nothing ever comes amiss to this young horse here. 'Tis
tire I should like to see him, for a change, as we do say. And master do
always tell me keep salt-water on his legs whenever."
"Right!" cried Sir Philip, who loved the spree, being as full of spirits
still, when the air took his trouble out of him, as the young horse in
the shafts was.
So they drove away over the sands towards Sker, which it is easy enough
to do with a good strong horse and a light car behind him. And by this
time the neighbourhood had quite forgotten all its dread of sand-storms.
In about half an hour they found themselves in a pretty place of grass
and furze known as the Lock's Common, which faces the sea over some low
cliffs, and at the western end coves down to it. This is some half a
mile from Sker House, and a ragged dry wall makes the parish boundary,
severing it from Sker-land.
"Drive on," cried Sir Philip; "I enjoy all this: I call this really
beautiful, and this fine sward reminds me of Devonshire. But they ought
to plant some trees here."
The driver replied that there was some danger in driving through Sker
warren, unless one knew the ground thoroughly, on account of the number
of rabbit-holes; and the baronet, with that true regard which a
gentleman feels for the horse of a friend, cancelled his order
immediately. "But," he continued, "I am so thirsty that I scarcely know
what to do. My friend Llewellyn's hospitality is so overpowering. The
taste of rum is almost unknown to me; but I could not refuse when he
pressed me so. It has made me confoundedly thirsty, Lewis."
"Your honour," said Lewis, "just round that corner, in a little break of
the rocks, there is one of the finest springs in Glamorgan, 'Ffynnon
Wen' we call it, the water does be sparkling so."
The groom, having no cup to fetch the water, stood by the horse in the
little pant or combe; while old Sir Philip went down to the shore, to
drink as our first forefather drank, and Gideon's men in the Bible.
Whether he lapped or dipped, I know not (probably the latter, at his
time of life), anyhow he assuaged his thirst--which rum of my quality
could not have caused in a really sound constitution, after taking no
more than a thimbleful--and then for a moment he sate on a rock, soothed
by the purling water, to rest and to look around him. The place has no
great beauty, as of a sea-side spring in Devonshire, but more of cheer
and life about it than their ferny grottoes. The bright water breaks
from an elbow of rock, in many veins all uniting, and without any cliff
above them; and then, after rushing a very few yards through set stone
and loose shingle, loses its self-will upon the soft sand, and spreads a
way over a hundred yards of vague wetness and shallow shining.
The mild sun of April was glancing on this, and the tide just advancing
to see to it, when the shadow of a slim figure fell on the stones before
Sir Philip. So quietly had she slipped along, and appeared from the
rocks so suddenly, that neither old man nor young maiden thought of the
other until their eyes met.
"What, why, who?" cried the General, with something as much like a
start as good conscience and long service had left in him: "who are you?
Who are you, my dear?"
For his eyes were fixed on a fair young damsel of some fifteen summers,
standing upright, with a pad on her head, and on the pad a red pitcher.
Over her shoulders, and down to her waist, fell dark-brown curls
abundantly, full of gleaming gold where the sun stole through the rocks
to dwell in them. Her dress was nothing but blue Welsh flannel, gathered
at the waist and tucked in front, and her beautifully tinted legs and
azure-veined feet shone under it.
"Who are you, my pretty creature?" Sir Philip Bampfylde asked again,
while she opened her grey eyes wide at him.
"Y Ferch o'r Scer, Syr," she answered shyly, and with the strong
guttural tone which she knew was unpleasant to English ears. For it was
her sensitive point that she could not tell any one who she was; and her
pride (which was manifold) always led her to draw back from questions.
On the other hand the old man's gaze of strong surprise and deep
interest faded into mere admiration at the sound of our fine language.
"Fair young Cambrian, I have asked you rudely, and you are displeased
with me. Lift your curls, my little dear, and let me see your face a
while. I remember one just like it. There, you are put out again! So it
was with the one I mean when anything happened hastily."
The beautiful girl flung back her hair, and knelt to stoop her pitcher
in the gurgling runnel; and then she looked at his silver locks, and was
sorry for her impatience.
"Sir, I beg you to forgive me, if I have been rude to you. I am the maid
from the old house yonder. I am often sent for this water, because it
sparkles much more than our own does. If you please, I must go home,
sir."
She filled the red pitcher, and tucked the blue skirt, as girls alone
can manage it; and Sir Philip Bampfylde sighed at thinking of his age
and loneliness, while with an old-fashioned gentleman's grace he lifted
the pitcher and asked no more upon whose head he laid it.
CHAPTER LVIII.
MORE HASTE, LESS SPEED.
To do what is thoroughly becoming and graceful is my main desire. That
any man should praise himself, and insist upon his own exploits and
services to his native land, or even should let people guess at his
valour, by any manner of side-wind,--such a course would simply deprive
me of the only thing a poor battered sailor has left to support him
against his pension; I mean of course humble, but nevertheless
well-grounded, self-respect.
This delicacy alone forbids me even to allude to that urgent and
universal call for my very humble services which launched me on the
briny waves once more, and in time for a share in the glorious battle
fought off Cape St Vincent. Upon that great St Valentine's Day of 1797 I
was Master of the Excellent, under Captain Collingwood; and every boy in
the parish knows how we captured the Saint Isidore, and really took the
Saint Nicholas, though other people got the credit, and nearly took a
four-decked ship of 130 guns, whose name was the Saint Miss Trinder, and
who managed to sneak away, when by all rights we had got her.
However, let us be content with things beyond contradiction; the
foremost of which is, that no ship ever was carried into action in a
more masterly style than the Excellent upon that occasion. And the
weight of this falls on the Master, far more than the Captain, I do
assure you. So highly were my skill and coolness commended in the
despatches, that if I could have borne to be reduced below inferior men,
I might have died a real Captain in the British Navy. For (as happened
to the now Captain Bowen, when Master of the Queen Charlotte) I was
offered a lieutenant's commission, and doubted about accepting it. Had I
been twenty years younger, of course, I must have jumped at the offer;
but at my time of life, and with all my knowledge, it would have been
too painful to be ordered about by some young dancer; therefore I
declined; at the same time thinking it fair to suggest, for the sake of
the many true Britons now dependent upon me, that a small pecuniary
remittance would meet with my consideration. That faculty of mine,
however, was not called to the encounter: I never heard more about it,
and had to be satisfied with glory.
But if a man is undervalued often, and puts up with it, he generally
finds that fortune treats him with respect in other more serious
aspects. For instance, what would have happened if Providence had
ordained to send me into either of those sad mutinies which disgraced
our fleets so terribly? That deep respect for authority which (like the
yolk of a nest-egg) lies calmly inside me, waiting to be sate upon; as
well as my inborn sense of Nature's resistless determination to end by
turning me into a gentleman (indications of which must have long ago
been perceived by every reader), not to mention any common sense of duty
in the abstract and wages in the pocket,--these considerations must have
led me to lay a pistol to the head of almost every man I could find.
However, from such a course of action grace and mercy preserved me: and
perhaps it was quite as well. For I am not sure that I could have
stopped any one of the four mutinies entirely; although I can answer for
it, that never would bad manners take the lead in any ship, while I was
Master. It is the shilly-shallying that produces all the mischief. If
all our Captains had behaved like Captain Peard and his first
lieutenant, in the St George off Cadiz, at the first spread of
disaffection, it is my opinion that a great disgrace and danger would
have been crushed in the bud. But what could be expected when our
Government showed the like weakness? Twice they went hankering after
peace, and even sent ambassadors! Who can ram shot home with pleasure
while things of this kind are encouraged? To fight it out is the true
Christianity, ordered by the Church itself.
And this we did, and are doing still, as Roger Berkrolles prophesied;
and the only regret I have about it is, that a stiffness in my knees
enables the other boarders to take a mean advantage of their youth, and
jump into the chains or port-holes of a ship (when by my tactics
conquered), so as to get a false lead of me. However, no small
consolation was to be gained by reflecting how much more prize-money
would accrue to me than to any of these forward fellows, so that one
might with an unmoved leg contemplate their precipitancy.
Even a sorer grievance was the breaking up and dispersion of our noble
and gallant ship's company, so long accustomed to one another and to
sharp discipline in the Defence. Where was Captain Bampfylde? Where was
Lieutenant Rodney Bluett? What was become of our three fine savages?
Even Heaviside and Hezekiah were in my thoughts continually, and out of
my knowledge entirely. As to the latter worthy gunsmith, "Artillerist
to the King and Queen, and all the Royal Family," I can only at present
say that when I had been last at home, and before my acceptance of that
brief appointment in the Plymouth dockyard--in short, when first I
recovered strength, after that long illness, to cope with the walk both
to and fro--I found occasion to go to Bridgend, with my uniform on for
the sake of the town. I had not turned the corner of the bridge a good
half-hour, before that important fact was known from the riverbank to
the churchyard. And Griffith of the "Cat and Snuffers," set up such a
Welsh hurrah [as good as the screech of a wild-cat trapped] that it went
up the hill to Newcastle. In a word, Hepzibah heard of me, and ran down
the hill, like a roaring lion, demanding her Hezekiah!
What ensued is painful to me even now to speak of. For though my
conscience was refitting, and ready to knock about again, after carrying
too much sail, I could not find it in my heart to give the mother of a
rapid family nothing but lies to feed upon. Many men of noble nature
dwell upon nothing but conscience; as if that were the one true compass
for a man to steer by--whereas I never did find a man--outside my own
Sunday clothes,--whose conscience would not back him up in whatever he
had a mind for.
My own had always worked like a power plainly exposed to every one;
thereby gaining strength and revolving as fast as a mountain windmill,
when the corn is falling away to chaff. This, however, was not required
in the present instance; for Hepzibah (like a good woman) fell from one
extreme into the opposite. From bitter reviling to praise and gratitude
was but a turn of the tongue to her; especially when I happened to
whisper into the ear of Griffith that the whole of my stipend for Newton
Church clock would now, according to my views of justice, be handed to
Hezekiah's wife, inasmuch as the worthy gunsmith had rejoined the Church
of England. And I said what a dreadful blow this would be to all the
Nicodemites, when the gun-officer returned with money enough to build a
chapel: however, I felt that it served them right, because they had
lately begun to sneer at his good wife's wonderful prophecies.
In a word, I had promised to find Hezekiah; and, both while in harbour
and now when afloat, I tried to get tidings not only of him, but also of
the Newton tailor, and Heaviside, and the three wild men, as well as
young Harry Savage, Lieutenant Bluett, and Captain Bampfylde. For all of
these being at sea and in war-time, who could say what had befallen
them? Whereas I knew all about most of our people now living ashore in
the middle of peace. However, of course one must expect old shipmates to
be parted; and with all the vast force now afloat under the British
flag, it would almost be a wonder if any of us should haul our wind
within hailing distance of the others during our cruise in this world.
Nevertheless it did so happen, as I plainly will set forth, so far as I
remember. Through the rest of the year '97 and the early part of the
following year I was knocking about off and on near the Straits, being
appointed to another ship while the Excellent was refitting, and
afterwards to the Goliath, a fine 74, under Captain Foley.
In the month of May 1798, all our Mediterranean fleet, except three
ships of the line, lay blockading Cadiz. Our Admiral, the Earl St
Vincent, formerly Sir John Jervis, had orders also to watch Toulon,
where a great fleet was assembling. And our information was so scant and
contradictory, that our Admiral sent but three ships of the line and a
frigate or two to see what those crafty Frenchmen might be up to. But
this searching squadron had a commander whose name was Horatio Nelson.
This was not by any means the man to let frog-eaters do exactly as they
pleased with us. "I believe in the King of England; I have faith in
discipline; I abhor all Frenchmen worse than the very devil." Such was
his creed; and at any moment he would give his life for it. It is
something for a man to know what he means, and be able to put it
clearly; and this alone fetches to his side more than half of the
arguers who cannot make their minds up. But it is a much rarer gift, and
not often combined with the other, for a man to enter into, and be able
to follow up, ways and turns, and ins and outs, of the natures of all
other men. If this is done by practised subtlety, it arouses hatred, and
can get no further. But if it be a gift of nature exercised unwittingly,
and with kind love of manliness, all who are worth bringing over are
brought over by it.
If it were not hence, I know not whence it was that Nelson had such
power over every man of us. To know what he meant, to pronounce it, and
to perceive what others meant, these three powers enabled him to make
all the rest mean what he did. At any rate such is my opinion; although
I would not fly in the face of better scholars than myself, who
declared that here was witchcraft. What else could account for the
manner in which all Nelson's equals in rank at once acknowledged him as
the foremost, and felt no jealousy towards him? Even Admiral Earl St
Vincent, great commander as he was, is said to have often deferred to
the judgment of the younger officer. As for the men, they all looked
upon it as worth a gold watch to sail under him.
Therefore we officers of the inshore squadron, under Captain Troubridge,
could scarcely keep our crews from the most tremendous and uproarious
cheers when we got orders to make sail for the Mediterranean, and place
ourselves under the command of Nelson. We could not allow any cheering,
because the Dons ashore were not to know a word about our departure,
lest they should inform the Crappos, under whose orders they now were
acting. And a British cheer has such a ring over the waters of the sea,
and leaps from wave to wave so, that I have heard it a league away when
roused up well to windward. So our fine fellows had leave to cheer to
their hearts' content when we got our offing; and partly under my
conduct (for I led the way in the Goliath), nine seventy-fours got away
to sea in the night of the 24th of May, and nine liners from England
replaced them, without a single Jack Spaniard ever suspecting any
movement. Every one knows what a time we had of it, after joining our
Admiral; how we dashed away helter-skelter, from one end of the world to
the other almost, in a thorough wild-goose chase, because the Board of
Admiralty, with their usual management, sent thirteen ships of the line
especially on a searching scurry without one frigate to scout for them!
We were obliged to sail, of course, within signalling distance of each
other, and so that line of battle might be formed without delay, upon
appearance of the enemy. For we now had a man whose signal was "Go at
'em when you see 'em." Also, as always comes to pass when the sons of
Beelzebub are abroad, a thick haze lay both day and night upon the face
of the water. So that, while sailing in close order, upon the night of
the shortest day, we are said to have crossed the wake of the Frenchmen,
almost ere it grew white again, without even sniffing their roasted
frogs. Possibly this is true, in spite of all the great Nelson's
vigilance; for I went to my hammock quite early that night, having
suffered much from a hollow eye-tooth ever since I lost sight of poor
Polly.
Admiral Nelson made no mistake. He had in the highest degree what is
called in human nature "genius," and in dogs and horses "instinct."
That is to say, he knew how to sniff out the road to almost anything.
Trusting to this tenfold (when he found that our Government would not
hear of it, but was nearly certain of a mighty landing upon Ireland),
off he set for Egypt, carrying on with every blessed sail that would or
even would not draw. We came to that coast at a racing speed, and you
should have seen his vexation when there was no French ship in the
roadstead. "I have made a false cast, Troubridge," he cried; "I shall
write to be superseded. My want of judgment may prove fatal to my King
and country."
For our Government had sent him word, through the Earl St Vincent, that
the great expedition from Toulon would sail for England or Ireland; and
he at his peril had taken upon him to reject such nonsense. But now (as
happens by Nature's justice to all very sanguine men) he was ready to
smite the breast that had suggested pure truth to him. Thus being
baffled we made all sail, and after a chase of six hundred leagues, and
continually beating to windward, were forced to bear up on St Swithin's
Day and make for the coast of Sicily. And it shows the value of good old
hands, and thoroughly sound experience, that I, the oldest man perhaps
in the fleet, could alone guide the fleet into Syracuse. Here our fierce
excitement bubbled while we took in water.
CHAPTER LIX.
IN A ROCKY BOWER.
I never hear of a man's impatience without sagely reflecting upon the
rapid flight of time, when age draws on, and business thickens, and all
the glory of this world must soon be left behind us. From the date of my
great catch of fish and landing of Bardie at Pool Tavan, to the day of
my guiding the British fleet betwixt the shoals of Syracuse, more than
sixteen years had passed, and scarce left time to count them.
Therefore it was but a natural thing that the two little maidens with
whom I began should now be grown up, and creating a stir in the minds of
young men of the neighbourhood. Early in this present month of July,
that north-west breeze, which was baffling our fleet off the coast of
Anatolia, was playing among the rocks of Sker with the curls and skirts
and ribbons of these two fair young damsels.
Or rather with the ribbons of one, for Bunny alone wore streamers,
wherein her heart delighted; while the maid of Sker was dressed as
plainly as if she had been her servant. Not that her inborn love of
brightness ever had abandoned her, but that her vanities were put down
quite arrogantly by Master Berkrolles whenever she came back from
Candleston; and but for her lessons in music there--which were beyond
Roger's compass--he would have raised his voice against her visits to
the good Colonel.
For the old man's heart was entirely fixed upon the graceful maiden, and
his chief anxiety was to keep her out of the way of harm. He knew that
the Colonel loved nothing better (as behoved his lineage) than true and
free hospitality; and he feared that the simple and nameless girl might
set her affections on some grand guest, who would scorn her derelict
origin.
Now she led Bunny into a cave, or rather a snug little cove of rock,
which she always called her cradle, and where she had spent many lonely
hours, in singing pure Welsh melodies of the sweetest sadness, feeling a
love of the desert places from her own desertion. Then down she sate in
her chair of stone, with limpets and barnacles studding it; while Bunny
in the established manner bounced down on a pebble and gazed at her.
My son's daughter was a solid girl, very well built as our family is,
and raking most handsomely fore and aft. Her fine black eyes, and
abiding colour, and the modesty inherited from her grandfather, and some
reflection perhaps of his fame, made her a favourite everywhere. And any
grandfather might well have been proud to see how she carried her dress
off.
The younger maid sate right above her, quite as if Nature had ordered it
so; and drew her skirt of home-spun camlet over her dainty feet, because
the place was wet and chilly. And anybody looking must have said that
she was born to grace. The clear outlines of oval face and delicate
strength of forehead were moulded as by Nature only can such dainty work
be done. Gentle pride and quiet moods of lonely meditation had deepened
and subdued the radiance of the large grey eyes, and changed the dancing
mirth of childhood into soft intelligence. And it must have been a fine
affair, with the sunshine glancing on the breezy sea, to take a look at
the lights and shadows of so clear a countenance.
Bunny, like a frigate riding, doused her head and all her outworks
forward of the bends; and then hung fluttering and doubtful, just as if
she had missed stays.
"It is not your engagement, my dear Bunny," began Delushy, as if she
were ten years the senior officer; "you must not suppose for a moment
that I object to your engagement. It is time, of course, for you to
think, among so many suitors, of some one to put up with, especially
after what you told me about having toothache. And Watkin is thoroughly
good and kind, and able to read quite respectably. But what I blame you
for is this, that you have not been straightforward, Bunny. Why have you
kept me in the dark about this one of your many 'sweetheartings,' as you
always call them?"
"And for sure, miss, then I never did no such thing; unless it was that
I thought you was wanting him."
