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MARY ANERLEY
by
R. D. Blackmore
1880
CHAPTER I
HEADSTRONG AND HEADLONG
Far from any house or hut, in the depth of dreary moor-land, a
road, unfenced and almost unformed, descends to a rapid river. The
crossing is called the "Seven Corpse Ford," because a large party
of farmers, riding homeward from Middleton, banded together and
perhaps well primed through fear of a famous highwayman, came down
to this place on a foggy evening, after heavy rain-fall. One of
the company set before them what the power of the water was, but
they laughed at him and spurred into it, and one alone spurred out
of it. Whether taken with fright, or with too much courage, they
laid hold of one another, and seven out of eight of them, all large
farmers, and thoroughly understanding land, came never upon it
alive again; and their bodies, being found upon the ridge that cast
them up, gave a dismal name to a place that never was merry in the
best of weather.
However, worse things than this had happened; and the country is
not chary of its living, though apt to be scared of its dead; and
so the ford came into use again, with a little attempt at
improvement. For those farmers being beyond recall, and their
families hard to provide for, Richard Yordas, of Scargate Hall, the
chief owner of the neighborhood, set a long heavy stone up on
either brink, and stretched a strong chain between them, not only
to mark out the course of the shallow, whose shelf is askew to the
channel, but also that any one being washed away might fetch up,
and feel how to save himself. For the Tees is a violent water
sometimes, and the safest way to cross it is to go on till you come
to a good stone bridge.
Now forty years after that sad destruction of brave but not well-
guided men, and thirty years after the chain was fixed, that their
sons might not go after them, another thing happened at "Seven
Corpse Ford," worse than the drowning of the farmers. Or, at any
rate, it made more stir (which is of wider spread than sorrow),
because of the eminence of the man, and the length and width of his
property. Neither could any one at first believe in so quiet an
end to so turbulent a course. Nevertheless it came to pass, as
lightly as if he were a reed or a bubble of the river that belonged
to him.
It was upon a gentle evening, a few days after Michaelmas of 1777.
No flood was in the river then, and no fog on the moor-land, only
the usual course of time, keeping the silent company of stars. The
young moon was down, and the hover of the sky (in doubt of various
lights) was gone, and the equal spread of obscurity soothed the
eyes of any reasonable man.
But the man who rode down to the river that night had little love
of reason. Headstrong chief of a headlong race, no will must
depart a hair's-breadth from his; and fifty years of arrogant port
had stiffened a neck too stiff at birth. Even now in the dim light
his large square form stood out against the sky like a cromlech,
and his heavy arms swung like gnarled boughs of oak, for a storm of
wrath was moving him. In his youth he had rebelled against his
father; and now his own son was a rebel to him.
"Good, my boy, good!" he said, within his grizzled beard, while his
eyes shone with fire, like the flints beneath his horse; "you have
had your own way, have you, then? But never shall you step upon an
acre of your own, and your timber shall be the gallows. Done, my
boy, once and forever."
Philip, the squire, the son of Richard, and father of Duncan
Yordas, with fierce satisfaction struck the bosom of his heavy
Bradford riding-coat, and the crackle of parchment replied to the
blow, while with the other hand he drew rein on the brink of the
Tees sliding rapidly.
The water was dark with the twinkle of the stars, and wide with the
vapor of the valley, but Philip Yordas in the rage of triumph
laughed and spurred his reflecting horse.
"Fool!" he cried, without an oath--no Yordas ever used an oath
except in playful moments--"fool! what fear you? There hangs my
respected father's chain. Ah, he was something like a man! Had I
ever dared to flout him so, he would have hanged me with it."
Wild with his wrong, he struck the rowel deep into the flank of his
wading horse, and in scorn of the depth drove him up the river.
The shoulders of the swimming horse broke the swirling water, as he
panted and snorted against it; and if Philip Yordas had drawn back
at once, he might even now have crossed safely. But the fury of
his blood was up, the stronger the torrent the fiercer his will,
and the fight between passion and power went on. The poor horse
was fain to swerve back at last; but he struck him on the head with
a carbine, and shouted to the torrent:
"Drown me, if you can. My father used to say that I was never born
to drown. My own water drown me! That would be a little too much
insolence."
"Too much insolence" were his last words. The strength of the
horse was exhausted. The beat of his legs grew short and faint,
the white of his eyes rolled piteously, and the gurgle of his
breath subsided. His heavy head dropped under water, and his
sodden crest rolled over, like sea-weed where a wave breaks. The
stream had him all at its mercy, and showed no more than his savage
master had, but swept him a wallowing lump away, and over the reef
of the crossing. With both feet locked in the twisted stirrups,
and right arm broken at the elbow, the rider was swung (like the
mast of a wreck) and flung with his head upon his father's chain.
There he was held by his great square chin--for the jar of his
backbone stunned him--and the weight of the swept-away horse broke
the neck which never had been known to bend. In the morning a
peasant found him there, not drowned but hanged, with eyes wide
open, a swaying corpse upon a creaking chain. So his father
(though long in the grave) was his death, as he often had promised
to be to him; while he (with the habit of his race) clutched fast
with dead hand on dead bosom the instrument securing the starvation
of his son.
Of the Yordas family truly was it said that the will of God was
nothing to their will--as long as the latter lasted--and that every
man of them scorned all Testament, old or new, except his own.
CHAPTER II
SCARGATE HALL
Nearly twenty-four years had passed since Philip Yordas was carried
to his last (as well as his first) repose, and Scargate Hall had
enjoyed some rest from the turbulence of owners. For as soon as
Duncan (Philip's son, whose marriage had maddened his father) was
clearly apprised by the late squire's lawyer of his disinheritance,
he collected his own little money and his wife's, and set sail for
India. His mother, a Scotchwoman of good birth but evil fortunes,
had left him something; and his bride (the daughter of his father's
greatest foe) was not altogether empty-handed. His sisters were
forbidden by the will to help him with a single penny; and
Philippa, the elder, declaring and believing that Duncan had killed
her father, strictly obeyed the injunction. But Eliza, being of a
softer kind, and herself then in love with Captain Carnaby, would
gladly have aided her only brother, but for his stern refusal. In
such a case, a more gentle nature than ever endowed a Yordas might
have grown hardened and bitter; and Duncan, being of true Yordas
fibre (thickened and toughened with slower Scotch sap), was not of
the sort to be ousted lightly and grow at the feet of his
supplanters.
Therefore he cast himself on the winds, in search of fairer soil,
and was not heard of in his native land; and Scargate Hall and
estates were held by the sisters in joint tenancy, with remainder
to the first son born of whichever it might be of them. And this
was so worded through the hurry of their father to get some one
established in the place of his own son.
But from paltry passions, turn away a little while to the things
which excite, but are not excited by them.
Scargate Hall stands, high and old, in the wildest and most rugged
part of the wild and rough North Riding. Many are the tales about
it, in the few and humble cots, scattered in the modest distance,
mainly to look up at it. In spring and summer, of the years that
have any, the height and the air are not only fine, but even fair
and pleasant. So do the shadows and the sunshine wander, elbowing
into one another on the moor, and so does the glance of smiling
foliage soothe the austerity of crag and scaur. At such time,
also, the restless torrent (whose fury has driven content away
through many a short day and long night) is not in such desperate
hurry to bury its troubles in the breast of Tees, but spreads them
in language that sparkles to the sun, or even makes leisure to turn
into corners of deep brown-study about the people on its banks--
especially, perhaps, the miller.
But never had this impetuous water more reason to stop and reflect
upon people of greater importance, who called it their own, than
now when it was at the lowest of itself, in August of the year
1801.
From time beyond date the race of Yordas had owned and inhabited
this old place. From them the river, and the river's valley, and
the mountain of its birth, took name, or else, perhaps, gave name
to them; for the history of the giant Yordas still remains to be
written, and the materials are scanty. His present descendants did
not care an old song for his memory, even if he ever had existence
to produce it. Piety (whether in the Latin sense or English) never
had marked them for her own; their days were long in the land,
through a long inactivity of the Decalogue.
And yet in some manner this lawless race had been as a law to
itself throughout. From age to age came certain gifts and certain
ways of management, which saved the family life from falling out of
rank and land and lot. From deadly feuds, exhausting suits, and
ruinous profusion, when all appeared lost, there had always arisen
a man of direct lineal stock to retrieve the estates and reprieve
the name. And what is still more conducive to the longevity of
families, no member had appeared as yet of a power too large and an
aim too lofty, whose eminence must be cut short with axe, outlawry,
and attainder. Therefore there ever had been a Yordas, good or bad
(and by his own showing more often of the latter kind), to stand
before heaven, and hold the land, and harass them that dwelt
thereon. But now at last the world seemed to be threatened with
the extinction of a fine old name.
When Squire Philip died in the river, as above recorded, his death,
from one point of view, was dry, since nobody shed a tear for him,
unless it was his child Eliza. Still, he was missed and lamented
in speech, and even in eloquent speeches, having been a very strong
Justice of the Peace, as well as the foremost of riotous gentlemen
keeping the order of the county. He stood above them in his firm
resolve to have his own way always, and his way was so crooked that
the difficulty was to get out of it and let him have it. And when
he was dead, it was either too good or too bad to believe in; and
even after he was buried it was held that this might be only
another of his tricks.
But after his ghost had been seen repeatedly, sitting on the chain
and swearing, it began to be known that he was gone indeed, and the
relief afforded by his absence endeared him to sad memory.
Moreover, his good successors enhanced the relish of scandal about
him by seeming themselves to be always so dry, distant, and
unimpeachable. Especially so did "My Lady Philippa," as the elder
daughter was called by all the tenants and dependents, though the
family now held no title of honor.
Mistress Yordas, as she was more correctly styled by usage of the
period, was a maiden lady of fine presence, uncumbered as yet by
weight of years, and only dignified thereby. Stately, and
straight, and substantial of figure, firm but not coarse of
feature, she had reached her forty-fifth year without an ailment or
a wrinkle. Her eyes were steadfast, clear, and bright, well able
to second her distinct calm voice, and handsome still, though their
deep blue had waned into a quiet, impenetrable gray; while her
broad clear forehead, straight nose, and red lips might well be
considered as comely as ever, at least by those who loved her. Of
these, however, there were not many; and she was content to have it
so.
Mrs. Carnaby, the younger sister, would not have been content to
have it so. Though not of the weak lot which is enfeoffed to
popularity, she liked to be regarded kindly, and would rather win a
smile than exact a courtesy. Continually it was said of her that
she was no genuine Yordas, though really she had all the pride and
all the stubbornness of that race, enlarged, perhaps, but little
weakened, by severe afflictions. This lady had lost a beloved
husband, Colonel Carnaby, killed in battle; and after that four
children of the five she had been so proud of. And the waters of
affliction had not turned to bitterness in her soul.
Concerning the outward part--which matters more than the inward at
first hand--Mrs. Carnaby had no reason to complain of fortune. She
had started well as a very fine baby, and grown up well into a
lovely maiden, passing through wedlock into a sightly matron,
gentle, fair, and showing reason. For generations it had come to
pass that those of the Yordas race who deserved to be cut off for
their doings out-of-doors were followed by ladies of decorum, self-
restraint, and regard for their neighbor's landmark. And so it was
now with these two ladies, the handsome Philippa and the fair Eliza
leading a peaceful and reputable life, and carefully studying their
rent-roll.
It was not, however, in the fitness of things that quiet should
reign at Scargate Hall for a quarter of a century; and one strong
element of disturbance grew already manifest. Under the will of
Squire Philip the heir-apparent was the one surviving child of Mrs.
Carnaby.
If ever a mortal life was saved by dint of sleepless care, warm
coddling, and perpetual doctoring, it was the precious life of
Master Lancelot Yordas Carnaby. In him all the mischief of his
race revived, without the strong substance to carry it off.
Though his parents were healthy and vigorous, he was of weakly
constitution, which would not have been half so dangerous to him if
his mind also had been weakly. But his mind (or at any rate that
rudiment thereof which appears in the shape of self-will even
before the teeth appear) was a piece of muscular contortion, tough
as oak and hard as iron. "Pet" was his name with his mother and
his aunt; and his enemies (being the rest of mankind) said that pet
was his name and his nature.
For this dear child could brook no denial, no slow submission to
his wishes; whatever he wanted must come in a moment, punctual as
an echo. In him re-appeared not the stubbornness only, but also
the keen ingenuity of Yordas in finding out the very thing that
never should be done, and then the unerring perception of the way
in which it could be done most noxiously. Yet any one looking at
his eyes would think how tender and bright must his nature be! "He
favoreth his forebears; how can he help it?" kind people exclaimed,
when they knew him. And the servants of the house excused
themselves when condemned for putting up with him, "Yo know not
what 'a is, yo that talk so. He maun get 's own gait, lestwise yo
wud chok' un."
Being too valuable to be choked, he got his own way always.
CHAPTER III
A DISAPPOINTING APPOINTMENT
For the sake of Pet Carnaby and of themselves, the ladies of the
house were disquieted now, in the first summer weather of a wet
cold year, the year of our Lord 1801. And their trouble arose as
follows:
There had long been a question between the sisters and Sir Walter
Carnaby, brother of the late colonel, about an exchange of outlying
land, which would have to be ratified by "Pet" hereafter. Terms
being settled and agreement signed, the lawyers fell to at the
linked sweetness of deducing title. The abstract of the Yordas
title was nearly as big as the parish Bible, so in and out had
their dealings been, and so intricate their pugnacity.
Among the many other of the Yordas freaks was a fatuous and
generally fatal one. For the slightest miscarriage they discharged
their lawyer, and leaped into the office of a new one. Has any man
moved in the affairs of men, with a grain of common-sense or half a
pennyweight of experience, without being taught that an old tenter-
hook sits easier to him than a new one? And not only that, but in
shifting his quarters he may leave some truly fundamental thing
behind.
Old Mr. Jellicorse, of Middleton in Teesdale, had won golden
opinions every where. He was an uncommonly honest lawyer, highly
incapable of almost any trick, and lofty in his view of things,
when his side of them was the legal one. He had a large collection
of those interesting boxes which are to a lawyer and his family
better than caskets of silver and gold; and especially were his
shelves furnished with what might be called the library of the
Scargate title-deeds. He had been proud to take charge of these
nearly thirty years ago, and had married on the strength of them,
though warned by the rival from whom they were wrested that he must
not hope to keep them long. However, through the peaceful
incumbency of ladies, they remained in his office all those years.
This was the gentleman who had drawn and legally sped to its
purport the will of the lamented Squire Philip, who refused very
clearly to leave it, and took horse to flourish it at his
rebellious son. Mr. Jellicorse had done the utmost, as behooved
him, against that rancorous testament; but meeting with silence
more savage than words, and a bow to depart, he had yielded; and
the squire stamped about the room until his job was finished.
A fact accomplished, whether good or bad, improves in character
with every revolution of this little world around the sun, that
heavenly example of subservience. And now Mr. Jellicorse was well
convinced, as nothing had occurred to disturb that will, and the
life of the testator had been sacrificed to it, and the devisees
under it were his own good clients, and some of his finest turns of
words were in it, and the preparation, execution, and attestation,
in an hour and ten minutes of the office clock, had never been
equalled in Yorkshire before, and perhaps never honestly in London--
taking all these things into conscious or unconscious balance, Mr.
Jellicorse grew into the clear conviction that "righteous and wise"
were the words to be used whenever this will was spoken of.
With pleasant remembrance of the starveling fees wherewith he used
to charge the public, ere ever his golden spurs were won, the
prosperous lawyer now began to run his eye through a duplicate of
an abstract furnished upon some little sale about forty years
before. This would form the basis of the abstract now to be
furnished to Sir Walter Carnaby, with little to be added but the
will of Philip Yordas, and statement of facts to be verified. Mr.
Jellicorse was fat, but very active still; he liked good living,
but he liked to earn it, and could not sit down to his dinner
without feeling that he had helped the Lord to provide these
mercies. He carried a pencil on his chain, and liked to use it ere
ever he began with knife and fork. For the young men in the
office, as he always said, knew nothing.
The day was very bright and clear, and the sun shone through soft
lilac leaves on more important folios, while Mr. Jellicorse, with
happy sniffs--for his dinner was roasting in the distance--drew a
single line here, or a double line there, or a gable on the margin
of the paper, to show his head clerk what to cite, and in what
letters, and what to omit, in the abstract to be rendered. For the
good solicitor had spent some time in the chambers of a famous
conveyancer in London, and prided himself upon deducing title,
directly, exhaustively, and yet tersely, in one word, scientifically,
and not as the mere quill-driver. The title to the hereditaments,
now to be given in exchange, went back for many generations; but as
the deeds were not to pass, Mr. Jellicorse, like an honest man,
drew a line across, and made a star at one quite old enough to
begin with, in which the little moorland farm in treaty now was
specified. With hum and ha of satisfaction he came down the
records, as far as the settlement made upon the marriage of Richard
Yordas, of Scargate Hall, Esquire, and Eleanor, the daughter of Sir
Fursan de Roos. This document created no entail, for strict
settlements had never been the manner of the race; but the property
assured in trust, to satisfy the jointure, was then declared subject
to joint and surviving powers of appointment limited to the issue of
the marriage, with remainder to the uses of the will of the
aforesaid Richard Yordas, or, failing such will, to his right heirs
forever.
All this was usual enough, and Mr. Jellicorse heeded it little,
having never heard of any appointment, and knowing that Richard,
the grandfather of his clients, had died, as became a true Yordas,
in a fit of fury with a poor tenant, intestate, as well as
unrepentant. The lawyer, being a slightly pious man, afforded a
little sigh to this remembrance, and lifted his finger to turn the
leaf, but the leaf stuck a moment, and the paper being raised at
the very best angle to the sun, he saw, or seemed to see, a faint
red line, just over against that appointment clause. And then the
yellow margin showed some faint red marks.
"Well, I never," Mr. Jellicorse exclaimed--"certainly never saw
these marks before. Diana, where are my glasses?"
Mrs. Jellicorse had been to see the potatoes on (for the new cook
simply made "kettlefuls of fish" of every thing put upon the fire),
and now at her husband's call she went to her work-box for his
spectacles, which he was not allowed to wear except on Sundays, for
fear of injuring his eyesight. Equipped with these, and drawing
nearer to the window, the lawyer gradually made out this: first a
broad faint line of red, as if some attorney, now a ghost, had cut
his finger, and over against that in small round hand the letters
"v. b. c." Mr. Jellicorse could swear that they were "v. b. c."
"Don't ask me to eat any dinner to-day," he exclaimed, when his
wife came to fetch him. "Diana, I am occupied; go and eat it up
without me."
"Nonsense, James," she answered, calmly; "you never get any clever
thoughts by starving."
Moved by this reasoning, he submitted, fed his wife and children
and own good self, and then brought up a bottle of old Spanish wine
to strengthen the founts of discovery. Whose writing was that upon
the broad marge of verbosity? Why had it never been observed
before? Above all, what was meant by "v. b. c."?
Unaided, he might have gone on forever, to the bottom of a butt of
Xeres wine; but finding the second glass better than the first, he
called to Mrs. Jellicorse, who was in the garden gathering striped
roses, to come and have a sip with him, and taste the yellow
cherries. And when she came promptly, with the flowers in her
hand, and their youngest little daughter making sly eyes at the
fruit, bothered as he was, he could not help smiling and saying,
"Oh, Diana, what is 'v. b. c.'?"
"Very black currants, papa!" cried Emily, dancing a long bunch in
the air.
"Hush, dear child, you are getting too forward," said her mother,
though proud of her quickness. "James, how should I know what 'v.
b. c.' is? But I wish most heartily that you would rid me of my
old enemy, box C. I want to put a hanging press in that corner,
instead of which you turn the very passages into office."
"Box C? I remember no box C."
"You may not have noticed the letter C upon it, but the box you
must know as well as I do. It belongs to those proud Yordas
people, who hold their heads so high, forsooth, as if nobody but
themselves belonged to a good old county family! That makes me
hate the box the more."
"I will take it out of your way at once. I may want it. It should
be with the others. I know it as well as I know my snuff-box. It
was Aberthaw who put it in that corner; but I had forgotten that it
was lettered. The others are all numbered."
Of course Mr. Jellicorse was not weak enough to make the partner of
his bosom the partner of his business; and much as she longed to
know why he had put an unusual question to her, she trusted to the
future for discovery of that point. She left him, and he with no
undue haste--for the business, after all, was not his own--began to
follow out his train of thought, in manner much as follows:
"This is that old Duncombe's writing--'Dunder-headed Duncombe,' as
he used to be called in his lifetime, but 'Long-headed Duncombe'
afterward. None but his wife knew whether he was a wise man, or a
wiseacre. Perhaps either, according to the treatment he received.
Richard Yordas treated him badly; that may have made him wiser. V.
b. c. means 'vide box C,' unless I am greatly mistaken. He wrote
those letters as plainly and clearly as he could against this power
of appointment as recited here. But afterward, with knife and
pounce, he scraped them out, as now becomes plain with this
magnifying-glass; probably he did so when all these archives, as he
used to call them, were rudely ordered over to my predecessor. A
nice bit of revenge, if my suspicions are correct; and a pretty
confusion will follow it."
The lawyer's suspicions proved too correct. He took that box to
his private room, and with some trouble unlocked it. A damp and
musty smell came forth, as when a man delves a potato-bury; and
then appeared layers of parchment yellow and brown, in and out with
one another, according to the curing of the sheep-skin, perhaps, or
the age of the sheep when he began to die; skins much older than
any man's who handled them, and drier than the brains of any
lawyer,
"Anno Jacobi tertio, and Quadragesimo Elisabethae! How nice it
sounds!" Mr. Jellicorse exclaimed; "they ought all to go in, and be
charged for. People to be satisfied with sixty years' title! Why,
bless the Lord, I am sixty-eight myself, and could buy and sell the
grammar school at eight years old. It is no security, no security
at all. What did the learned Bacupiston say--'If a rogue only
lives to be a hundred and eleven, he may have been for ninety years
disseized, and nobody alive to know it!'"
Older and older grew the documents as the lawyer's hand travelled
downward; any flaw or failure must have been healed by lapse of
time long and long ago; dust and grime and mildew thickened, ink
became paler, and contractions more contorted; it was rather an
antiquary's business now than a lawyer's to decipher them.
"What a fool I am!" the solicitor thought. "My cuffs will never
wash white again, and all I have found is a mare's-nest. However,
I'll go to the bottom now. There may be a gold seal--they used to
put them in with the deeds three hundred years ago. A charter of
Edward the Fourth, I declare! Ah, the Yordases were Yorkists--
halloa! what is here? By the Touchstone of Shepherd, I was right
after all! Well done, Long-headed Duncombe!"
From the very bottom of the box he took a parchment comparatively
fresh and new, indorsed "Appointment by Richard Yordas, Esquire,
and Eleanor his wife, of lands and heredits at Scargate and
elsewhere in the county of York, dated Nov. 15th, A.D. 1751."
Having glanced at the signatures and seals, Mr. Jellicorse spread
the document, which was of moderate compass, and soon convinced
himself that his work of the morning had been wholly thrown away.
No title could be shown to Whitestone Farm, nor even to Scargate
Hall itself, on the part of the present owners.