"I! You surely cannot have thought it! I want Watkin Thomas!"
"Well, miss, you need not fly out like that. All the girls in Newton was
after him. And if it wasn't you as wanted him, it might be him as wanted
you, which comes to the same thing always."
"I don't quite think that it does, dear Bunny, though you may have made
it do so. Now look up and kiss me, dear: you know that I love you very
much, though I have a way of saying things. And then I am longing to beg
pardon when I have vexed any one. It comes of my 'noble birth,' I
suppose, which the girls of Newton laugh about. How I wish that I were
but the child of the poorest good man in the parish! But now I am tired
of thinking of it. What good ever comes of it? And what can one poor
atom matter?"
"You are not a poor atom; you are the best, and the cleverest, and most
learnedest, and most beautifullest lady as ever was seen in the whole of
the land."
After or rather in the middle of which words, our Bunny, with her usual
vigour and true national ardour, leaped into the arms of Delushy, so
that they had a good cry together. "You will wait, of course, for your
Granny to come, before you settle anything."
"Will I, indeed?" cried that wicked Bunny, and lucky for her that I was
not there: "I shall do nothing of the sort. If he chooses to be always
away at sea, conquering the French for ever, and never coming home when
he can help it, he must make up his mind to be surprised when he happens
to come home again. For sure then, that is right enough."
"Well, it does seem almost reasonable," answered the young lady: "and I
think sometimes that we have no right to expect so much as that of
things. It is not what they often do; and so they lose the habit of it."
"I do not quite understand," said Bunny.
"And I don't half understand," said Bardie:--"but--oh my dear, what
shall I do? He is coming this way, I am sure. And I would not have you
know anything of it--and of course you must feel that it is all
nonsense. And I did not mean any harm about 'courting;' only you ought
to be out of the way, and yet at the same time in it."
Our Bunny was such a slow-witted girl, and at the same time so
particular (inheriting slowness from her good mother, and conscience
from third generation), that really she could make no hand at meeting
such a crisis. For now she began to perceive gold-lace, which alone
discomfits the woman-race, and sets their minds going upon what they
love. And so she did very little else but stare.
"I did think you would have helped me, Bunny," Delushy cried, with
aggrievement. "I wanted to hear your own affairs, of course; but I would
not have brought you here----"
"Young ladies, well met!" cried as solid a voice as the chops of the
Channel had ever tautened: "I knew that you were here, and so I came
down to look after you."
"Sure then, sir, and I do think that it is very kind of you. We was just
awanting looking after. Oh what a fish I do see in that pool! Please
only you now both to keep back. I shall be back again, now just, sir."
With these words away flew Bunny, as if her life were set on it.
"What a fine creature, to be sure!" said Commander Bluett, thoughtfully;
"she reminds me so much of her grandfather. There is something so
strongly alike between them, in their reckless outspoken honour, as well
as in the turn of the nose they have."
"Let us follow, and admire her a little more," cried Delushy: "she
deserves it, as you say; and perhaps--well perhaps she likes it."
Young Rodney looked at her a little while, and then at the ground a
little while; because he was a stupid fellow as concerns young women. He
thought this one such a perfect wonder, as may well be said of all of
them. Then those two fenced about a little, out of shot of each other's
eyes.
There was no doubt between them as to the meaning of each other. But
they both seemed to think it wise to have a little bit of vexing before
doing any more. And thus they looked at one another as if there was
nothing between them. And all the time, how they were longing!
"I must have yes or no:" for Rodney could not outlast the young lady:
"yes or no; you know what I mean. I am almost always at sea; and
to-morrow I start to join Nelson. With him there is no play-work. I hope
to satisfy him, though I know what he is to satisfy. But I hope to do
it."
"Of course you will," Delushy answered. "You seem to give great
satisfaction; almost everywhere, I am sure."
"Do I give it, you proud creature, where I long to give it most?"
"How can I pretend to say, without being told in what latitude even--as
I think your expression is--this amiable desire lies?"
"As if you did not know, Delushy!"
"As if I did know, Captain Bluett! And another thing--I am not to be
called 'Delushy,' much, in that way."
"Very well, then; much in another way. Delushy, Delushy, delicious
Delushy, what makes you so unkind to me? To-morrow I go away, and
perhaps we shall never meet again, Delushy: and then how you would
reproach yourself. Don't you think you would now?"
"When never and then come together--yes. I suppose all sailors talk so."
"If I cannot even talk to please you, there is nothing more to say. I
think that the bards have turned your head with their harpings, and
their fiddle-strings, and ballads (in very bad Welsh, no doubt) about
'the charming maid of Sker;' and so on. When you are old enough to know
better, and the young conceit wears out of you, you may be sorry, Miss
Andalusia, for your wonderful cleverness."
He made her a bow with his handsome hat, and her warm young heart was
chilled by it. Surely he ought to have shaken hands. She tried to keep
her own meaning at home, and bid him farewell with a curtsy, while he
tried not to look back again; but fortune or nature was too much for
them, and their eyes met wistfully.
These things are out of my line so much, that I cannot pretend to say
now for a moment what these very young people did; and everybody else
having done the same, with more or less unwisdom, according to
constitution, may admire the power of charity which restrains me from
describing them. My favourite writer of Scripture is St Paul, who was
afraid of nobody, and who spent his time in making sails when the thorn
in the flesh permitted him. And this great writer describes the quick
manners of maidens far better than I can. Wherefore I keep myself up
aloft until they have had a good spell of it.
"I have no opinion, now. What can you expect of me? Rodney, I must stop
and think for nearly a quarter of a century before I have an opinion."
"Then stay, just so; and let me admire you, till I have to swim with
you."
"Rodney, you are reckless. Here comes the tide; and you know I have got
my very best Candleston side-lace boots on!"
"Then come out of this rocky bower, which suits your fate so, darling;
and let us talk most sensibly."
"By all means; if you think we can. There, you need not touch me,
Rodney;--I can get out very well indeed. I know these rocks better than
you do perhaps. Now sit on this rock where old David first hooked me, as
I have heard that old chatterbox tell fifty times, as if he had done
some great great thing."
"He did indeed a grand grand thing. No wonder that he is proud of it.
And he has so much to be proud of that you may take it for your highest
compliment. Perhaps there is no other man in the service--or I might say
in all the civilised world----" But it hurts me to tell what this
excellent officer said or even thought of me. He was such a first-rate
judge by this time that I must leave his opinion blank.
Over the sea they began to look, in a discontented quietude; as the
manner of young mortals is before they begin to know better, and with
great ideas moving them. Bunny, with the very kindest discretion, had
run away entirely, and might now be seen at the far end of the sands,
and springing up the rocks, on her way to Newton. So those two sate side
by side, with their hearts full of one another, and their minds made up
to face the world together, whatever might come of it. For as yet they
could see nothing clearly through the warm haze of loving, being wrapped
up in an atmosphere which generally leads to a hurricane. But to them,
for a few short minutes, earth and sea and sky were all one universal
heaven.
"It will not do," cried the maid of Sker, suddenly awaking with a short
deep sigh, and drawing back her delicate hand from the broad palm of
young Rodney: "it will never, never do. We must both be mad to think of
it."
"Who could fail to be mad," he answered, "if you set the example?"
"Now, don't be so dreadfully stupid, Rodney. What I say is most serious.
Of course you know the world better than I do, as you told me yesterday,
after sailing a dozen times round it. But I am thinking of other things.
Not of what the world will say, but of what I myself must feel. And the
first of these things is that I cannot be cruelly ungrateful. It would
be the deepest ingratitude to the Colonel if I went on with it."
"Went on with it! What a way to speak! As if you could be off with it
when you pleased! And my good uncle loves you like his own daughter; and
so does my mother. Now what can you mean?"
"As if you did not know indeed! Now, Rodney, do talk sensibly. I ought
to know, if any one does, what your uncle and your mother are. And I
know that they would rather see your death in the Gazette than your
marriage with an unknown, nameless nobody like me, sir."
"Well, of course, we must take the chance of that," said Captain Bluett,
carelessly. "The Colonel is the best soul in the world, and my dear
mother a most excellent creature, whenever she listens to reason. But as
to my asking their permission--it is the last thing I should dream of. I
am old enough to know my own mind, and to get my own living, I should
hope, as well as that of my family. And if I am only in time with
Nelson, of course we shall do wonders."
For a minute or two the poor young maid had not a word to say to him.
She longed to throw her arms around him, when he spoke so proudly, and
to indulge her own pride in him, as against all the world beside. But
having been brought up in so much trouble, she had learned to check
herself. So that she did nothing more than wait for him to go on again.
And this he did with sparkling eyes and the confidence of a young
British tar.
"There is another thing, my beauty, which they are bound to consider, as
well as all the prize-money I shall earn. And that is, that they have
nobody except themselves to thank for it. They must have known what was
sure to happen, if they chose to have you there whenever I was home from
sea. And my mother is so clever too--to my mind it is plain enough that
they meant me to do what I have done."
"And pray what is that?"
"As if you did not know! Come now, you must pay the penalty of asking
for a compliment. Talk about breeding and good birth, and that stuff!
Why, look at your hands and then look at mine. Put your fingers between
mine--both hands, both hands--that's the way. Now just feel my great
clumsy things, and then see how lovely yours are--as clear as
wax-tapers, and just touched with rose, and every nail with a fairy
gift, and pointed like an almond. A 'nameless nobody' indeed! What
nameless nobody ever had such nails? By way of contrast examine mine."
"Oh but you bite yours shockingly, Rodney. I am sure that you do, though
I never saw you. You must be cured of that dreadful trick."
"That shall be your first job, Delushy, when you are Mrs Rodney. Now for
another great sign of birth. Do you see any peak to my upper lip?"
"No, I can't say I do. But how foolish you are! I ought to be crying,
and you make me laugh."
"Then just let me show you the peak to yours. Honour bright--and no mean
advantages--that is to say if I can help it. Oh, here's that blessed
Moxy coming! May the Frenchmen rob her hen-roost! Now just one promise,
darling, darling; just one little promise. To-morrow I go to most
desperate battles, and lucky to come home with one arm and one leg.
Therefore, promise a solemn promise to have no one in the world but me."
"I think," said the maid, with her lips to his ear, in the true old
coaxing fashion, "that I may very well promise that. But I will promise
another thing too. And that is, not to have even you, until your dear
mother and good uncle come to me and ask me. And that can never never
be."
CHAPTER LX.
NELSON AND THE NILE.
The first day of August in the year of our Lord 1798 is a day to be long
remembered by every Briton with a piece of constitution in him. For on
that day our glorious navy, under the immortal Nelson, administered to
the Frenchmen, under Admiral Brewer, as pure and perfect a lathering as
is to be found in all history. This I never should venture to put upon
my own authority (especially after the prominent part assigned therein
by Providence to a humble individual who came from Newton-Nottage), for
with history I have no patience at all, because it always contradicts
the very things I have seen and known: but I am bound to believe a man
of such high principles and deep reading as Master Roger Berkrolles. And
he tells me that I have helped to produce the greatest of all great
victories.
Be that one way or the other, I can tell you every word concerning how
we managed it; and you need not for one moment think me capable of
prejudice. Quite the contrary, I assure you. There could not have been
in the British fleet any man more determined to do justice to all
Crappos, than a thoroughly ancient navigator, now master of the Goliath.
We knew exactly what to do, every Captain, every Master, every
quarter-master; even the powder-monkeys had their proper work laid out
for them. The spirit of Nelson ran through us all; and our hearts caught
fire from his heart. From the moment of our first glimpse at the
Frenchmen spread out in that tempting manner, beautifully moored and
riding in a long fine head and stern, every old seaman among us began to
count on his fingers prize-money. They thought that we would not fight
that night, for the sun was low when we found them; and with their
perpetual conceit, they were hard at work taking water in. I shall never
forget how beautiful these ships looked, and how peaceful. A French ship
always sits the water with an elegant quickness, like a Frenchwoman at
the looking-glass. And though we brought the evening breeze in very
briskly with us, there was hardly swell enough in the bay to make them
play their hawsers. Many fine things have I seen, and therefore know
pretty well how to look at them, which a man never can do upon the
first or even the second occasion. But it was worth any man's while to
live to the age of threescore years and eight, with a sound mind in a
sound body, and eyes almost as good as ever, if there were nothing for
it more than to see what I saw at this moment. Six-and-twenty ships of
the line, thirteen bearing the tricolor, and riding cleared for action,
the other thirteen with the red cross flying, the cross of St George on
the ground of white, and tossing the blue water from their stems under
pressure of canvass. Onward rushed our British ships, as if every one of
them was alive, and driven out of all patience by the wicked escapes of
the enemy. Twelve hundred leagues of chase had they cost us, ingratitude
towards God every night, and love of the devil at morning, with dread of
our country for ever prevailing, and mistrust of our own good selves.
And now at last we had got them tight; and mean we did to keep them.
Captain Foley came up to me as I stood on the ratlines to hear the
report of the men in the starboard fore-chains; and his fine open face
was clouded. "Master," he said, "how much more of this? Damn your
soundings. Can't you see that the Zealous is drawing ahead of us? Hood
has nobody in the chains. If you can't take the ship into action, I
will. Stand by there to set top-gallant-sails."
These had been taken in, scarce five minutes agone, as prudence
demanded, for none of us had any chart of the bay; and even I knew
little about it, except that there was a great shoal of rock betwixt
Aboukir island and the van ship of the enemy. And but for my warning, we
might have followed the two French brigs appointed to decoy us in that
direction. Now, having filled top-gallant-sails, we rapidly headed our
rival the Zealous, in spite of all that she could do; and we had the
honour of receiving the first shot of the enemy. For now we were rushing
in, stern on, having formed line of battle, towards the van of the
anchored Frenchmen.
Now as to what followed, and the brilliant idea which occurred to
somebody to turn the enemy's line and take them on the larboard or inner
side (on which they were quite unprepared for attack), no two
authorities are quite agreed, simply because they all are wrong. Some
attribute this grand manœuvre to our great Admiral Nelson, others to
Captain Hood of the Zealous, and others to our Captain Foley. This
latter is nearest the mark; but from whom did Captain Foley obtain the
hint? Modesty forbids me to say what Welshman it was who devised this
noble and most decisive stratagem, while patriotic duty compels me to
say that it was a Welshman, and more than that a Glamorganshire man,
born in a favoured part of the quiet village of N--N--. Enough, unless I
add that internal evidence will convince any unprejudiced person that
none but an ancient fisherman, and thorough-going long-shore-man, could
by any possibility have smelled out his way so cleverly.
Our great Admiral saw, with his usual insight into Frenchmen, that if
they remained at anchor we were sure to man their capstans. For Crappos
fight well enough with a rush, but unsteadily when at a standstill, and
worst of all when taken by surprise and outmanœuvred. And the manner in
which the British fleet advanced was enough to strike them cold by its
majesty and its awfulness. For in perfect silence we were gliding over
the dark-blue sea, with the stately height of the white sails shining,
and the sky behind us full of solemn yellow sunset. Even we, so sure of
conquest, and so nerved with stern delight, could not gaze on the things
around us, and the work before us, without for a moment wondering
whether the Lord in heaven looked down at us.
At any rate we obeyed to the letter the orders both of our Admiral and
of a man scarcely less remarkable. "Let not the sun go down on your
wrath," are the very words of St Paul, I believe; and we never fired a
shot until there was no sun left to look at it. I stood by the men at
the wheel myself, and laid my own hand to it: for it was a matter of
very fine steerage, to run in ahead of the French line, ware soundings,
and then bear up on their larboard bow, to deliver a thorough good
raking broadside. I remember looking over my left shoulder after we bore
up our helm a-weather, while crossing the bows of the Carrier (as the
foremost enemy's ship was called), and there was the last limb of the
sun like the hoof of a horse disappearing. And my own head nearly went
with it, as the wind of a round-shot knocked me over. "Bear up, bear up,
lads," cried Captain Foley, "our time has come at last, my boys! Well
done Llewellyn! A finer sample of conning and steerage was never seen.
Let go the best bower. Pass the word. Ready at quarters all of you. Now
she bears clear fore and aft. Damn their eyes, let them have it."
Out rang the whole of our larboard battery, almost like a single gun; a
finer thing was never seen; and before the ring passed into a roar, the
yell of Frenchmen came through the smoke. Masts and spars flew right
and left with the bones of men among them, and the sea began to hiss and
heave, and the ships to reel and tremble, and the roar of a mad volcano
rose, and nothing kept either shape or tenor, except the faces of brave
men.
Every ship in our fleet was prepared to anchor by the stern, so as to
spring our broadsides aright; but the anchor of the Goliath did not bite
so soon as it should have done, so that we ran past the Carrier, and
brought up on the larboard quarter of the second French 74, with a
frigate and a brig of war to employ a few of our starboard guns. By this
time the rapid darkness fell, and we fought by the light of our own
guns. And now the skill of our Admiral and his great ideas were
manifest, for every French ship had two English upon it, and some of
them even three at a time. In a word, we began with the head of their
line, and crushed it, and so on joint by joint, ere even the centre and
much more the tail could fetch their way up to take part in it. Our
antagonist was the first that struck, being the second of the
Frenchman's line, and by name the Conquer-ant. But she found in Captain
Foley and David Llewellyn an ant a little too clever to conquer. We were
a good deal knocked about, with most of our main rigging shot away, and
all our masts heavily wounded. Nevertheless we drew ahead, to double
upon the third French ship, of the wonderful name of Sparticipate.
From this ship I received a shot, which, but for the mercy of the Lord,
must have made a perfect end of me. That my end may be perfect has long
been my wish, and the tenor of my life leads up to it. Nevertheless, who
am I to deny that I was not ready for the final finish at that very
moment? And now, at this time of writing, I find myself ready to wait a
bit longer. What I mean was a chain-shot sailing along, rather slowly as
they always do; and yet so fast that I could not either duck or jump at
sight of it, although there was light enough now for anything, with the
French Admiral on fire. Happening to be well satisfied with my state of
mind at that moment (not from congratulation, so much as from my inside
conscience), I now was beginning to fill a pipe, and to dwell upon
further manœuvres. For one of the foremost points of all, after
thoroughly drubbing the enemy, is to keep a fine self-control, and be
ready to go on with it.
No sooner had I filled this pipe, and taken a piece of wadding to light
it, which was burning handy (in spite of all my orders), than away went
a piece of me; and down went I, as dead as a Dutch herring. At least so
everybody thought, who had time to think about it; and "the Master's
dead" ran along the deck, so far as time was to tell of it. I must have
lain numb for an hour, I doubt, with the roar of the guns, and the
shaking of bulkheads, like a shiver, jarring me, and a pool of blood
curdling into me, and another poor fellow cast into the scuppers and
clutching at me in his groaning, when the heavens took fire in one red
blaze, and a thundering roar, that might rouse the dead, drowned all the
rolling battle-din. I saw the white looks of our crew all aghast, and
their bodies scared out of death's manufacture, by this triumph of
mortality; and the elbows of big fellows holding the linstock fell
quivering back to their shaken ribs. For the whole sky was blotched with
the corpses of men, like the stones of a crater cast upwards; and the
sheet of the fire behind them showed their knees and their bellies, and
streaming hair. Then with a hiss, like electric hail, from a mile's
height, all came down again, corpses first (being softer things), and
timbers next, and then the great spars that had streaked the sky like
rockets.