The appointment was by deed-poll, and strictly in accordance with
the powers of the settlement. Duly executed and attested, clearly
though clumsily expressed, and beyond all question genuine, it
simply nullified (as concerned the better half of the property) the
will which had cost Philip Yordas his life. For under this
limitation Philip held a mere life-interest, his father and mother
giving all men to know by those presents that they did thereby from
and after the decease of their said son Philip grant limit and
appoint &c. all and singular the said lands &c. to the heirs of his
body lawfully begotten &c. &c. in tail general, with remainder
over, and final remainder to the right heirs of the said Richard
Yordas forever. From all which it followed that while Duncan
Yordas, or child, or other descendant of his, remained in the land
of the living, or even without that if he having learned it had
been enabled to bar the entail and then sell or devise the lands
away, the ladies in possession could show no title, except a
possessory one, as yet unhallowed by the lapse of time.
Mr. Jellicorse was a very pleasant-looking man, also one who took a
pleasant view of other men and things; but he could not help
pulling a long and sad face as he thought of the puzzle before him.
Duncan Yordas had not been heard of among his own hills and valleys
since 1778, when he embarked for India. None of the family ever
had cared to write or read long letters, their correspondence (if
any) was short, without being sweet by any means. It might be a
subject for prayer and hope that Duncan should be gone to a better
world, without leaving hostages to fortune here; but sad it is to
say that neither prayer nor hope produces any faith in the counsel
who prepares "requisitions upon title."
On the other hand, inquiry as to Duncan's history since he left his
native land would be a delicate and expensive work, and perhaps
even dangerous, if he should hear of it, and inquire about the
inquirers. For the last thing to be done from a legal point of
view--though the first of all from a just one--was to apprise the
rightful owner of his unexpected position. Now Mr. Jellicorse was
a just man; but his justice was due to his clients first.
After a long brown-study he reaped his crop of meditation thus:
"It is a ticklish job; and I will sleep three nights upon it."
CHAPTER IV
DISQUIETUDE
The ladies of Scargate Hall were uneasy, although the weather was
so fine, upon this day of early August, in the year now current.
It was a remarkable fact, that in spite of the distance they slept
asunder, which could not be less than five-and-thirty yards, both
had been visited by a dream, which appeared to be quite the same
dream until examined narrowly, and being examined, grew more
surprising in its points of difference. They were much above
paying any heed to dreams, though instructed by the patriarchs to
do so; and they seemed to be quite getting over the effects, when
the lesson and the punishment astonished them.
Lately it had been established (although many leading people went
against it, and threatened to prosecute the man for trespass) that
here in these quiet and reputable places, where no spy could be
needed, a man should come twice every week with letters, and in the
name of the king be paid for them. Such things were required in
towns, perhaps, as corporations and gutters were; but to bring them
where people could mind their own business, and charge them two
groats for some fool who knew their names, was like putting a tax
upon their christening. So it was the hope of many, as well as
every one's belief, that the postman, being of Lancastrian race,
would very soon be bogged, or famished, or get lost in a fog, or
swept off by a flood, or go and break his own neck from a
precipice.
The postman, however, was a wiry fellow, and as tough as any
native, and he rode a pony even tougher than himself, whose cradle
was a marsh, and whose mother a mountain, his first breath a fog,
and his weaning meat wire-grass, and his form a combination of
sole-leather and corundum. He wore no shoes for fear of not making
sparks at night, to know the road by, and although his bit had been
a blacksmith's rasp, he would yield to it only when it suited him.
The postman, whose name was George King (which confounded him with
King George, in the money to pay), carried a sword and blunderbuss,
and would use them sooner than argue.
Now this man and horse had come slowly along, without meaning any
mischief, to deliver a large sealed packet, with sixteen pence to
pay put upon it, "to Mistress Philippa Yordas, etc., her own hands,
and speed, speed, speed;" which they carried out duly by stop,
stop, stop, whensoever they were hungry, or saw any thing to look
at. None the less for that, though with certainty much later, they
arrived in good trim, by the middle of the day, and ready for the
comfort which they both deserved.
As yet it was not considered safe to trust any tidings of
importance to the post in such a world as this was; and even were
it safe, it would be bad manners from a man of business. Therefore
Mr. Jellicorse had sealed up little, except his respectful
consideration and request to be allowed to wait upon his honored
clients, concerning a matter of great moment, upon the afternoon of
Thursday then next ensuing. And the post had gone so far, to give
good distance for the money, that the Thursday of the future came
to be that very day.
The present century opened with a chilly and dark year, following
three bad seasons of severity and scarcity. And in the northwest
of Yorkshire, though the summer was now so far advanced, there had
been very little sunshine. For the last day or two, the sun had
labored to sweep up the mist and cloud, and was beginning to
prevail so far that the mists drew their skirts up and retired into
haze, while the clouds fell away to the ring of the sky, and there
lay down to abide their time. Wherefore it happened that "Yordas
House" (as the ancient building was in old time called) had a
clearer view than usual of the valley, and the river that ran away,
and the road that tried to run up to it. Now this was considered a
wonderful road, and in fair truth it was wonderful, withstanding
all efforts of even the Royal Mail pony to knock it to pieces. In
its rapidity down hill it surpassed altogether the river, which
galloped along by the side of it, and it stood out so boldly with
stones of no shame that even by moonlight nobody could lose it,
until it abruptly lost itself. But it never did that, until the
house it came from was two miles away, and no other to be seen; and
so why should it go any further?
At the head of this road stood the old gray house, facing toward
the south of east, to claim whatever might come up the valley, sun,
or storm, or columned fog. In the days of the past it had claimed
much more--goods, and cattle, and tribute of the traffic going
northward--as the loop-holed quadrangle for impounded stock, and
the deeply embrasured tower, showed. At the back of the house rose
a mountain spine, blocking out the westering sun, but cut with one
deep portal where a pass ran into Westmoreland--the scaur-gate
whence the house was named; and through this gate of mountain
often, when the day was waning, a bar of slanting sunset entered,
like a plume of golden dust, and hovered on a broad black patch of
weather-beaten fir-trees. The day was waning now, and every steep
ascent looked steeper, while down the valley light and shade made
longer cast of shuttle, and the margin of the west began to glow
with a deep wine-color, as the sun came down--the tinge of many
mountains and the distant sea--until the sun himself settled
quietly into it, and there grew richer and more ripe (as old
bottled wine is fed by the crust), and bowed his rubicund farewell,
through the postern of the scaur-gate, to the old Hall, and the
valley, and the face of Mr. Jellicorse.
That gentleman's countenance did not, however, reply with its usual
brightness to the mellow salute of evening. Wearied and shaken by
the long, rough ride, and depressed by the heavy solitude, he hated
and almost feared the task which every step brought nearer. As the
house rose higher and higher against the red sky, and grew darker,
and as the sullen roar of blood-hounds (terrors of the neighborhood)
roused the slow echoes of the crags, the lawyer was almost fain to
turn his horse's head, and face the risks of wandering over the moor
by night. But the hoisting of a flag, the well-known token
(confirmed by large letters on a rock) that strangers might safely
approach, inasmuch as the savage dogs were kennelled--this, and the
thought of such an entry for his day-book, kept Mr. Jellicorse from
ignominious flight. He was in for it now, and must carry it
through.
In a deep embayed window of leaded glass Mistress Yordas and her
widowed sister sat for an hour, without many words, watching the
zigzag of shale and rock which formed their chief communication
with the peopled world. They did not care to improve their access,
or increase their traffic; not through cold morosity, or even proud
indifference, but because they had been so brought up, and so
confirmed by circumstance. For the Yordas blood, however hot and
wild and savage in the gentlemen, was generally calm and good,
though steadfast, in the weaker vessels. For the main part,
however, a family takes it character more from the sword than the
spindle; and their sword hand had been like Esau's.
Little as they meddled with the doings of the world, of one thing
at least these stately Madams--as the baffled squires of the Riding
called them--were by no means heedless. They dressed themselves
according to their rank, or perhaps above it. Many a nobleman's
wife in Yorkshire had not such apparel; and even of those so richly
gifted, few could have come up to the purpose better. Nobody,
unless of their own sex, thought of their dresses when looking at
them.
"He rides very badly," Philippa said; "the people from the lowlands
always do. He may not have courage to go home tonight. But he
ought to have thought of that before."
"Poor man! We must offer him a bed, of course," Mrs. Carnaby
answered; "but he should have come earlier in the day. What shall
we do with him, when he has done his business?"
"It is not our place to amuse our lawyer. He might go and smoke in
the Justice-room, and then Welldrum could play bagatelle with him."
"Philippa, you forget that the Jellicorses are of a good old county
stock. His wife is a stupid, pretentious thing; but we need not
treat him as we must treat her. And it may be as well to make much
of him, perhaps, if there really is any trouble coming."
"You are thinking of Pet. By-the-bye, are you certain that Pet can
not get at Saracen? You know how he let him loose last Easter,
when the flag was flying, and the poor man has been in his bed ever
since."
"Jordas will see to that. He can be trusted to mind the dogs well,
ever since you fined him in a fortnight's wages. That was an
excellent thought of yours."
Jordas might have been called the keeper, or the hind, or the
henchman, or the ranger, or the porter, or the bailiff, or the
reeve, or some other of some fifty names of office, in a place of
more civilization, so many and so various were his tasks. But here
his professional name was the "dogman;" and he held that office
according to an ancient custom of the Scargate race, whence also
his surname (if such it were) arose. For of old time and in
outlandish parts a finer humanity prevailed, and a richer practical
wisdom upon certain questions. Irregular offsets of the stock,
instead of being cast upon the world as waifs and strays, were
allowed a place in the kitchen-garden or stable-yard, and
flourished there without disgrace, while useful and obedient. Thus
for generations here the legitimate son was Yordas, and took the
house and manors; the illegitimate became Jordas, and took to the
gate, and the minding of the dogs, and any other office of
fidelity.
The present Jordas was, however, of less immediate kin to the
owners, being only the son of a former Jordas, and in the enjoyment
of a Christian name, which never was provided for a first-hand
Jordas; and now as his mistress looked out on the terrace, his
burly figure came duly forth, and his keen eyes ranged the walks
and courts, in search of Master Lancelot, who gave him more trouble
in a day, sometimes, than all the dogs cost in a twelvemonth. With
a fine sense of mischief, this boy delighted to watch the road for
visitors, and then (if barbarously denied his proper enjoyment and
that of the dogs) he still had goodly devices of his own for
producing little tragedies.
Mr. Jellicorse knew Jordas well, and felt some pity for him,
because, if his grandmother had been wiser, he might have been the
master now; and the lawyer, having much good feeling, liked not to
make a groom of him. Jordas, however, knew his place, and touched
his hat respectfully, then helped the solicitor to dismount, the
which was sorely needed.
"You came not by the way of the ford, Sir?" the dogman asked, while
considering the leathers. "The water is down; you might have saved
three miles."
"Better lose thirty than my life. Will any of your men, Master
Jordas, show me a room, where I may prepare to wait upon your
ladies?"
Mr. Jellicorse walked through the old arched gate of the reever's
court, and was shown to a room, where he unpacked his valise, and
changed his riding clothes, and refreshed himself. A jug of
Scargate ale was brought to him, and a bottle of foreign wine, with
the cork drawn, lest he should hesitate; also a cold pie, bread and
butter, and a small case-bottle of some liqueur. He was not
hungry, for his wife had cared to victual him well for the journey;
but for fear of offense he ate a morsel, found it good, and ate
some more. Then after a sip or two of the liqueur, and a glance or
two at his black silk stockings, buckled shoes, and best small-
clothes, he felt himself fit to go before a duchess, as once upon a
time he had actually done, and expressed himself very well indeed,
according to the dialogue delivered whenever he told the story
about it every day.
Welldrum, the butler, was waiting for him--a man who had his own
ideas, and was going to be put upon by nobody. "If my father could
only come to life for one minute, he would spend it in kicking that
man," Mrs. Carnaby had exclaimed, about him, after carefully
shutting the door; but he never showed airs before Miss Yordas.
"Come along, Sir," Welldrum said, after one professional glance at
the tray, to ascertain his residue. "My ladies have been waiting
this half hour; and for sure, Sir, you looks wonderful! This way,
Sir, and have a care of them oak fagots. My ladies, Lawyer
Jellicorse!"
CHAPTER V
DECISION
The sun was well down and away behind the great fell at the back of
the house, and the large and heavily furnished room was feebly lit
by four wax candles, and the glow of the west reflected as a gleam
into eastern windows. The lawyer was pleased to have it so, and to
speak with a dimly lighted face. The ladies looked beautiful; that
was all that Mr. Jellicorse could say, when cross-examined by his
wife next day concerning their lace and velvet. Whether they wore
lace or net was almost more than he could say, for he did not heed
such trifles; but velvet was within his knowledge (though not the
color or the shape), because he thought it hot for summer, until he
remembered what the climate was. Really he could say nothing more,
except that they looked beautiful; and when Mrs. Jellicorse jerked
her head, he said that he only meant, of course, considering their
time of life.
The ladies saw his admiration, and felt that it was but natural.
Mrs. Carnaby came forward kindly, and offered him a nice warm hand;
while the elder sister was content to bow, and thank him for
coming, and hope that he was well. As yet it had not become proper
for a gentleman, visiting ladies, to yawn, and throw himself into
the nearest chair, and cross his legs, and dance one foot, and ask
how much the toy-terrier cost. Mr. Jellicorse made a fine series
of bows, not without a scrape or two, which showed his goodly calf;
and after that he waited for the gracious invitation to sit down.
"If I understood your letter clearly," Mistress Yordas began, when
these little rites were duly accomplished, "you have something
important to tell us concerning our poor property here. A small
property, Mr. Jellicorse, compared with that of the Duke of
Lunedale, but perhaps a little longer in one family."
"The duke is a new-fangled interloper," replied hypocritical
Jellicorse, though no other duke was the husband of the duchess of
whom he indited daily; "properties of that sort come and go, and
only tradesmen notice it. Your estates have been longer in the
seisin of one family, madam, than any other in the Riding, or
perhaps in Yorkshire."
"We never seized them!" cried Mrs. Carnaby, being sensitive as to
ancestral thefts, through tales about cattle-lifting. "You must be
aware that they came to us by grant from the Crown, or even before
there was any Crown to grant them."
"I beg your pardon for using a technical word, without explaining
it. Seisin is a legal word, which simply means possession, or
rather the bodily holding of a thing, and is used especially of
corporeal hereditaments. You ladies have seisin of this house and
lands, although you never seized them."
"The last thing we would think of doing," answered Mrs. Carnaby,
who was more impulsive than her sister, also less straightforward.
"How often we have wished that our poor lost brother had not been
deprived of them! But our father's will was sacred, and you told
us we were helpless. We struggled, as you know; but we could do
nothing."
"That is the question which brought me here," the lawyer said, very
quietly, at the same time producing a small roll of parchment
sealed in cartridge paper. "Last week I discovered a document
which I am forced to submit to your judgment. Shall I read it to
you, or tell its purport briefly?"
"Whatever it may be, it can not in any way alter our conclusions.
Our conclusions have never varied, however deeply they may have
grieved us. We were bound to do justice to our dear father."
"Certainly, madam; and you did it. Also, as I know, you did it as
kindly as possible toward other relatives, and you only met with
perversity. I had the honor of preparing your respected father's
will, a model of clearness and precision, considering--considering
the time afforded, and other disturbing influences. I know for a
fact that a copy was laid before the finest draftsman in London,
by--by those who were displeased with it, and his words were:
'Beautiful! beautiful! Every word of it holds water.' Now that,
madam, can not he said of many; indeed, of not one in--"
"Pardon, me for interrupting you, but I have always understood you
to speak highly of it. And in such a case, what can be the
matter?"
"The matter of all matters, madam, is that the testator should have
disposing power."
"He could dispose of his own property as he was disposed, you
mean."
"You misapprehend me." Mr. Jellicorse now was in his element, for
he loved to lecture--an absurdity just coming into vogue. "Indulge
me one moment. I take this silver dish, for instance; it is in my
hands, I have the use of it; but can I give it to either of you
ladies?"
"Not very well, because it belongs to us already."
"You misapprehend me. I can not give it because it is not mine to
give." Mrs. Carnaby looked puzzled.
"Eliza, allow me," said Mistress Yordas, in her stiffer manner, and
now for the first time interfering. "Mr. Jellicorse assures us
that his language is a model of clearness and precision; perhaps he
will prove it by telling us now, in plain words, what his meaning
is."
"What I mean, madam, is that your respected father could devise you
a part only of this property, because the rest was not his to
devise. He only had a life-interest in it."
"His will, therefore, fails as to some part of the property? How
much, and what part, if you please?"
"The larger and better part of the estates, including this house
and grounds, and the home-farm."
Mrs. Carnaby started and began to speak; but her sister moved only
to stop her, and showed no signs of dismay or anger.
"For fear of putting too many questions at once," she said, with a
slight bow and a smile, "let me beg you to explain, as shortly as
possible, this very surprising matter."
Mr. Jellicorse watched her with some suspicion, because she called
it so surprising, yet showed so little surprise herself. For a
moment he thought that she must have heard of the document now in
his hands; but he very soon saw that it could not be so. It was
only the ancient Yordas pride, perversity, and stiffneckedness.
And even Mrs. Carnaby, strengthened by the strength of her sister,
managed to look as if nothing more than a tale of some tenant were
pending. But this, or ten times this, availed not to deceive Mr.
Jellicorse. That gentleman, having seen much of the world,
whispered to himself that this was all "high jinks," felt himself
placed on the stool of authority, and even ventured upon a pinch of
snuff. This was unwise, and cost him dear, for the ladies would
not have been true to their birth if they had not stored it against
him.
He, however, with a friendly mind, and a tap now and then upon his
document, to give emphasis to his story, recounted the whole of it,
and set forth how much was come of it already, and how much it
might lead to. To Scargate Hall, and the better part of the
property always enjoyed therewith, Philippa Yordas and Eliza
Carnaby had no claim whatever, except on the score of possession,
until it could be shown that their brother Duncan was dead, without
any heirs or assignment (which might have come to pass through a
son adult), and even so, his widow might come forward and give
trouble. Concerning all that, there was time enough to think; but
something must be done at once to cancel the bargain with Sir
Walter Carnaby, without letting his man of law get scent of the
fatal defect in title. And now that the ladies knew all, what did
they say?
In answer to this, the ladies were inclined to put the whole blame
upon him, for not having managed matters better; and when he had
shown that the whole of it was done before he had any thing to do
with it, they were firmly convinced that he ought to have known it,
and found a proper remedy. And in the finished manner of well-born
ladies they gave him to know, without a strong expression, that
such an atrocity was a black stain on every legal son of Satan,
living, dead, or still to issue from Gerizim.
"That can not affect the title now--I assure you, madam, that it
can not," the unfortunate lawyer exclaimed at last; "and as for
damages, poor old Duncombe has left no representatives, even if an
action would lie now, which is simply out of the question. On my
part no neglect can be shown, and indeed for your knowledge of the
present state of things, if humbly I may say so, you are wholly
indebted to my zeal."
"Sir, I heartily wish," Mrs. Carnaby replied, "that your zeal had
been exhausted on your own affairs."
"Eliza, Mr. Jellicorse has acted well, and we can not feel too much
obliged to him." Miss Yordas, having humor of a sort, smiled
faintly at the double meaning of her own words, which was not
intended. "Whatever is right must be done, of course, according to
the rule of our family. In such a case it appears to me that mere
niceties of laws, and quips and quirks, are entirely subordinate to
high sense of honor. The first consideration must be thoroughly
unselfish and pure justice."
The lawyer looked at her with admiration. He was capable of large
sentiments. And yet a faint shadow of disappointment lingered in
the folios of his heart--there might have been such a very grand
long suit, upon which his grandson (to be born next month) might
have been enabled to settle for life, and bring up a legal family.
Justice, however, was justice, and more noble than even such
prospects. So he bowed his head, and took another pinch of snuff.
But Mrs. Carnaby (who had wept a little, in a place beyond the
candle-light) came back with a passionate flush in her eyes, and a
resolute bearing of her well-formed neck.
"Philippa, I am amazed at you," she said, "Mr. Jellicorse, my share
is equal with my sister's, and more, because my son comes after me.
Whatever she may do, I will never yield a pin's point of my rights,
and leave my son a beggar. Philippa, would you make Pet a beggar?
And his turtle in bed, before the sun is on the window, and his
sturgeon jelly when he gets out of bed! There never was any one,
by a good Providence, less sent into the world to be a beggar."
Mrs. Carnaby, having discharged her meaning, began to be overcome
by it. She sat down, in fear of hysteria, but with her mind made
up to stop it; while the gallant Jellicorse was swept away by her
eloquence, mixed with professional views. But it came home to him,
from experience with his wife, that the less he said the wiser.
But while he moved about, and almost danced, in his strong desire
to be useful, there was another who sat quite still, and meant to
have the final say.
"From some confusion of ideas, I suppose, or possibly through my
own fault," Philippa Yordas said, with less contempt in her voice
than in her mind, "it seems that I can not make my meaning clear,
even to my own sister. I said that we first must do the right, and
scorn all legal subtleties. That we must maintain unselfish
justice, and high sense of honor. Can there be any doubt what
these dictate? What sort of daughters should we be if we basely
betrayed our own father's will?"
"Excellent, madam," the lawyer said; "that view of the case never
struck me. But there is a great deal in it."
"Oh, Philippa, how noble you are!" her sister Eliza cried; and
cried no more, so far as tears go, for a long time afterward.
CHAPTER VI
ANERLEY FARM
On the eastern coast of the same great county, at more than ninety
miles of distance for a homing pigeon, and some hundred and twenty
for a carriage from the Hall of Yordas, there was in those days,
and there still may be found, a property of no vast size--snug,
however, and of good repute--and called universally "Anerley Farm."
How long it has borne that name it knows not, neither cares to moot
the question; and there lives no antiquary of enough antiquity to
decide it. A place of smiling hope, and comfort, and content with
quietude; no memory of man about it runneth to the contrary; while
every ox, and horse, and sheep, and fowl, and frisky porker, is
full of warm domestic feeling and each homely virtue.
For this land, like a happy country, has escaped, for years and
years, the affliction of much history. It has not felt the
desolating tramp of lawyer or land-agent, nor been bombarded by
fine and recovery, lease and release, bargain and sale, Doe and Roe
and Geoffrey Styles, and the rest of the pitiless shower of slugs,
ending with a charge of Demons. Blows, and blights, and plagues of
that sort have not come to Anerley, nor any other drain of nurture
to exhaust the green of meadow and the gold of harvest. Here
stands the homestead, and here lies the meadow-land; there walk the
kine (having no call to run), and yonder the wheat in the hollow of
the hill, bowing to the silvery stroke of the wind, is touched with
the promise of increasing gold.
As good as the cattle and the crops themselves are the people that
live upon them; or at least, in a fair degree, they try to be so;
though not of course so harmless, or faithful, or peaceful, or
charitable. But still, in proportion, they may be called as good;
and in fact they believe themselves much better. And this from no
conceit of any sort, beyond what is indispensable; for nature not
only enables but compels a man to look down upon his betters.
From generation to generation, man, and beast, and house, and land,
have gone on in succession here, replacing, following, renewing,
repairing and being repaired, demanding and getting more support,
with such judicious give-and-take, and thoroughly good understanding,
that now in the August of this year, when Scargate Hall is full of
care, and afraid to cart a load of dung, Anerley farm is quite at
ease, and in the very best of heart, man, and horse, and land, and
crops, and the cock that crows the time of day. Nevertheless, no
acre yet in Yorkshire, or in the whole wide world, has ever been so
farmed or fenced as to exclude the step of change.