The violence of this matter so attracted my attention that I was enabled
to rally my wits, and lean on one elbow and look at it. And I do assure
you that anybody who happened to be out of sight of it, lost a finer
chance than ever he can have another prospect of. For a
hundred-and-twenty-gun ship had blown up, with an Admiral and
Rear-Admiral, not to mention a Commodore, and at least 700 complement.
And when the concussion was over, there fell the silence of death upon
all men. Not a gun was fired, nor an order given, except to man the
boats in hopes of saving some poor fellows.
CHAPTER LXI.
A SAVAGE DEED.
Nevertheless our Britons were forced to renew the battle afterwards;
because those Frenchmen had not the manners to surrender as they should
have done. And they even compelled us to batter their ships so seriously
and sadly, that when we took possession some were scarcely worth the
trouble. To make us blow up their poor Admiral was a distressing thing
to begin with; but when that was done, to go on with the battle was as
bad as the dog in the manger. What good could it do them to rob a poor
British sailor of half his prize-money? And such conduct becomes at
least twice as ungenerous when they actually have wounded him!
My wound was sore, and so was I, on the following day, I can tell you;
for not being now such a very young man, I found it a precious hard
thing to renew the power of blood that was gone from me. And after the
terrible scene that awoke me from the first trance of carnage, I was
thrown by the mercy of Providence into pure insensibility. This I am
bound to declare; because the public might otherwise think itself
wronged, and perhaps even vote me down as of no value, for failing to
give them the end of this battle so brilliantly as the beginning. I defy
my old rival, the Newton tailor (although a much younger man perhaps
than myself, and with my help a pretty good seaman), to take up the
tucks of this battle as well as I have done,--though not well done. Even
if a tailor can come up and fight (which he did, for the honour of
Cambria), none of his customers can expect any more than French-chalk
flourishes when a piece of description is down in his books. However,
let him cut his cloth. He is still at sea, or else under it; and if he
ever does come home, and sit down to his shop-board--as his wife says he
is sure to do--his very first order shall be for a church-going coat,
with a doubled-up sleeve to it.
For the Frenchmen took my left arm away in a thoroughly lubberly manner.
If they had done it with a good cross-cut, like my old wound of forty
years' standing, I would at once have set it down to the credit of their
nation. But when I came to dwell over the subject (as for weeks my duty
was), more and more clear to me it became, that instead of honour they
had now incurred a lasting national disgrace. The fellows who charged
that gun had been afraid of the recoil of it. Half a charge of powder
makes the vilest fracture to deal with--however, there I was by the
heels, and now for nobler people. Only while my wound is green you must
not be too hard on me.
The Goliath was ordered to chase down the bay, on the morning after the
battle, together with the Theseus and a frigate called the Leader. This
frigate was commanded by the Honourable Rodney Bluett, now a
post-captain, and who had done wonders in the height of last night's
combat. He had brought up in the most brazen-faced manner, without any
sense of his metal, close below the starboard bow of the great
three-decker Orient and the quarter of the Franklin, and thence he fired
away at both, while all their shot flew over him. And this was
afterwards said to have been the cleverest thing done by all of us,
except the fine helm and calm handling of H.M. ship Goliath.
The two ships, in chase of which we were despatched, ran ashore and
surrendered, as I was told afterwards (for of course I was down in my
berth at the time, with the surgeon looking after me); and thus out of
thirteen French sail of the line, we took or destroyed eleven. And as we
bore up after taking possession, the Leader ran under our counter and
hailed us, "Have you a Justice of the Peace on board?" Our Captain
replied that he was himself a member of the quorum, but could not attend
to such business now as making of wills and so on. Hereupon Captain
Bluett came forward, and with a polite wave of his hat called out that
Captain Foley would lay him under a special obligation, as well as clear
the honour of a gallant naval officer, by coming on board of the Leader,
to receive the deposition of a dying man. In ten minutes' time our good
skipper stood in the cockpit of the Leader, while Captain Bluett wrote
down the confession of a desperately-wounded seaman, who was clearing
his conscience of perilous wrong before he should face his Creator. The
poor fellow sate on a pallet propped up by the bulkhead and a pillow;
that is to say, if a man can sit who has no legs left him. A round shot
had caught him in the tuck of both thighs, and the surgeon could now do
no more for him. Indeed he was only enabled to speak, or to gasp out his
last syllables, by gulps of raw brandy which he was taking, with great
draughts of water between them. On the other side of his dying bed stood
Cannibals Dick and Joe, howling, and nodding their heads from time to
time, whenever he lifted his glazing eyes to them for confirmation. For
it was my honest and highly-respected friend, the poor Jack Wildman, who
now lay in this sad condition, upon the very brink of another world. And
I cannot do better than give his own words, as put into shape by two
clear-witted men, Captains Foley and Rodney Bluett. Only for the
reader's sake I omit a great deal of groaning.
"_This is the solemn and dying delivery_ of me, known as 'Jack Wildman,'
A.B. seaman of H.M. frigate Leader, now off the coast of Egypt, and
dying through a hurt in battle with the Frenchmen. I cannot tell my
name, or age, or where I was born, or anything about myself; and it
does not matter, as I have nothing to leave behind me. Dick and Joe are
to have my clothes, and my pay if there is any; and the woman that used
to be my wife is to have my medals for good behaviour in the three
battles I have partaken of. My money would be no good to her, because
they never use it; but the women are fond of ornaments.
"I was one of a race of naked people, living in holes of the earth at a
place we did not know the name of. I now know that it was Nympton in
Devonshire, which is in England, they tell me. No one had any right to
come near us, except the great man who had given us land, and defended
us from all enemies.
"His name was Parson Chouane, I believe, but I do not know how to spell
it. He never told us of a thing like God; but I heard of it every day in
the navy whenever my betters were angry. Also I learned to read
wonderful writings; but I can speak the truth all the same.
"Ever since I began to be put into clothes, and taught to kill other
people, I have longed to tell of an evil thing which happened once among
us. How long ago I cannot tell, for we never count time as you do, but
it must have been many years back, for I had no hair on my body except
my head. We had a man then who took lead among us, so far as there was
any lead; and I think that he thought himself my father, because he gave
me the most victuals. At any rate we had no other man to come near him
in any cunningness. Our master Chouane came down sometimes, and took a
pride in watching him, and liked him so much that he laughed at him,
which he never did to the rest of us.
"This man, my father as I may call him, took me all over the great brown
moors one night in some very hot weather. In the morning we came to a
great heap of houses, and hid in a copse till the evening. At dusk we
set out again, and came to a great and rich house by the side of a
river. The lower port-holes seemed full of lights, and on the flat place
in front of them a band of music--such as now I love--was playing, and
people were dancing. I had never heard such a thing before; and my
father had all he could do to keep me in the black trees out of sight of
them. And among the thick of the going about we saw our master Chouane
in his hunting-dress.
"This must have been what great people call a 'masked ball,' I am sure
of it; since I saw one, when, in the Bellona, there were many women
somewhere. But at the end of the great light place, looking out over
the water, there was a quiet shady place for tired people to rest a bit.
When the whole of the music was crashing like a battle, and people going
round like great flies in a web, my father led me down by the
river-side, and sent me up some dark narrow steps, and pointed to two
little babies. The whole of the business was all about these, and the
festival was to make much of them. The nurse for a moment had set them
upright, while she just spoke to a young sailor-man; and crawling, as
all of us can, I brought down these two babies to my father; and one was
heavy, and the other light.
"My father had scarcely got hold of them, and the nurse had not yet
missed them, when on the dark shore by the river-side, perhaps five
fathoms under the gaiety, Parson Chouane came up to my father, and
whispered, and gave orders. I know not what they said, for I had no
sense of tongues then, nor desired it; for we knew what we wanted by
signs, and sounds, and saved a world of trouble so. Only I thought that
our master was angry at having the girl-child brought away. He wanted
only the boy perhaps, who was sleepy and knew nothing. But the
girl-child shook her hand at him, and said, 'E bad man, Bardie knows
'a.'
"I--every one of us--was amazed--so very small----Oh, sir, I can tell
you no more, I think."
"Indeed then, but you must, my friend," cried Captain Foley, with spirit
enough to set a dead man talking; "finish this story, you thief of the
world, before you cheat the hangman. Two lovely childer stolen away from
a first-rate family to give a ball of that kind--and devil a bit you
repent of it!"
Poor dying Jack looked up at him, and then at the place where his legs
should have been, and he seemed ashamed for the want of them. Then he
played with the sheet for a twitch or two, as if proud of his arms still
remaining; and checked back the agony tempting him now to bite it with
his great white teeth.
"Ask the rest of us, Captain," he said; "Joe, you know it; Dick, you
know it; now that I am telling you. The boy was brought up with us, and
you call him Harry Savage. I knew the great house when I saw it again.
And I longed to tell the good old man there; but for the sake of our
people. Chouane would have destroyed them all. I was tempted after they
pelted me so, and the old man was so good to me; but something always
stopped me, and I wanted poor Harry to go to Heaven----Oh, a little
drink of water!"
Captain Foley was partly inclined to take a great deal of poor Jack's
confession for no more than the raving of a light-headed man; but Rodney
Bluett conjured him to take down every word of it. And when this young
officer spoke of his former chief and well-known friend, now Commodore
Sir Drake Bampfylde (being knighted for service in India), and how all
his life he had lain under a cloud by reason of this very matter, not
another word did our Captain need from him, but took up his pen again.
"I ought to have told," said the dying man slowly; "only I could not
bring myself. But now you will know, you will all know now. My father is
dead; but Dick and Joe can swear that the boy is the baby. He had
beautiful clothes on, they shone in the boat; but the girl-child had on
no more than a smock, that they might see her dancing. Our master did
not stay with us a minute, but pushed us all into a boat on the tide,
cut the rope, and was back with the dancers. My father had learned just
enough of a boat to keep her straight in the tide-way, and I had to lie
down over the babies, to keep their white clothes from notice. We went
so fast that I was quite scared, having never been afloat before, so
there must have been a strong ebb under us. And the boat, which was
white, must have been a very light one, for she heeled with every
motion. At last we came to a great broad water, which perhaps was the
river's mouth, with the sea beyond it. My father got frightened perhaps;
and I know that I had been frightened long ago. By a turn of the eddy,
we scrambled ashore, and carried the boy-baby with us; but the boat
broke away with a lurch as we jumped, for we had not the sense to bring
out the rope. In half a minute she was off to sea, and the girl-baby lay
fast asleep in her stern. And now after such a long voyage in the dark,
we were scared so that we both ran for our lives, and were safe before
daybreak at Nympton.
"My father before we got home stripped off the little boy's clothes, and
buried them in a black moor-hole full of slime, with a great white stone
in the midst of it. And the child himself was turned over naked to herd
with the other children (for none of our women look after them), and
nobody knew or cared to know who he was, or whence he came, except my
poor father, and our master--and I myself, many years afterwards. But
now I know well, and I cannot have quiet to die, without telling
somebody. The boy-baby I was compelled to steal was Sir Philip
Bampfylde's grandson, and the baby-girl his granddaughter. I never heard
what became of her. She must have been drowned, or starved, most likely.
But as for the boy, he kept up his life; and the man who took us most in
hand, of the name of 'Father David,' gave the names to all of us, and
the little one 'Harry Savage,' now serving on board of the Vanguard. I
know nothing of the buried images found by Father David. My father had
nothing to do with that. It may have been another of Chouane's plans. I
know no more of anything. There, let me die; I have told all I know. I
can write my nickname. I never had any other--_Jack Wildman_."
At the end of this followed the proper things, and the forms the law is
made of, with first of all the sign-manual of our noble Captain Foley,
who must have been an Irishman, to lead us into the battle of the Nile,
while in the commission of the Peace. And after him Captain Bluett
signed, and two or three warrant-officers gifted with a writing elbow;
and then a pair of bare-bone crosses, meaning Cannibals Dick and Joe,
who could not speak, and much less write, in the depth of their
emotions.
CHAPTER LXII.
A RASH YOUNG CAPTAIN.
Now if I had been sewn up well in a hammock, and cast overboard (as the
surgeon advised), who, I should like to know, would have been left
capable of going to the bottom of these strange proceedings? Hezekiah
was alive, of course, and prepared to swear to anything, especially
after a round-shot must have killed him, but for his greasiness. And
clever enough no doubt he was, and suspicious, and busy-minded, and
expecting to have all Wales under his thumb, because he was somewhere
about on the skirts of the great battle I led them into. But granting
him skill, and that narrow knowledge of the world which I call
"cunning;" granting him also a restless desire to get to the bottom of
everything, and a sniffing sense like a turnspit-dog's, of the shank-end
bone he is roasting,--none the more for all that could we grant him the
downright power, now loudly called for, to put two and two together.
Happily for all parties, poor Hezekiah was not required to make any
further fool of himself. The stump of my arm was in a fine condition
when ordered home with the prizes; and as soon as I felt the old Bay of
Biscay, over I knocked the doctor. He fitted me with a hook after this,
in consistence with an old fisherman; and now I have such a whole boxful
of tools to screw on, that they beat any hand I ever had in the
world--if my neighbours would only not borrow them.
Tush--I am railing at myself again! Always running down, and holding up
myself to ridicule, out of pure contrariety, just because every one else
overvalues me. There are better men in the world than myself; there are
wiser; there are braver;--I will not be argued down about it--there are
some (I am sure) as honest, in their way; and a few almost as truthful.
However, I never yet did come across any other man half so modest. This
I am forced to allude to now, in departure from my usual practice,
because this quality and nothing else had prevented me from dwelling
upon, and far more from following up, some shrewd thoughts which had
occurred to me, loosely, I own, and in a random manner,--still they had
occurred to me once or twice, and had been dismissed. Why so? Simply
because I trusted other men's judgment, and public impression, instead
of my own superior instinct, and knowledge of weather and tideways.
How bitterly it repented me now of this ill-founded diffidence, when, as
we lay in the Chops of the Channel about the end of October, with a
nasty head-wind baffling us, Captain Rodney Bluett came on board of us
from the Leader! He asked if the doctor could report the Master as
strong enough to support an interview; whereupon our worthy bone-joiner
laughed, and showed him into me where I sate at the latter end of a fine
aitch-bone of beef. And then Captain Rodney produced his papers, and
told me the whole of his story. I was deeply moved by Jack Wildman's
death, though edified much by the manner of it, and some of his last
observations. For a naked heathen to turn so soon into a trousered
Christian, and still more a good fore-top-man, was an evidence of
unusual grace, even under such doctrine as mine was. Captain Bluett
spoke much of this, although his religious convictions were not by any
means so intense as mine, while my sinews were under treatment; but even
with only one arm and a quarter I seemed to be better fitted to handle
events than this young Captain was. His ability was of no common order,
as he had proved by running his frigate under the very chains of the
thundering big Frenchman, so that they could not be down on him. And yet
he could not see half the bearings of Jack Wildman's evidence. We had a
long talk, with some hot rum-and-water, for the evenings already were
chilly; and my natural candour carried me almost into too much of it.
And the Honourable Rodney gazed with a flush of colour at me, when I
gave him my opinions like a raking broadside.
"You may be right," he said; "you were always so wonderful at a long
shot, Llewellyn. But really it does seem impossible."
"Captain," I answered; "how many things seem so, yet come to pass
continually!"
"I cannot gainsay you, Llewellyn, after all my experience of the world.
I would give my life to find it true. But how are we to establish it?"
"Leave me alone for that, Captain Bluett; if it can be done it shall be
done. The idea is entirely my own, remember. It had never occurred to
you, had it?"
"Certainly not," he replied, with his usual downright honesty; "my
reason for coming to you with that poor fellow's dying testimony was
chiefly to cheer you up with the proofs of our old Captain's innocence,
and to show you the turn of luck for young Harry, who has long been so
shamefully treated. And now I have another thing to tell you about him;
that is if you have not heard it."
"No, I have heard nothing at all. I did not even know what had become of
him, until you read Jack's confession. With Nelson, on board the
Vanguard!"
"That was my doing," said the Honourable Rodney. "I recommended him to
volunteer, and he was accepted immediately, with the character I gave
him. But it is his own doing, and proud I am of it, that he is now
junior lieutenant of Admiral Lord Nelson's own ship the Vanguard. Just
before Nelson received his wound, and while powder was being handed up,
there came a shell hissing among them, and hung with a sputtering fuse
in the coil of a cable, and the men fell down to escape it. But young
Harry with wonderful quickness leaped (as he did, to save me in San
Domingo), and sent the fuse over the side with a dash. Then Nelson came
up, for the firing was hot, and of course he must be in the thick of
it, and he saw in a moment what Harry had done, and he took down his
name for promotion, being just what himself would have loved to do. It
will have to be confirmed, of course; but of that there can be no
question, after all that we have done; and when it turns out who he is."
"I am heartily glad of it, Captain," I cried; "the boy was worthy of any
rank. Worth goes a little way; birth a long way. But all these things
have to be lawfully proven."
"Oh, you old village-lawyer; as we used to call you, at Old Newton. And
you deserved it, you rogue, you did. You may have lost your left hand;
but your right has not lost its cunning." He spoke in the purest play
and jest; and with mutual esteem we parted. Only I stipulated for a good
talk with him about our measures, when I should have determined them; or
at the latest on reaching port.
The boldest counsel is often the best, and naturally recommends itself
to a man of warlike character. My first opinion, especially during the
indignant period, was that nothing could be wiser, or more spirited, or
more striking, than to march straight up to Parson Chowne and confront
him with all this evidence, taken down by a magistrate, and dare him to
deny it; and then hale him off to prison, and (if the law permitted)
hang him. That this was too good for him, every one who has read my
words must acknowledge; the best thing, moreover, that could befall him;
for his body was good, though his soul was bad; and he might have some
hopes to redeem the latter at the expense of the former. And if he had
not, through life, looked forward to hanging as his latter end and
salvation, it is quite impossible to account for the licence he allowed
himself.
However, on second thoughts I perceived that the really weighty concern
before us, and what we were bound to think first of, was to restore such
a fine old family to its health and happiness. To reinstate, before he
died, that noble and most kind-hearted man, full of religious feeling
also, and of confidence that the Lord having made a good man would look
after him--which is the very spirit of King David, when his self-respect
returns--in a word, to replace in the world's esteem, and (what matters
far more) in true family love, that fine and pure old gentleman, the
much-troubled Sir Philip Bampfylde,--this, I say, was the very first
duty of a fellow nursed by a general and a baronet through the
small-pox; while it was also a feat well worthy of the master of a
line-of-battle ship, which was not lost in the battle of the Nile. And
scarcely second even to this was the duty and joy of restoring to their
proper rank in life two horribly injured and innocent creatures, one of
whom was our own Bardie. Therefore, upon the whole, it seemed best to go
to work very warily.
So it came to pass that I followed my usual practice of wholly
forgetting myself; and receiving from the Honourable Rodney Bluett that
most important document, I sewed it up in the watered silk-bag with my
caul and other muniments, and set out for Narnton Court, where I found
both Polly, and the cook, and the other comforts. But nothing would do
for our Captain Rodney--all young men are so inconsiderate--except to be
off at racing speed for Candleston Court, and his sweetheart Delushy,
and the excellent Colonel's old port wine. And as he was so brisk, I
will take him first, with your good leave, if ever words of mine can
keep up with him. But of course you will understand that I tell what
came to my knowledge afterwards.
With all the speed of men and horses, young Rodney Bluett made off for
home, and when he got there his luck was such as to find Delushy in the
house. It happened to be her visiting time, according to the old
arrangement, and this crafty sailor found it out from the fine old woman
at the lodge. So what did he do but discharge his carriage, and leave
all his kit with her, and go on, with the spright foot of a mariner, to
the ancient house which he knew so well. Then this tall and bold young
Captain entered by the butler's door, the trick of which was well known
to him, and in a room out of the lobby he stood, without his own mother
knowing it. It was the fall of autumnal night, when everything is so
rich and mellow, when the waning daylight ebbs, like a great spring-tide
exhausted, into the quickening flow of starlight. And the plates were
being cleared away after a snug dinner-party.
The good Colonel sat at the head of his table, after the ladies'
withdrawal, with that modest and graceful kindliness, which is the sure
mark of true blood. Around him were a few choice old friends, such as
only good men have; friends, who would scout the evidence of their own
eyes against him. According to our fine old fashion, these were drinking
healths all round, not with undue love of rare port, so much as with
truth and sincerity.
Rodney made a sign to Crumpy (who had been shaking him by both hands,
until the tears prevented him), just to please to keep all quiet
touching his arrival; and to let him have a slice or two of the haunch
of venison put to grill, if there was any left of it, and give it him
all on a plate: together with a twelve-pound loaf of farmhouse bread,
such as is not to be had outside of Great Britain. This was done in
about five minutes (for even Mrs Cook respected Crumpy); and being
served up, with a quart of ale, in Crumpy's own head privacy, it had
such a good effect that the Captain was ready to face anybody.
Old Crumpy was a most crafty old fellow--which was one reason why I
liked him, as a contrast to my frankness--and he managed it all, and
kept such a look-out, that no one suspected him of any more than an
honoured old chum in his stronghold. Captain Bluett also knew exactly
what his bearings were, and from a loftier point of view than would ever
occur to Crumpy. A man who had carried a 50-gun ship right under the
lower port-holes of a 120-gun enemy, and without any orders to that
effect, and only from want of some easier business, he (I think) may be
trusted to get on in almost anything.
This was the very thing--I do believe--occurring to the mind of somebody
sitting, as nearly as might be now, upon a very beautiful sofa. The
loveliest work that you can imagine lay between her fingers; and she was
doing her very best to carry it on consistently. But on her lap lay a
London paper, full of the highest authority; and there any young eyes
might discover a regular pit-pat of tears.
"My dear, my dear," said Lady Bluett, being not so very much better
herself, although improved by spectacles; "it is a dreadful, dreadful
thing to think of those poor Frenchmen killed, so many at a time, and
all in their sins. I do hope they had time to think, ever so little, of
their latter end. It makes me feel quite ill to think of such a dreadful
carnage, and to know that my own son was foremost in it. Do you think,
my dear, that your delicate throat would be any worse in the morning, if
you were to read it once more to me? The people in the papers are so
clever; and there was something I did not quite catch about poor
Rodney's recklessness. How like his dear father, to be sure! I see him
in every word of it."
"Auntie, the first time I read it was best. The second and third time, I
cried worse and worse; and the fourth time, you know what you said of
me. And I know that I deserved it, Auntie, for having such foolish weak
eyes like that. You know what I told you about Captain Rodney, and
begged you to let me come here no more. And you know what you said--that
it was a child's fancy; and if it were not, it should take its course.
The Colonel was wiser. Oh, Auntie, Auntie! why don't you always harken
him!"
"For a very good reason, my dear child--he always proves wrong in the
end; and I don't. I have the very highest and purest respect for my dear
brother's judgment. Every one knows what his mind is, and every one
values his judgment. And no stranger, of course, can enter into him, his
views, and his largeness, and intellect; as I do, when I agree with him.
There, you have made me quite warm, my dear; I am so compelled to
vindicate him."
"I am so sorry--I did not mean--you know what I am, Auntie."
"My dear, I know what you are, and therefore it is that I love you so.
Now go and wash your pretty eyes, and read that again to me, and to the
Colonel. Many mothers would be proud perhaps. I feel no pride whatever,
because my son could not help doing it."
There was something else this excellent lady's son could not help doing.
He caught the beautiful maid of Sker in her pure white dress in a nook
of the passage, and with tears of pride for him rolling from her dark
grey eyes, and he could not help--but all lovers, I trow, know how much
to expect of him.
"Thank you, Rodney," Delushy cried; "to a certain extent, I am grateful.
But, if you please, no more of it. And you need not suppose that I was
crying about, about,--about anything."
"Of course not, you darling. How long have I lived, not to know that
girls cry about nothing? nine times out of ten at least. Pearly tears,
now prove your substance."
"Rodney, will you let me alone? I am not a French decker of 500 guns,
for you to do just what you like with. And I don't believe any one knows
you are here. Yes, yes, yes! Ever so many darlings, if you like--and
'with my whole heart I do love you,' as darling Moxy says. But one
thing, this moment, I insist upon--no, not in your ear, nor yet through
your hair, you conceited curly creature; but at the distance of a yard I
pronounce that you shall come to your mother."
"Oh, what a shame!" And with that unfilial view of the subject, he
rendered himself, after all those mortal perils, into the arms of his
mother. With her usual quickness Delushy fled, but came back to the
drawing-room very sedately, and with a rose-coloured change of dress, in
about half an hour afterwards.
"How do you do, Captain Rodney Bluett?"
"Madam, I hope that I see you well."
Lady Bluett was amazed at the coolness of them, and in her heart
disappointed; although she was trying to argue it down, and to say to
herself, "How wise of them!" She knew how the Colonel loved this young
maid, yet never could bear to think of his nephew taking to wife a mere
waif of the sea. The lady had faith in herself that she might in the end
overcome this prejudice. But of course if the young ones had ceased to
care for it, she could only say that young people were not of the stuff
that young people used to be.
While she revolved these things in her tender, warm, and motherly bosom,
the gentlemen came from the dining-room, to pay their compliments to the
ladies, and to have their tea and all that, according to the recent
style of it. They bowed very decently, as they came in, not being topers
by any means: and the lady of the house arose and curtsied to them most
gracefully. Then Rodney, who had found occasion ere this to salute
Colonel Lougher and his visitors, led forward the maid, and presented
her to them, with a very excellent naval bow.
"My dear uncle, and friends of the family," he began, while she trembled
a little, and looked at him with astonishment; "allow me the favour of
presenting to you a lady who will do me the honour of becoming my wife,
very shortly, I hope."
The Colonel drew back with a frown on his face. Lady Bluett on the other
hand ran up.
"What is the meaning of this?" she cried. "And not a word of it to your
own mother! Oh, Andalusia, how shocking of you!"
"I think, sir," said the Colonel, looking straight at the youth, "that
you might have chosen a better moment to defy your uncle, than in the
presence of his oldest friends. It is not like a gentleman, sir. It cuts
me to the heart to say such a thing to the son of my own sister. But,
sir, it is not like a gentleman."
The old friends nodded to one another, in approval of this sentiment;
and turned to withdraw from a family scene.
"Wait, if you please," cried Rodney Bluett. "Colonel Lougher, I should
deserve your reproach, if I had done anything of the kind. My intention
is not to defy you, sir; but to please you and gratify you, my dear
uncle, as your lifelong kindness to me and to this young lady deserves.
And I have chosen to do it before old friends, that your pleasure may be
increased by their congratulations. Instead of being ashamed, sir, of
the origin of your future niece--or you my dear mother of your daughter,
you may well be proud of it. She belongs to one of the oldest families
in the West of England. She is the grandchild of Sir Philip Bampfylde of
Narnton Court, near Barnstaple. And I think I have heard my mother speak
of him as an old friend of my father."
"To be sure, to be sure!" exclaimed Lady Bluett, ere the Colonel could
recover himself: "the Bluetts are an old west-country family; but the
Bampfyldes even older. Come to me, my pretty darling. There, don't cry
so; or if you must, come in here, and I will help you. Rodney, my dear,
you have delighted us, and you have done it most cleverly. But excuse my
saying that an officer in the army would have known a little better what
ladies are, than to have thrown them into this excitement, even in the
presence of valued friends. Come here, my precious. The gentlemen will
excuse us for a little while."
"Let me kiss Colonel Lougher first," whispered Delushy; all frightened,
crying, and quivering as she was, she could not forget her gratitude. So
she bowed her white forehead, and drooped her dark lashes under the old
man's benevolent gaze.
"Sit down, my dear friends," said Colonel Lougher, as soon as the ladies
had left the room. "My good nephew's tactics have been rather blunt, and
of the Aboukir order. However, he may be quite right if this matter
requires at once to be spread abroad. At any rate, my dear boy, I owe
you an apology. Rodney, I beg your pardon for the very harsh terms I
used to you."
With these words he stood up, and bowed to his nephew; who did the same
to him in silence, and then they shook hands warmly. After which the
young Captain told his story, to which they all listened intently--five
being justices of the shire, and one the lord-lieutenant--all accustomed
to examine evidence.
"It seems very likely," said Colonel Lougher, as they waited for his
opinion. "That David Llewellyn is a most shrewd fellow. But he ought to
have said more about the boat. There is one thing, however, to be done
at once--to collect confirmative evidence."
"There is another thing to be done at once," cried Rodney Bluett,
warmly--"to pull Chowne's nose. And despite his cloth, I will do it
roundly."
"My young friend," said the Lord-Lieutenant; "prove it first. And then,
I think, there are some people who would pardon you."
CHAPTER LXIII.
POLLY AT HOME.
Lest any one should be surprised that Sir Philip Bampfylde could have
paid two visits to this delightful neighbourhood, without calling on our
leading gentleman, and his own fellow-officer, Colonel Lougher--in which
case the questions concerning Delushy would have been sifted long ago--I
had better say at once what it was that stopped him. When the General
thought it just worth while, though his hopes were faint about it, to
inquire into the twisted story of the wreck on our coast, as given by
the celebrated Felix Farley; the first authority he applied to was
Coroner Bowles, who had held the inquest. Coroner Bowles told him all he
knew (half of which was wrong, of course, by means of Hezekiah) and gave
him a letter to Anthony Stew, as the most active and penetrating
magistrate of the neighbourhood. Nothing could have been more unlucky.
Not only did Stew baffle my desire to be more candid than the day
itself, by his official brow-beating, and the antipathy between us--not
only did Stew, like an over-sharp fellow, trust one of the biggest
rogues unhung--in his unregenerate dissenting days, and before we gave
him six dozen, which certainly proved his salvation--(I am sorry to say
such things of my present good neighbour, 'Kiah; but here he is now, and
subscribes to it) Hezekiah Perkins, whose view of the shipwreck, and
learned disquisition on sand, misled the poor Coroner and all of the
Jury, except myself, so blindly, that we drowned the five young men, and
smothered the baby--not only did Stew, I say, get thus far in
bewilderment of the subject, but he utterly ruined all chance of
clearing it, by keeping Sir Philip from Candleston Court!
If you ask me how, I can only say, in common fairness to Anthony Stew
(who is lately gone, poor fellow, to be cross-examined by somebody
sharper even than himself--one to whom I would never afford material for
unpleasant questions, by speaking amiss of a man in his
power--especially when so needless), in a word, to treat Stew as I hope
myself to be treated by survivors, I admit that he may not have wished
to keep Sir Philip away from the Colonel. But the former having once
accepted Stew's keen hospitality, and tried to eat fish (which I might
have bettered, had I known of his being there), felt, with his usual
delicacy, that he ought not to visit a man at feud with the host whose
salt--and very little else--he was then enjoying. For Mrs Stew was more
bitter of course than even her husband against Colonel Lougher, and
roundly abused him the very first evening of Sir Philip's stay with
them. So that the worthy General passed the gates of the excellent
Colonel, half-a-dozen times perhaps, without once passing through them.
Enough about that; and I need only say, before returning to my own
important and perhaps sagacious inquiries in Devonshire, that the news,
so hastily blurted out by Captain Rodney Bluett, caused many glad hearts
in our parish and neighbourhood; but nevertheless two sad ones. Of these
one belonged to Roger Berkrolles, and the other to Moxy Thomas. The
child had so won upon both these, not only by her misfortunes and the
way in which she bore them, but by her loving disposition, bright
manner, and docility, that it seemed very hard to lose her so, even
though it were for her own good. Upon this latter point Master
Berkrolles, when I came to see him, held an opinion, the folly of which
surprised me, from a man of such reading and history. In real earnest he
laid down that it might be a very bad thing for the maid, and make
against her happiness, to come of a sudden into high position,
importance, and even money. Such sentiments are to be found, I believe,
in the weaker parts of the Bible, such as are called the New Testament,
which nobody can compare to the works of my ancestor, King David; and
which, if you put aside Saint Paul, and Saint Peter (who cut the man's
ear off, and rejected quite rightly the table-cloth), exhibit to my mind
nobody of a patriotic spirit.
As for Moxy, she would not have been a woman if she had doubted about
the value of high position, coin of the realm, and rich raiment.
Nevertheless she cried bitterly that this child, as good as her own to
her, and given her to make up for them, and now so clever to see to
things, and to light the fire, and show her the way Lady Bluett put her
dress on, should be taken away in a heap as it were, just as if the
great folk had minded her. She blamed our poor Bunny for stealing the
heart of young Watkin, who might have had the maid (according to his
mother's fancy) with money enough to restock the farm, now things had
proved so handsome. As if everybody did not know that Bardie would never
think twice of Watkin; while his mother, hearing of the ships I had
taken (as all over the parish reported), had put poor Watkin on bread
and water, until he fell in love with Bunny! However, now she cried very
severely, and in a great measure she meant it.
Leaving all Newton, and Nottage, and Sker, and even Bridgend to consider
these matters, with a pleasing divergence of facts and conclusions, I
find it my duty, however repugnant, to speak once more of my humble
self. In adversity, my native dignity and the true grandeur of Cambria
have always united, against my own feelings, to make me almost
self-confident, or at any rate able to maintain my position, and knock
under to nobody. But in prosperity, all this drops; extreme affability,
and my native longing to give pleasure, mark my deportment towards all
the world; and I almost never commit an assault.
In this fine and desirable frame of mind I arrived at Narnton Court once
more, sooner perhaps than Captain Bluett, having so much further to go,
burst in on his friends at Candleston; although I have given his story
precedence, not only on account of his higher rank, but because of the
hurry he was in. On the other hand, my part seemed to be of a nice and
delicate character--to find out all that I could without making any
noise in the neighbourhood, to risk no chance, if it might be helped, of
exciting Sir Philip Bampfylde, and, above all things, no possibility of
arousing Chowne, till the proper time. For his craft was so great that
he might destroy every link of evidence, if he once knew that we were in
chase of him; even as he could out-fox a fox.
When things of importance take their hinge, a good deal, upon feminine
evidence, the first thing a wise man always does is to seek female
instinct, if he sees his way to guide it. And to have the helm of a
woman, nothing is so certain as a sort of a promise of marriage. A man
need not go too very far, and must be awake about pen and ink, and
witnesses, and so on; but if he knows how to do it, and has lost an arm
in battle, but preserved an unusually fine white beard, and has had
another wife before, who was known to make too little of him, the fault
is his own if he cannot manage half-a-dozen spinsters.
My reputation had outrun me--as it used to do, sometimes too often--for
in the despatches my name came after scarcely more than fifty, though it
should have been one of the foremost five; however, my wound was
handsomely chronicled, and with a touch of my own description, such as
is really heartfelt. Of course it was not quite cured yet, and I felt
very shy about it; and the very last thing I desired was for the women
to come bothering. Tush! I have no patience with them; they make such a
fuss of a trifle.
But being bound upon such an errand, and anxious to conciliate them so
far as self-respect allowed, and knowing that if I denied myself to
them, the movement would be much greater, I let them have peeps, and
perceive at the same time that I really did want a new set of shirts.
Half-a-dozen of damsels began at once to take my measure: and the result
will last my lifetime.
But, amid all this glorification, whenever I thought of settling, there
was one pretty face that I longed to see, and to my mind it beat the
whole of them. What was become of my pretty Polly, the lover of my
truthful tales, and did she still remember a brave, though not young
officer in the Navy, who had saved her from the jaws of death, by
catching small-pox from her? These questions were answered just in time,
and in the right manner also, by the appearance of Polly herself,
outblushing the rose at sight of me, and without a spot on her face,
except from the very smart veil she was wearing. For she was no longer a
servant now, but free and independent, and therefore entitled to take
the veil, and she showed her high spirit by doing this, to the deep
indignation of all our maid-servants. And still more indignant were
these young women, when Polly demeaned herself, as they declared, with a
perfectly shameless and brazen-faced manner of carrying on towards the
noble old tar. They did not allow for the poor thing's gratitude to the
only one who came nigh her in her despairing hour and saved her life
thereby, nor yet for her sorrow and tender feeling at the dire
consequence to him; and it was not in their power, perhaps, to
sympathise with the shock she felt at my maimed and war-beaten
appearance. However, I carried the whole of it off in a bantering
manner, as usual.
Still there was one resolution I came to, after long puzzling in what
way to cope with the almost fatal difficulty of having to trust a
woman. So I said to myself, that if this must be done, I might make it
serve two purposes--first for discovery of what I sought, and then for a
test of the value of a female, about whom I had serious feelings. These
were in no way affected by some news I picked up from Nanette, or, as
she now called herself, "The widow Heaviside." Not that my old friend
had left this world, but that he gave a wide berth to the part
containing his beloved partner. She, with a Frenchwoman's wit and
sagacity, saw the advantage of remaining in the neighbourhood of her
wrongs; and here with the pity now felt for her, and the help she
received from Sir Philip himself, and her own skill in getting up
women's fal lals, she maintained her seven children cleverly.
After shedding some natural tears for the admired but fugitive
Heaviside, she came round, of course, to her neighbours' affairs; and
though she had not been at Narnton Court at the time when the children
were stolen, she helped me no little by telling me where to find one who
knew all that was known of it. This was a farmer's wife now at
Burrington (as I found out afterwards), a village some few leagues up
the Tawe, and her name was Mrs Shapland.