From father to son the good lands had passed, without even a will
to disturb them, except at distant intervals; and the present owner
was Stephen Anerley, a thrifty and well-to-do Yorkshire farmer of
the olden type. Master Anerley was turned quite lately of his
fifty-second year, and hopeful (if so pleased the Lord) to turn a
good many more years yet, as a strong horse works his furrow. For
he was strong and of a cheerful face, ruddy, square, and steadfast,
built up also with firm body to a wholesome stature, and able to
show the best man on the farm the way to swing a pitchfork. Yet
might he be seen, upon every Lord's day, as clean as a new-shelled
chestnut; neither at any time of the week was he dirtier than need
be. Happy alike in the place of his birth, his lot in life, and
the wisdom of the powers appointed over him, he looked up with a
substantial faith, yet a solid reserve of judgment, to the Church,
the Justices of the Peace, spiritual lords and temporal, and above
all His Majesty George the Third. Without any reserve of judgmemt,
which could not deal with such low subjects, he looked down upon
every Dissenter, every pork-dealer, and every Frenchman. What he
was brought up to, that he would abide by; and the sin beyond
repentance, to his mind, was the sin of the turncoat.
With all these hard-set lines of thought, or of doctrine (the
scabbard of thought, which saves its edge, and keeps it out of
mischief), Stephen Anerley was not hard, or stern, or narrow-
hearted. Kind, and gentle, and good to every one who knew "how to
behave himself," and dealing to every man full justice--meted by
his own measure--he was liable even to generous acts, after being
severe and having his own way. But if any body ever got the better
of him by lies, and not fair bettering, that man had wiser not
begin to laugh inside the Riding. Stephen Anerley was slow but
sure; not so very keen, perhaps, but grained with kerns of maxim'd
thought, to meet his uses as they came, and to make a rogue uneasy.
To move him from such thoughts was hard; but to move him from a
spoken word had never been found possible.
The wife of this solid man was solid and well fitted to him. In
early days, by her own account, she had possessed considerable
elegance, and was not devoid of it even now, whenever she received
a visitor capable of understanding it. But for home use that gift
had been cut short, almost in the honey-moon, by a total want of
appreciation on the part of her husband. And now, after five-and-
twenty years of studying and entering into him, she had fairly
earned his firm belief that she was the wisest of women. For she
always agreed with him, when he wished it; and she knew exactly
when to contradict him, and that was before he had said a thing at
all, and while he was rolling it slowly in his mind, with a strong
tendency against it. In out-door matters she never meddled,
without being specially consulted by the master; but in-doors she
governed with watchful eyes, a firm hand, and a quiet tongue.
This good woman now was five-and-forty years of age, vigorous,
clean, and of a very pleasant look, with that richness of color
which settles on fair women when the fugitive beauty of blushing is
past. When the work of the morning was done, and the clock in the
kitchen was only ten minutes from twelve, and the dinner was fit
for the dishing, then Mistress Anerley remembered as a rule the
necessity of looking to her own appearance. She went up stairs,
with a quarter of an hour to spare, but not to squander, and she
came down so neat that the farmer was obliged to be careful in
helping the gravy. For she always sat next to him, as she had done
before there came any children, and it seemed ever since to be the
best place for her to manage their plates and their manners as
well.
Alas! that the kindest and wisest of women have one (if not twenty)
blind sides to them; and if any such weakness is pointed out, it is
sure to have come from their father. Mistress Anerley's weakness
was almost conspicuous to herself--she worshipped her eldest son,
perhaps the least worshipful of the family.
Willie Anerley was a fine young fellow, two inches taller than his
father, with delicate features, and curly black hair, and cheeks as
bright as a maiden's. He had soft blue eyes, and a rich clear
voice, with a melancholy way of saying things, as if he were above
all this. And yet he looked not like a fool; neither was he one
altogether, when he began to think of things. The worst of him was
that he always wanted something new to go on with. He never could
be idle; and yet he never worked to the end which crowns the task.
In the early stage he would labor hard, be full of the greatness of
his aim, and demand every body's interest, exciting, also, mighty
hopes of what was safe to come of it. And even after that he
sometimes carried on with patience; but he had not perseverance.
Once or twice he had been on the very nick of accomplishing
something, and had driven home his nail; but then he let it spring
back without clinching. "Oh, any fool can do that!" he cried, and
never stood to it, to do it again, or to see that it came not
undone. In a word, he stuck to nothing, but swerved about, here,
there, and every where.
His father, being of so different a cast, and knowing how often the
wisest of men must do what any fool can do, was bitterly vexed at
the flighty ways of Willie, and could do no more than hope, with a
general contempt, that when the boy grew older he might be a wiser
fool. But Willie's dear mother maintained, with great consistency,
that such a perfect wonder could never be expected to do any thing
not wonderful. To this the farmer used to listen with a grim,
decorous smile; then grumbled, as soon as he was out of hearing,
and fell to and did the little jobs himself.
Sore jealousy of Willie, perhaps, and keen sense of injustice, as
well as high spirit and love of adventure, had driven the younger
son, Jack, from home, and launched him on a sea-faring life. With
a stick and a bundle he had departed from the ancestral fields and
lanes, one summer morning about three years since, when the cows
were lowing for the milk pail, and a royal cutter was cruising off
the Head. For a twelvemonth nothing was heard of him, until there
came a letter beginning, "Dear and respected parents," and ending,
"Your affectionate and dutiful son, Jack." The body of the letter
was of three lines only, occupied entirely with kind inquiries as
to the welfare of every body, especially his pup, and his old pony,
and dear sister Mary.
Mary Anerley, the only daughter and the youngest child, well
deserved the best remembrance of the distant sailor, though Jack
may have gone too far in declaring (as he did till he came to his
love-time) that the world contained no other girl fit to hold a
candle to her. No doubt it would have been hard to find a girl
more true and loving, more modest and industrious; but hundreds and
hundreds of better girls might be found perhaps even in Yorkshire.
For this maiden had a strong will of her own, which makes against
absolute perfection; also she was troubled with a strenuous hate of
injustice--which is sure, in this world, to find cause for an
outbreak--and too active a desire to rush after what is right,
instead of being well content to let it come occasionally. And so
firm could she be, when her mind was set, that she would not take
parables, or long experience, or even kindly laughter, as a power
to move her from the thing she meant. Her mother, knowing better
how the world goes on, promiscuously, and at leisure, and how the
right point slides away when stronger forces come to bear, was very
often vexed by the crotchets of the girl, and called her wayward,
headstrong, and sometimes nothing milder than "a saucy miss."
This, however, was absurd, and Mary scarcely deigned to cry about
it, but went to her father, as she always did when any weight lay
on her mind. Nothing was said about any injustice, because that
might lead to more of it, as well as be (from a proper point of
view) most indecorous. Nevertheless, it was felt between them,
when her pretty hair was shed upon his noble waistcoat, that they
two were in the right, and cared very little who thought otherwise.
Now it was time to leave off this; for Mary (without heed almost of
any but her mother) had turned into a full-grown damsel, comely,
sweet, and graceful. She was tall enough never to look short, and
short enough never to seem too tall, even when her best feelings
were outraged; and nobody, looking at her face, could wish to do
any thing but please her--so kind was the gaze of her deep blue
eyes, so pleasant the frankness of her gentle forehead, so playful
the readiness of rosy lips for a pretty answer or a lovely smile.
But if any could be found so callous and morose as not to be
charmed or nicely cheered by this, let him only take a longer look,
not rudely, but simply in a spirit of polite inquiry; and then
would he see, on the delicate rounding of each soft and dimpled
cheek, a carmine hard to match on palette, morning sky, or flower
bed.
Lovely people ought to be at home in lovely places; and though this
can not be so always, as a general rule it is. At Anerley Farm the
land was equal to the stock it had to bear, whether of trees, or
corn, or cattle, hogs, or mushrooms, or mankind. The farm was not
so large or rambling as to tire the mind or foot, yet wide enough
and full of change--rich pasture, hazel copse, green valleys,
fallows brown, and golden breast-lands pillowing into nooks of
fern, clumps of shade for horse or heifer, and for rabbits sandy
warren, furzy cleve for hare and partridge, not without a little
mere for willows and for wild-ducks. And the whole of the land,
with a general slope of liveliness and rejoicing, spread itself
well to the sun, with a strong inclination toward the morning, to
catch the cheery import of his voyage across the sea.
The pleasure of this situation was the more desirable because of
all the parts above it being bleak and dreary. Round the shoulders
of the upland, like the arch of a great arm-chair, ran a barren
scraggy ridge, whereupon no tree could stand upright, no cow be
certain of her own tail, and scarcely a crow breast the violent air
by stooping ragged pinions, so furious was the rush of wind when
any power awoke the clouds; or sometimes, when the air was jaded
with continual conflict, a heavy settlement of brackish cloud lay
upon a waste of chalky flint.
By dint of persevering work there are many changes for the better
now, more shelter and more root-hold; but still it is a battle-
ground of winds, which rarely change their habits, for this is the
chump of the spine of the Wolds, which hulks up at last into
Flamborough Head.
Flamborough Head, the furthest forefront of a bare and jagged
coast, stretches boldly off to eastward--a strong and rugged
barrier. Away to the north the land falls back, with coving bends,
and some straight lines of precipice and shingle, to which the
German Ocean sweeps, seldom free from sullen swell in the very best
of weather. But to the southward of the Head a different spirit
seems to move upon the face of every thing. For here is spread a
peaceful bay, and plains of brighter sea more gently furrowed by
the wind, and cliffs that have no cause to be so steep, and
bathing-places, and scarcely freckled sands, where towns may lay
their drain-pipes undisturbed. In short, to have rounded that
headland from the north is as good as to turn the corner of a
garden wall in March, and pass from a buffeted back, and bare
shivers, to a sunny front of hope all as busy as a bee, with pears
spurring forward into creamy buds of promise, peach-trees already
in a flush of tasselled pink, and the green lobe of the apricot
shedding the snowy bloom.
Below this point the gallant skipper of the British collier,
slouching with a heavy load of grime for London, or waddling back
in ballast to his native North, alike is delighted to discover
storms ahead, and to cast his tarry anchor into soft gray calm.
For here shall he find the good shelter of friends like-minded with
himself, and of hospitable turn, having no cause to hurry any more
than he has, all too wise to command their own ships; and here will
they all jollify together while the sky holds a cloud or the locker
a drop. Nothing here can shake their ships, except a violent east
wind, against which they wet the other eye; lazy boats visit them
with comfort and delight, while white waves are leaping, in the
offing; they cherish their well-earned rest, and eat the lotus--or
rather the onion--and drink ambrosial grog; they lean upon the
bulwarks, and contemplate their shadows--the noblest possible
employment for mankind--and lo! if they care to lift their eyes, in
the south shines the quay of Bridlington, inland the long ridge of
Priory stands high, and westward in a nook, if they level well a
clear glass (after holding on the slope so many steamy ones), they
may espy Anerley Farm, and sometimes Mary Anerley herself.
For she, when the ripple of the tide is fresh, and the glance of
the summer morn glistening on the sands, also if a little rocky
basin happens to be fit for shrimping, and only some sleepy ships
at anchor in the distance look at her, fearless she--because all
sailors are generally down at breakfast--tucks up her skirt and
gayly runs upon the accustomed play-ground, with her pony left to
wait for her. The pony is old, while she is young (although she
was born before him), and now he belies his name, "Lord Keppel," by
starting at every soft glimmer of the sea. Therefore now he is
left to roam at his leisure above high-water mark, poking his nose
into black dry weed, probing the winnow casts of yellow drift for
oats, and snorting disappointment through a gritty dance of sand-
hoppers.
Mary has brought him down the old "Dane's Dike" for society rather
than service, and to strengthen his nerves with the dew of the
salt, for the sake of her Jack who loved him. He may do as he
likes, as he always does. If his conscience allows him to walk
home, no one will think the less of him. Having very little
conscience at his time of life (after so much contact with
mankind), he considers convenience only. To go home would suit him
very well, but his crib would be empty till his young mistress
came; moreover, there is a little dog that plagues him when his
door is open; and in spite of old age, it is something to be free,
and in spite of all experience, to hope for something good.
Therefore Lord Keppel is as faithful as the rocks; he lifts his
long heavy head, and gazes wistfully at the anchored ships, and
Mary is sure that the darling pines for his absent master.
But she, with the multitudinous tingle of youth, runs away
rejoicing. The buoyant power and brilliance of the morning are
upon her, and the air of the bright sea lifts and spreads her, like
a pillowy skate's egg. The polish of the wet sand flickers like
veneer of maple-wood at every quick touch of her dancing feet. Her
dancing feet are as light as nature and high spirits made them, not
only quit of spindle heels, but even free from shoes and socks left
high and dry on the shingle. And lighter even than the dancing
feet the merry heart is dancing, laughing at the shadows of its own
delight; while the radiance of blue eyes springs like a fount of
brighter heaven; and the sunny hair falls, flows, or floats, to
provoke the wind for playmate.
Such a pretty sight was good to see for innocence and largeness.
So the buoyancy of nature springs anew in those who have been
weary, when they see her brisk power inspiring the young, who never
stand still to think of her, but are up and away with her, where
she will, at the breath of her subtle encouragement.
CHAPTER VII
A DANE IN THE DIKE
Now, whether spy-glass had been used by any watchful mariner, or
whether only blind chance willed it, sure it is that one fine
morning Mary met with somebody. And this was the more remarkable,
when people came to think of it, because it was only the night
before that her mother had almost said as much.
"Ye munna gaw doon to t' sea be yersell," Mistress Anerley said to
her daughter; "happen ye mought be one too many."
Master Anerley's wife had been at "boarding-school," as far south
as Suffolk, and could speak the very best of Southern English (like
her daughter Mary) upon polite occasion. But family cares and
farm-house life had partly cured her of her education, and from
troubles of distant speech she had returned to the ease of her
native dialect.
"And if I go not to the sea by myself," asked Mary, with natural
logic, "why, who is there now to go with me?" She was thinking of
her sadly missed comrade, Jack.
"Happen some day, perhaps, one too many."
The maiden was almost too innocent to blush; but her father took
her part as usual.
"The little lass sall gaw doon," he said, "wheniver sha likes."
And so she went down the next morning.
A thousand years ago the Dane's Dike must have been a very grand
intrenchment, and a thousand years ere that perhaps it was still
grander; for learned men say that it is a British work, wrought out
before the Danes had even learned to build a ship. Whatever,
however, may be argued about that, the wise and the witless do
agree about one thing--the stronghold inside it has been held by
Danes, while severed by the Dike from inland parts; and these Danes
made a good colony of their own, and left to their descendants
distinct speech and manners, some traces of which are existing even
now. The Dike, extending from the rough North Sea to the calmer
waters of Bridlington Bay, is nothing more than a deep dry trench,
skillfully following the hollows of the ground, and cutting off
Flamborough Head and a solid cantle of high land from the rest of
Yorkshire. The corner, so intercepted, used to be and is still
called "Little Denmark;" and the in-dwellers feel a large contempt
for all their outer neighbors. And this is sad, because Anerley
Farm lies wholly outside of the Dike, which for a long crooked
distance serves as its eastern boundary.
Upon the morning of the self-same day that saw Mr. Jellicorse set
forth upon his return from Scargate Hall, armed with instructions
to defy the devil, and to keep his discovery quiet--upon a lovely
August morning of the first year of a new century, Mary Anerley,
blithe and gay, came riding down the grassy hollow of this ancient
Dane's Dike. This was her shortest way to the sea, and the tide
would suit (if she could only catch it) for a take of shrimps, and
perhaps even prawns, in time for her father's breakfast. And not
to lose this, she arose right early, and rousing Lord Keppel, set
forth for the spot where she kept her net covered with sea-weed.
The sun, though up and brisk already upon sea and foreland, had not
found time to rout the shadows skulking in the dingles. But even
here, where sap of time had breached the turfy ramparts, the hover
of the dew-mist passed away, and the steady light was unfolded.
For the season was early August still, with beautiful weather come
at last; and the green world seemed to stand on tiptoe to make the
extraordinary acquaintance of the sun. Humble plants which had
long lain flat stood up with a sense of casting something off; and
the damp heavy trunks which had trickled for a twelvemonth, or been
only sponged with moss, were hailing the fresher light with keener
lines and dove-colored tints upon their smoother boles. Then,
conquering the barrier of the eastern land crest, rose the glorious
sun himself, strewing before him trees and crags in long steep
shadows down the hill. Then the sloping rays, through furze and
brush-land, kindling the sparkles of the dew, descended to the
brink of the Dike, and scorning to halt at petty obstacles, with a
hundred golden hurdles bridged it wherever any opening was.
Under this luminous span, or through it where the crossing gullies
ran, Mary Anerley rode at leisure, allowing her pony to choose his
pace. That privilege he had long secured, in right of age, wisdom,
and remarkable force of character. Considering his time of life,
he looked well and sleek, and almost sprightly; and so, without any
reservation, did his gentle and graceful rider. The maiden looked
well in a place like that, as indeed in almost any place; but now
she especially set off the color of things, and was set off by
them. For instance, how could the silver of the dew-cloud, and
golden weft of sunrise, playing through the dapples of a partly
wooded glen, do better (in the matter of variety) than frame a
pretty moving figure in a pink checked frock, with a skirt of
russet murrey, and a bright brown hat? Not that the hat itself was
bright, even under the kiss of sunshine, simply having seen already
too much of the sun, but rather that its early lustre seemed to be
revived by a sense of the happy position it was in; the clustering
hair and the bright eyes beneath it answering the sunny dance of
life and light. Many a handsomer face, no doubt, more perfect,
grand, and lofty, received--at least if it was out of bed--the
greeting of that morning sun; but scarcely any prettier one, or
kinder, or more pleasant, so gentle without being weak, so good-
tempered without looking void of all temper at all.
Suddenly the beauty of the time and place was broken by sharp angry
sound. Bang! bang! came the roar of muskets fired from the shore
at the mouth of the Dike, and echoing up the winding glen. At the
first report the girl, though startled, was not greatly frightened;
for the sound was common enough in the week when those most gallant
volunteers entitled the "Yorkshire Invincibles" came down for their
annual practice of skilled gunnery against the French. Their habit
was to bring down a red cock, and tether him against a chalky
cliff, and then vie with one another in shooting at him. The same
cock had tested their skill for three summers, but failed hitherto
to attest it, preferring to return in a hamper to his hens, with a
story of moving adventures.
Mary had watched those Invincibles sometimes from a respectful
distance, and therefore felt sure (when she began to think) that
she had not them to thank for this little scare. For they always
slept soundly in the first watch of the morning; and even supposing
they had jumped up with nightmare, where was the jubilant crow of
the cock? For the cock, being almost as invincible as they were,
never could deny himself the glory of a crow when the bullet came
into his neighborhood. He replied to every volley with an elevated
comb, and a flapping of his wings, and a clarion peal, which rang
along the foreshore ere the musket roar died out. But before the
girl had time to ponder what it was, or wherefore, round the corner
came somebody, running very swiftly.
In a moment Mary saw that this man had been shot at, and was making
for his life away; and to give him every chance she jerked her pony
aside, and called and beckoned; and without a word he flew to her.
Words were beyond him, till his breath should come back, and he
seemed to have no time to wait for that. He had outstripped the
wind, and his own wind, by his speed.
"Poor man!" cried Mary Anerley, "what a hurry you are in! But I
suppose you can not help it. Are they shooting at you?"
The runaway nodded, for he could not spare a breath, but was deeply
inhaling for another start, and could not even bow without
hinderance. But to show that he had manners, he took off his hat.
Then he clapped it on his head and set off again.
"Come back!" cried the maid; "I can show you a place. I can hide
you from your enemies forever."
The young fellow stopped. He was come to that pitch of exhaustion
in which a man scarcely cares whether he is killed or dies. And
his face showed not a sign of fear.
"Look! That little hole--up there--by the fern. Up at once, and
this cloth over you!"
He snatched it, and was gone, like the darting lizard, up a little
puckering side issue of the Dike, at the very same instant that
three broad figures and a long one appeared at the lip of the
mouth. The quick-witted girl rode on to meet them, to give the
poor fugitive time to get into his hole and draw the brown skirt
over him. The dazzle of the sun, pouring over the crest, made the
hollow a twinkling obscurity; and the cloth was just in keeping
with the dead stuff around. The three broad men, with heavy fusils
cocked, came up from the sea mouth of the Dike, steadily panting,
and running steadily with a long-enduring stride. Behind them a
tall bony man with a cutlass was swinging it high in the air, and
limping, and swearing with great velocity.
"Coast-riders," thought Mary, "and he a free-trader! Four against
one is cowardice."
"Halt!" cried the tall man, while the rest were running past her;
"halt! ground arms; never scare young ladies." Then he flourished
his hat, with a grand bow to Mary. "Fair young Mistress Anerley, I
fear we spoil your ride. But his Majesty's duty must be done.
Hats off, fellows, at the name of your king! Mary, my dear, the
most daring villain, the devil's own son, has just run up here--
scarcely two minutes--you must have seen him. Wait a minute; tell
no lies--excuse me, I mean fibs. Your father is the right sort.
He hates those scoundrels. In the name of his Majesty, which way
is he gone?"
"Was it--oh, was it a man, if you please? Captain Carroway, don't
say so."
"A man? Is it likely that we shot at a woman? You are trifling.
It will be the worse for you. Forgive me--but we are in such a
hurry. Whoa! whoa! pony."
"You always used to be so polite, Sir, that you quite surprise me.
And those guns look so dreadful! My father would be quite
astonished to see me not even allowed to go down to the sea, but
hurried back here, as if the French had landed."
"How can I help it, if your pony runs away so?" For Mary all this
time had been cleverly contriving to increase and exaggerate her
pony's fear, and so brought the gunners for a long way up the Dike,
without giving them any time to spy at all about. She knew that
this was wicked from a loyal point of view; not a bit the less she
did it. "What a troublesome little horse it is!" she cried. "Oh,
Captain Carroway, hold him just a moment. I will jump down, and
then you can jump up, and ride after all his Majesty's enemies."
"The Lord forbid! He slews all out of gear, like a carronade with
rotten lashings. If I boarded him, how could I get out of his way?
No, no, my dear, brace him up sharp, and bear clear."
"But you wanted to know about some enemy, captain. An enemy as bad
as my poor Lord Keppel?"
"Mary, my dear, the very biggest villain! A hundred golden guineas
on his head, and half for you. Think of your father, my dear, and
Sunday gowns. And you must have a young man by-and-by, you know--
such a beautiful maid as you are. And you might get a leather
purse, and give it to him. Mary, on your duty, now?"
"Captain, you drive me so, what can I say? I can not bear the
thought of betraying any body."
"Of course not, Mary dear; nobody asks you. He must be half a mile
off by this time. You could never hurt him now; and you can tell
your father that you have done your duty to the king."
"Well, Captain Carroway, if you are quite sure that it is too late
to catch him, I can tell you all about him. But remember your word
about the fifty guineas."
"Every farthing, every farthing, Mary, whatever my wife may say to
it. Quick! quick! Which way did he run, my dear?"
"He really did not seem to me to be running at all; he was too
tired."
"To be sure, to be sure, a worn-out fox! We have been two hours
after him; he could not run; no more can we. But which way did he
go, I mean?"
"I will not say any thing for certain, Sir; even for fifty guineas.
But he may have come up here--mind, I say not that he did--and if
so, he might have set off again for Sewerby. Slowly, very slowly,
because of being tired. But perhaps, after all, he was not the man
you mean."
"Forward, double-quick! We are sure to have him!" shouted the
lieutenant--for his true rank was that--flourishing his cutlass
again, and setting off at a wonderful pace, considering his limp.
"Five guineas every man Jack of you. Thank you, young mistress--
most heartily thank you. Dead or alive, five guineas!"
With gun and sword in readiness, they all rushed off; but one of
the party, named John Cadman, shook his head and looked back with
great mistrust at Mary, having no better judgment of women than
this, that he never could believe even his own wife. And he knew
that it was mainly by the grace of womankind that so much
contraband work was going on. Nevertheless, it was out of his
power to act upon his own low opinions now.
The maiden, blushing deeply with the sense of her deceit, was
informed by her guilty conscience of that nasty man's suspicions,
and therefore gave a smack with her fern whip to Lord Keppel,
impelling him to join, like a loyal little horse, the pursuit of
his Majesty's enemies. But no sooner did she see all the men
dispersed, and scouring the distance with trustful ardor, than she
turned her pony's head toward the sea again, and rode back round
the bend of the hollow. What would her mother say if she lost the
murrey skirt, which had cost six shillings at Bridlington fair?
And ten times that money might be lost much better than for her
father to discover how she lost it. For Master Stephen Anerley was
a straight-backed man, and took three weeks of training in the Land
Defense Yeomanry, at periods not more than a year apart, so that
many people called him "Captain" now; and the loss of his
suppleness at knee and elbow had turned his mind largely to
politics, making him stiffly patriotic, and especially hot against
all free-traders putting bad bargains to his wife, at the cost of
the king and his revenue. If the bargain were a good one, that was
no concern of his.
Not that Mary, however, could believe, or would even have such a
bad mind as to imagine, that any one, after being helped by her,
would be mean enough to run off with her property. And now she
came to think of it, there was something high and noble, she might
almost say something downright honest, in the face of that poor
persecuted man. And in spite of all his panting, how brave he must
have been, what a runner, and how clever, to escape from all those
cowardly coast-riders shooting right and left at him! Such a man
steal that paltry skirt that her mother made such a fuss about!
She was much more likely to find it in her clothes-press filled
with golden guineas.
Before she was as certain as she wished to be of this (by reason of
shrewd nativity), and while she believed that the fugitive must
have seized such a chance and made good his escape toward North Sea
or Flamborough, a quick shadow glanced across the long shafts of
the sun, and a bodily form sped after it. To the middle of the
Dike leaped a young man, smiling, and forth from the gully which
had saved his life. To look at him, nobody ever could have guessed
how fast he had fled, and how close he had lain hid. For he stood
there as clean and spruce and careless as even a sailor can be
wished to be. Limber yet stalwart, agile though substantial, and
as quick as a dart while as strong as a pike, he seemed cut out by
nature for a true blue-jacket; but condition had made him a
smuggler, or, to put it more gently, a free-trader. Britannia,
being then at war with all the world, and alone in the right (as
usual), had need of such lads, and produced them accordingly, and
sometimes one too many. But Mary did not understand these laws.
This made her look at him with great surprise, and almost doubt
whether he could be the man, until she saw her skirt neatly folded
in his hand, and then she said, "How do you do, Sir?"
The free-trader looked at her with equal surprise. He had been in
such a hurry, and his breath so short, and the chance of a fatal
bullet after him so sharp, that his mind had been astray from any
sense of beauty, and of every thing else except the safety of the
body. But now he looked at Mary, and his breath again went from
him.
"You can run again now; I am sure of it," said she; "and if you
would like to do any thing to please me, run as fast as possible."
"What have I to run away from now?" he answered, in a deep sweet
voice. "I run from enemies, but not from friends."
"That is very wise. But your enemies are still almost within call
of you. They will come back worse than ever when they find you are
not there."
"I am not afraid, fair lady, for I understand their ways. I have
led them a good many dances before this; though it would have been
my last, without your help. They will go on, all the morning, in
the wrong direction, even while they know it. Carroway is the most
stubborn of men. He never turns back; and the further he goes, the
better his bad leg is. They will scatter about, among the fields
and hedges, and call one another like partridges. And when they
can not take another step, they will come back to Anerley for
breakfast."
"I dare say they will; and we shall be glad to see them. My father
is a soldier, and his duty is to nourish and comfort the forces of
the king."
"Then you are young Mistress Anerley? I was sure of it before.
There are no two such. And you have saved my life. It is
something to owe it so fairly."
The young sailor wanted to kiss Mary's hand; but not being used to
any gallantry, she held out her hand in the simplest manner to take
back her riding skirt; and he, though longing in his heart to keep
it, for a token or pretext for another meeting, found no excuse for
doing so. And yet he was not without some resource.
For the maiden was giving him a farewell smile, being quite content
with the good she had done, and the luck of recovering her
property; and that sense of right which in those days formed a part
of every good young woman said to her plainly that she must be off.
And she felt how unkind it was to keep him any longer in a place
where the muzzle of a gun, with a man behind it, might appear at
any moment. But he, having plentiful breath again, was at home
with himself to spend it.
"Fair young lady," he began, for he saw that Mary liked to be
called a lady, because it was a novelty, "owing more than I ever
can pay you already, may I ask a little more? Then it is that, on
your way down to the sea, you would just pick up (if you should
chance to see it) the fellow ring to this, and perhaps you will
look at this to know it by. The one that was shot away flew
against a stone just on the left of the mouth of the Dike, but I
durst not stop to look for it, and I must not go back that way now.
It is more to me than a hatful of gold, though nobody else would
give a crown for it."
"And they really shot away one of your ear-rings? Careless, cruel,
wasteful men! What could they have been thinking of?"
"They were thinking of getting what is called 'blood-money.' One
hundred pounds for Robin Lyth. Dead or alive--one hundred pounds."
"It makes me shiver, with the sun upon me. Of course they must
offer money for--for people. For people who have killed other
people, and bad things--but to offer a hundred pounds for a free-
trader, and fire great guns at him to get it--I never should have
thought it of Captain Carroway."
"Carroway only does his duty. I like him none the worse for it.
Carroway is a fool, of course. His life has been in my hands fifty
times; but I will never take it. He must be killed sooner or
later, because he rushes into every thing. But never will it be my
doing."
"Then are you the celebrated Robin Lyth--the new Robin Hood, as
they call him? The man who can do almost any thing?"
"Mistress Anerley, I am Robin Lyth; but, as you have seen, I can
not do much. I can not even search for my own earring."
"I will search for it till I find it. They have shot at you too
much. Cowardly, cowardly people! Captain Lyth, where shall I put
it, if I find it?"
"If you could hide it for a week, and then--then tell me where to
find it, in the afternoon, toward four o'clock, in the lane toward
Bempton Cliffs. We are off tonight upon important business. We
have been too careless lately, from laughing at poor Carroway."
"You are very careless now. You quite frighten me almost. The
coast-riders might come back at any moment. And what could you do
then?"
"Run away gallantly, as I did before; with this little difference,
that I should be fresh, while they are as stiff as nut-cracks.
They have missed the best chance they ever had at me; it will make
their temper very bad. If they shot at me again, they could do no
good. Crooked mood makes crooked mode."
"You forget that I should not see such things. You may like very
much to be shot at; but--but you should think of other people."
"I shall think of you only--I mean of your great kindness, and your
promise to keep my ring for me. Of course you will tell nobody,
Carroway will have me like a tiger if you do. Farewell, young
lady--for one week farewell."
With a wave of his hat he was gone, before Mary had time to retract
her promise; and she thought of her mother, as she rode on slowly
to look for the smuggler's trinket.
CHAPTER VIII
CAPTAIN CARROWAY
Fame, that light-of-love trusted by so many, and never a wife till
a widow--fame, the fair daughter of fuss and caprice, may yet take
the phantom of bold Robin Lyth by the right hand, and lead it to a
pedestal almost as lofty as Robin Hood's, or she may let it vanish
like a bat across Lethe--a thing not bad enough for eminence.
However, at the date and in the part of the world now dealt with,
this great free-trader enjoyed the warm though possibly brief
embrace of fame, having no rival, and being highly respected by all
who were unwarped by a sense of duty. And blessed as he was with a
lively nature, he proceeded happily upon his path in life,
notwithstanding a certain ticklish sense of being shot at
undesirably. This had befallen him now so often, without producing
any tangible effect, that a great many people, and especially the
shooters (convinced of the accuracy of their aim), went far to
believe that he possessed some charm against wholesome bullet and
gunpowder. And lately even a crooked sixpence dipped in holy water
(which was still to be had in Yorkshire) confirmed and doubled the
faith of all good people, by being declared upon oath to have
passed clean through him, as was proved by its being picked up
quite clean.
This strong belief was of great use to him; for, like many other
beliefs, it went a very long way to prove itself. Steady left
hands now grew shaky in the level of the carbine, and firm
forefingers trembled slightly upon draught of trigger, and the
chief result of a large discharge was a wale upon the marksman's
shoulder. Robin, though so clever and well practiced in the world,
was scarcely old enough yet to have learned the advantage of
misapprehension, which, if well handled by any man, helps him, in
the cunning of paltry things, better than a truer estimate. But
without going into that, he was pleased with the fancy of being
invulnerable, which not only doubled his courage, but trebled the
discipline of his followers, and secured him the respect of all
tradesmen. However, the worst of all things is that just when they
are establishing themselves, and earning true faith by continuance,
out of pure opposition the direct contrary arises, and begins to
prove itself. And to Captain Lyth this had just happened in the
shot which carried off his left ear-ring.
Not that his body, or any fleshly member, could be said directly to
have parted with its charm, but that a warning and a diffidence
arose from so near a visitation. All genuine sailors are blessed
with strong faith, as they must be, by nature's compensation.
Their bodies continually going up and down upon perpetual fluxion,
they never could live if their minds did the same, like the minds
of stationary landsmen. Therefore their minds are of stanch
immobility, to restore the due share of firm element. And not only
that, but these men have compressed (through generations of
circumstance), from small complications, simplicity. Being out in
all weathers, and rolling about so, how can they stand upon
trifles? Solid stays, and stanchions, and strong bulwarks are
their need, and not a dance of gnats in gossamer; hating all fogs,
they blow not up with their own breath misty mysteries, and gazing
mainly at the sky and sea, believe purely in God and the devil. In
a word, these sailors have religion.
Some of their religion is not well pronounced, but declares itself
in overstrong expressions. However, it is in them, and at any
moment waiting opportunity of action--a shipwreck or a grape-shot;
and the chaplain has good hopes of them when the doctor has given
them over.
Now one of their principal canons of faith, and the one best
observed in practice, is (or at any rate used to be) that a man is
bound to wear ear-rings. For these, as sure tradition shows, and
no pious mariner would dare to doubt, act as a whetstone in all
weathers to the keen edge of the eyes. Semble--as the lawyers say--
that this idea was born of great phonetic facts in the days when a
seaman knew his duty better than the way to spell it; and when, if
his outlook were sharpened by a friendly wring from the captain of
the watch, he never dreamed of a police court.
But Robin Lyth had never cared to ask why he wore ear-rings. His
nature was not meditative. Enough for him that all the other men
of Flamborough did so; and enough for them that their fathers had
done it. Whether his own father had done so, was more than he
could say, because he knew of no such parent; and of that other
necessity, a mother, he was equally ignorant. His first appearance
at Flamborough, though it made little stir at the moment in a place
of so many adventures, might still be considered unusual, and in
some little degree remarkable. So that Mistress Anerley was not
wrong when she pressed upon Lieutenant Carroway how unwise it might
be to shoot him, any more than Carroway himself was wrong in
turning in at Anerley gate for breakfast.
This he had not done without good cause of honest and loyal
necessity. Free-trading Robin had predicted well the course of his
pursuers. Rushing eagerly up the Dike, and over its brim, with
their muskets, that gallant force of revenue men steadily scoured
the neighborhood; and the further they went, the worse they fared.
There was not a horse standing down by a pool, with his stiff legs
shut up into biped form, nor a cow staring blandly across an old
rail, nor a sheep with a pectoral cough behind a hedge, nor a
rabbit making rustle at the eyebrow of his hole, nor even a moot,
that might either be a man or hold a man inside it, whom or which
those active fellows did not circumvent and poke into. In none of
these, however, could they find the smallest breach of the
strictest laws of the revenue; until at last, having exhausted
their bodies by great zeal both of themselves and of mind, they
braced them again to the duty of going, as promptly as possible, to
breakfast.
For a purpose of that kind few better places, perhaps, could be
found than this Anerley Farm, though not at the best of itself just
now, because of the denials of the season. It is a sad truth about
the heyday of the year, such as August is in Yorkshire--where they
have no spring--that just when a man would like his victuals to
rise to the mark of the period, to be simple yet varied,
exhilarating yet substantial, the heat of the summer day defrauds
its increased length for feeding. For instance, to cite a very
trifling point--at least in some opinions--August has banished that
bright content and most devout resignation which ensue the removal
of a petted pig from this troublous world of grunt. The fat pig
rolls in wallowing rapture, defying his friends to make pork of him
yet, and hugs with complacence unpickleable hams. The partridge
among the pillared wheat, tenderly footing the way for his chicks,
and teaching little balls of down to hop, knows how sacred are
their lives to others as well as to himself; and the less paternal
cock-pheasant scratches the ridge of green-shouldered potatoes,
without fear of keeping them company at table.
But though the bright glory of the griddle remains in suspense for
the hoary mornings, and hooks that carried woodcocks once, and hope
to do so yet again, are primed with dust instead of lard, and the
frying-pan hangs on the cellar nail with a holiday gloss of raw
mutton suet, yet is there still some comfort left, yet dappled
brawn, and bacon streaked, yet golden-hearted eggs, and mushrooms
quilted with pink satin, spiced beef carded with pellucid fat,
buckstone cake, and brown bread scented with the ash of gorse
bloom--of these, and more that pave the way into the good-will of
mankind, what lack have fine farm-houses?
And then, again, for the liquid duct, the softer and more
sensitive, the one that is never out of season, but perennially
clear--here we have advantage of the gentle time that mellows
thirst. The long ride of the summer sun makes men who are in
feeling with him, and like him go up and down, not forego the moral
of his labor, which is work and rest. Work all day, and light the
rounded land with fruit and nurture, and rest at evening, looking
through bright fluid, as the sun goes down.
But times there are when sun and man, by stress of work, or clouds,
or light, or it may be some Process of the Equinox, make draughts
upon the untilted day, and solace themselves in the morning. For
lack of dew the sun draws lengthy sucks of cloud quite early, and
men who have labored far and dry, and scattered the rime of the
night with dust, find themselves ready about 8 A.M. for the golden
encouragement of gentle ale.
The farm-house had an old porch of stone, with a bench of stone on
either side, and pointed windows trying to look out under brows of
ivy; and this porch led into the long low hall, where the breakfast
was beginning. To say what was on the table would be only waste of
time, because it has all been eaten so long ago; but the farmer was
vexed because there were no shrimps. Not that he cared half the
clip of a whisker for all the shrimps that ever bearded the sea,
only that he liked to seem to love them, to keep Mary at work for
him. The flower of his flock, and of all the flocks of the world
of the universe to his mind, was his darling daughter Mary: the
strength of his love was upon her, and he liked to eat any thing of
her cooking.
His body was too firm to fidget; but his mind was out of its usual
comfort, because the pride of his heart, his Mary, seemed to be
hiding something from him. And with the justice to be expected
from far clearer minds than his, being vexed by one, he was ripe
for the relief of snapping at fifty others. Mary, who could read
him, as a sailor reads his compass, by the corner of one eye,
awaited with good content the usual result--an outbreak of words
upon the indolent Willie, whenever that young farmer should come
down to breakfast, then a comforting glance from the mother at her
William, followed by a plate kept hot for him, and then a fine
shake of the master's shoulders, and a stamp of departure for
business. But instead of that, what came to pass was this.
In the first place, a mighty bark of dogs arose; as needs must be,
when a man does his duty toward the nobler animals; for sure it is
that the dogs will not fail of their part. Then an inferior noise
of men, crying, "Good dog! good dog!" and other fulsome flatteries,
in the hope of avoiding any tooth-mark on their legs; and after
that a shaking down and settlement of sounds, as if feet were
brought into good order, and stopped. Then a tall man, with a body
full of corners, and a face of grim temper, stood in the doorway.
"Well, well, captain, now!" cried Stephen Anerley, getting up after
waiting to be spoken to, "the breath of us all is hard to get, with
doing of our duty, Sir. Come ye in, and sit doon to table, and his
Majesty's forces along o' ye."
"Cadman, Ellis, and Dick, be damned!" the lieutenant shouted out to
them; "you shall have all the victuals you want, by-and-by. Cross
legs, and get your winds up. Captain of the coast-defense, I am
under your orders, in your own house." Carroway was starving, as
only a man with long and active jaws can starve; and now the
appearance of the farmer's mouth, half full of a kindly relish,
made the emptiness of his own more bitter. But happen what might,
he resolved, as usual, to enforce strict discipline, to feed
himself first, and his men in proper order.
"Walk in gentlemen, all walk in," Master Anerley shouted, as if all
men were alike, and coming to the door with a hospitable stride;
"glad to see all of ye, upon my soul I am. Ye've hit upon the
right time for coming, too; though there might 'a been more upon
the table. Mary, run, that's a dear, and fetch your grandfather's
big Sabbath carver. Them peaky little clams a'most puts out all my
shoulder-blades, and wunna bite through a twine of gristle. Plates
for all the gentlemen, Winnie lass! Bill, go and drah the black
jarge full o' yell."
The farmer knew well enough that Willie was not down yet; but this
was his manner of letting people see that he did not approve of
such hours.
"My poor lad Willie," said the mistress of the house, returning
with a courtesy the brave lieutenant's scrape, "I fear he hath the
rheum again, overheating of himself after sungate."
"Ay, ay, I forgot. He hath to heat himself in bed again, with the
sun upon his coverlid. Mary lof, how many hours was ye up?"
"Your daughter, Sir," answered the lieutenant, with a glance at the
maiden over the opal gleam of froth, which she had headed up for
him--"your daughter has been down the Dike before the sun was, and
doing of her duty by the king and by his revenue. Mistress
Anerley, your good health! Master Anerley, the like to you, and
your daughter, and all of your good household." Before they had
finished their thanks for this honor, the quart pot was set down
empty. "A very pretty brew, Sir--a pretty brew indeed! Fall back,
men! Have heed of discipline. A chalked line is what they want,
Sir. Mistress Anerley, your good health again. The air is now
thirsty in the mornings. If those fellows could be given a bench
against the wall--a bench against the wall is what they feel for
with their legs. It comes so natural to their--yes, yes, their
legs, and the crook of their heels, ma'am, from what they were
brought up to sit upon. And if you have any beer brewed for
washing days, ma'am, that is what they like, and the right thing
for their bellies. Cadman, Ellis, and Dick Hackerbody, sit down
and be thankful."
"But surely, Captain Carroway, you would never be happy to sit down
without them. Look at their small-clothes, the dust and the dirt!
And their mouths show what you might make of them."
"Yes, madam, yes; the very worst of them is that. They are always
looking out, here, there, and every where, for victuals
everlasting. Let them wait their proper time, and then they do it
properly."
"Their proper time is now, Sir. Winnie, fill their horns up.
Mary, wait you upon the officer. Captain Carroway, I will not have
any body starve in my house."
"Madam, you are the lawgiver in your own house. Men of the coast-
guard, fall to upon your victuals."
The lieutenant frowned horribly at his men, as much as to say,
"Take no advantage, but show your best manners;" and they touched
their forelocks with a pleasant grin, and began to feed rapidly;
and verily their wives would have said that it was high time for
them. Feeding, as a duty, was the order of the day, and discipline
had no rank left. Good things appeared and disappeared, with the
speedy doom of all excellence. Mary, and Winnie the maid, flitted
in and out like carrier-pigeons.
"Now when the situation comes to this," said the farmer at last,
being heartily pleased with the style of their feeding and
laughing, "his Majesty hath made an officer of me, though void of
his own writing. Mounted Fencibles, Filey Briggers, called in the
foreign parts 'Brigadiers.' Not that I stand upon sermonry about
it, except in the matter of his Majesty's health, as never is due
without ardent spirits. But my wife hath a right to her own way,
and never yet I knowed her go away from it."
"Not so, by any means," the mistress said, and said it so quietly
that some believed her; "I never was so much for that. Captain,
you are a married man. But reason is reason, in the middle of us
all, and what else should I say to my husband? Mary lass, Mary
lof, wherever is your duty? The captain hath the best pot empty!"
With a bright blush Mary sprang up to do her duty. In those days
no girl was ashamed to blush; and the bloodless cheek savored of
small-pox.
"Hold up your head, my lof," her father said aloud, with a smile of
tidy pride, and a pat upon her back; "no call to look at all
ashamed, my dear. To my mind, captain, though I may be wrong,
however, but to my mind, this little maid may stan' upright in the
presence of downright any one."
"There lies the very thing that never should be said. Captain, you
have seven children, or it may be eight of them justly. And the
pride of life--Mary, you be off!"
Mary was glad to run away, for she liked not to be among so many
men. But her father would not have her triumphed over.
"Speak for yourself, good wife," he said. "I know what you have
got behind, as well as rooks know plough-tail. Captain, you never
heard me say that the lass were any booty, but the very same as God
hath made her, and thankful for straight legs and eyes. Howsoever,
there might be worse-favored maidens, without running out of the
Riding."
"You may ride all the way to the city of London," the captain
exclaimed, with a clinch of his fist, "or even to Portsmouth, where
my wife came from, and never find a maid fit to hold a candle for
Mary to curl her hair by."
The farmer was so pleased that he whispered something; but Carroway
put his hand before his mouth, and said, "Never, no, never in the
morning!" But in spite of that, Master Anerley felt in his pocket
for a key, and departed.
"Wicked, wicked, is the word I use," protested Mrs. Anerley, "for
all this fribble about rooks and looks, and holding of candles, and
curling of hair. When I was Mary's age--oh dear! It may not be so
for your daughters, captain; but evil for mine was the day that
invented those proud swinging-glasses."
"That you may pronounce, ma'am, and I will say Amen. Why, my
eldest daughter, in her tenth year now--"
"Come, Captain Carroway," broke in the farmer, returning softly
with a square old bottle, "how goes the fighting with the Crappos
now? Put your legs up, and light your pipe, and tell us all the
news."
"Cadman, and Ellis, and Dick Hackerbody," the lieutenant of the
coast-guard shouted, "you have fed well. Be off, men; no more
neglect of duty! Place an outpost at fork of the Sewerby road, and
strictly observe the enemy, while I hold a council of war with my
brother officer, Captain Anerley. Half a crown for you, if you
catch the rogue, half a crown each, and promotion of twopence.
Attention, eyes right, make yourselves scarce! Well, now the
rogues are gone, let us make ourselves at home. Anerley, your
question is a dry one. A dry one; but this is uncommonly fine
stuff! How the devil has it slipped through our fingers? Never
mind that, inter amicos--Sir, I was at school at Shrewsbury--but as
to the war, Sir, the service is going to the devil, for the want of
pure principle."
The farmer nodded; and his looks declared that to some extent he
felt it. He had got the worst side of some bargains that week; but
his wife had another way of thinking.
"Why, Captain Carroway, whatever could be purer? When you were at
sea, had you ever a man of the downright principles of Nelson?"
"Nelson has done very well in his way; but he is a man who has
risen too fast, as other men rise too slowly. Nothing in him; no
substance, madam; I knew him as a youngster, and I could have
tossed him on a marling-spike. And instead of feeding well, Sir,
he quite wore himself away. To my firm knowledge, he would
scarcely turn the scale upon a good Frenchman of half of the peas.
Every man should work his own way up, unless his father did it for
him. In my time we had fifty men as good, and made no fuss about
them."