"From her my friend the Captain shall decouver the everything of this
horrible affair," said Nanette, who now spoke fine English. "She was
the--what you call--the bonne, the guard of the leetle infants. I know
not where she leeves, some barbarous name. I do forget--but she have one
cousin, a jolly girl, of the leetle name--pray how can you make such
thing of 'Mary?'"
"What! do you mean Polly?" I asked; "that is what we make of Mary. And
what Polly is it then, Madame?"
"Yes, Paullee, the Paullee which have that horrible pest that makes
holes in the faces. 'Verole' we call it. The Paullee that was in the
great mansion, until she have the money left, the niece of the proud
woman of manage. You shall with great facility find that Paullee." Of
course I could, for she had told me where I might call upon her, which I
did that very same afternoon.
And a pretty and very snug cottage it was, just a furlong, or so, above
the fine old village of Braunton, with four or five beautiful meadows
around it, and a bright pebbly brook at the turn of the lane. The
cottage itself, even now in November, was hung all over with China
roses, and honeysuckle in its second bloom, which it often shows in
Devonshire. And up at the window, that shook off the thatch, and looked
wide-awake as a dog's house, a face, more bright than the roses, came,
and went away, and came again, to put a good face upon being caught.
Hereupon I dismissed the boys, who, with several rounds of cheers, had
escorted me through Braunton; and with genuine thankfulness I gazed at
the quiet and pleasing prospect. So charming now in the fall of the
leaf, what would it be in the spring-time, with the meadows all breaking
anew into green, and the trees all ready for their leaves again? Also
these bright red Devonshire cows, all belonging to Polly, and even now
streaming milkily--a firkin apiece was the least to expect of them, in
the merry May month. A very deep feeling of real peace, and the pleasure
of small things fell on me; for a man of so many years, and one arm,
might almost plead to himself some right to shed his experience over the
earth, when his blood had been curdling on so many seas.
The very same thought was in Polly's eyes when she ran down and opened
the door for me. The whole of this property was her own; or would be, at
least, when her old grandmother would allow herself to be buried. That
old woman now was ninety-five, if the parsons had minded the register;
and a woman more fully resolved to live on I never had the luck to meet
with. And the worst of it was, that her consent to Polly's marriage was
needful, under the ancient cow-keeper's will, with all of the meadows so
described, that nobody could get out of them. Hereupon, somehow, I
managed to see that a very bold stroke was needed. And I took it, and
won the old lady over, by downright defiance. I told her that she was a
great deal too young to have any right to an opinion; and when she
should come to my time of life, she would find me ready to hearken her.
She said that no doubt it was bred from the wars for sailors to talk so
bravely; but that I ought to know better--with a fie, and a sigh, and a
fie again. To none of this would I give ear, but began to rebuke all the
young generations, holding to ridicule those very points upon which they
especially plume themselves, until this most excellent woman began to
count all her cows on her fingers.
"Her can't have them. No, her shan't have they," she cried, with a power
which proved that she saw them dropping into my jaws almost; "her han't
a got 'em yet; and why should her have 'em?"
Into this very fine feeling and sense of possession I entered so
amiably, that amid much laughter and many blushes on the part of Polly
(who pretended to treat the whole thing as a joke), the old lady put on
her silver goggles, and set down her name to a memorandum, prepared on
the spur of the moment by me. Whereupon I quite made my mind up to go
bravely in for it, and recompense Polly for all her faith, and
gratitude, and frugality, if she should prove herself capable of keeping
counsel also.
To this intent I expressed myself as elegantly as could be, having led
Polly out to the wooden bridge, that nobody else might hear me. For that
fine old woman became so deaf, all of a sudden, that I had no faith in
any more of her organs, and desired to be at safe distance from her, as
well as to learn something more of the cows. Nor did I miss the chance;
for all of them having been milked by Polly, came up to know what I had
to say to her, and their smell was beautiful. So I gave them a bit of
salt out of my pocket, such as I always carry when ashore, and offered
them some tobacco; and they put out their broad yellow lips for the one,
and snorted and sneezed at the other. When these valuable cows were gone
to have a little more grazing, I just made Polly aware of the chance
that appeared to be open before us. In short, I laid clearly before her
the whole of my recent grand discovery, proving distinctly that with
nothing more than a little proper management, I possessed therein at
least an equivalent for her snug meadow homestead, and all the
milch-cows, and the trout-stream. Only she must not forget one thing,
namely, that the whole of this value would vanish, if a single word of
this story were breathed any further off than our own two selves, until
the time was ripe for it. Of course I had not been quite such a fool as
to give Nanette the smallest inkling of any motive on my part beyond
that pure curiosity, with which she could so well sympathise. Also it
had been settled between Captain Bluett and myself, that a fortnight was
to be allowed me for hunting up all the evidence, before he should cross
the Channel; unless I took it on myself to fetch him.
Polly opened her blue eyes to such a size at all I told her, that I
became quite uneasy lest she should open her mouth in proportion. For if
my discovery once took wind before its entire completion, there would be
at least fifty jealous fellows thrusting their oars into my own
rowlocks, and robbing me of my own private enterprise. Also Miss Polly
gave way to a feeling of anger and indignation, which certainly might be
to some extent natural, but was, to say the least of it, in a far
greater measure indiscreet, and even perilous.
"Oh the villain! oh the cruel villain!" she exclaimed, in a voice that
quite alarmed me, considering how near the footpath was; "and a minister
of the Gospel too! Oh the poor little babes, one adrift on the sea, and
the other among them naked savages! What a mercy as they didn't eat him!
And to blame the whole of it on a nice, harmless, kind-spoken, handsome
gentleman, like our Captain! Oh, let me get hold of him!"
"That, my dear Polly, we never shall do, if you raise your voice in this
way. Now come away from these trees with the ivy, and let us speak very
quietly."
This dear creature did (as nearly as could be expected) what I told her;
so that I really need not repent of my noble faith in the female race.
This encouraged me; from its tendency to abolish prejudice, and to let
the weaker vessels show that there is such a thing as a cork to them.
Men are apt to judge too much by experience on this subject; when they
ought to know that experience never does apply to women, any more than
reason does.
Nevertheless my Polly saw the way in and out of a lot of things, which
to me were difficult. Especially as to the manner of handling her
cousin, Mrs Shapland, a very good woman in her way, but a ticklish one
to deal with. And all the credit for all the truth we get out of Mrs
Shapland belongs not to me (any more than herself), but goes down in a
lump to poor Polly.
To pass this lightly--as now behoves me--just let me tell what Susan
Shapland said, when I worked it out of her. Any man can get the truth
out of a woman, if he knows the way; I mean, of course, so far as she
has been able to receive it. To expect more than this is unreasonable;
and to get that much is wonderful. However, Polly and I, between us, did
get a good deal of it.
Of course, we did not let this good woman even guess what we wanted with
her; only we borrowed a farmer's cart from Bang, my old boy, who was now
set up in a farm on his grandmother's ashes; and his horse was not to be
found fault with, if a man did his duty in lashing him. This I was ready
to understand, when pointed out by Polly; and he never hoisted his tail
but what I raked him under his counter.
So after a long hill, commanding miles and miles of the course of the
river, we fetched up in the courtyard of Farmer Shapland, and found his
wife a brisk sharp woman, quite ready to tell her story. But what she
did first, and for us, at this moment, was to rouse up the fire with a
great dry fagot, crackling and sparkling merrily. For the mist of
November was now beginning to crawl up the wavering valley, and the
fading light from the west struck coldly on the winding river.
In such a case, and after a drive of many miles and much scenery, any
man loves to see pots and pans goaded briskly to bubbling and
sputtering, or even to help in the business himself, so far as the cook
will put up with it. And then if a foolish good woman allows him (as
pride sometimes induces her) to lift up a pot-lid when trembling with
flavour, or give a shake to the frying-pan in the ecstasy of crackling,
or even to blow on the iron spoon, and then draw in his breath with a
drop of it--what can he want with any scenery out of the window, or
outside his waistcoat?
Such was my case, I declare to you, in that hospitable house with these
good people of Burrington; nor could we fall to any other business,
until this was done with; then after dark we drew round the fire, with a
black-jack of grand old ale, and our pipes, to hear Mrs Shapland's
story.
CHAPTER LXIV.
SUSAN QUITE ACQUITS HERSELF.
It really does seem as wise a plan as any I am acquainted with, to let
this good woman act according to the constitution of her sex,--that is
to say, to say her say, and never be contradicted. We contradicted her
once or twice to reconcile her to herself; but all that came of it was
to make her contradict perhaps herself, but certainly us, ten times as
much. She did her best to explain her meaning; and we really ought to
enter more into their disabilities. Therefore let her tell her story, as
nearly in her own words, poor thing, as my sense of the English language
can in any style agree with.
"I was nurse at Narnton Court, ever so many years ago--when my name was
Susan Moggeridge,--Charley, you cannot deny it, you know; and all of us
must be content to grow old, it is foolish to look at things otherwise.
Twelve and six, that makes eighteen; now, Captain Wells, you know it do;
and, Charley, can you say otherwise? Then it must have been eighteen
years agone, when I was took on for under-nurse, because the Princess
was expecting, the same as the butler told me. And it came to pass on a
Sunday night, with two miles away from the doctor. Orders had been
given; but they foreigners always do belie them. Too soon always, or too
late; and these two little dears was too soon, by reason of the
wonderful child the eldest one was prepared for. A maid she was, and the
other a boy; two real beauties both of them; as fair as could be, with
little clear dots under their skin, in corner places, because of their
mother the Princess. But nothing as any one would observe, except for a
beauty to both of them. The boy was the biggest, though the girl came
first; and first was her nature in everything, except, of course, in
fatness, and by reason of always dancing. Not six months old was that
child before she could dance on the kitchen table with only one hand to
hold her up, and a pleasure it was to look at her. And laugh with her
little funny face, and nod her head, she would, as if she saw to the
bottom of everything. And when she were scarce turned the twelvemonth,
she could run, like--oh, just like anything, and roll over and over on
the grass with her 'Pomyolianian dog,' as she called him, and there
wasn't a word in the language as ever come amiss to her, but for the r's
or the y's in it. Words such as I could lay no tongue to, she would take
and pronounce right off, and then laugh at herself and everybody. And
the way she used to put her hands out, laying down the law to all of
us--we didn't want a showman in the house so long as we had Miss Bertha,
or 'Bardie,' as she called herself, though christened after her mother.
Everybody, the poor little mite, she expected everybody to know her name
and all about her; and nothing put her in such a passion as to pretend
not to know who she was. 'I'se Bardie,' she used to cry out, with her
little hands spread, and her bright eyes flashing; 'I'se Bardie, I tell
'a; and evelybody knows it.' Oh yes, and she never could say 'th'--but
'niss' and 'nat,' for this and that. And how angry she used to be, to be
sure, if anybody mocked her, as we used to do for the fun of it. But
even there, she was up to us, for she began to talk French, for revenge
upon us, having taken the trick from her mother.
"Likewise the boy was a different child altogether in many ways. He
scarcely could learn to speak at all, because he was a very fine child
indeed, and quiet, and fat, and easy. He would lie by for hours on a
velvet cushion, and watch his little sister having her perpetual round
of play. Dolls, and horses, and Noah's arks, and all the things that
were alive to her, and she talking to them whiles the hour,--he took no
more notice than just to stroke them, and say, 'Boo, boo!' or 'Poor,
poor!' which was nearly all that he could say. Not that he was to blame,
of course, nor would any one having sense think of it, especially after
he took the pink fever, and it struck to his head, and they cut his hair
off. Beautiful curls as was ever seen, and some of them in my drawer
up-stairs now, with the colour of gold streaking over them. Philip his
name was, of course, from Sir Philip, and being the heir to the title;
but his clever sister she always called him 'little brother,' as if he
was just born almost, when he weighed pretty nearly two of her.
"Sir Philip, the good old gentleman, was away in foreign parts, they
said, or commanding some of the colonies, up to the time when these two
twins were close upon two years old, or so. I remember quite well when
he came home with his luggage marked 'General Bampfylde;' and we said it
was disrespectful of the Government to call him so, when his true name
was 'Sir Philip.' He had never seen his grandchildren till now, and what
a fuss he made with them! But they had scarcely time to know him before
they were sadly murdered; or worse, perhaps, for all that any one knows
to the contrary. Because Sir Philip's younger son, Captain Drake
Bampfylde, came from the seas and America, just at this time. No one
expected him, of course, from among such distant places; and he had not
been home for three years at least, and how noble he did look, until we
saw how his shirts were cobbled! And every one all about the place said
that his little finger was worth the whole of the Squire's body. Because
the Squire, his elder brother, and the heir of Sir Philip, was of a
nature, not to say--but I cannot make it clear to you. No one could say
a word against him; only he were not, what you may call it,--not as we
Devonshire people are,--not with a smile and kind look of the eye, the
same as Captain Drake was.
"This poor Captain Drake--poor or bad, I scarce know which to put it,
after all I have heard of him--anyhow his mind was set upon a little
chit of a thing, not more than fifteen at this time. Her name was Isabel
Carey, and her father had been a nobleman, and when he departed this
life he ordered her off to Narnton Court. So she did at an early age;
and being so beautiful as some thought, she was desperate with the
Captain. They used to go walking all up in the woods, or down on the
river in a boat, until it was too bad of them. The Captain, I daresay,
meant no harm, and perhaps he did none; but still there are sure to be
talkative people who want to give their opinions. If Charley had carried
on so with me, whatever should I have thought of myself?
"Well, there was everybody saying very fine things to everybody, gay
doings likewise, and great feasts, and singing, and dancing, and all the
rest. And the Captain hired a pleasure-boat, by name the 'Wild Duck of
Appledore;' and I never shall forget the day when he took a whole pack
of us for a sail out over Barnstaple bar and back. I was forced to go,
because he needs must take the children; and several even old people
were sick, but no one a quarter so bad as me. And it came into my mind
in that state, that he was longing, as well as welcome, to cast us all
into the raging sea. However, the Lord preserved us. This little ship
had one mast, as they call it, and he kept her generally in a little
bend just above the salmon-weir, so as to see the men draw the pool, and
himself to shoot the wild-fowl, from a covered place there is; and by
reason of being so long at sea, he could not sleep comfortable at the
Court, but must needs make his bed in this pleasuring-ship, and to it he
used to go to and fro in a little white boat as belonged to it.
"All this time the weather was so hot we could scarcely bear our clothes
on, and were ready to envy them scandalous savages belonging to the
famous Parson Chowne, who went about with no clothes on. There was one
of these known to be down on the burrows a-bathing of his wife and
family, if a decent woman may name them so. Well, the whole of these gay
goings on, to celebrate the return of Sir Philip, and of Captain Drake,
and all that they owed to the Lord for His goodness, was to finish up
with a great dinner to all the tenants on the property; and then on the
children's birthday, a feasting of all the gentry around; and a dance
with all sorts of outlandish dresses and masks on, in the evening. For
the fashion of this was come down from London, and there had been a
party of this sort over to Lord Bassett's; and the neighbourhood was
wild with it. And after this everything was to be quiet, because my Lady
the Princess Bertha was again beginning to expect almost.
"And now, Captain Wells, you would hardly believe what a blow there was
sent, by the will of the Lord, upon all of this riot and revelry. There
was many of us having pious disposals, as well as religious
bringings-up, whose stomachs really was turned by the worldliness as was
around us. Young ladies of the very best families, instead of turning
their minds to the Lord, turning of themselves about, with young men
laying hold of them, as if there was nothing more to be said than 'Kiss
me quick!' and, 'I'll do it again!' But there was a judgment coming.
They might lay the blame on me, if they like. There is folk as knows
better.
"That very night it was so hot, with the sun coming up from the river,
that even the great hall the dance was to be in, was only fit to lie
down in. So that Captain Drake, in his man-of-war voice, shouted (and I
think I can hear him now), 'Ladies and gentlemen, I propose that we have
our dance out on the terrace.' This was the open made-up flat between
the house and the river, and the Captain's offer was caught up at,
directly the gentlefolk seen the moon.
"Here they were going on ever so long; and the more of twirling round
they had, and of making heel and toe, and crossing arms and even
frontesses, the more they seemed to like it; also the music up and down
almost as bad as they was; so that what with the harlequin dresses, and
masquerading, and mummeries, scarcely any one could have the head to be
sure of any one else almost. I could not help looking at them, although
my place was to heed the children only, and keep them out of mischief,
and take them to bed at the proper time. But Captain Drake, who was
here, there, and elsewhere, making himself agreeable, up he comes to me
with a bottle, and he says, 'Mary, have some.' 'My name is not Mary, but
Susan, sir, and much at your service,' I answered; so that he poured me
a great glassful, and said that it was Sam--something. I was not so rude
as to give him denial, but made him a curtsy, and drank it, for it was
not so strong as my father's cider; no, nor so good to my liking. And
for any to say that it got in my head, shows a very spiteful woman. The
Captain went on to the other maids, as were looking on for the life of
them, all being out-of-doors, you must mind, and longing to have their
turn at it. But I held myself above them always, and went back to my
children.
"These were in a little bower made up for the occasion, with boughs of
trees, and twisted wood, and moss from the forest to lie upon. Master
Philip was tired and heavy, and working his eyes with the backs of his
hands, and yawning, and falling away almost. But that little Bertha was
as wide-awake as a lark on her nest in the morning. Everywhere she was
looking about for somebody to encourage her to have 'more play,' as she
always called for; and 'more play' continually. That child was so full
of life, it was 'more play' all day long with her! And even now, in the
fiery heat and thorough down thirst of the weather, nothing was further
from her mind than to go to bed without a gambol for it. She had nothing
on but her little shift, or under-frock I should call it, made by
myself, when the hot weather came, from a new jemmyset of the Princess,
and cut out by my lady to fit her for the sake of the coolness. Her
grand white upper frock, trimmed with lace, had been taken off by her
papa, I believe, when the visitors would have her dance on the table,
and make speeches to them; the poor little soul was so quick and so hot.
"Well, I do declare to you, Captain Wells, and Charley, Polly likewise,
which will believe me, though the men may not, it was not more than a
minute or so much, perhaps I should say not half a minute, as I happened
to turn round to pass a compliment with a young man as seemed struck
with me the Sunday before in church-time; a sailor he were, and had come
with the Captain, and was his mate of the pleasure-boat. A right down
handsome young man he was--no call for you to be jealous, Charley.
Beneath the salt waves he do lie. Well, I turned back my head in about
five seconds, and both of the babes was gone out of my sight! At first I
were not frightened much. I took it for one of Miss Bertha's tricks, to
make off with her little brother. So strong she was on her legs, though
light, that many a time she would lift him up by his middle and carry
him half round the room, and then both of them break out laughing. 'I'll
whip you, you see if I don't,' I cried, as I ran round the corner to
seek for them; though whip them I never did, poor dears, any more than
their own mother did. I ran all about, for five minutes at least, around
and among the branches stuck in to make the bower, and every moment I
made up my mind for Miss Bardie to pop out on me. But pop out she never
did, nor will, until the day of judgment.