"And you not the last of them, captain, I dare say. Though I do
love to hear of the Lord's Lord Nelson, as the people call him. If
ever a man fought his own way up--"
"Madam, I know him, and respect him well. He would walk up to the
devil, with a sword between his teeth, and a boarder's pistol in
each hand. Madam, I leaped, in that condition, a depth of six
fathoms and a half into the starboard mizzen-chains of the French
line-of-battle ship Peace and Thunder."
"Oh, Captain Carroway, how dreadful! What had you to lay hold
with?"
"At such times a man must not lay hold. My business was to lay
about; and I did it to some purpose. This little slash, across my
eyes struck fire, and it does the same now by moonlight."
One of the last men in the world to brag was Lieutenant Carroway.
Nothing but the great thirst of this morning, and strong necessity
of quenching it, could ever have led him to speak about himself,
and remember his own little exploits. But the farmer was pleased,
and said, "Tell us some more, Sir."
"Mistress Anerley," the captain answered, shutting up the scar,
which he was able to expand by means of a muscle of excitement,
"you know that a man should drop these subjects when he has got a
large family. I have been in the Army and the Navy, madam, and now
I am in the Revenue; but my duty is first to my own house."
"Do take care, Sir; I beg you to be careful. Those free-traders
now are come to such a pitch that any day or night they may shoot
you."
"Not they, madam. No, they are not murderers. In a hand-to-hand
conflict they might do it, as I might do the same to them. This
very morning my men shot at the captain of all smugglers, Robin
Lyth, of Flamborough, with a hundred guineas upon his head. It was
no wish of mine; but my breath was short to stop them, and a man
with a family like mine can never despise a hundred guineas."
"Why, Sophy," said the farmer, thinking slowly, with a frown, "that
must have been the noise come in at window, when I were getting up
this morning. I said, 'Why, there's some poacher fellow popping at
the conies!' and out I went straight to the warren to see. Three
gun-shots, or might 'a been four. How many men was you shooting
at?"
"The force under my command was in pursuit of one notorious
criminal--that well-known villain, Robin Lyth."
"Captain, your duty is to do your duty. But without your own word
for it, I never would believe that you brought four gun muzzles
down upon one man."
"The force under my command carried three guns only. It was not in
their power to shoot off four."
"Captain, I never would have done it in your place. I call it no
better than unmanly. Now go you not for to stir yourself amiss.
To look thunder at me is what I laugh at. But many things are done
in a hurry, Captain Carroway, and I take it that this was one of
them."
"As to that, no! I will not have it. All was in thorough good
order. I was never so much as a cable's length behind, though the
devil, some years ago, split my heel up, like his own, Sir."
"Captain, I see it, and I ask your pardon. Your men were out of
reach of hollering. At our time of life the wind dies quick, from
want of blowing oftener."
"Stuff!" cried the captain. "Who was the freshest that came to
your hospitable door, Sir? I will foot it with any man for six
leagues, but not for half a mile, ma'am. I depart from nothing. I
said, 'Fire!' and fire they did, and they shall again. What do
Volunteers know of the service?"
"Stephen, you shall not say a single other word;" Mistress Anerley
stopped her husband thus; "these matters are out of your line
altogether; because you have never taken any body's blood. The
captain here is used to it, like all the sons of Belial, brought up
in the early portions of the Holy Writ."
Lieutenant Carroway's acquaintance with the Bible was not more
extensive than that of other officers, and comprised little more
than the story of Joseph, and that of David and Goliath; so he
bowed to his hostess for her comparison, while his gaunt and
bristly countenance gave way to a pleasant smile. For this officer
of the British Crown had a face of strong features, and upon it
whatever he thought was told as plainly as the time of day is told
by the clock in the kitchen. At the same time, Master Anerley was
thinking that he might have said more than a host should say
concerning a matter which, after all, was no particular concern of
his; whereas it was his special place to be kind to any visitor.
All this he considered with a sound grave mind, and then stretched
forth his right hand to the officer.
Carroway, being a generous man, would not be outdone in apologies.
So these two strengthened their mutual esteem, without any
fighting--which generally is the quickest way of renewing respect--
and Mistress Anerley, having been a little frightened, took credit
to herself for the good words she had used. Then the farmer, who
never drank cordials, although he liked to see other people do it,
set forth to see a man who was come about a rick, and sundry other
business. But Carroway, in spite of all his boasts, was stiff,
though he bravely denied that he could be; and when the good
housewife insisted on his stopping to listen to something that was
much upon her mind, and of great importance to the revenue, he
could not help owning that duty compelled him to smoke another
pipe, and hearken.
CHAPTER IX
ROBIN COCKSCROFT
Nothing ever was allowed to stop Mrs. Anerley from seeing to the
bedrooms. She kept them airing for about three hours at this time
of the sun-stitch--as she called all the doings of the sun upon the
sky--and then there was pushing, and probing, and tossing, and
pulling, and thumping, and kneading of knuckles, till the rib of
every feather was aching; and then (like dough before the fire)
every well-belabored tick was left to yeast itself a while.
Winnie, the maid, was as strong as a post, and wore them all out in
bed-making. Carroway heard the beginning of this noise, but none
of it meddled at all with his comfort; he lay back nicely in a
happy fit of chair, stretched his legs well upon a bench, and
nodded, keeping slow time with the breathings of his pipe, and
drawing a vapory dream of ease. He had fared many stony miles
afoot that morning; and feet, legs, and body were now less young
than they used to be once upon a time. Looking up sleepily, the
captain had idea of a pretty young face hanging over him, and a
soft voice saying, "It was me who did it all," which was very good
grammar in those days; "will you forgive me? But I could not help
it, and you must have been sorry to shoot him."
"Shoot every body who attempts to land," the weary man ordered,
drowsily. "Mattie, once more, you are not to dust my pistols."
"I could not be happy without telling you the truth," the soft
voice continued, "because I told you such a dreadful story. And
now--Oh! here comes mother!"
"What has come over you this morning, child? You do the most
extraordinary things, and now you can not let the captain rest. Go
round and look for eggs this very moment. You will want to be
playing fine music next. Now, captain, I am at your service, if
you please, unless you feel too sleepy."
"Mistress Anerley, I never felt more wide-awake in all my life. We
of the service must snatch a wink whenever we can, but with one eye
open; and it is not often that we see such charming sights."
The farmer's wife having set the beds to "plump," had stolen a look
at the glass, and put on her second-best Sunday cap, in honor of a
real officer; and she looked very nice indeed, especially when she
received a compliment. But she had seen too much of life to be
disturbed thereby.
"Ah, Captain Carroway, what ways you have of getting on with simple
people, while you are laughing all the time at them! It comes of
the foreign war experience, going on so long that in the end we
shall all be foreigners. But one place there is that you never can
conquer, nor Boneypart himself, to my belief."
"Ah, you mean Flamborough--Flamborough, yes! It is a nest of
cockatrices."
"Captain, it is nothing of the sort. It is the most honest place
in all the world. A man may throw a guinea on the crossroads in
the night, and have it back from Dr. Upandown any time within seven
years. You ought to know by this time what they are, hard as it is
to get among them."
"I only know that they can shut their mouths; and the devil
himself--I beg your pardon, madam--Old Nick himself never could
unscrew them."
"You are right, Sir. I know their manner well. They are open as
the sky with one another, but close as the grave to all the world
outside them, and most of all to people of authority like you."
"Mistress Anerley, you have just hit it. Not a word can I get out
of them. The name of the king--God bless him!--seems to have no
weight among them."
"And you can not get at them, Sir, by any dint of money, or even by
living in the midst of them. The only way to do it is by kin of
blood, or marriage. And that is how I come to know more about them
than almost any body else outside. My master can scarcely win a
word of them even, kind as he is, and well-spoken; and neither
might I, though my tongue was tenfold, if it were not for Joan
Cockscroft. But being Joan's cousin, I am like one of themselves."
"Cockscroft! Cockscroft? I have heard that name. Do they keep
the public-house there?"
The lieutenant was now on the scent of duty, and assumed his most
knowing air, the sole effect of which was to put every body upon
guard against him. For this was a man of no subtlety, but
straightforward, downright, and ready to believe; and his cleverest
device was to seem to disbelieve.
"The Cockscrofts keep no public-house," Mrs. Anerley answered, with
a little flush of pride. "Why, she was half-niece to my own
grandmother, and never was beer in the family. Not that it would
have been wrong, if it was. Captain, you are thinking of Widow
Precious, licensed to the Cod with the hook in his gills. I should
have thought, Sir, that you might have known a little more of your
neighbors having fallen below the path of life by reason of bad
bank-tokens. Banking came up in her parts like dog-madness, as it
might have done here, if our farmers were the fools to handle their
cash with gloves on. And Joan became robbed by the fault of her
trustees, the very best bakers in Scarborough, though Robin never
married her for it, thank God! Still it was very sad, and scarcely
bears describing of, and pulled them in the crook of this world's
swing to a lower pitch than if they had robbed the folk that robbed
and ruined them. And Robin so was driven to the fish again, which
he always had hankered after. It must have been before you heard
of this coast, captain, and before the long war was so hard on us,
that every body about these parts was to double his bags by
banking, and no man was right to pocket his own guineas, for fear
of his own wife feeling them. And bitterly such were paid out for
their cowardice and swindling of their own bosoms."
"I have heard of it often, and it served them right. Master
Anerley knew where his money was safe, ma'am!"
"Neither Captain Robin Cockscroft nor his wife was in any way to
blame," answered Mrs. Anerley. "I have framed my mind to tell you
about them; and I will do it truly, if I am not interrupted. Two
hammers never yet drove a nail straight, and I make a rule of
silence when my betters wish to talk."
"Madam, you remind me of my own wife. She asks me a question, and
she will not let me answer."
"That is the only way I know of getting on. Mistress Carroway must
understand you, captain. I was at the point of telling you how my
cousin Joan was married, before her money went, and when she was
really good-looking. I was quite a child, and ran along the shore
to see it. It must have been in the high summer-time, with the
weather fit for bathing, and the sea as smooth as a duck-pond. And
Captain Robin, being well-to-do, and established with every thing
except a wife, and pleased with the pretty smile and quiet ways of
Joan--for he never had heard of her money, mind--put his oar into
the sea and rowed from Flamborough all the way to Filey Brigg, with
thirty-five fishermen after him; for the Flamborough people make a
point of seeing one another through their troubles. And Robin was
known for the handsomest man and the uttermost fisher of the
landing, with three boats of his own, and good birth, and long sea-
lines. And there at once they found my cousin Joan, with her
trustees, come overland, four wagons and a cart in all of them; and
after they were married, they burned sea-weed, having no fear in
those days of invasions. And a merry day they made of it, and
rowed back by the moonshine. For every one liked and respected
Captain Cockscroft on account of his skill with the deep-sea lines,
and the openness of his hands when full--a wonderful quiet and
harmless man, as the manner is of all great fishermen. They had
bacon for breakfast whenever they liked, and a guinea to lend to
any body in distress.
"Then suddenly one morning, when his hair was growing gray and his
eyes getting weary of the night work, so that he said his young
Robin must grow big enough to learn all the secrets of the fishes,
while his father took a spell in the blankets, suddenly there came
to them a shocking piece of news. All his wife's bit of money, and
his own as well, which he had been putting by from year to year,
was lost in a new-fangled Bank, supposed as faithful as the Bible.
Joan was very nearly crazed about it; but Captain Cockscroft never
heaved a sigh, though they say it was nearly seven hundred guineas.
'There are fish enough still in the sea,' he said; 'and the Lord
has spared our children. I will build a new boat, and not think of
feather-beds.'
"Captain Carroway, he did so, and every body knows what befell him.
The new boat, built with his own hands, was called the Mercy Robin,
for his only son and daughter, little Mercy and poor Robin. The
boat is there as bright as ever, scarlet within and white outside;
but the name is painted off, because the little dears are in their
graves. Two nicer children were never seen, clever, and sprightly,
and good to learn; they never even took a common bird's nest, I
have heard, but loved all the little things the Lord has made, as
if with a foreknowledge of going early home to Him. Their father
came back very tired one morning, and went up the hill to his
breakfast, and the children got into the boat and pushed off, in
imitation of their daddy. It came on to blow, as it does down
there, without a single whiff of warning; and when Robin awoke for
his middle-day meal, the bodies of his little ones were lying on
the table. And from that very day Captain Cockscroft and his wife
began to grow old very quickly. The boat was recovered without
much damage; and in it he sits by the hour on dry land, whenever
there is no one on the cliffs to see him, with his hands upon his
lap, and his eyes upon the place where his dear little children
used to sit. Because he has always taken whatever fell upon him
gently; and of course that makes it ever so much worse when he
dwells upon the things that come inside of him."
"Madam, you make me feel quite sorry for him," the lieutenant
exclaimed, as she began to cry, "If even one of my little ones was
drowned, I declare to you, I can not tell what I should be like.
And to lose them all at once, and as his own wife perhaps would
say, because he was thinking of his breakfast! And when he had
been robbed, and the world all gone against him! Madam, it is a
long time, thank God, since I heard so sad a tale."
"Now you would not, captain, I am sure you would not," said
Mistress Anerley, getting up a smile, yet freshening his perception
of a tear as well--"you would never have the heart to destroy that
poor old couple by striking the last prop from under them. By the
will of the Lord they are broken down enough. They are quietly
hobbling to their graves, and would you be the man to come and
knock them on their heads at once?"
"Mistress Anerley, have you ever heard that I am a brute and
inhuman? Madam, I have no less than seven children, and I hope to
have fourteen."
"I hope with all my heart you may. And you will deserve them all,
for promising so very kindly not to shoot poor Robin Lyth."
"Robin Lyth! I never spoke of him, madam. He is outlawed,
condemned, with a fine reward upon him. We shot at him to-day; we
shall shoot at him again; and before very long we must hit him.
Ma'am, it is my duty to the king, the Constitution, the service I
belong to, and the babes I have begotten."
"Blood-money poisons all innocent mouths, Sir, and breaks out for
generations. And for it you will have to take three lives--
Robin's, the captain's, and my dear old cousin Joan's."
"Mistress Anerley, you deprive me of all satisfaction. It is just
my luck, when my duty was so plain, and would pay so well for doing
of."
"Listen now, captain. It is my opinion, and I am generally borne
out by the end, that instead of a hundred pounds for killing Robin
Lyth, you may get a thousand for preserving him alive. Do you know
how he came upon this coast, and how he has won his extraordinary
name?"
"I have certainly heard rumors; scarcely any two alike. But I took
no heed of them. My duty was to catch him; and it mattered not a
straw to me who or what he was. But now I must really beg to know
all about him, and what makes you think such things of him. Why
should that excellent old couple hang upon him? and what can make
him worth such a quantity of money? Honestly, of course, I mean;
honestly worth it, ma'am, without any cheating of his Majesty."
"Captain Carroway," his hostess said, not without a little blush,
as she thought of the king and his revenue, "cheating of his
Majesty is a thing we leave for others. But if you wish to hear
the story of that young man, so far as known, which is not so even
in Flamborough, you must please to come on Sunday, Sir; for Sunday
is the only day that I can spare for clacking, as the common people
say. I must be off now; I have fifty things to see to. And on
Sunday my master has his best things on, and loves no better than
to sit with his legs up, and a long clay pipe lying on him down
below his waist (or, to speak more correctly, where it used to be,
as he might, indeed, almost say the very same to me), and then not
to speak a word, but hear other folk tell stories, that might not
have made such a dinner as himself. And as for dinner, Sir, if you
will do the honor to dine with them that are no more than in the
Volunteers, a saddle of good mutton fit for the Body-Guards to ride
upon, the men with the skins around them all turned up, will be
ready just at one o'clock, if the parson lets us out."
"My dear madam, I shall scarcely care to look at any slice of
victuals until one o'clock on Sunday, by reason of looking
forward."
After all, this was not such a gross exaggeration, Anerley Farm
being famous for its cheer; whereas the poor lieutenant, at the
best of times, had as much as he could do to make both ends meet;
and his wife, though a wonderful manager, could give him no better
than coarse bread, and almost coarser meat.
"And, Sir, if your good lady would oblige us also--"
"No, madam, no!" he cried, with vigorous decision, having found
many festive occasions spoiled by excess of loving vigilance; "we
thank you most truly; but I must say 'no.' She would jump at the
chance; but a husband must consider. You may have heard it
mentioned that the Lord is now considering about the production of
an eighth little Carroway."
"Captain, I have not, or I should not so have spoken. But with all
my heart I wish you joy."
"I have pleasure, I assure you, in the prospect, Mistress Anerley.
My friends make wry faces, but I blow them away, 'Tush,' I say,
'tush, Sir; at the rate we now are fighting, and exhausting all
British material, there can not be too many, Sir, of mettle such as
mine!' What do you say to that, madam?"
"Sir, I believe it is the Lord's own truth. And true it is also
that our country should do more to support the brave hearts that
fight for it."
Mrs. Anerley sighed, for she thought of her younger son, by his own
perversity launched into the thankless peril of fighting England's
battles. His death at any time might come home, if any kind person
should take the trouble even to send news of it; or he might lie at
the bottom of the sea unknown, even while they were talking. But
Carroway buttoned up his coat and marched, after a pleasant and
kind farewell. In the course of hard service he had seen much
grief, and suffered plenty of bitterness, and he knew that it is
not the part of a man to multiply any of his troubles but children.
He went about his work, and he thought of all his comforts, which
need not have taken very long to count, but he added to their score
by not counting them, and by the self-same process diminished that
of troubles. And thus, upon the whole, he deserved his Sunday
dinner, and the tale of his hostess after it, not a word of which
Mary was allowed to hear, for some subtle reason of her mother's.
But the farmer heard it all, and kept interrupting so, when his
noddings and the joggings of his pipe allowed, or, perhaps one
should say, compelled him, that merely for the courtesy of saving
common time it is better now to set it down without them.
Moreover, there are many things well worthy of production which she
did not produce, for reasons which are now no hinderance. And the
foremost of those reasons is that the lady did not know the things;
the second that she could not tell them clearly as a man might; and
the third, and best of all, that if she could, she would not do so.
In which she certainly was quite right; for it would have become
her very badly, as the cousin of Joan Cockscroft (half removed, and
upon the mother's side), and therefore kindly received at
Flamborough, and admitted into the inner circle, and allowed to buy
fish at wholesale prices, if she had turned round upon all these
benefits, and described all the holes to be found in the place, for
the teaching of a revenue officer.
Still, it must be clearly understood that the nature of the people
is fishing. They never were known to encourage free-trading, but
did their very utmost to protect themselves; and if they had
produced the very noblest free-trader, born before the time of Mr.
Cobden, neither the credit nor the blame was theirs.
CHAPTER X
ROBIN LYTH
Half a league to the north of bold Flamborough Head the billows
have carved for themselves a little cove among cliffs which are
rugged, but not very high. This opening is something like the
grain shoot of a mill, or a screen for riddling gravel, so steep is
the pitch of the ground, and so narrow the shingly ledge at the
bottom. And truly in bad weather and at high tides there is no
shingle ledge at all, but the crest of the wave volleys up the
incline, and the surf rushes on to the top of it. For the cove,
though sheltered from other quarters, receives the full brunt of
northeasterly gales, and offers no safe anchorage. But the hardy
fishermen make the most of its scant convenience, and gratefully
call it "North Landing," albeit both wind and tide must be in good
humor, or the only thing sure of any landing is the sea. The long
desolation of the sea rolls in with a sound of melancholy, the gray
fog droops its fold of drizzle in the leaden-tinted troughs, the
pent cliffs overhang the flapping of the sail, and a few yards of
pebble and of weed are all that a boat may come home upon
harmlessly. Yet here in the old time landed men who carved the
shape of England; and here even in these lesser days, are landed
uncommonly fine cod.
The difficulties of the feat are these: to get ashore soundly, and
then to make it good; and after that to clinch the exploit by
getting on land, which is yet a harder step. Because the steep of
the ground, like a staircase void of stairs, stands facing you, and
the cliff upon either side juts up close, to forbid any flanking
movement, and the scanty scarp denies fair start for a rush at the
power of the hill front. Yet here must the heavy boats beach
themselves, and wallow and yaw in the shingly roar, while their
cargo and crew get out of them, their gunwales swinging from side
to side, in the manner of a porpoise rolling, and their stem and
stern going up and down like a pair of lads at seesaw.
But after these heavy boats have endured all that, they have not
found their rest yet without a crowning effort. Up that gravelly
and gliddery ascent, which changes every groove and run at every
sudden shower, but never grows any the softer--up that the heavy
boats must make clamber somehow, or not a single timber of their
precious frames is safe. A big rope from the capstan at the summit
is made fast as soon as the tails of the jackasses (laden with
three cwt. of fish apiece) have wagged their last flick at the brow
of the steep; and then with "yo-heave-ho" above and below, through
the cliffs echoing over the dull sea, the groaning and grinding of
the stubborn tug begins. Each boat has her own special course to
travel up, and her own special berth of safety, and she knows every
jag that will gore her on the road, and every flint from which she
will strike fire. By dint of sheer sturdiness of arms, legs, and
lungs, keeping true time with the pant and the shout, steadily goes
it with hoist and haul, and cheerily undulates the melody of call
that rallies them all with a strong will together, until the steep
bluff and the burden of the bulk by masculine labor are conquered,
and a long row of powerful pinnaces displayed, as a mounted
battery, against the fishful sea. With a view to this clambering
ruggedness of life, all of these boats receive from their cradle a
certain limber rake and accommodating curve, instead of a straight
pertinacity of keel, so that they may ride over all the scandals of
this arduous world. And happen what may to them, when they are at
home, and gallantly balanced on the brow line of the steep, they
make a bright show upon the dreariness of coast-land, hanging as
they do above the gullet of the deep. Painted outside with the
brightest of scarlet, and inside with the purest white, at a little
way off they resemble gay butterflies, preening their wings for a
flight into the depth.
Here it must have been, and in the middle of all these, that the
very famous Robin Lyth--prophetically treating him, but free as yet
of fame or name, and simply unable to tell himself--shone in the
doubt of the early daylight (as a tidy-sized cod, if forgotten,
might have shone) upon the morning of St. Swithin, A.D. 1782.
The day and the date were remembered long by all the good people of
Flamborough, from the coming of the turn of a long bad luck and a
bitter time of starving. For the weather of the summer had been
worse than usual--which is no little thing to say--and the fish had
expressed their opinion of it by the eloquent silence of absence.
Therefore, as the whole place lives on fish, whether in the fishy
or the fiscal form, goodly apparel was becoming very rare, even
upon high Sundays; and stomachs that might have looked well beneath
it, sank into unobtrusive grief. But it is a long lane that has no
turning; and turns are the essence of one very vital part.
Suddenly over the village had flown the news of a noble arrival of
fish. From the cross-roads, and the public-house, and the licensed
head-quarters of pepper and snuff, and the loop-hole where a sheep
had been known to hang, in times of better trade, but never could
dream of hanging now; also from the window of the man who had had a
hundred heads (superior to his own) shaken at him because he set up
for making breeches in opposition to the women, and showed a few
patterns of what he could do if any man of legs would trade with
him--from all these head-centres of intelligence, and others not so
prominent but equally potent, into the very smallest hole it went
(like the thrill in a troublesome tooth) that here was a chance
come of feeding, a chance at last of feeding. For the man on the
cliff, the despairing watchman, weary of fastening his eyes upon
the sea, through constant fog and drizzle, at length had discovered
the well-known flicker, the glassy flaw, and the hovering of gulls,
and had run along Weighing Lane so fast, to tell his good news in
the village, that down he fell and broke his leg, exactly opposite
the tailor's shop. And this was on St. Swithin's Eve.
There was nothing to be done that night, of course, for mackerel
must be delicately worked; but long before the sun arose, all
Flamborough, able to put leg in front of leg, and some who could
not yet do that, gathered together where the land-hold was, above
the incline for the launching of the boats. Here was a medley, not
of fisher-folk alone, and all their bodily belongings, but also of
the thousand things that have no soul, and get kicked about and
sworn at much because they can not answer. Rollers, buoys, nets,
kegs, swabs, fenders, blocks, buckets, kedges, corks, buckie-pots,
oars, poppies, tillers, sprits, gaffs, and every kind of gear (more
than Theocritus himself could tell) lay about, and rolled about,
and upset their own masters, here and there and everywhere, upon
this half acre of slip and stumble, at the top of the boat channel
down to the sea, and in the faint rivalry of three vague lights,
all making darkness visible.
For very ancient lanterns, with a gentle horny glimmer, and loop-
holes of large exaggeration at the top, were casting upon anything
quite within their reach a general idea of the crinkled tin that
framed them, and a shuffle of inconstant shadows, but refused to
shed any light on friend or stranger, or clear up suspicions, more
than three yards off. In rivalry with these appeared the pale disk
of the moon, just setting over the western highlands, and "drawing
straws" through summer haze; while away in the northeast over the
sea, a slender irregular wisp of gray, so weak that it seemed as if
it were being blown away, betokened the intention of the sun to
restore clear ideas of number and of figure by-and-by. But little
did anybody heed such things; every one ran against everybody else,
and all was eagerness, haste, and bustle for the first great launch
of the Flamborough boats, all of which must be taken in order.
But when they laid hold of the boat No. 7, which used to be the
Mercy Robin, and were jerking the timber shores out, one of the men
stooping under her stern beheld something white and gleaming. He
put his hand down to it, and, lo! it was a child, in imminent peril
of a deadly crush, as the boat came heeling over. "Hold hard!"
cried the man, not in time with his voice, but in time with his
sturdy shoulder, to delay the descent of the counter. Then he
stooped underneath, while they steadied the boat, and drew forth a
child in a white linen dress, heartily asleep and happy.
There was no time to think of any children now, even of a man's own
fine breed, and the boat was beginning much to chafe upon the rope,
and thirty or forty fine fellows were all waiting, loath to hurry
Captain Robin (because of the many things he had dearly lost), yet
straining upon their own hearts to stand still. And the captain
could not find his wife, who had slipped aside of the noisy scene,
to have her own little cry, because of the dance her children would
have made if they had lived to see it.
There were plenty of other women running all about to help, and to
talk, and to give the best advice to their husbands and to one
another; but most of them naturally had their own babies, and if
words came to action, quite enough to do to nurse them. On this
account, Cockscroft could do no better, bound as he was to rush
forth upon the sea, than lay the child gently aside of the stir,
and cover him with an old sail, and leave word with an ancient
woman for his wife when found. The little boy slept on calmly
still, in spite of all the din and uproar, the song and the shout,
the tramp of heavy feet, the creaking of capstans, and the thump of
bulky oars, and the crush of ponderous rollers. Away went these
upon their errand to the sea, and then came back the grating roar
and plashy jerks of launching, the plunging, and the gurgling, and
the quiet murmur of cleft waves.
That child slept on, in the warm good luck of having no boat keel
launched upon him, nor even a human heel of bulk as likely to prove
fatal. And the ancient woman fell asleep beside him, because at
her time of life it was unjust that she should be astir so early.
And it happened that Mrs. Cockscroft followed her troubled husband
down the steep, having something in her pocket for him, which she
failed to fetch to hand. So everybody went about its own business
(according to the laws of nature), and the old woman slept by the
side of the child, without giving him a corner of her scarlet
shawl.
But when the day was broad and brave, and the spirit of the air was
vigorous, and every cliff had a color of its own, and a character
to come out with; and beautiful boats, upon a shining sea, flashed
their oars, and went up waves which clearly were the stairs of
heaven; and never a woman, come to watch her husband, could be sure
how far he had carried his obedience in the matter of keeping his
hat and coat on; neither could anybody say what next those very
clever fishermen might be after--nobody having a spy-glass--but
only this being understood all round, that hunger and salt were the
victuals for the day, and the children must chew the mouse-trap
baits until their dads came home again; and yet in spite of all
this, with lightsome hearts (so hope outstrips the sun, and soars
with him behind her) and a strong will, up the hill they went, to
do without much breakfast, but prepare for a glorious supper. For
mackerel are good fish that do not strive to live forever, but seem
glad to support the human race.
Flamburians speak a rich burr of their own, broadly and handsomely
distinct from that of outer Yorkshire. The same sagacious contempt
for all hot haste and hurry (which people of impatient fibre are
too apt to call "a drawl") may here be found, as in other
Yorkshire, guiding and retarding well that headlong instrument the
tongue. Yet even here there is advantage on the side of
Flamborough--a longer resonance, a larger breadth, a deeper power
of melancholy, and a stronger turn up of the tail of discourse, by
some called the end of a sentence. Over and above all these there
dwell in "Little Denmark" many words foreign to the real
Yorkshireman. But, alas! these merits of their speech can not be
embodied in print without sad trouble, and result (if successful)
still more saddening. Therefore it is proposed to let them speak
in our inferior tongue, and to try to make them be not so very long
about it. For when they are left to themselves entirely, they have
so much solid matter to express, and they ripen it in their minds
and throats with a process so deliberate, that strangers might
condemn them briefly, and be off without hearing half of it.
Whenever this happens to a Flamborough man, he finishes what he
proposed to say, and then says it all over again to the wind.
When the "lavings" of the village (as the weaker part, unfit for
sea, and left behind, were politely called, being very old men,
women, and small children), full of conversation, came, upon their
way back from the tide, to the gravel brow now bare of boats, they
could not help discovering there the poor old woman that fell
asleep because she ought to have been in bed, and by her side a
little boy, who seemed to have no bed at all. The child lay above
her in a tump of stubbly grass, where Robin Cockscroft had laid
him; he had tossed the old sail off, perhaps in a dream, and he
threatened to roll down upon the granny. The contrast between his
young, beautiful face, white raiment, and readiness to roll, and
the ancient woman's weary age (which it would be ungracious to
describe), and scarlet shawl which she could not spare, and
satisfaction to lie still--as the best thing left her now to do--
this difference between them was enough to take anybody's notice,
facing the well-established sun.
"Nanny Pegler, get oop wi' ye!" cried a woman even older, but of
tougher constitution. "Shame on ye to lig aboot so. Be ye browt
to bed this toime o' loife?"
"A wonderful foine babby for sich an owd moother," another
proceeded with the elegant joke; "and foine swaddles too, wi' solid
gowd upon 'em!"
"Stan' ivery one o' ye oot o' the way," cried ancient Nanny, now as
wide-awake as ever; "Master Robin Cockscroft gie ma t' bairn, an'
nawbody sall hev him but Joan Cockscroft."
Joan Cockscroft, with a heavy heart, was lingering far behind the
rest, thinking of the many merry launches, when her smart young
Robin would have been in the boat with his father, and her pretty
little Mercy clinging to her hand upon the homeward road, and
prattling of the fish to be caught that day; and inasmuch as Joan
had not been able to get face to face with her husband on the
beach, she had not yet heard of the stranger child. But soon the
women sent a little boy to fetch her, and she came among them,
wondering what it could be. For now a debate of some vigor was
arising upon a momentous and exciting point, though not so keen by
a hundredth part as it would have been twenty years afterward. For
the eldest old woman had pronounced her decision.
"Tell ye wat, ah dean't think bud wat yon bairn mud he a Frogman."
This caused some panic and a general retreat; for though the
immortal Napoleon had scarcely finished changing his teeth as yet,
a chronic uneasiness about Crappos haunted that coast already, and
they might have sent this little boy to pave the way, being capable
of almost everything.
"Frogman!" cried the old woman next to her by birth, and believed
to have higher parts, though not yet ripe. "Na, na; what Frogman
here? Frogmen ha' skinny shanks, and larks' heels, and holes down
their bodies like lamperns. No sign of no frog aboot yon bairn.
As fair as a wench, and as clean as a tyke. A' mought a'most been
born to Flaambro'. And what gowd ha' Crappos got, poor divils?"
This opened the gate for a clamor of discourse; for there surely
could be no denial of her words. And yet while her elder was alive
and out of bed, the habit of the village was to listen to her say,
unless any man of equal age arose to countervail it. But while
they were thus divided, Mrs. Cockscroft came, and they stood aside.
For she had been kind to everybody when her better chances were;
and now in her trouble all were grieved because she took it so to
heart. Joan Cockscroft did not say a word, but glanced at the
child with some contempt. In spite of white linen and yellow gold,
what was he to her own dead Robin?
But suddenly this child, whatever he was, and vastly soever
inferior, opened his eyes and sent home their first glance to the
very heart of Joan Cockscroft. It was the exact look--or so she
always said--of her dead angel, when she denied him something, for
the sake of his poor dear stomach. With an outburst of tears, she
flew straight to the little one, snatched him in her arms, and
tried to cover him with kisses.
The child, however, in a lordly manner, did not seem to like it.
He drew away his red lips, and gathered up his nose, and passion
flew out of his beautiful eyes, higher passion than that of any
Cockscroft. And he tried to say something which no one could make
out. And women of high consideration, looking on, were wicked
enough to be pleased at this, and say that he must be a young lord,
and they had quite foreseen it. But Joan knew what children are,
and soothed him down so with delicate hands, and a gentle look, and
a subtle way of warming his cold places, that he very soon began to
cuddle into her, and smile. Then she turned round to the other
people, with both of his arms flung round her neck, and his cheek
laid on her shoulder, and she only said, "The Lord hath sent him."
CHAPTER XI
DR. UPANDOWN
The practice of Flamborough was to listen fairly to anything that
might be said by any one truly of the native breed, and to receive
it well into the crust of the mind, and let it sink down slowly.
But even after that, it might not take root, unless it were fixed
in its settlement by their two great powers--the law, and the Lord.
They had many visitations from the Lord, as needs must be in such a
very stormy place; whereas of the law they heard much less; but
still they were even more afraid of that; for they never knew how
much it might cost.
Balancing matters (as they did their fish, when the price was worth
it, in Weigh Lane), they came to the set conclusion that the law
and the Lord might not agree concerning the child cast among them
by the latter. A child or two had been thrown ashore before, and
trouble once or twice had come of it; and this child being cast, no
one could say how, to such a height above all other children, he
was likely enough to bring a spell upon their boats, if anything
crooked to God's will were done; and even to draw them to their
last stocking, if anything offended the providence of law.
In any other place it would have been a point of combat what to say
and what to do in such a case as this. But Flamborough was of all
the wide world happiest in possessing an authority to reconcile all
doubts. The law and the Lord--two powers supposed to be at
variance always, and to share the week between them in proportions
fixed by lawyers--the holy and unholy elements of man's brief
existence, were combined in Flamborough parish in the person of its
magisterial rector. He was also believed to excel in the arts of
divination and medicine too, for he was a full Doctor of Divinity.
Before this gentleman must be laid, both for purse and conscience'
sake, the case of the child just come out of the fogs.
And true it was that all these powers were centred in one famous
man, known among the laity as "Parson Upandown." For the Reverend
Turner Upround, to give him his proper name, was a doctor of
divinity, a justice of the peace, and the present rector of
Flamborough. Of all his offices and powers, there was not one that
he overstrained; and all that knew him, unless they were thorough-
going rogues and vagabonds, loved him. Not that he was such a
soft-spoken man as many were, who thought more evil; but because of
his deeds and nature, which were of the kindest. He did his
utmost, on demand of duty, to sacrifice this nature to his stern
position as pastor and master of an up-hill parish, with many wrong
things to be kept under. But while he succeeded in the form now
and then, he failed continually in the substance.
This gentleman was not by any means a fool, unless a kind heart
proves folly. At Cambridge he had done very well, in the early
days of the tripos, and was chosen fellow and tutor of Gonville and
Caius College. But tiring of that dull round in his prime, he
married, and took to a living; and the living was one of the many
upon which a perpetual faster can barely live, unless he can go
naked also, and keep naked children. Now the parsons had not yet
discovered the glorious merits of hard fasting, but freely enjoyed,
and with gratitude to God, the powers with which He had blessed
them. Happily Dr. Upround had a solid income of his own, and (like
a sound mathematician) he took a wife of terms coincident. So,
without being wealthy, they lived very well, and helped their
poorer neighbors.
Such a man generally thrives in the thriving of his flock, and does
not harry them. He gives them spiritual food enough to support
them without daintiness, and he keeps the proper distinction
between the Sunday and the poorer days. He clangs no bell of
reproach upon a Monday, when the squire is leading the lady in to
dinner, and the laborer sniffing at his supper pot; and he lets the
world play on a Saturday, while he works his own head to find good
ends for the morrow. Because he is a wise man who knows what other
men are, and how seldom they desire to be told the same thing more
than a hundred and four times in a year. Neither did his clerical
skill stop here; for Parson Upround thought twice about it before
he said anything to rub sore consciences, even when he had them at
his mercy, and silent before him, on a Sunday. He behaved like a
gentleman in this matter, where so much temptation lurks, looking
always at the man whom he did not mean to hit, so that the guilty
one received it through him, and felt himself better by comparison.
In a word, this parson did his duty well, and pleasantly for all
his flock; and nothing imbittered him, unless a man pretended to
doctrine without holy orders.
For the doctor reasoned thus--and sound it sounds--if divinity is a
matter for Tom, Dick, or Harry, how can there be degrees in it? He
held a degree in it, and felt what it had cost; and not the parish
only, but even his own wife, was proud to have a doctor every
Sunday. And his wife took care that his rich red hood, kerseymere
small-clothes, and black silk stockings upon calves of dignity,
were such that his congregation scorned the surgeons all the way to
Beverley.
Happy in a pleasant nature, kindly heart, and tranquil home, he was
also happy in those awards of life in which men are helpless. He
was blessed with a good wife and three good children, doing well,
and vigorous and hardy as the air and clime and cliffs. His wife
was not quite of his own age, but old enough to understand and
follow him faithfully down the slope of years. A wife with mind
enough to know that a husband is not faultless, and with heart
enough to feel that if he were, she would not love him so. And
under her were comprised their children--two boys at school, and a
baby-girl at home.
So far, the rector of this parish was truly blessed and blessing.
But in every man's lot must be some crook, since this crooked world
turned round. In Parson Upround's lot the crook might seem a very
small one; but he found it almost too big for him. His dignity and
peace of mind, large good-will of ministry and strong Christian
sense of magistracy, all were sadly pricked and wounded by a very
small thorn in the flesh of his spirit.
Almost every honest man is the rightful owner of a nickname. When
he was a boy at school he could not do without one, and if the
other boys valued him, perhaps he had a dozen. And afterward, when
there is less perception of right and wrong and character, in the
weaker time of manhood, he may earn another, if the spirit is
within him.
But woe is him if a nasty foe, or somebody trying to be one,
annoyed for the moment with him, yet meaning no more harm than
pepper, smite him to the quick, at venture, in his most retired and
privy-conscienced hole. And when this is done by a Nonconformist
to a Doctor of Divinity, and the man who does it owes some money to
the man he does it to, can the latter gentleman take a large and
genial view of his critics.
This gross wrong and ungrateful outrage was inflicted thus. A
leading Methodist from Filey town, who owed the doctor half a
guinea, came one summer and set up his staff in the hollow of a
limekiln, where he lived upon fish for change of diet, and because
he could get it for nothing. This was a man of some eloquence, and
his calling in life was cobbling, and to encourage him therein, and
keep him from theology, the rector not only forgot his half guinea,
but sent him three or four pairs of riding-boots to mend, and let
him charge his own price, which was strictly heterodox. As a part
of the bargain, this fellow came to church, and behaved as well as
could be hoped of a man who had received his money. He sat by a
pillar, and no more than crossed his legs at the worst thing that
disagreed with him. And it might have done him good, and made a
decent cobbler of him, if the parson had only held him when he got
him on the hook. But this is the very thing which all great
preachers are too benevolent to do. Dr. Upround looked at this
sinner, who was getting into a fright upon his own account, though
not a bad preacher when he could afford it; and the cobbler could
no more look up to the doctor than when he charged him a full crown
beyond the contract. In his kindness for all who seemed convinced
of sin, the good preacher halted, and looked at Mr. Jobbins with a
soft, relaxing gaze. Jobbins appeared as if he would come to
church forever, and never cheat any sound clergyman again;
whereupon the generous divine omitted a whole page of menaces
prepared for him, and passed prematurely to the tender strain which
always winds up a good sermon.
Now what did Jobbins do in return for all this magnanimous mercy?
Invited to dine with the senior church-warden upon the strength of
having been at church, and to encourage him for another visit, and
being asked, as soon as ever decency permitted, what he thought of
Parson Upround's doctrine, between two crackles of young griskin
(come straight from the rectory pig-sty), he was grieved to express
a stern opinion long remembered at Flamborough:
"Ca' yo yon mon 'Dr. Uproond?' I ca' un 'Dr. Upandoon.'"
From that day forth the rector of the parish was known far and wide
as "Dr. Upandown," even among those who loved him best. For the
name well described his benevolent practice of undoing any harsh
thing he might have said, sometimes by a smile, and very often with
a shilling, or a basket of spring cabbages. So that Mrs. Upround,
when buttoning up his coat--which he always forgot to do for
himself--did it with the words, "My dear, now scold no one; really
it is becoming too expensive." "Shall I abandon duty," he would
answer, with some dignity, "while a shilling is sufficient to
enforce it?"
Dr. Upround's people had now found out that their minister and
magistrate discharged his duty toward his pillow, no less than to
his pulpit. His parish had acquired, through the work of
generations, a habit of getting up at night, and being all alive at
cock-crow; and the rector (while very new amongst them) tried to
bow--or rather rise--to night-watch. But a little of that exercise
lasted him for long; and he liked to talk of it afterward, but for
the present was obliged to drop it. For he found himself pale,
when his wife made him see himself; and his hours of shaving were
so dreadful; and scarcely a bit of fair dinner could be got, with
the whole of the day thrown out so. In short, he settled it wisely
that the fishers of fish must yield to the habits of fish, which
can not be corrected; but the fishers of men (who can live without
catching them) need not be up to all their hours, but may take them
reasonably.
His parishioners--who could do very well without him, as far as
that goes, all the week, and by no means wanted him among their
boats--joyfully left him to his own time of day, and no more
worried him out of season than he worried them so. It became a
matter of right feeling with them not to ring a big bell, which the
rector had put up to challenge everybody's spiritual need, until
the stable clock behind the bell had struck ten and finished
gurgling.
For this reason, on St. Swithin's morn, in the said year 1782, the
grannies, wives, and babes of Flamborough, who had been to help the
launch, but could not pull the laboring oar, nor even hold the
tiller, spent the time till ten o'clock in seeing to their own
affairs--the most laudable of all pursuits for almost any woman.
And then, with some little dispute among them (the offspring of the
merest accident), they arrived in some force at the gate of Dr.
Upround, and no woman liked to pull the bell, and still less to let
another woman do it for her. But an old man came up who was quite
deaf, and every one asked him to do it.
In spite of the scarcity of all good things, Mrs. Cockscroft had
thoroughly fed the little stranger, and washed him, and undressed
him, and set him up in her own bed, and wrapped him in her woollen
shawl, because he shivered sadly; and there he stared about with
wondering eyes, and gave great orders--so far as his new nurse
could make out--but speaking gibberish, as she said, and flying
into a rage because it was out of Christian knowledge. But he
seemed to understand some English, although he could only pronounce
two words, both short, and in such conjunction quite unlawful for
any except the highest Spiritual Power. Mrs. Cockscroft, being a
pious woman, hoped that her ears were wrong, or else that the words
were foreign and meant no harm, though the child seemed to take in
much of what was said, and when asked his name, answered,
wrathfully, and as if everybody was bound to know, "Izunsabe!
Izunsabe!"
But now, when brought before Dr. Upround, no child of the very best
English stock could look more calm and peaceful. He could walk
well enough, but liked better to be carried; and the kind woman who
had so taken him up was only too proud to carry him. Whatever the
rector and magistrate might say, her meaning was to keep this
little one, with her husband's good consent, which she was sure of
getting.
"Set him down, ma'am," the doctor said, when he had heard from half
a dozen good women all about him; "Mistress Cockscroft, put him on
his legs, and let me question him."
But the child resisted this proceeding. With nature's inborn and
just loathing of examination, he spun upon his little heels, and
swore with all his might, at the same time throwing up his hands
and twirling his thumbs in a very odd and foreign way.
"What a shocking child!" cried Mrs. Upround, who was come to know
all about it. "Jane, run away with Miss Janetta."
"The child is not to blame," said the rector, "but only the people
who have brought him up. A prettier or more clever little head I
have never seen in all my life; and we studied such things at
Cambridge. My fine little fellow, shake hands with me."
The boy broke off his vicious little dance, and looked up at this
tall gentleman with great surprise. His dark eyes dwelt upon the
parson's kindly face, with that power of inquiry which the very
young possess, and then he put both little hands into the
gentleman's, and burst into a torrent of the most heart-broken
tears.
"Poor little man!" said the rector, very gently, taking him up in
his arms and patting the silky black curls, while great drops fell,
and a nose was rubbed on his shoulder; "it is early for you to
begin bad times. Why, how old are you, if you please?"
The little boy sat up on the kind man's arm, and poked a small
investigating finger into the ear that was next to him, and the
locks just beginning to be marked with gray; and then he said,
"Sore," and tossed his chin up, evidently meaning, "Make your best
of that." And the women drew a long breath, and nudged at one
another.
"Well done! Four years old, my dear. You see that he understands
English well enough," said the parson to his parishioners: "he will
tell us all about himself by-and-by, if we do not hurry him. You
think him a French child. I do not, though the name which he gives
himself, 'Izunsabe,' has a French aspect about it. Let me think.
I will try him with a French interrogation: 'Parlez-vous Francais,
mon enfan?'"
Dr. Upround watched the effect of his words with outward calm, but
an inward flutter. For if this clever child should reply in
French, the doctor could never go on with it, but must stand there
before his congregation in a worse position than when he lost his
place, as sometimes happened, in a sermon. With wild temerity he
had given vent to the only French words within his knowledge; and
he determined to follow them up with Latin if the worst came to the
worst.
But luckily no harm came of this, but, contrariwise, a lasting
good. For the child looked none the wiser, while the doctor's
influence was increased.
"Aha!" the good parson cried. "I was sure that he was no
Frenchman. But we must hear something about him very soon, for
what you tell me is impossible. If he had come from the sea, he
must have been wet; it could never be otherwise. Whereas, his
linen clothes are dry, and even quite lately fullered--ironed you
might call it."
"Please your worship," cried Mrs. Cockscroft, who was growing wild
with jealousy, "I did up all his little things, hours and hours ere
your hoose was up."
"Ah, you had night-work! To be sure! Were his clothes dry or wet
when you took them off?"
"Not to say dry, your worship; and yet not to say very wet.
Betwixt and between, like my good master's, when he cometh from a
pour of rain, or a heavy spray. And the color of the land was upon
them here and there. And the gold tags were sewn with something
wonderful. My best pair of scissors would not touch it. I was
frightened to put them to the tub, your worship; but they up and
shone lovely like a tailor's buttons. My master hath found him,
Sir; and it lies with him to keep him. And the Lord hath taken
away our Bob."