"When I began to see something more than an innocent baby trick in it,
and to think (I daresay) of these two babies' value, with all the land
they were born to, the first thing I did was to call out 'Jack!' such
being all sailors' names, of course. But Jack was gone out of all
hearing; and most folk said it was Jack that took them! To the contrary
I could swear; but who would listen to me when the lie went out that I
was quite tipsy?
"Of the rest I cannot speak clearly, because my heart flew right up into
my brain, directly moment the people came round shouting at me for the
children. And of these the very worst was Parson Chowne. If it had been
his own only children--such as he says he is too good to have--he
scarcely could have been more rampagious, not to use worse words of him.
The first thing that every one ran to, of course, was the parapetch and
the river, and a great cry was made for Captain Drake Bampfylde, from
his knowledge of the waterways. But, though all the evening foremost in
conducting everything, now there was no sign to be had of him, or of who
had seen him last. And it must have been an hour ere ever he come, and
then of course it was too late.
"I was so beside myself all that night that I cannot tell how the time
went by. I remember looking over the parapetch at a place where the
water is always deep, and seeing the fishermen from the salmon-weir
dragging their nets for the poor mites of bodies. And my blood seemed to
curdle inside me almost, every time they came out with a stone or a log.
Nothing was found from that night to this day, and nothing will ever be
found of it. I was discharged, and a great many others; not the first
time in this world, I believe, when the bottom of the whole was
witchcraft. Here, Charley, put something hot in my glass; the evenings
are getting so dark; and I never can see the moon and the water, like
that, and the trees, without remembering. Now ask me no more, if you
please, good people."
When Mrs Shapland had finished this tale, and was taking some
well-earned refreshment, Polly and I looked at one another, as much as
to say, "That settles it." Nor did we press her with any more questions
until her mind had recovered its tone by frying some slices of ham cut
thin, and half-a-dozen new-laid eggs for us. Then, I approached her with
no small praise, which she deserved, and appeared (so far as I could
judge) to desire, perhaps; and with a little skill on my part, she was
soon warmed up again, having tasted egg-flip, to be sure of it.
"Yes, Captain Wells, you can see through the whole of it. Sailors can
understand a river, when nobody else knows anything. The Captain came
forward as soon as he could, and he says, 'You fools, what are you
about? An hour ago the tide was running five knots an hour where you be
dragging! If the poor children fell over, they must be down river-bar by
this time.' And off he set out on a galloping horse, to scurry the
sandhills somehow. And scurry was now the whole of it. Sir Philip came
forth, and that poor Squire Philip; and a thousand pounds was as freely
talked of as if it was halfpence. And every one was to be put in prison;
especially me, if you please, as blameless as the unborn babe was! And
that very night the Princess were taken, and died the next day,
upsetting everything, ever so much worse than ever. For poor Squire
Philip fell into a trance, so to say, out of sheer vexation. He cried
out that the hand of the Lord was upon him, and too heavy for him to
bear--particular from his own brother. And after that not an inch would
he budge to make inquiry or anything, but shut himself up in his dead
wife's rooms, and there he have moped from that day to this, in a living
grave, as you may call it."
In reply to my question what reasons the Squire, or any one else, might
have for charging the Captain with so vile a deed, this excellent woman
set them forth pretty much to the following purport. First, it was the
Captain himself who proposed the dancing on the terrace. Second, it was
his own man who drew her attention away from the children, after a
goblet of wine had been administered by the master. Third, it was his
own boat which was missing, and never heard of afterwards. Fourth, the
Captain himself disappeared from the party at the very time that the
children were stolen, and refused to say whither, or why, he was gone.
That active and shrewd man Parson Chowne no sooner heard of the loss
than he raised a cry for the Captain all over the terrace, to come and
command the fishermen; and though as a friend of the family Chowne would
never express an opinion, he could not undo that sad shake of the head
which he gave when no Captain could be found. Fifth, a man with a
Captain's hat was seen burying two small bodies that night, in the depth
of Braunton Wilderness; though nothing was heard of it till the next
week, through the savageness of the witness; and by that time the fierce
storm on the Sunday had changed the whole face of the burrows, so that
to find the spot was impossible. Sixth, it was now recalled to mind that
Drake Bampfylde had killed a poor schoolfellow in his young days, for
which the Lord had most righteously sent a shark in pursuit of him. It
was likely enough that he would go on killing children upon occasion.
Seventh reason, and perhaps worth all the rest--only think what a motive
he had for it. No one else could gain sixpence by it; Drake Bampfylde
would gain everything--the succession to the title and estates, and the
immediate right to aspire to the hand of the beautiful heiress, Miss
Carey, who was known to favour him.
An elderly woman, who had been in the workhouse, and throve upon that
experience, said that the Captain would never have done it; for he might
have to do the like thing again, every time the poor Princess should
happen to be confined almost. But who could listen to this poor
creature, while the result lay there before them?
Thus the common people reasoned; but our Susan attached no weight to any
except the last argument. As for one, she knew quite well that the young
seaman sauntered there quite by chance, and quite by chance she spoke to
him: and as for wine, she could take a quart of her father's cider, and
feel it less than she could describe to any one; and as for a rummer of
that stuff she had, it was quite below contempt to her. And concerning
the Captain just being away, and declining to say where he was, like a
gentleman; none but ignorant folk could pretend not to know what that
meant. Of course he was gone, between the dances, for a little cool walk
in the firwoods, together with his Isabel; and to expose her name to the
public, with their nasty way of regarding things, was utterly out of the
question to a real British officer! And to finish it, Mrs Shapland said
that she was almost what you might call a young woman even now; at any
rate with ten times the sense any of the young ones were up to. And ten
years of her life she would give, if Charley would allow of her, to know
what became of them two little dears, and to punish the villain that
wronged them.
Hereupon my warmth of heart got the better of my prudence. My wise and
pure intention was to get out of this good woman all I could; but impart
to her nothing more than was needful, just to keep her talking.
Experience shows us that this need be very little indeed, if anything,
in a female dialogue. But now I was brought to such a pitch of
tenderness by this time, with my heart in a rapid pulse of descriptions,
and the egg-flip going round sturdily, also Polly looking at me in a
most beseeching way, that I could not keep my own counsel even, but was
compelled to increase their comfort by declaring every thing.
CHAPTER LXV.
SO DOES POOR OLD DAVY.
Hereupon, you may well suppose that the grass must no longer grow under
my feet. With one man, and positively two women, in this very same
county, having possession of my secret, how long could I hope to work
this latter to any good purpose? Luckily Burrington lay at a very great
distance from Nympton on the Moors, and with no road from one to the
other; so that if Mr and Mrs Shapland should fail of keeping their
promised tightness, at least two Barnstaple market-days must pass before
Nympton heard anything. And but for this consideration, even their style
of treatment would not have made me so confiding.
On the following morn, while looking forth at pigs, and calves, and
cocks, and ducks, I perceived that the crash must come speedily, and
resolved to be downright smart with it. So after making a brisk little
breakfast, upon the two wings and two legs of a goose, grilled with a
trifle of stuffing, there was but one question I asked before leaving
many warm tears behind me.
"Good Mistress Shapland, would you know that jemmyset of the child, if
you saw it?"
"Captain Wells, I am not quite a natural. My own stitching done with a
club-head, all of it, and of a three-lined thread as my uncle's, and
nobody else had, to Barnstaple. Likewise the mark of the Princess done,
a mannygram, as they call it."
The weather was dull, and the time of year as stormy as any I know of:
nevertheless it was quite fine now, and taking upon myself to risk five
guineas out of my savings, Ilfracombe was the place I sought, and found
it with some difficulty. Thus might Barnstaple bar be avoided, and all
the tumbling of inshore waters; and thus with no more than a pilot-yawl
did I cross that dangerous channel, at the most dangerous time of the
year almost. Nothing less than my Royal clothes and manifest high rank
in the Navy could have induced this fine old pilot to make sail for the
opposite coast in the month of November, when violent gales are so
common with us. But I showed him two alternatives, three golden guineas
on the one hand, impressment on the other; for a press-gang was in the
neighbourhood now, and I told him that I was its captain, and that we
laughed at all certificates. And not being sure that this man and his
son might not combine to throw me overboard, steal my money, and run
back to port, I took care to let them perceive my entry of their names
and my own as well in the register of the coast-guard. However they
proved very honest fellows, and we anchored under Porthcawl point soon
after dark that evening.
Having proved to the pilot that he was quite safe here, unless it should
come on to blow from south-east, of which there was no symptom, and
leaving him under the care of Sandy, who at my expense stood treat to
him, I made off for Candleston, not even stopping for a chat with Roger
Berkrolles. The Colonel, of course, as well as his sister Lady Bluett,
and Rodney, wore delighted with what I had to tell them, while the maid
herself listened with her face concealed to the tale of her own
misfortune. Once or twice she whispered to herself, "Oh my poor poor
father!" and when I had ended she rose from the sofa where Lady Bluett's
arm was around her, and went to the Colonel and said, "How soon will you
take me to my father!"
"My darling Bertha," said the Colonel, embracing her, as if she had been
his daughter, "we will start to-morrow, if Llewellyn thinks the weather
quite settled, and the boat quite safe. He knows so much about boats,
you see. It would take us a week to go round by land. But we won't start
at all, if you cry, my dear!"
I did not altogether like the tone of the Colonel's allusion to me;
still less was I pleased when he interrupted Lady Bluett's
congratulations, thanks, and fervent praises of my skill, perseverance,
and trustiness in discovering all this villany.
"Humph!" said the Colonel; "I am not quite sure that this villany would
have succeeded so long, unless a certain small boat had proved so
adapted for fishing purposes."
"Why, Henry!" cried his sister; "how very unlike you! What an unworthy
insinuation! After all Mr Llewellyn has done; it is positively
ungrateful. And he spoke of that boat in this very room, as I can
perfectly well remember, not--oh not--I am sure any more than a very few
years ago, my dear."
"Exactly," said the Colonel; "too few years ago. If he had spoken of
that at the time, as distinctly as he did afterwards, when the heat of
inquiry was over, and when Sir Philip himself had abandoned it, I do
not see how all this confusion, between the loss of a foreign ship and
the casting away of a British boat, could have arisen, or at any rate
could have failed to be cleared away. Llewellyn, you know that I do not
judge hastily. Sir, I condemn your conduct."
"Oh, Colonel, how dreadful of you! Mr Llewellyn, go and look at the
weather, while I prove to the Colonel his great mistake. You did speak
of the boat at the very inquest, in the most noble and positive manner;
and nobody would believe you, as you your very self told me. What more
could any man do? We are none of us safe, if we do our very best, and
have it turned against us."
My conscience all this time was beating, so that I could hear it. This
is a gift very good men have, and I have made a point of never failing
to cultivate it. In this trying moment, with even a man so kind and
blameless suddenly possessed, no doubt, by an evil spirit against me,
stanch as rock my conscience stood, and to my support it rose,
creditably for both of us.
"Colonel Lougher," my answer was, "you will regret this attack on the
honour of a British officer. One, moreover, whose great-grandfather
harped in your Honour's family. Captain Bluett understands the build of
a boat as well as I do. He shall look at that boat to-morrow morning,
and if he declares her to be English-built, you may set me down, with
all my stripes and medals, for a rogue, sir. But if he confirms my
surety of her being a foreigner, nothing but difference of rank will
excuse you, Colonel Lougher, from being responsible to me."
My spirit was up, as you may see; and the honour of the British Navy
forced me to speak strongly: although my affection for the man was such
that sooner than offend him, I would have my other arm shot away.
"Llewellyn," said the Colonel, with his fine old smile spreading very
pleasantly upon his noble countenance; "you are of the peppery order
which your old Welsh blood produces. Think no more of my words for the
present. And if my nephew agrees with you in pronouncing the boat a
foreigner, I will give you full satisfaction by asking your pardon,
Llewellyn. It was enough to mislead any man."
Not to dwell upon this mistake committed by so good a man, but which got
abroad somehow--though my old friend Crumpy, I am sure, could never have
been listening at the door--be it enough in this hurry to say, that on
the next morning I was enabled to certify the weather. A smartish
breeze from the north-north-west, with the sea rather dancing than
running, took poor Bardie to her native coast, from which the hot tide
had borne her. Before we set sail, I had been to Sker in Colonel
Lougher's two-wheeled gig, and obtained from good Moxy the child's
jemmyset from the old oak chest it was stored in.
And now I did a thing which must for ever acquit me of all blame so
wrongfully cast upon me. That is to say, I fetched out the old boat,
which Sandy Macraw had got covered up; and releasing him in the most
generous manner from years and years of backrent, what did I do but
hitch her on to the stern of the pilot-yawl, for to tow? Not only this,
but I managed that Rodney should sail on board as her skipper, and for
his crew should have somebody who had crossed the channel before in that
same poor and worthless boat, sixteen years agone, I do declare! And
they did carry on a bit, now and then, when our sprit-sail hid them from
our view. For the day was bright, and the sea was smooth.
The Colonel and I were on board of the yawl, enjoying perfect harmony.
For Captain Rodney of course had confirmed my opinion as to the build of
the boat, and his uncle desired to beg my pardon, which the largeness of
my nature quite refused to hear of. If a man admits that he has wronged
me, satisfied I am at once, and do not even point out always, that I
never could have done the like to him.
Colonel Lougher had often been at sea, in the time of his active
service, and he seemed to enjoy this trip across channel, and knew all
the names of the sails and spars. But falling in as we did with no less
than three or four small craft on our voyage, he asked me how Delushy's
boat could possibly have been adrift for a whole night and day on the
channel, without any ship even sighting her. I told him that this was as
simple as could be, during that state of the weather. A burning haze, or
steam from the land, lay all that time on the water; and the lower part
thereof was white, while the upper spread was yellow. Also the sea
itself was white from the long-continued calmness, so that a white boat
scarcely would show at half a mile of distance. And even if it did, what
sailors were likely to keep a smart look-out in such roasting weather?
Men talk of the heat ashore sometimes; but I know that for downright
smiting, blinding, and overwhelming sun-power, there is nothing ashore
to compare with a ship.
Also I told the Colonel, now that his faith in me was re-established,
gliding over the water thus, I was enabled to make plain to him things
which if he had been ashore might have lain perhaps a little beyond his
understanding. I showed him the set of the tides by tossing corks from
his bottles overboard, and begging him to take a glass of my perspective
to watch them. And he took such interest in this, and evinced so much
sagacity, that in order to carry on my reasoning with any perspicacity,
cork after cork I was forced to draw, to establish my veracity.
Because he would argue it out that a boat, unmanned and even unmasted,
never could have crossed the channel as Bardie's boat must needs have
done. I answered that I might have thought so also, and had done so for
years and years, till there came the fact to the contrary; of which I
was pretty well satisfied now; and when the boat was produced and sworn
to, who would not be satisfied? Also I begged to remind him how strongly
the tide ran in our channel, and that even in common weather the ebb of
the spring out of Barnstaple river might safely be put at four knots an
hour, till Hartland point was doubled. Here, about two in the morning,
the flood would catch the little wanderer, and run her up channel some
ten or twelve miles, with the night-wind on the starboard-beam driving
her also northward. When this was exhausted, the ebb would take her into
Swansea Bay almost, being so light a boat as she was, with a southern
breeze prevailing. And then the next flood might well bring her to
Sker,--exactly the thing that had come to pass. Moreover I thought, as I
told the Colonel (although of course with diffidence), from long
acquaintance with tropical waters and the power of the sun upon them, I
thought it by no means unlikely that the intense heat of the weather,
then for more than six weeks prevailing, might have had some strong
effect on the set and the speed of the currents.
However, no more of arguments. What good can they do, when the thing is
there, and no reasoning can alter it? Even Parson Chowne might argue,
and no doubt would with himself (although too proud with other people),
that all he did was right, and himself as good a man as need be.
We ran across channel in some six hours, having a nice breeze abaft the
beam, and about the middle of the afternoon we landed at Ilfracombe
cleverly. This is a little place lying in a hole, and with great rocks
all around it, fair enough to look at, but more easy to fall down than
to get up them. And even the Barnstaple road is so steep that the first
hill takes nearly two hours of climbing. Therefore, in spite of all
eager spirits, we found ourselves forced to stay there that night, for
no one would horse us onwards, so late at this November season.
Perhaps, however, it was worth while to lose a few hours for the sake of
seeing Delushy's joy in her native land. This, like a newly-opened
spring, arose, and could not contain itself. As soon as her foot touched
the shore, I began to look forward to a bout of it. For I understand
young women now, very well, though the middle-aged are beyond me. These
latter I hope to be up to, if ever I live to the age of fourscore years,
as my constitution promises. And if the Lord should be pleased to
promote me to the ripe and honest century (as was done to my
great-grandfather), then I shall understand old women also, though
perhaps without teeth to express it.
However this was a pretty thing, and it touched me very softly. None but
those who have roamed as I have understand the heart-ache. For my native
land I had it, ever and continually, and in the roar of battle I was
borne up by discharging it. And so I could enter into our poor Bardie,
going about with the tears in her eyes. For she would not allow me to
rest at the inn, as I was fain to do in the society of some ancient
fishermen, and to leave the gentlefolk to their own manner of getting
through the evening.
"Come out," she cried, "old Davy; you are the only one that knows the
way about this lovely place."
Of course I had no choice but to obey Sir Philip's own granddaughter,
although I could not help grumbling; and thus we began to explore a lane
as crooked as a corkscrew, and with ferns like palm-trees feathering. In
among them little trickling rills of water tinkled, or were hushed
sometimes by moss, and it looked as if no frost could enter through the
leafy screen above.
"What a country to be born in! What a country to belong to!" exclaimed
the maid continually, sipping from each crystal runnel, and stroking the
ferns with reverence. "Uncle Henry, don't you think now that it is
enough to make one happy to belong to such a land?"
"Well, my dear," said her Uncle Henry, as she had been ordered to call
the Colonel, "I think it would still more conduce to happiness for some
of the land to belong to you. Ah, Llewellyn, I see, is of my opinion."
So I was, and still more so next day, when, having surmounted that
terrible hill, we travelled down rich dairy valleys on our road to
Barnstaple. Here we halted for refreshment, and to let Delushy rest and
beautify herself, although we could see no need of that. And now she
began to get so frightened that I was quite vexed with her: her first
duty was to do me credit; and how could she manage it, if her eyes were
red? The Colonel also began to provoke me, for when I wanted to give the
maid a stiff glass of grog to steady her, he had no more sense than to
countermand it, and order a glass of cold water!
As soon as we came to Narnton Court, we found a very smart coach in the
yard, that quite put to shame our hired chaise, although the good
Colonel had taken four horses, so as to land us in moderate style. Of
course it was proper that I, who alone could claim Sir Philip's
acquaintance, as well as the merit of the whole affair, should have the
pleasure of introducing his new grandchild to him; so that I begged all
the rest to withdraw, and the only names that we sent in, were Captain
Llewellyn and "Miss Delushy." Therefore we were wrong, no doubt, in
feeling first a little grievance, then a large-minded impatience, and
finally a strong desire--ay, and not the desire alone--to swear, before
we got out of it. I speak of myself and Captain Bluett, two good honest
sailors, accustomed to declare their meaning since the war enabled them.
But Colonel Lougher (who might be said, from his want of active service,
to belong to a past generation), as well as Delushy, who was scarcely
come into any generation yet,--these two really set an example, good,
though hard, to follow.
CHAPTER LXVI
THE MAID AT LAST IS "DENTIFIED."
However, as too often happens, we blamed a good man without cause. A
good man rarely deserves much blame; whereas a bad man cannot have too
much--whether he has earned it or otherwise--to restrain him from
deserving more. The reason why Sir Philip Bampfylde kept us so long
waiting, proved to be a sound and valid one; namely, that he was engaged
in earnest and important converse with his daughter-in-law, Lady
Bampfylde, now wife (if you will please to remember) to Commodore Sir
Drake Bampfylde, although by birth entitled the Honourable Isabel
Carey, the one that had been so good to me when I was a ferryman; of
superior order, certainly; but still, no more than a ferryman!
Since my rise in the world began, I have found out one satisfactory
thing--that a man gets on by merit. How long did I despair of this, and
smoke pipes, and think over it; seeing many of my friends advancing, by
what I call roguery! And but for the war (which proves the hearts and
reins of men, as my ancestor says), I might still have been high and
dry, being too honest for the fish-trade. However, true merit will tell
in the end, if a man contrives to live long enough.
So when the beautiful lady came out through the room where I sate
waiting, as I touched my venerable forelock to her (as humbly as if for
a sixpenny piece), a brave man's honest pride wrought weakness in my
eyes, as I gazed at her. I loved her husband; and I loved her; and I
thought of the bitter luck between them, which had kept them separate.
Partly, of course, the glory of England, and duty of a proud man's
birth; partly also bad luck of course, and a style of giving in to it;
but ten times more than these, the tricks that lower our
fellow-creatures.
This noble and stately lady did not at first sight recognise me; but
when I had told her in very few words who I was, and what I had done,
and how long I had sailed with her husband, and how highly he respected
me, her eyes brightened into the old sweet smile, although they bore
traces of weeping.
"My name is not 'Lady Carey,'" she said, for I was calling her thus on
purpose, not knowing how she was taking wedlock, and being of opinion
that an "honourable miss" ought always to be called a lady. "My name is
'Lady Bampfylde;' and I like it, if you please: although I remember, Mr
Llewellyn, what your views are of matrimony. You used to declare them
only too plainly, whenever we crossed your ferry, for the purpose, as I
used to think, of driving poor Nanette to despair of you."
"And a lucky thing for me, your ladyship, to have acted so consistently.
But his Honour the Commodore, of course, holds the opposite opinion."
"It is hard to guess the opinions of a commodore always on service. Sir
Drake, as I daresay you have heard, can scarcely bear to come home now."
I saw that she was vexed by something, and also vexed with herself,
perhaps, for having even hinted it. For she turned her beautiful face
away, and without a word would have left me. But with my usual
quickness of step, I ran into the lobby-place, and back in a moment with
our Delushy, clinging like a woodbine to a post. At such moments, I
never speak, until women begin with questions. It saves so much time to
let them begin; because they are sure to insist on it. Meanwhile Delushy
was making the prettiest curtsy that presence of mind permitted.
"You lovely dear, why, who are you?" cried Lady Bampfylde, with a start,
that made me dread hysterics.
"I do not know, Madam," answered Delushy, with the whole of her mind so
well in hand, by reason of years of suffering; "but many people believe
me to be the Bertha Bampfylde that was lost, nearly twenty years agone."
"What! The baby! The baby--at least one of the babies--that my
husband--David Llewellyn, this is very cruel of you."
And that was all the thanks I got! While, what could I have done
otherwise? In five minutes more, she would have been off in her grand
coach with six horses, after offending Sir Philip so much, that he could
not have borne to look after her; although, of course, he was now coming
out like a gentleman to a visitor. Seeing such a pay-night coming, and a
large confusion, I begged Colonel Lougher and Captain Bluett to keep for
a little while out of it. And nothing could more truly prove how
thoroughly these were gentlemen, than that they withdrew to a niche of
the under-butler's pantry, wherein they could hear no word of it.
It was now my place to stand forward bravely, and to put things clearly;
without any further loss of reason, and even without considering how
these delicate ladies might contrive to take my meaning nicely. To spare
good ladies from any emotion, is one of the main things of my life;
although they show such a want of gratitude, when I have done my utmost.
But as for frightening Sir Philip, of course, I had no scruple about
that; because of his confidence in the Lord. Therefore, abandoning Lady
Bampfylde to the care of her maid, who was running up from the servants'
hall to look after her, I fixed my hook (screwed on for the purpose)
firmly into Delushy's sleeve, that she might not faint, or run away, or
do anything else unreasonable, and I led her up the long hall to meet
Sir Philip, as he came down the steps at the upper end thereof.
The old General looked rather haggard and feeble, as if the power of his
life were lowered by perpetual patience. But something had happened to
vex him, no doubt, in his interview with Lady Bampfylde, so that he
walked with more than his usual stateliness and dignity. He had never
beheld me as a one-armed man, nor yet in my present uniform, for I took
particular care to avoid him during the day or two spent at his house
before I went to Burrington, so for a moment he did not know me, but
gazed with surprise at the lovely figure which I was sustaining so
clumsily.
"Sir Philip Bampfylde, allow me," I said, stretching forth my right hand
to him, "to repay you for some of the countless benefits you have heaped
upon me, by presenting you with your long-lost granddaughter--and your
grandson to come afterwards."
"It cannot be; it cannot be," was all he could say, although for so many
years he had shown his faith that it must be. His fine old countenance
turned as white as the silver hair that crowned it, and then as red as
it could have been in the hopeful blush of boyhood. And the pure and
perfect delicacy of high birth quickened with sorrow prevented him from
examining Delushy, as he longed to do.
"Speak up, child, speak up," said I, giving her a haul with my hook, as
when first I landed her; "can't you tell your dear Grandfather how glad
you are to see him?"
"That I will with all my heart," the maiden answered bashfully, yet
lifting her eyes to the old man's face with pride as well as reverence;
"as soon as I perceive that you, sir, wish to hear me say it."
"You will not think me rude--I am scarcely strong enough for this--it
has come on me so suddenly. And it must be quite as bad for you. Lead
the young lady to a chair, Llewellyn. Or, stay; I beg your pardon. It
will perhaps be better to call our kind and worthy housekeeper."
Sir Philip perceived a thing which had escaped me, though brought to my
notice beforehand by our good Colonel Lougher; that is to say, how hard
it would be upon the feelings of this young girl, to have her "identity"
(as Crowner Bowles entitled it) discussed in her own presence. Therefore
she was led away by that regular busybody the housekeeper, Mrs
Cockhanterbury; while I begged leave to introduce Colonel Lougher and
Captain Bluett to Sir Philip Bampfylde. And then when all had made their
bows and all due salutations, I was called upon to show my documents and
explain the evidence so carefully gathered by me.
It is as much above my power, as beyond my purpose, to tell how that
ancient and noble gentleman, after so much worry from the long neglect
of Providence, took (as if he had never deserved it) this goodness of
the Lord to him. Of course, in my class of life, we cannot be always
dwelling on children; whose nature is provoking always, and in nothing
more so than that they will come when not wanted; yet are not
forthcoming with the folk who can afford them. Nevertheless, I think
that if the Lord had allowed any thief of a fellow (much more one of His
own ministers) to steal two grandchildren of mine, and make a savage of
one baby, and of the other a castaway, the whole of my piety would have
been very hard pushed to produce any gratitude. Sir Philip, however, did
appear most truly desirous to thank God for this great mercy vouchsafed
to him; even before he had thoroughly gone through the ins and outs of
the evidence. For he begged us to excuse him, while he should go to see
to our comfort; and two fine bottles of wine (white and red) appeared,
and began to disappear, under my hatches mainly, before our noble host
came back to set us a good example. And when he came he had quite
forgotten to dust the knees of some fine kerseymere, and the shins of
black silk stockings.
Deep sense of religion is quite in its place when a man has had one arm
shot off, still more so if both arms are gone, and after a leg,
indispensable. Nevertheless it must not be intruded upon any one; no,
not even by the chaplain, till the doctor shakes his head. Knowing also
that Colonel Lougher had a tendency towards it (enough to stop the
decanters if he should get upon that subject with the arguments it
sticks fast in), I was delighted to see Delushy slipping into the room
as if she had known the place for a century. The General clearly had
managed to visit her during the time of his absence from us; what passed
between them matters not, except that he must have acknowledged her. For
now she went up to him and kissed him; rather timidly, perhaps, but
still she touched his forehead. Then he arose and stood very upright, as
if he had never begun to stoop, and passing his arm round her delicate
waist, both her hands he took in his. And as they faced us, we were
struck with the likeness between blooming youth and worn but yet
majestic age.
"Gentlemen," he said, "or rather I should call you kind good friends,
you have brought me not only a grandchild, but the very one I would have
chosen if the whole world gave me choice. By-and-by you shall see her
stand by the picture of my dear and long-lamented wife. That, I think,
will convince you that we want no further evidence. For me, these
thumb-nails are enough. Bertha, show your thumb-nails."
She laughed her usual merry laugh (although she had been crying so)
while she spread her dainty hands, exactly as she used to spread them,
when she was only two years old, with me alone to look at her.
"Here it is, sir," cried the General, overlooking me, in the rush of his
sentiments towards the Colonel: "here is the true Bampfylde mark. Even
the Bassets have it not, nor the Traceys, nor the St Albyns. Will you
oblige me by observing that these two thumb-nails have a most undoubted
right and left to them? Bertha, do try to keep still for a moment."
"Well, I declare," said the Colonel, calmly taking out his eye-glass;
"yes, I declare you are right, my good sir. Here is a most evident right
and left--Andalusia, do stand still--not only in the half-moons at the
base, but in the vein, and what I may call the radiants of the pinkness.
I cannot express my meaning, but--my darling, come and kiss me."
This Delushy did at once, as for years she used to do; and not being
certain even now whether she ought to forsake the Colonel for a General,
though proved to be a very fine and newly-turned up Grandfather. None of
us had thought of her, and the many shifts of female wind, coming to
pass perhaps inside her little brain and heart so. Wherefore this poor
David, who desires always to be the last, but by force of nature is
compelled for ever to take the lead--I it was who got her off to bed,
that we might talk of her.
CHAPTER LXVII.
DOG EATS DOG.
To a man, whose time of life begins to be a subject of some
consideration to him, when the few years still in hope can be counted on
a hand, and may not need a finger; and with the tide of this world
ebbing to the inevitable sea--to him there is scarcely any sweet and
gentle pastime more delightful than to sit on a bank of ancient moss,
beside a tidal river, and watch the decreasing waters, and prove his
own eternity by casting a pebble into them.
Hence it was that Sir Philip Bampfylde, on the very morning after I gave
him back his grandchild, sate gazing into the ebb of the Tawe, some
fifty yards below the spot, whence Jack Wildman's father carried off so
wickedly that helpless pair of children. Here it was my privilege to
come up to Sir Philip, and spread before him my humble reasons for
having preferred the kitchen last night to the dining-room and the
drawing-room. It was consistent with my nature; and he, though wishing
otherwise, agreed not to be offended.
Then I asked him how the young lady (whose health every one of us had
honoured, all over the kitchen-table) had contrived to pass the night,
and whether she had seen her father yet. He said she had slept pretty
well considering, but that as concerned her father, they had not thought
it wise to let her see him, until the doctor came. There was no telling
how it might act upon Squire Philip's constitution, after so many years
of misery, cobwebs, and desolation. For Providence had not gifted him
with a mind so strong as his father's was, and the sudden break in on
the death of the mind has been known, in such a case, to lead to bodily
decease. But few things vexed the General more than that wretched lie of
Chowne's, and slander upon a loyal family while in service of the Crown.
What Captain Drake had landed from the boat was not an arm-chest, but a
chest of plate and linen, belonging to his brother, which he would no
longer borrow, while the Squire so cruelly dealt with him.
Then I asked Sir Philip whether the ancient builder over at Appledore
had been sent for to depose to the boat; for we had brought that little
craft on the top of our coach from Ilfracombe. The General said that I
might see him even now examining her, if I would only take the trouble
to look round the corner; but he himself was so well convinced, without
any further testimony, that he did not even care to hear what the old
man had to say of it, any more than he cared for the jemmyset. This,
however, is not my manner of regarding questions. Not from any private
fountains of conviction, and so on, but out of the mouths of many
witnesses shall a thing be established. Therefore I hastened round the
corner, to sift this ancient boatwright.
As surly a fellow as ever lived, and from his repugnance to my uniform,
one who had made more money, I doubt, by the smuggler's keg than the
shipwright's adze. Entering into his nature at sight, I took the upper
hand of him, as my rank insisted on.
"Hark ye now, master ship-carpenter, where was this little craft put
together, according to your opinion?"
Either this fellow was deaf as a post, or else he meant to insult me,
for he took no more notice of me than he did of the pigs that were
snuffling at beech-nuts down by the side of the landing-place. I am not
the right man to put up with insolence; therefore I screwed my
hammer-head into the socket below my muscles, and therewith dealt him a
tap on his hat, just to show what might come afterwards.
Receiving this administration, and seeing that more was very likely from
the same source to be available, what did this rogue do but endeavour to
show the best side of his manners. Wherefore, to let him have his say,
here is his opinion.
"This here boat be the same as I built, year as my wife were took with
quinzy, and were called home by the Lord. I built her for Wild-duck of
Appledore, a little dandy-rigged craft as used to be hired by Cap'en
Bampfylde. To this here boat I can swear, although some big rogue have
been at work, painting her, as knew not how to paint; and a lubber, no
doubt, every now and then patching her up, or repairing of her. The name
in her stern have been painted up from 'Wild-duck, Appledore,' into
'Santa Lucia, Salvador;' three or four letters are my own, the rest are
the work of some pirate. She be no more foreign-build than I be. But a
sailor accustomed to foreign parts would be sure to reckon so, reason
why I served my time with a builder over to Port-au-Prince. And I should
like to see the man anywhere round these here parts, as can tuck in the
bends as I does."
Leaving this conceited fellow to his narrow unpleasantness, I turned my
head, and there beheld Captain Bluett harkening.
"Come," he cried out, in his hearty manner, "what a cook's boiling of
fools we are! Here we are chewing a long-chewed quid, while the devil
that brewed this gale of wind may fly far away, and grin at us.
Llewellyn, do you mean to allow----"
"Hush," I said softly, for that low shipwright showed his eyes coming up
under his cap. And I saw that he was that particular villain, after his
scurrilous words about me, who would sell his soul to that wretch of a
Chowne for half-a-crown a-week almost. Therefore I led our young Captain
Bluett well away out of this fellow's hearing.
"Davy," said he, "we all know your courage, your readiness, and your
resources. Still you appear to be under a spell--and you know you are
superstitious about this cunning and cowardly blackguard, who frightens
the whole of this country, as he never could frighten Glamorganshire."
"I have no fear of him, sir," I said; "I will go with you to confront
him."
"Why, your teeth are ready to chatter, Llewellyn; and your lips are
blue! You who stood like a mile-stone, they tell me, at the helm of the
Goliath, or like a clock going steadily tick, before we fired a shot,
and with both shell and shot through your grey whiskers----"
"But, Captain, a minister of the Lord----"
"Master, a minister of the devil--once for all, to-day I go to horsewhip
him, if he is young enough; or to pull his nose if he is old enough, and
Old Harry be with him in choice of the two? Zounds, sir, is it a thing
to laugh at?"
Rodney Bluett was well known to every one who served under him for the
mildness of his language, and the want of oaths he had; and so, of
course, for his self-control, and the power of his heart when it did
break forth. Everybody loved him because he never cursed any one at a
venture, and kept himself very close to facts, however hard driven by
circumstances; so that I was now amazed to hear this young man spoil my
pipe with violent emotions.
"Have you consulted Sir Philip?" I asked. "It is his place to take up
the question."
"What question? There is no question. The thing is proved. My duty is
plain. Sir Philip is too old to see to it. The Squire is a spooney. The
Commodore is not here yet. I have spoken to his wife, who is a very
sweet and wise lady; and she agrees with me that it will save the family
a world of scandal; and perhaps failure of the law, for me to take the
law into my own hands, and thrash this blackguard within an inch of his
life."
"To be sure, and save her husband from the risk of tackling a desperate
man. It is most wise on her part. But I beg you, my dear sir, for the
sake of your dear uncle and your good mother, keep clear of this
quarrel. You know not the man you have to deal with. Even if you can
thrash him, which is no easy business, he will shoot you afterwards. He
is the deadest shot in the county."
"Hurrah!" cried Rodney, tossing up his hat; "that entirely settles it.
Come along, old fellow, and show us the way: and not a word to any one."
Now this may seem a very mad resolve for a man of my sense to give into.
But whether I turned myself this way or that, I could see no chance of
bettering it. If I refused to go, young Rodney (as I could see by the
set of his mouth) would go alone, and perhaps get killed, and then how
could any of the family ever look at me again? On the other hand, if I
should go to the Colonel, or to the General, for opinion, and to beg
them to stop it, my interference--nine chances to one--would only end in
giving offence among the superior orders. Add to this my real desire to
square it out with Chowne himself, after all his persecution, and you
may be able to forgive me for getting upon horseback, after many years
of forbearance, and with my sugar-nippers screwed on, to lay hold by the
forestay, if she should make bad weather. Also, I felt it my duty to
take a double-barrelled pistol, heavily loaded and well primed.
Captain Rodney forged ahead so on a real hunting-craft, that my dappled
grey, being warranted not to lurch me overboard, could not keep in line
whatever sail I made upon her. My chief rule in life is not to hurry.
What good ever comes of it? People only abuse you, and your breath is
too short to answer them. Moreover, I felt an uneasy creaking in my
bends from dousing forward, and then easing backward, as a man must do
who knows how to ride. The Captain was wroth with me, out of all reason;
but as he could not find the way to Nympton Moors without me, I was
enabled to take my leisure, having the surety of overgetting him when
the next cross-road came. Therefore it was late afternoon when we turned
into the black fir-grove which led up to the house of Chowne, and Rodney
Bluett clutched the big whip in his hand severely. For we had asked at
the little inn of which I spoke a long time ago, whether the Parson was
now at home.
"Ay, that 'un be," said the man with a grin, for we did not see the
landlady; "but ye best way not to go nigh 'un."
Already I seemed not to feel as I hoped, in the earlier stage of the
journey. My thoughts had been very upright for a while, and spirited,
and delighted; but now I began to look at things from a different point
of view almost. It is not man's business to worry his head about
righting of wrongs in this world, unless they are done to himself; and
if so, revenge is its name, and an ugly one. Long life leads one to
forgive, when to carry it on would be troublesome.