"It is true," said Dr. Upround, gently, and placing the child in
her arms again, "the Almighty has chastened you very sadly. This
child is not mine to dispose of, nor yours; but if he will comfort
you, keep him till we hear of him. I will take down in writing the
particulars of the case, when Captain Robin has come home and had
his rest--say, at this time to-morrow, or later; and then you will
sign them, and they shall be published. For you know, Mrs.
Cockscroft, however much you may be taken with him, you must not
turn kidnapper. Moreover, it is needful, as there may have been
some wreck (though none of you seem to have heard of any), that
this strange occurrence should be made known. Then, if nothing is
heard of it, you can keep him, and may the Lord bless him to you!"
Without any more ado, she kissed the child, and wanted to carry him
straight away, after courtesying to his worship; but all the other
women insisted on a smack of him, for pity's sake, and the pleasure
of the gold, and to confirm the settlement. And a settlement it
was, for nothing came of any publication of the case, such as in
those days could be made without great expense and exertion.
So the boy grew up, tall, brave, and comely, and full of the spirit
of adventure, as behooved a boy cast on the winds. So far as that
goes, his foster-parents would rather have found him more steady
and less comely, for if he was to step into their lost son's shoes,
he might do it without seeming to outshine him. But they got over
that little jealousy in time, when the boy began to be useful, and,
so far as was possible, they kept him under by quoting against him
the character of Bob, bringing it back from heaven of a much higher
quality than ever it was upon the earth. In vain did this living
child aspire to such level; how can an earthly boy compare with one
who never did a wrong thing, as soon as he was dead?
Passing that difficult question, and forbearing to compare a boy
with angels, be he what he will, his first need (after that of
victuals) is a name whereby his fellow-boys may know him. Is he to
be shouted at with, "Come here, what's your name?" or is he to be
called (as if in high rebuke), "Boy?" And yet there are grown-up
folk who do all this without hesitation, failing to remember their
own predicament at a by-gone period. Boys are as useful, in their
way, as any other order; and if they can be said to do some
mischief, they can not be said to do it negligently. It is their
privilege and duty to be truly active; and their Maker, having
spread a dull world before them, has provided them with gifts of
play while their joints are supple.
The present boy, having been born without a father or a mother (so
far as could yet be discovered), was driven to do what our
ancestors must have done when it was less needful. That is to say,
to work his own name out by some distinctive process. When the
parson had clearly shown him not to be a Frenchman, a large
contumely spread itself about, by reason of his gold, and eyes, and
hair, and name (which might be meant for Isaak), that he was sprung
from a race more honored now than a hundred years ago. But the
women declared that it could not be; and the rector desiring to
christen him, because it might never have been done before, refused
point-blank to put any "Isaac" in, and was satisfied with "Robin"
only, the name of the man who had saved him.
The rector showed deep knowledge of his flock, which looked upon
Jews as the goats of the Kingdom; for any Jew must die for a world
of generations ere ever a Christian thinks much of him. But
finding him not to be a Jew, the other boys, instead of being
satisfied, condemned him for a Dutchman.
Whatever he was, the boy throve well, and being so flouted by his
playmates, took to thoughts and habits and amusements of his own.
In-door life never suited him at all, nor too much of hard
learning, although his capacity was such that he took more
advancement in an hour than the thick heads of young Flamborough
made in a whole leap-year of Sundays. For any Flamburian boy was
considered a "Brain Scholar," and a "Head-Languager," when he could
write down the parson's text, and chalk up a fish on the weigh-
board so that his father or mother could tell in three guesses what
manner of fish it was. And very few indeed had ever passed this
trial.
For young Robin it was a very hard thing to be treated so by the
other boys. He could run, or jump, or throw a stone, or climb a
rock with the best of them; but all these things he must do by
himself, simply because he had no name. A feeble youth would have
moped, but Robin only grew more resolute. Alone he did what the
other boys would scarcely in competition dare. No crag was too
steep for him, no cave too dangerous and wave-beaten, no race of
the tide so strong and swirling as to scare him of his wits. He
seemed to rejoice in danger, having very little else to rejoice in;
and he won for himself by nimble ways and rapid turns on land and
sea, the name of "Lithe," or "Lyth," and made it famous even far
inland.
For it may be supposed that his love of excitement, versatility,
and daring demanded a livelier outlet than the slow toil of deep-
sea fishing. To the most patient, persevering, and long-suffering
of the arts, Robin Lyth did not take kindly, although he was so
handy with a boat. Old Robin vainly strove to cast his angling
mantle over him. The gifts of the youth were brighter and higher;
he showed an inborn fitness for the lofty development of free
trade. Eminent powers must force their way, as now they were doing
with Napoleon; and they did the same with Robin Lyth, without
exacting tithe in kind of all the foremost human race.
CHAPTER XII
IN A LANE, NOT ALONE
Stephen Anerley's daughter was by no means of a crooked mind, but
open as the day in all things, unless any one mistrusted her, and
showed it by cross-questioning. When this was done, she resented
it quickly by concealing the very things which she would have told
of her own accord; and it so happened that the person to whom of
all she should have been most open, was the one most apt to check
her by suspicious curiosity. And now her mother already began to
do this, as concerned the smuggler, knowing from the revenue
officer that Mary must have seen him. Mary, being a truthful
damsel, told no lies about it; but, on the other hand, she did not
rush forth with all the history, as she probably would have done if
left unexamined. And so she said nothing about the ear-ring, or
the run that was to come off that week, or the riding-skirt, or a
host of little things, including her promise to visit Bempton Lane.
On the other hand, she had a mind to tell her father, and take his
opinion about it all. But he was a little cross that evening, not
with her, but with the world at large; and that discouraged her;
and then she thought that being an officer of the king--as he liked
to call himself sometimes--he might feel bound to give information
about the impending process of free trade; which to her would be a
breach of honor, considering how she knew of it.
Upon the whole, she heartily wished that she never had seen that
Robin Lyth; and then she became ashamed of herself for indulging
such a selfish wish. For he might have been lying dead but for
her; and then what would become of the many poor people whose
greatest comfort he was said to be? And what good could arise from
his destruction, if cruel people compassed it? Free trade must be
carried on, for the sake of everybody, including Captain Carroway
himself; and if an old and ugly man succeeded a young and generous
one as leader of the free-trade movement, all the women in the
country would put the blame on her.
Looking at these things loftily, and with a strong determination
not to think twice of what any one might say who did not understand
the subject, Mary was forced at last to the stern conclusion that
she must keep her promise. Not only because it was a promise--
although that went a very long way with her--but also because there
seemed no other chance of performing a positive duty. Simple
honesty demanded that she should restore to the owner a valuable,
and beyond all doubt important, piece of property. Two hours had
she spent in looking for it, and deprived her dear father of his
breakfast shrimps; and was all this trouble to be thrown away, and
herself, perhaps, accused of theft, because her mother was so short
and sharp in wanting to know everything, and to turn it her own
way?
The trinket, which she had found at last, seemed to be a very
uncommon and precious piece of jewelry; it was made of pure gold,
minutely chased and threaded with curious workmanship, in form like
a melon, and bearing what seemed to be characters of some foreign
language: there might be a spell, or even witchcraft, in it, and
the sooner it was out of her keeping the better. Nevertheless she
took very good care of it, wrapping it in lamb's-wool, and peeping
at it many times a day, to be sure that it was safe, until it made
her think of the owner so much, and the many wonders she had heard
about him, that she grew quite angry with herself and it, and
locked it away, and then looked at it again.
As luck would have it, on the very day when Mary was to stroll down
Bempton Lane (not to meet any one, of course, but simply for the
merest chance of what might happen), her father had business at
Driffield corn market, which would keep him from home nearly all
the day. When his daughter heard of it she was much cast down; for
she hoped that he might have been looking about on the northern
part of the farm, as he generally was in the afternoon; and
although he could not see Bempton Lane at all, perhaps, without
some newly acquired power of seeing round sharp corners, still it
would have been a comfort and a strong resource for conscience to
have felt that he was not so very far away. And this feeling of
want made his daughter resolve to have some one at any rate near
her. If Jack had only been at home, she need have sought no
further, for he would have entered into all her thoughts about it,
and obeyed her orders beautifully. But Willie was quite different,
and hated any trouble, being spoiled so by his mother and the
maidens all around them.
However, in such a strait, what was there to do but to trust in
Willie, who was old enough, being five years in front of Mary, and
then to try to make him sensible? Willie Anerley had no idea that
anybody--far less his own sister--could take such a view of him.
He knew himself to be, and all would say the same of him, superior
in his original gifts, and his manner of making use of them, to the
rest of the family put together. He had spent a month in Glasgow,
when the whole place was astir with the ferment of many great
inventions, and another month in Edinburgh, when that noble city
was aglow with the dawn of large ideas; also, he had visited
London, foremost of his family, and seen enough new things there to
fill all Yorkshire with surprise; and the result of such wide
experience was that he did not like hard work at all. Neither
could he even be content to accept and enjoy, without labor of his
own, the many good things provided for him. He was always trying
to discover something which never seemed to answer, and continually
flying after something new, of which he never got fast hold. In a
word, he was spoiled, by nature first, and then by circumstances,
for the peaceful life of his ancestors, and the unacknowledged
blessings of a farmer.
"Willie dear, will you come with me?" Mary said to him that day,
catching him as he ran down stairs to air some inspiration. "Will
you come with me for just one hour? I wish you would; and I would
be so thankful."
"Child, it is quite impossible," he answered, with a frown which
set off his delicate eyebrows and high but rather narrow forehead;
"you always want me at the very moment when I have the most
important work in hand. Any childish whim of yours matters more
than hours and hours of hard labor."
"Oh, Willie, but you know how I try to help you, and all the
patterns I cut out last week! Do come for once, Willie; if you
refuse, you will never, never forgive yourself."
Willie Anerley was as good-natured as any self-indulged youth can
be; he loved his sister in his way, and was indebted to her for
getting out of a great many little scrapes. He saw how much she
was in earnest now, and felt some desire to know what it was about.
Moreover--which settled the point--he was getting tired of sticking
to one thing for a time unusually long with him. But he would not
throw away the chance of scoring a huge debt of gratitude.
"Well, do what you like with me," he answered, with a smile; "I
never can have my own way five minutes. It serves me quite right
for being so good-natured."
Mary gave him a kiss, which must have been an object of ambition to
anybody else; but it only made him wipe his mouth; and presently
the two set forth upon the path toward Bempton.
Robin Lyth had chosen well his place for meeting Mary. The lane
(of which he knew every yard as well as he knew the rocks
themselves) was deep and winding, and fringed with bushes, so that
an active and keen-eyed man might leap into thicket almost before
there was a fair chance of shooting him. He knew well enough that
he might trust Mary; but he never could be sure that the bold
"coast-riders," despairing by this time of catching him at sea, and
longing for the weight of gold put upon his head, might not be
setting privy snares to catch him in his walks abroad. They had
done so when they pursued him up the Dike; and though he was
inclined to doubt the strict legality of that proceeding, he could
not see his way to a fair discussion of it, in case of their
putting a bullet through him. And this consideration made him
careful.
The brother and sister went on well by the foot-path over the
uplands of the farm, and crossing the neck of the Flamburn
peninsula, tripped away merrily northward. The wheat looked
healthy, and the barley also, and a four-acre patch of potatoes
smelled sweetly (for the breeze of them was pleasant in their
wholesome days), and Willie, having overworked his brain, according
to his own account of it, strode along loftily before his sister,
casting over his shoulder an eddy of some large ideas with which he
had been visited before she interrupted him. But as nothing ever
came of them, they need not here be stated. From a practical point
of view, however, as they both had to live upon the profits of the
farm, it pleased them to observe what a difference there was when
they had surmounted the chine and began to descend toward the north
upon other people's land. Here all was damp and cold and slow; and
chalk looked slimy instead of being clean; and shadowy places had
an oozy cast; and trees (wherever they could stand) were facing the
east with wrinkled visage, and the west with wiry beards. Willie
(who had, among other great inventions, a scheme for improvement of
the climate) was reminded at once of all the things he meant to do
in that way; and making, as he always did, a great point of getting
observations first--a point whereon he stuck fast mainly--without
any time for delay he applied himself to a rapid study of the
subject. He found some things just like other things which he had
seen in Scotland, yet differing so as to prove, more clearly than
even their resemblance did, the value of his discovery.
"Look!" he cried; "can anything be clearer? The cause of all these
evils is not (as an ignorant person might suppose) the want of
sunshine, or too much wet, but an inadequate movement of the air--"
"Why, I thought it was always blowing up here. The very last time
I came, my bonnet strings were split."
"You do not understand me; you never do. When I say inadequate, I
mean, of course, incorrect, inaccurate, unequable. Now the air is
a fluid; you may stare as you like, Mary, but the air has been
proved to be a fluid. Very well; no fluid in large bodies moves
with an equal velocity throughout. Part of it is rapid and part
quite stagnant. The stagnant places of the air produce this green
scum, this mossy, unwholesome, and injurious stuff; while the
overrapid motion causes this iron appearance, this hard surface,
and general sterility. By the simplest of simple contrivances, I
make this evil its own remedy. An equable impulse given to the air
produces an adequate uniform flow, preventing stagnation in one
place, and excessive vehemence in another. And the beauty of it is
that by my new invention I make the air itself correct and regulate
its own inequalities."
"How clever you are, to be sure!" exclaimed Mary, wondering that
her father could not see it. "Oh, Willie, you will make your
fortune by it! However do you do it?"
"The simplicity of it is such that even you can understand it. All
great discoveries are simple. I fix in a prominent situation a
large and vertically revolving fan, of a light and vibrating
substance. The movement of the air causes this to rotate by the
mere force of the impact. The rotation and the vibration of the
fan convert an irregular impulse into a steady and equable
undulation; and such is the elasticity of the fluid called, in
popular language, 'the air,' that for miles around the rotation of
this fan regulates the circulation, modifies extremes, annihilates
sterility, and makes it quite impossible for moss and green scum
and all this sour growth to live. Even you can see, Mary, how
beautiful it is."
"Yes, that I can," she answered, simply, as they turned the corner
upon a large windmill, with arms revolving merrily; "but, Willie
dear, would not Farmer Topping's mill, perpetually going as it is,
answer the same purpose? And yet the moss seems to be as thick as
ever here, and the ground as naked."
"Tush!" cried Willie. "Stuff and nonsense! When will you girls
understand? Good-by! I will throw away no more time on you."
Without stopping to finish his sentence he was off and out of sight
both of the mill and Mary, before the poor girl, who had not the
least intention of offending him, could even beg his pardon, or say
how much she wanted him; for she had not dared as yet to tell him
what was the purpose of her walk, his nature being such that no
one, not even his own mother, could tell what conclusion he might
come to upon any practical question. He might rush off at once to
put the revenue men on the smuggler's track, or he might stop his
sister from going, or he might (in the absence of his father) order
a feast to be prepared, and fetch the outlaw to be his guest. So
Mary had resolved not to tell him until the last moment, when he
could do none of these things.
But now she must either go on all alone, or give up her purpose and
break her promise. After some hesitation she determined to go on,
for the place would scarcely seem so very lonely now with the
windmill in view, which would always remind her henceforth of her
dear brother William. It was perfectly certain that Captain Robert
Lyth, whose fame for chivalry was everywhere, and whose character
was all in all to him with the ladies who bought his silks and
lace, would see her through all danger caused by confidence in him;
and really it was too bad of her to admit any paltry misgivings.
But reason as she might, her young conscience told her that this
was not the proper thing to do, and she made up her mind not to do
it again. Then she laughed at the notion of being ever even asked,
and told herself that she was too conceited; and to cut the matter
short, went very bravely down the hill.
The lane, which came winding from the beach up to the windmill, was
as pretty a lane as may anywhere be found in any other county than
that of Devon. With a Devonshire lane it could not presume to vie,
having little of the glorious garniture of fern, and nothing of the
crystal brook that leaps at every corner; no arches of tall ash,
keyed with dog-rose, and not much of honeysuckle, and a sight of
other wants which people feel who have lived in the plenitude of
everything. But in spite of all that, the lane was very fine for
Yorkshire.
On the other hand, Mary had prettier ankles, and a more graceful
and lighter walk, than the Devonshire lanes, which like to echo
something, for the most part seem accustomed to; and the short
dress of the time made good such favorable facts when found. Nor
was this all that could be said, for the maiden (while her mother
was so busy pickling cabbage, from which she drove all intruders)
had managed to forget what the day of the week was, and had opened
the drawer that should be locked up until Sunday. To walk with
such a handsome tall fellow as Willie compelled her to look like
something too, and without any thought of it she put her best hat
on, and a very pretty thing with some French name, and made of a
delicate peach-colored silk, which came down over her bosom, and
tied in the neatest of knots at the small of her back, which at
that time of life was very small. All these were the gifts of her
dear uncle Popplewell, upon the other side of Filey, who might have
been married for forty years, but nobody knew how long it was,
because he had no children, and so he made Mary his darling. And
this ancient gentleman had leanings toward free trade.
Whether these goods were French or not--which no decent person
could think of asking--no French damsel could have put them on
better, or shown a more pleasing appearance in them; for Mary's
desire was to please all people who meant no harm to her--as nobody
could--and yet to let them know that her object was only to do what
was right, and to never think of asking whether she looked this,
that, or the other. Her mother, as a matter of duty, told her how
plain she was almost every day; but the girl was not of that
opinion; and when Mrs. Anerley finished her lecture (as she did
nine times in ten) by turning the glass to the wall, and declaring
that beauty was a snare skin-deep, with a frown of warning instead
of a smile of comfort, then Mary believed in her looking-glass
again, and had the smile of comfort on her own face.
However, she never thought of that just now, but only of how she
could do her duty, and have no trouble in her own mind with
thinking, and satisfy her father when she told him all, as she
meant to do, when there could be no harm done to any one; and this,
as she heartily hoped, would be to-morrow. And truly, if there did
exist any vanity at all, it was not confined to the sex in which it
is so much more natural and comely.
For when a very active figure came to light suddenly, at a little
elbow of the lane, and with quick steps advanced toward Mary, she
was lost in surprise at the gayety, not to say grandeur, of its
apparel. A broad hat, looped at the side, and having a pointed
black crown, with a scarlet feather and a dove-colored brim, sat
well upon the mass of crisp black curls. A short blue jacket of
the finest Flemish cloth, and set (not too thickly) with embossed
silver buttons, left properly open the strong brown neck, while a
shirt of pale blue silk, with a turned-down collar of fine needle-
work, fitted, without a wrinkle or a pucker, the broad and amply
rounded chest. Then a belt of brown leather, with an anchor clasp,
and empty loops for either fire-arm or steel, supported true
sailor's trousers of the purest white and the noblest man-of-war
cut; and where these widened at the instep shone a lovely pair of
pumps, with buckles radiant of best Bristol diamonds. The wearer
of all these splendors smiled, and seemed to become them as they
became him.
"Well," thought Mary, "how free trade must pay! What a pity that
he is not in the Royal Navy!"
With his usual quickness, and the self-esteem which added such
lustre to his character, the smuggler perceived what was passing in
her mind, but he was not rude enough to say so.
"Young lady," he began--and Mary, with all her wisdom, could not
help being fond of that--"young lady, I was quite sure that you
would keep your word."
"I never do anything else," she answered, showing that she scarcely
looked at him. "I have found this for you, and then good-by."
"Surely you will wait to hear my thanks, and to know what made me
dare to ask you, after all you had done for me already, to begin
again for me. But I am such an outcast that I never should have
done it."
"I never saw any one look more thoroughly unlike an outcast," Mary
said; and then she was angry with herself for speaking, and
glancing, and, worst of all, for smiling,
"Ladies who live on land can never understand what we go through,"
Robin replied, in his softest voice, as rich as the murmur of the
summer sea. "When we expect great honors, we try to look a little
tidy, as any one but a common boor would do; and we laugh at
ourselves for trying to look well, after all the knocking about we
get. Our time is short--we must make the most of it."
"Oh, please not to talk in such a dreadful way," said Mary.
"You remind me of my dear friend Dr. Upround--the very best man in
the whole world, I believe. He always says to me, 'Robin, Robin--
'"
"What! is Dr. Upandown a friend of yours?" Mary exclaimed, in
amazement, and with a stoppage of the foot that was poised for
quick departure.
"Dr. Upandown, as many people call him," said the smuggler, with a
tone of condemnation, "is the best and dearest friend I have, next
to Captain and Mistress Cockscroft, who may have been heard of at
Anerley Manor. Dr. Upround is our magistrate and clergyman, and he
lets people say what they like against me, while he honors me with
his friendship. I must not stay long to thank you even, because I
am going to the dear old doctor's for supper at seven o'clock and a
game of chess."
"Oh dear! oh dear! And he is such a Justice! And yet they shot at
you last week! It makes me wonder when I hear such things."
"Young lady, it makes everybody wonder. In my opinion there never
could be a more shameful murder than to shoot me; and yet but for
you it would surely have been done."
"You must not dwell upon such things," said Mary; "they may have a
very bad effect upon your mind. But good-by, Captain Lyth; I
forgot that I was robbing Dr. Upround of your society."
"Shall I be so ungrateful as not to see you safe upon your own land
after all your trouble? My road to Flamborough lies that way.
Surely you will not refuse to hear what made me so anxious about
this bauble, which now will be worth ten times as much. I never
saw it look so bright before."
"It--it must be the sand has made it shine," the maiden stammered,
with a fine bright blush; "it does the same to my shrimping net."
"Ah, shrimping is a very fine pursuit! There is nothing I love
better; what pools I could show you, if I only might; pools where
you may fill a sack with large prawns in a single tide--pools known
to nobody but myself. When do you think of going shrimping next?"
"Perhaps next summer I may try again, if Captain Carroway will come
with me."
"That is too unkind of you. How very harsh you are to me! I could
hardly have believed it after all that you have done. And you
really do not care to hear the story of this relic?"
"If I could stop, I should like it very much. But my brother, who
came with me, may perhaps be waiting for me." Mary knew that this
was not very likely; still, it was just possible, for Willie's ill
tempers seldom lasted very long; and she wanted to let the smuggler
know that she had not come all alone to meet him.
"I shall not be two minutes," Robin Lyth replied; "I have been
forced to learn short talking. May I tell you about this trinket?"
"Yes, if you will only begin at once, and finish by the time we get
to that corner."
"That is very short measure for a tale," said Robin, though he
liked her all the better for such qualities; "however, I will try;
only walk a little slower. Nobody knows where I was born, any more
than they know how or why. Only when I came upon this coast as a
very little boy, and without knowing anything about it, they say
that I had very wonderful buttons of gold upon a linen dress,
adorned with gold-lace, which I used to wear on Sundays. Dr.
Upround ordered them to keep those buttons, and was to have had
them in his own care; but before that, all of them were lost save
two. My parents, as I call them from their wonderful goodness,
kinder than the ones who have turned me on the world (unless
themselves went out of it), resolved to have my white coat done up
grandly, when I grew too big for it, and to lay it by in lavender;
and knowing of a great man in the gold-lace trade, as far away as
Scarborough, they sent it by a fishing-smack to him, with people
whom they knew thoroughly. That was the last of it ever known
here. The man swore a manifest that he never saw it, and
threatened them with libel; and the smack was condemned, and all
her hands impressed, because of some trifle she happened to carry;
and nobody knows any more of it. But two of the buttons had fallen
off, and good mother had put them by, to give a last finish to the
coat herself; and when I grew up, and had to go to sea at night,
they were turned into a pair of ear-rings. There, now, Miss
Anerley, I have not been long, and you know all about it."