Through the drip of dying leaves, the chill of dull November now began
to darken over us as we turned the corner of Chowne's own road, and
faced his lonely mansion. The house had a heavy and sullen look,
according to my ideas, not receiving light and pleasure of the sun when
possible. Heavy fir-trees overhung it, never parting with their weight;
and the sunset (when there was any) could not pierce the holm-oaks.
"What a gloomy and devilish place!" cried Rodney Bluett, beginning to
tremble from some unknown influence. "Upon my soul, if I lived here, I
should be hatching plots myself. Or is it the nature of the man that has
made the place so horrible?"
"Let us go back," said I; "come back, my good sir, I conjure you. Such a
man should be left to God, to punish in His own good time."
"Hark!" cried Rodney, pulling up, and listening through the gloomy wood;
"that was a woman's scream, I am sure. Is he murdering some more little
ones?"
We listened, and heard a loud piercing shriek, that made our hair stand
on end almost, so mad was it, and so unearthly; and then two more of yet
wilder agony; and after that a long low wailing.
"On, on!" cried Rodney Bluett; "you know these paths, gallop on, Davy."
"You go first," I answered; "your horse is fresher; I am coming--to be
sure I am--do you think I am frightened?"
"Well, I don't know," he replied; "but I am not ashamed to own that I
am."
Clapping spurs to his horse, he dashed on; and thoroughly miserable as I
felt, there was nothing for me but to follow him.
In the name of the Lord, what a sight we came on, where the drive sweeps
round at the corner of the house! Under a dark tree of some sort, and on
a garden bench, we discovered the figures of two women. Or rather, one
sate on the bench; the other lay stretched on the ground, with her head
cast recklessly back on the ledge, her hair spread in masses over it,
and both hands pressed on her eyes and ears, to shut out sight and
hearing. Her lips were open, and through her white teeth came wails of
anguish, that would have been shrieks, if nature had not failed her.
But the elder woman sate upright, in scorn of all such weakness, with
her gaunt figure drawn like a cable taut, no sign of a tear on her
shrunken cheeks, and the whole of her face as numb and cold as an iced
figure-head in the Arctic seas. Yet no one, with knowledge of the human
race, could doubt which of these two suffered most.
We reined up our horses, and gazed in terror, for neither of them
noticed us; and then we heard, from inside the house, sounds that made
our flesh creep. Barking, howling, snapping of teeth, baying as of a
human bloodhound, frothy splutterings of fury, and then smothered
yelling.
"Her have a gat 'un now," cried a clown, running round the end of the
house, as if he were enjoying it. "Reckon our passon wun't baite much
moore, after Passon Jack be atop of 'un."
"Oh sir, oh sir, oh for God's sake, sir," cried the poor lady who had
lain on the ground, rushing up to us, and kneeling, and trying to get
hold of us; "you must have come to stop it, sir. Only one hour--allow
him one hour, dear, dear sirs, for repentance. He has not been a good
man, I know, but I am his own wife, good kind sirs--and if he could only
have a little time, if it were only half an hour--he might, he
might----"
Here a sound of throttling came through a broken windowpane, and down
she fell insensible.
"What does it mean?" cried Rodney Bluett; "is it murder, madness, or
suicide? Follow me, Davy. Here I go, anyhow, into the thick of it."
He dashed through the window; and I with more caution, cocking my
pistol, followed him, while I heard the clown shouting after us--
"Danged vules both of 'e. Bide outside, bide outside, I tell 'e."
Oh that we had remained outside! I have been through a great deal of
horrible sights, enough to harden any man, and cure him of womanly
squeamishness. Yet never did I behold, or dream of, anything so awful as
the scene that lay before me. People were longing to look at it now, but
none (save ourselves) durst enter.
It was Chowne's own dining-room, all in the dark, except where a lamp
had been brought in by a trembling footman, who ran away, knowing that
he brought this light for his master to be strangled by. And in the
corner now lay his master, smothered under a feather-bed; yet with his
vicious head fetched out in the last rabid struggle to bite. There was
the black hair, black face, and black tongue, shown by the frothy
wainscot, or between it and the ticking. On the feather-bed lay
exhausted, and with his mighty frame convulsed, so that a child might
master him, Parson Jack Rambone, the strongest man, whose strength (like
all other powers) had laid a horrible duty upon him. Sobbing with all
his great heart he lay, yet afraid to take his weight off, and sweating
at every pore with labour, peril of his life, and agony.
"Oh Dick, Dick," he said, quite softly, and between his pantings; "how
many larks have we had together, and for me to have to do this to you! I
am sure you knew me, before you died. I think you know me now, Dick. Oh,
for God's sake, shut your eyes! Darling Dick, are you dead, are you
dead? You are the very cleverest fellow ever I came across of. You can
do it, if you like. Oh, dear Dick, Dick, my boy, do shut your eyes!"
We stood looking at them, with no power to go up to them; all experience
failed us as to what was the proper thing to do, till I saw that
Chowne's face ought to have a napkin over it. None had been laid for
dinner; but I knew where butlers keep them.
When I had done this, Parson Jack (who could not escape from the great
black eyes) arose, and said, "I thank you, sir." He staggered so that we
had to support him; but not a word could we say to him. "I am bitten in
two places, if not more," he rather gasped than said to us, as he laid
bare his enormous arms. "I care not much. I will follow my friend. Or if
the Lord should please to spare me, henceforth I am an altered man. And
yet, for the sake of my family, will you heat the kitchen poker?"
CHAPTER LXVIII.
THE OLD PITCHER AT THE WELL AGAIN.
It helps a thoughtless man on his road towards a better kingdom, to get
a glimpse, every now and then, of such visitations of the Lord. When I
was a little boy, nothing did me so much good in almost all the Bible,
as to hear my father read the way in which Herod was eaten of worms. And
now in mature years, I received quite a serious turn by the death of
this Parson Chowne of ignominious canine madness. And still more, when
I came to know by what condign parental justice this visitation smote
him.
For while the women were busy up-stairs by candle-light, and with some
weeping, it fell to Parson Rambone's lot to lay the truth before us.
This great man took at once to Captain Rodney Bluett, as if he had known
him for years; nor did he fail to remember me, and in his distress to
seek some comfort from my simple wisdom. So having packed all the
country boobies, constables, doctors, and so on, out of the house, we
barred the door, made a bright fire in the kitchen, and sat down in
front of it, while a nice cook began to toss up some sweetbreads, and
eggs and ham-collops, and so on, for our really now highly necessary
sustenance.
You may remember the time I met with a very nice fellow (then Chowne's
head-groom), who gave me a capital supper of tripe elegantly stewed by a
young cook-maid, himself lamenting the stress (laid upon him by
circumstances) not to make his wife of her. He told me then with a sigh
of affection between his knife and fork, that social duties compelled
him instead to marry a publican's daughter, with fifty pounds down on
the nail, he believed, if it was a penny. Nevertheless he felt confident
that all would be ordered aright in the end. Now Providence had not
allowed such a case of faith to pass unrewarded. He married the
publican's daughter, got her money, and paid the last sad duties to her,
out of the pocket of his father-in-law, in a Christian-minded manner.
And then back he came to Nympton Rectory, and wedded that same
cook-maid, who now was turning our ham so cleverly with the egg-slice.
Thus we could speak before them both, without the least constraint; and
indeed he helped us much by his knowledge of the affairs of the family.
Also two Justices of the Peace, who had signed the warrant for poor
Chowne's end, upon the report of the doctors, but could find no one of
strength and courage to carry it out, except Parson Jack; these sate
with us to get their supper, before the long cold ride over the moors.
And there sate Parson Jack himself, with his thick hands trembling,
hopeless of eating a morsel, but dreading to be left alone for a moment.
"What a difference it will make in all this neighbourhood, to be sure!"
So said one of their worships.
"Ay, that it will," answered his brother magistrate. "Since Tom Faggus
died, there has not been such a man to be found, nowhere round these
here parts."
"No, nor Tom Faggus himself," said the other: "a noble highwayman he
were; but for mind, not fit to hold a candle to our lamented friend now
lying up there in the counterpane."
Parson Jack shuddered, and shook his great limbs, and feigned to have
done so on purpose; and then in defiance collected himself, and laid his
iron hand on the table, watching every great muscle, to see how long he
could keep it from trembling. Then I arose and grasped his hand--for
nobody else understood him at all--and he let me take it with
reluctance, wonder, and then deep gratitude. He had been saying to
himself--as I knew, though his lips never moved; and his face was set,
in scorn of all our moralising--within himself he had been thinking, "I
am Jack Ketch; I am worse; I am Cain. I have murdered my own dear
brother."
And I, who had seen him brand his bitten arm with the red hot poker,
laying the glowing iron on, until the blood hissed out at it, I alone
could gage the strength of heart that now enabled him to answer my grasp
with his poor scorched arm, and to show his great tears, and check them.
Enough of this, I cannot stand these melancholy subjects. A man of
irreproachable life, with a tendency towards gaiety, never must allow
his feelings to play ducks and drakes with him. If the justice of the
Almighty fell upon Chowne--as I said it would--let Chowne die, and let
us hope that his soul was not past praying for. It is not my place to be
wretched, because the biggest villain I ever knew showed his wit by
dying of a disease which gave him power to snap at the very devil, when
in the fulness of time he should come thirsting to lay hold of him. And
but for my purpose of proving how purely justice does come home to us,
well contented would I be to say no more about him. Why had he been such
a villain through life? Because he was an impostor. Why did he die of
rabid madness, under the clutch of his own best friend? Because he
lashed his favourite hound to fly at the throat of his own grandfather.
Not only does it confirm one's faith in the honesty of breeding, but it
enables me to acquit all the Chownes of Devonshire--and a fine and
wholesome race they are--of ever having produced such a scamp, in true
course of legitimacy; also enables me not to point out, so much as to
leave all my readers to think of, the humble yet undeniable traces of
old Davy's sagacity.
What had I said to Mrs Steelyard, when she overbore me so, upon an empty
stomach? "Madam," I said, "your son, you mean!" And it proved to be one
of my famous hits, at a range beyond that of other men. When great stirs
happen, truth comes out; as an earthquake starts the weasels.
Everybody knows what fine old age those wandering gypsies come to. The
two most killing cares we have, are money, and reputation. Here behold
gypsy wisdom! The disregard of the latter of the two does away with the
plague of the former. They take what they want; while we clumsy fellows
toil for the cash as the only way to get the good estimation. Hence it
was that Chowne's grandfather came about stealing as lively as ever, at
the age of ninety. A wiry and leathery man he was, and had once been a
famous conjurer. And now in his old age he came to sleep in his
grandson's barn, and to live on his grandson's ducks, potatoes, and
pigeons. This was last harvest-time, just as Chowne was enjoying his bit
of cub-hunting.
Turning in from his sport one day, in a very sulky humour, with the
hounds he was educating, the Parson caught his grandfather withdrawing
in a quiet manner from a snug little hen-roost. Not knowing who it was
(for his mother had never explained a thing to him, not even that she
was his mother), he thought it below his dignity to ride after this old
fellow. But at his heels stalked a tall young hound, who had vexed him
all day by surliness, and was now whipped in for punishment.
"At him--'loo boy!" he called out; "Hike forrard, catch him by the leg,
boy!" But the hound only showed his teeth and snarled; so that Chowne
let out his long lash at him. In a moment the dog sprang at his master
who was riding a low cob-horse, and bit him in the thigh and the horse
in the shoulder, and then skulked off to his kennel. The hound was shot,
and the horse shared his fate in less than six weeks afterwards; and as
for the Parson, we know too well what they were forced to do with him.
In her first horror, that stony woman, even Mrs Steelyard, when her son
came ravening at her, could not keep her secret. "It is the judgment of
God," she cried; "after all there is a God. He set the dogs at his
grandfather, and now he would bite his own mother!"
How she had managed to place him in the stead of the real Chowne heir, I
never heard, or at least no clear account of it; for she was not (as we
know already) one who would answer questions. Let him rest, whoever he
was. His end was bad enough, even for him.
Enough of this fright--for it was a fright even to me, I assure you--let
us come back to the innocent people injured so long by his villany.
To begin with Parson Jack. Never in all his life had he taken a stroke
towards his own salvation, until by that horrible job he earned
repentance, fear, and conscience. And not only this (for none of these
would have stood him in any service, with Chowne still at his elbow),
but that the face,--which had drawn him for years, like a loadstone of
hell, to destruction,--now ever present in its terror, till his prayers
got rid of it, shone in the dark like the face of a scarecrow, if ever
he durst think of wickedness. His wife found the benefit of this change,
and so did his growing family, and so did the people who flocked to his
church, in the pleasure of being afraid of him. In the roads, he might
bite; but in his surplice, he was bound to behave himself, or at least,
he must bite the churchwarden first. Yet no one would have him to
sprinkle a child, until a whole year was over. And then he restored
himself, under a hint from a man beyond him in intellect; he made
everybody allow that the poker had entirely cured him, by preaching from
the bottom of his chest, with a glass of water upon the cushion, a
sermon that stirred every heart, with the text, "Is thy servant a dog,
that he should do this thing?"
I quit him with sorrow; because I found him a man of true feeling, and
good tobacco. We got on together so warmly that expense alone divided
us. He would have had me for parish-clerk, if I could have seen my way
to it.
What prevails with a man like me, foremost first of everything? Why,
love of the blessed native land--which every good Welshman will love me
for. I may have done a thing, now and then, below our native dignity,
except to those who can enter into all the things we look at. It is not
our nature altogether, to go for less than our value. We know that we
are of the oldest blood to be found in this ancient island, and we ask
nothing more than to be treated as the superior race should be.
In the presence of such great ideas, who cares what becomes of me? I
really feel that my marriage to Polly, and prolongation of a fine old
breed, scarcely ought to be spoken of. A man who has described the
battle of the Nile need not dwell on matrimony.
Hurried speech does not become me on any other subject. Everybody has
the right to know, and everybody does know, how the whole of North Devon
was filled with joy, talk, and disputation, as to Commodore Bampfylde
and the brightness of his acquittal. They drew him from Barnstaple in a
chaise, with only two springs broken, men having taken the horses out,
and done their best at collar-work. He would have gladly jumped out and
kicked them, but for the feeling of their goodwill.
Nothing would have detracted from this, and the feasts that were felt to
be due upon it, if Squire Philip had only known how not to die at a time
when nobody was seasonably called on to think of death. But when he
learned the shame inflicted by himself on his ancient race, through
trusting Chowne, and misbelieving his brother out of the self-same womb;
and, above all, when he learned that Chowne was the bastard of a gypsy,
he cast himself into his brother's arms, fetched one long sigh, and
departed to a better world with his hat on.
This was the best thing that he could do, if he had chosen the time
aright; and it saved a world of trouble. Sir Philip felt it a good bit,
of course; and so did Sir Drake Bampfylde. Nevertheless, if a living man
withdraws into a shell so calmly, what can he expect more lively than
his undertakers?
This was good, and left room for Harry, or rather young Philip
Bampfylde, to step into the proper shoes, and have practice how to walk
in them. Yet he was so caught with love of service, and of the Navy, and
so mad about Nelson, that the General could not help himself; but let
him go to sea again.
Nelson is afloat just now. The Crappos and the Dons appear to have made
up their minds against us; and the former have the insolence to threaten
a great invasion. If I only had two arms, I would leave my Polly to howl
about me. As it is, they have turned me into a herring! Colonel Lougher
has raised a regiment, and I am first drill-sergeant!
Our dear Maid of Sker would also give her beautiful son, only six months
old, Bampfylde Lougher Bluett, to go to the wars, and to fight the
French; if any one could only show her the way to do without him. He
cocks up his toes, in a manner which proves that his feet are meant for
ratlines.
How the war is raging! I run to and fro, upon hearing of Felix Farley's
Journal, and am only fit to talk of it. Sir Philip comes down, with his
best tobacco, whenever he stops at Candleston. And a craft has been
built for me on purpose, by the old fellow at Appledore, and her name it
is the "Maid of Sker"--to dance across the Channel, whenever a one-armed
man can navigate. Colonel Lougher, and even Lady Bluett, have such trust
in me, that they cross if their dear Delushy seems to pine too much for
her husband. And the Maid herself has brought her son, as proud as if he
came out of a wreck, to exhibit him to Moxy, and Roger, and Bunny, and
Stradling the clerk--in a word, to all the parish, and the
extra-parochial district.
Now I hope that nobody will ask me any more questions concerning any
one, male or female. If I cannot speak well of a person--my rule is to
be silent.
Hezekiah found his knavery altogether useless. He scraped himself home
at last; and built a bellows-organ at Bridgend, with a 74-gun crash to
it. His reputation is therefore up--especially since he rejoined the
Church--in all churches that can afford him. Yet he will not always own
that I was his salvation. Hepzibah prophesies nothing, except that
Polly's little son, "David Llewellyn," will do something wonderful, to
keep the ancient name up.
It may be so. And I think that he will. But his father never did it. How
many chances have I missed! How many times might I have advanced to
stern respectability! Yet some folk will like me better, and I like
myself no less, for not having feigned to be more than I am--a poor
frail fellow.
The children still come down to the well, with three of our Bunny's
foremost; they get between my knees, and open blue or brown eyes up at
me. In spite of Roger Berkrolles nodding to instil more manners, some of
the prettiest stroke my white beard, coaxing for a story. Then they push
forward little Davy, thinking that I spoil him so, because of his
decided genius giving such promise of bard-hood--already it would do you
good to hear him on the Jew's harp. Nevertheless I answer firmly, nine
times out of ten at least--
"Little dears," is all I say, "Captain Davy is getting old. It is hard
to tell a tale, but easy to find fault with it. You tell me that my left
arm will grow quite as long as my right one, if I only will shake it
about, and keep a hollow sleeve on. My pets, when I get another arm, I
will tell you another story."
THE END.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] A clear and interesting account of this mighty sand-march
may be found in a very learned paper by the Rev. H. H. Knight, B.D.,
formerly rector of Neath, Glamorgan; which paper, entitled "An Account
of Newton-Nottage," was reprinted at Tenby in 1853, from the
'Archaeologia Cambrensis.' Considerable movements still occur, but of
late years no very great advance.
[B] These fine fellows are talked of now as if we had found a
novelty. They came through South Wales on a "starring" tour thirty years
agone, and they seemed to be on their last legs then. Under the moon is
there anything new?
[C] ? Diocesan.
[D] There are several entries of deaths from plague in parish
registers of North Devon, circa 1790. Perhaps it was what they now call
"black fever," the most virulent form of typhus.
[E] That intelligent view still holds its own. A Devonshire
farmer challenged me, the other day, to prove, "Whatt be the gude of the
papper, whan any vule can rade un?"--ED^R. M. of S.
Transcriber's notes:
Italics marked as: _ ... _
Superscripts are represented using the caret symbol, e.g. ED^R
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