"How very lonesome it must be for you," said Mary, with a gentle
gaze, which, coming from such lovely eyes, went straight into his
heart, "to have no one belonging to you by right, and to seem to
belong to nobody! I am sure I can not tell whatever I should do
without any father, or mother, or uncle, or even a cousin to be
certain of."
"All the ladies seem to think that it is rather hard upon me,"
Robin answered, with an excellent effort at a sigh; "but I do my
very best to get on without them. And one thing that helps me most
of all is when kind ladies, who have good hearts, allow me to talk
to them as if I had a sister. This makes me forget what I am
sometimes."
"You never should try to forget what you are. Everybody in the
world speaks well of you. Even that cruel Lieutenant Carroway can
not help admiring you. And if you have taken to free trade, what
else could you do, when you had no friends, and even your coat was
stolen?"
"High-minded people take that view of it, I know. But I do not
pretend to any such excuse. I took to free trade for the sake of
my friends--to support the old couple who have been so good to me."
"That is better still; it shows such good principle. My uncle
Popplewell has studied the subject of what they call 'political
economy,' and he says that the country requires free trade, and the
only way to get it is to go on so that the government must give way
at last. However, I need not instruct you about that; and you must
not stop any longer."
"Miss Anerley, I will not encroach upon your kindness. You have
said things that I never shall forget. On the Continent I meet
very many ladies who tell me good things, and make me better; but
not at all as you have done. A minute of talk with you is worth an
hour with anybody else. But I fear that you laugh at me all the
while, and are only too glad to be rid of me. Good-by. May I kiss
your hand? God bless you!"
Mary had no time to say a single word, or even to express her ideas
by a look, before Robin Lyth, with all his bright apparel, was
"conspicuous by his absence." As a diving bird disappears from a
gun, or a trout from a shadow on his hover, or even a debtor from
his creditor, so the great free-trader had vanished into lightsome
air, and left emptiness behind him.
The young maid, having been prepared to yield him a few yards more
of good advice, if he held out for another corner, now could only
say to herself that she never had met such a wonderful man. So
active, strong, and astonishingly brave; so thoroughly acquainted
with foreign lands, yet superior to their ladies; so able to see
all the meaning of good words, and to value them when offered
quietly; so sweet in his manner, and voice, and looks; and with all
his fame so unpretending, and--much as it frightened her to think
it--really seeming to be afraid of her.
CHAPTER XIII
GRUMBLING AND GROWLING
While these successful runs went on, and great authorities smiled
at seeing the little authorities set at naught, and men of the
revenue smote their breasts for not being born good smugglers, and
the general public was well pleased, and congratulated them
cordially upon their accomplishment of naught, one man there was
whose noble spirit chafed and knew no comfort. He strode up and
down at Coast-guard Point, and communed with himself, while Robin
held sweet converse in the lane.
"Why was I born?" the sad Carroway cried; "why was I thoroughly
educated and trained in both services of the king, expected to
rise, and beginning to rise, till a vile bit of splinter stopped
me, and then sent down to this hole of a place to starve, and be
laughed at, and baffled by a boy? Another lucky run, and the
revenue bamboozled, and the whole of us sent upon a wild-goose
chase! Every gapper-mouth zany grinning at me, and scoundrels
swearing that I get my share! And the only time I have had my
dinner with my knees crook'd, for at least a fortnight, was at
Anerley Farm on Sunday. I am not sure that even they wouldn't turn
against me; I am certain that pretty girl would. I've a great mind
to throw it up--a great mind to throw it up. It is hardly the work
for a gentleman born, and the grandson of a rear-admiral. Tinkers'
and tailors' sons get the luck now; and a man of good blood is put
on the back shelf, behind the blacking-bottles. A man who has
battled for his country--"
"Charles, are you coming to your dinner, once more?"
"No, I am not. There's no dinner worth coming to. You and the
children may eat the rat pie. A man who has battled for his
country, and bled till all his veins were empty, and it took two
men to hold him up, and yet waved his Sword at the head of them--it
is the downright contradiction of the world in everything for him
to poke about with pots and tubs, like a pig in a brewery, grain-
hunting."
"Once more, Charles, there is next to nothing left. The children
are eating for their very lives. If you stay out there another
minute, you must take the consequence."
"Alas, that I should have so much stomach, and so little to put
into it! My dear, put a little bit under a basin, if any of them
has no appetite. I wanted just to think a little."
"Charles, they have all got tremendous appetites. It is the way
the wind is. You may think by-and-by, but if you want to eat, you
must do it now, or never."
"'Never' never suits me in that matter," the brave lieutenant
answered. "Matilda, put Geraldine to warm the pewter plate for me.
Geraldine darling, you can do it with your mouth full."
The commander of the coast-guard turned abruptly from his long
indignant stride, and entered the cottage provided for him, and
which he had peopled so speedily.
Small as it was, it looked beautifully clean and neat, and
everybody used to wonder how Mrs. Carroway kept it so. But in
spite of all her troubles and many complaints, she was very proud
of this little house, with its healthful position and beautiful
outlook over the bay of Bridlington. It stood in a niche of the
low soft cliff, where now the sea-parade extends from the northern
pier of Bridlington Quay; and when the roadstead between that and
the point was filled with a fleet of every kind of craft, or,
better still, when they all made sail at once--as happened when a
trusty breeze arose--the view was lively, and very pleasant, and
full of moving interest. Often one of his Majesty's cutters,
Swordfish, Kestrel, or Albatross, would swoop in with all sail set,
and hover, while the skipper came ashore to see the "Ancient
Carroway," as this vigilant officer was called; and sometimes even
a sloop of war, armed brigantine, or light corvette, prowling for
recruits, or cruising for their training, would run in under the
Head, and overhaul every wind-bound ship with a very high hand.
"Ancient Carroway"--as old friends called him, and even young
people who had never seen him--was famous upon this coast now for
nearly three degrees of latitude. He had dwelled here long, and in
highly good content, hospitably treated by his neighbors, and
himself more hospitable than his wife could wish, until two
troubles in his life arose, and from year to year grew worse and
worse. One of these troubles was the growth of mouths in number
and size, that required to be filled; and the other trouble was the
rampant growth of smuggling, and the glory of that upstart Robin
Lyth. Now let it be lawful to take that subject first.
Fair Robin, though not at all anxious for fame, but modestly
willing to decline it, had not been successful--though he worked so
much by night--in preserving sweet obscurity. His character was
public, and set on high by fortune, to be gazed at from wholly
different points of view. From their narrow and lime-eyed outlook
the coast-guard beheld in him the latest incarnation of Old Nick;
yet they hated him only in an abstract manner, and as men feel
toward that evil one. Magistrates also, and the large protective
powers, were arrayed against him, yet happy to abstain from laying
hands, when their hands were their own, upon him. And many of the
farmers, who should have been his warmest friends and best
customers, were now so attached to their king and country, by
bellicose warmth and army contracts, that instead of a guinea for a
four-gallon anker, they would offer three crowns, or the exciseman.
And not only conscience, but short cash, after three bad harvests,
constrained them.
Yet the staple of public opinion was sound, as it must be where
women predominate. The best of women could not see why they should
not have anything they wanted for less than it cost the maker. To
gaze at a sister woman better dressed at half the money was simply
to abjure every lofty principle. And to go to church with a
counterfeit on, when the genuine lace was in the next pew on a body
of inferior standing, was a downright outrage to the congregation,
the rector, and all religion. A cold-blooded creature, with no
pin-money, might reconcile it with her principles, if any she had,
to stand up like a dowdy and allow a poor man to risk his life by
shot and storm and starvation, and then to deny him a word or a
look, because of his coming with the genuine thing at a quarter the
price fat tradesmen asked, who never stirred out of their shops
when it rained, for a thing that was a story and an imposition.
Charity, duty, and common honesty to their good husbands in these
bad times compelled them to make the very best of bargains; of
which they got really more and more, as those brave mariners
themselves bore witness, because of the depression in the free
trade now and the glorious victories of England. Were they bound
to pay three times the genuine value, and then look a figure, and
be laughed at?
And as for Captain Carroway, let him scold, and threaten, and
stride about, and be jealous, because his wife dare not buy true
things, poor creature--although there were two stories also about
that, and the quantities of things that he got for nothing,
whenever he was clever enough to catch them, which scarcely ever
happened, thank goodness! Let Captain Carroway attend to his own
business; unless he was much belied, he had a wife who would keep
him to it. Who was Captain Carroway to come down here, without
even being born in Yorkshire, and lay down the law, as if he owned
the manor?
Lieutenant Carroway had heard such questions, but disdained to
answer them. He knew who he was, and what his grandfather had
been, and he never cared a--short word--what sort of stuff long
tongues might prate of him. Barbarous broad-drawlers, murderers of
his Majesty's English, could they even pronounce the name of an
officer highly distinguished for many years in both of the royal
services? That was his description, and the Yorkshire yokels might
go and read it--if read they could--in the pages of authority.
Like the celebrated calf that sucked two cows, Carroway had drawn
royal pay, though in very small drains, upon either element,
beginning with a skeleton regiment, and then, when he became too
hot for it, diving off into a frigate as a recommended volunteer.
Here he was more at home, though he never ceased longing to be a
general; and having the credit of fighting well ashore, he was
looked at with interest when he fought a fight at sea. He fought
it uncommonly well, and it was good, and so many men fell that he
picked up his commission, and got into a fifty-two-gun ship. After
several years of service, without promotion--for his grandfather's
name was worn out now, and the wars were not properly constant--
there came a very lively succession of fights, and Carroway got
into all of them, or at least into all the best of them. And he
ought to have gone up much faster than he did, and he must have
done so but for his long lean jaws, the which are the worst things
that any man can have. Not only because of their own consumption
and slow length of leverage, but mainly on account of the sadness
they impart, and the timid recollection of a hungry wolf, to the
man who might have lifted up a fatter individual.
But in Rodney's great encounter with the Spanish fleet, Carroway
showed such a dauntless spirit, and received such a wound, that it
was impossible not to pay him some attention. His name was near
the bottom of a very long list, but it made a mark on some one's
memory, depositing a chance of coming up some day, when he should
be reported hit again. And so good was his luck that he soon was
hit again, and a very bad hit it was; but still he got over it
without promotion, because that enterprise was one in which nearly
all our men ran away, and therefore required to be well pushed up
for the sake of the national honor. When such things happen, the
few who stay behind must be left behind in the Gazette as well.
That wound, therefore, seemed at first to go against him, but he
bandaged it, and plastered it, and hoped for better luck. And his
third wound truly was a blessed one, a slight one, and taken in the
proper course of things, without a slur upon any of his comrades.
This set him up again with advancement and appointment, and enabled
him to marry and have children seven.
The lieutenant was now about fifty years of age, gallant and lively
as ever, and resolute to attend to his duty and himself as well.
His duty was now along shore, in command of the Coast-guard of the
East District; for the loss of a good deal of one heel made it hard
for him to step about as he should do when afloat. The place
suited him, and he was fond of it, although he grumbled sometimes
about his grandfather, and went on as if his office was beneath
him. He abused all his men, and all the good ones liked him, and
respected him for his clear English. And he enjoyed this free
exercise of language out-of-doors, because inside his threshold he
was on his P's and Q's. To call him "ugly Carroway," as coarse
people did, because of a scar across his long bold nose, was petty
and unjust, and directly contradicted by his own and his wife's
opinion. For nobody could have brighter eyes, or a kindlier smile,
and more open aspect in the forepart of the week, while his Sunday
shave retained its influence, so far as its limited area went, for
he kept a long beard always. By Wednesday he certainly began to
look grim, and on Saturday ferocious, pending the advent of the
Bridlington barber, who shaved all the Quay every Sunday. But his
mind was none the worse, and his daughters liked him better when he
rasped their young cheeks with his beard, and paid a penny. For to
his children he was a loving and tender-hearted father, puzzled at
their number, and sometimes perplexed at having to feed and clothe
them, yet happy to give them his last and go without, and even
ready to welcome more, if Heaven should be pleased to send them.
But Mrs. Carroway, most fidgety of women, and born of a well-shorn
family, was unhappy from the middle to the end of the week that she
could not scrub her husband's beard off. The lady's sense of human
crime, and of everything hateful in creation, expressed itself
mainly in the word "dirt." Her rancor against that nobly tranquil
and most natural of elements inured itself into a downright
passion. From babyhood she had been notorious for kicking her
little legs out at the least speck of dust upon a tiny red shoe.
Her father--a clergyman--heard so much of this, and had so many
children of a different stamp, that when he came to christen her,
at six months of age (which used to be considered quite an early
time of life), he put upon her the name of "Lauta," to which she
thoroughly acted up; but people having ignorance of foreign tongues
said that he always meant "Matilda."
Such was her nature, and it grew upon her; so that when a young and
gallant officer, tall and fresh, and as clean as a frigate, was
captured by her neat bright eyes, very clean run, and sharp cut-
water, she began to like to look at him. Before very long, his
spruce trim ducks, careful scrape of Brunswick-leather boots, clean
pocket-handkerchiefs, and fine specklessness, were making and
keeping a well-swept path to the thoroughly dusted store-room of
her heart. How little she dreamed, in those virgin days, that the
future could ever contain a week when her Charles would decline to
shave more than once, and then have it done for him on a Sunday!
She hesitated, for she had her thoughts--doubts she disdained to
call them--but still he forgot once to draw his boots sideways,
after having purged the toe and heel, across the bristle of her
father's mat. With the quick eye of love he perceived her frown,
and the very next day he conquered her. His scheme was unworthy,
as it substituted corporate for personal purity; still it
succeeded, as unworthy schemes will do. On the birthday of his
sacred Majesty, Charles took Matilda to see his ship, the 48-gun
frigate Immaculate, commanded by a well-known martinet. Her spirit
fell within her, like the Queen of Sheba's, as she gazed, but
trembled to set down foot upon the trim order and the dazzling
choring. She might have survived the strict purity of all things,
the deck lines whiter than Parian marble, the bulwarks brighter
than the cheek-piece of a grate, the breeches of the guns like
goodly gold, and not a whisker of a rope's end curling the wrong
way, if only she could have espied a swab, or a bucket, or a flake
of holy-stone, or any indicament of labor done. "Artis est celare
artem;" this art was unfathomable.
Matilda was fain to assure herself that the main part of this might
be superficial, like a dish-cover polished with the spots on, and
she lost her handkerchief on purpose to come back and try a little
test-work of her own. This was a piece of unstopped knotting in
the panel of a hatchway, a resinous hole that must catch and keep
any speck of dust meandering on the wayward will of wind. Her
cambric came out as white as it went in!
She surrendered at discretion, and became the prize of Carroway.
Now people at Bridlington Quay declared that the lieutenant, though
he might have carried off a prize, was certainly not the prize-
master; and they even went so far as to say that "he could scarcely
call his soul his own." The matter was no concern of theirs,
neither were their conclusions true. In little things the gallant
officer, for the sake of discipline and peace, submitted to due
authority; and being so much from home, he left all household
matters to a firm control. In return for this, he was always
thought of first, and the best of everything was kept for him, and
Mrs. Carroway quoted him to others as a wonder, though she may not
have done so to himself. And so, upon the whole, they got on very
well together.
Now on this day, when the lieutenant had exhausted a grumble of
unusual intensity, and the fair Geraldine (his eldest child) had
obeyed him to the letter, by keeping her mouth full while she
warmed a plate for him, it was not long before his usual luck
befell the bold Carroway. Rap, rap, came a knock at the side door
of his cottage--a knock only too familiar; and he heard the gruff
voice of Cadman--"Can I see his honor immediately?"
"No, you can not," replied Mrs. Carroway. "One would think you
were all in a league to starve him. No sooner does he get half a
mouthful--"
"Geraldine, put it on the hob, my dear, and a basin over it.
Matilda, my love, you know my maxim--'Duty first, dinner
afterward.' Cadman, I will come with you."
The revenue officer took up his hat (which had less time now than
his dinner to get cold) and followed Cadman to the usual place for
holding privy councils. This was under the heel of the pier (which
was then about half as long as now) at a spot where the outer wall
combed over, to break the crest of the surges in the height of a
heavy eastern gale. At neap tides, and in moderate weather, this
place was dry, with a fine salt smell; and with nothing in front of
it but the sea, and nothing behind it but solid stone wall, any one
would think that here must be commune sacred, secret, and secluded
from eavesdroppers. And yet it was not so, by reason of a very
simple reason.
Upon the roadway of the pier, and over against a mooring-post,
where the parapet and the pier itself made a needful turn toward
the south, there was an equally needful thing, a gully-hole with an
iron trap to carry off the rain that fell, or the spray that broke
upon the fabric; and the outlet of this gully was in the face of
the masonry outside. Carroway, not being gifted with a crooked
mind, had never dreamed that this little gut might conduct the
pulses of the air, like the Tyrant's Ear, and that the trap at the
end might be a trap for him. Yet so it was; and by gently raising
the movable iron frame at the top, a well-disposed person might
hear every word that was spoken in the snug recess below. Cadman
was well aware of this little fact, but left his commander to find
it out.
The officer, always thinly clad (both through the state of his
wardrobe and his dread of effeminate comfort), settled his bony
shoulders against the rough stonework, and his heels upon a groyne,
and gave his subordinate a nod, which meant, "Make no fuss, but out
with it." Cadman, a short square fellow with crafty eyes, began to
do so.
"Captain, I have hit it off at last. Hackerbody put me wrong last
time, through the wench he hath a hankering after. This time I got
it, and no mistake, as right as if the villain lay asleep 'twixt
you and me, and told us all about it with his tongue out; and a
good thing for men of large families like me."
"All that I have heard such a number of times," his commander
answered, crustily, "that I whistle, as we used to do in a dead
calm, Cadman. An old salt like you knows how little comes of
that."
"There I don't quite agree with your honor. I have known a
hurricane come from whistling. But this time there is no woman
about it, and the penny have come down straightforrard. New moon
Tuesday next, and Monday we slips first into that snug little cave.
He hath a' had his last good run."
"How much is coming this time, Cadman? I am sick and tired of
those three caves. It is all old woman's talk of caves, while they
are running south, upon the open beach."
"Captain, it is a big venture--the biggest of all the summer, I do
believe. Two thousand pounds, if there is a penny, in it. The
schooner, and the lugger, and the ketch, all to once, of purpose to
send us scattering. But your honor knows what we be after most.
No woman in it this time, Sir. The murder has been of the women,
all along. When there is no woman, I can see my way. We have got
the right pig by the ear this time."
"John Cadman, your manner of speech is rude. You forget that your
commanding officer has a wife and family, three-quarters of which
are female. You will give me your information without any rude
observations as to sex, of which you, as a married man, should be
ashamed. A man and his wife are one flesh, Cadman, and therefore
you are a woman yourself, and must labor not to disgrace yourself.
Now don't look amazed, but consider these things. If you had not
been in a flurry, like a woman, you would not have spoiled my
dinner so. I will meet you at the outlook at six o'clock. I have
business on hand of importance."
With these words Carroway hastened home, leaving Cadman to mutter
his wrath, and then to growl it, when his officer was out of ear-
shot.
"Never a day, nor an hour a'most, without he insulteth of me. A
woman, indeed! Well, his wife may be a man, but what call hath he
to speak of mine so? John Cadman a woman, and one flesh with his
wife! Pretty news that would be for my missus!"
CHAPTER XIV
SERIOUS CHARGES
"Stephen, if it was anybody else, you would listen to me in a
moment," said Mrs. Anerley to her lord, a few days after that
little interview in the Bempton Lane; "for instance, if it was poor
Willie, how long would you be in believing it? But because it is
Mary, you say 'pooh! pooh!' And I may as well talk to the old
cracked churn."
"First time of all my born days," the farmer answered, with a
pleasant smile, "that ever I was resembled to a churn. But a man's
wife ought to know best about un."
"Stephen, it is not the churn--I mean you; and you never should
attempt to ride off in that sort of way. I tell you Mary hath a
mischief on her mind; and you never ought to bring up old churns to
me. As long as I can carry almost anything in mind, I have been
considered to be full of common-sense. And what should I use it
upon, Captain Anerley, without it was my own daughter?"
The farmer was always conquered when she called him "Captain
Anerley." He took it to point at him as a pretender, a coxcomb
fond of titles, a would-be officer who took good care to hold aloof
from fighting. And he knew in his heart that he loved to be called
"Captain Anerley" by every one who meant it.
"My dear," he said, in a tone of submission, and with a look that
grieved her, "the knowledge of such things is with you. I can not
enter into young maids' minds, any more than command a company."
"Stephen, you could do both, if you chose, better than ten of
eleven who do it. For, Stephen, you have a very tender mind, and
are not at all like a churn, my dear. That was my manner of
speech, you ought to know, because from my youngest days I had a
crowd of imagination. You remember that, Stephen, don't you?"
"I remember, Sophy, that in the old time you never resembled me to
a churn, let alone a cracked one. You used to christen me a
pillar, and a tree, and a rock, and a polished corner; but there,
what's the odds, when a man has done his duty? The names of him
makes no difference."
"'Twist you and me, my dear," she said, "nothing can make any
difference. We know one another too well for that. You are all
that I ever used to call you, before I knew better about you, and
when I used to dwell upon your hair and your smile. You know what
I used to say of them, now, Stephen?"
"Most complimentary--highly complimentary! Another young woman
brought me word of it, and it made me stick firm when my mind was
doubtful."
"And glad you ought to be that you did stick firm. And you have
the Lord to thank for it, as well as your own sense. But no time
to talk of our old times now. They are coming up again, with those
younkers, I'm afraid. Willie is like a Church; and Jack--no chance
of him getting the chance of it; but Mary, your darling of the lot,
our Mary--her mind is unsettled, and a worry coming over her; the
same as with me when I saw you first."
"It is the Lord that directs those things," the farmer answered,
steadfastly; "and Mary hath the sense of her mother, I believe.
That it is maketh me so fond on her. If the young maid hath taken
a fancy, it will pass, without a bit of substance to settle on.
Why, how many fancies had you, Sophy, before you had the good luck
to clap eyes on me?"
"That is neither here nor there," his wife replied, audaciously;
"how many times have you asked such questions, which are no concern
of yours? You could not expect me, before ever I saw you, not to
have any eyes or ears. I had plenty to say for myself; and I was
not plain; and I acted accordingly."
Master Anerley thought about this, because he had heard it and
thought of it many times before. He hated to think about anything
new, having never known any good come of it; and his thoughts would
rather flow than fly, even in the fugitive brevity of youth. And
now, in his settled way, his practice was to tread thought deeper
into thought, as a man in deep snow keeps the track of his own
boots, or as a child writes ink on pencil in his earliest copy-
books. "You acted according," he said; "and Mary might act
according to you, mother."
"How can you talk so, Stephen? That would be a different thing
altogether. Young girls are not a bit like what they used to be in
my time. No steadiness, no diligence, no duty to their parents.
Gadding about is all they think of, and light-headed chatter, and
saucy ribbons."
"May be so with some of them. But I never see none of that in
Mary."
"Mary is a good girl, and well brought up," her mother could not
help admitting, "and fond of her home, and industrious. But for
all that, she must be looked after sharply. And who can look after
a child like her mother? I can tell you one thing, Master Stephen:
your daughter Mary has more will of her own than the rest of your
family all put together, including even your own good wife."
"Prodigious!" cried the farmer, while he rubbed his hands and
laughed--"prodigious, and a man might say impossible. A young lass
like Mary, such a coaxing little poppet, as tender as a lambkin,
and as soft as wool!"
"Flannel won't only run one way; no more won't Mary," said her
mother. "I know her better a long sight than you do; and I say if
ever Mary sets her heart on any one, have him she will, be he
cowboy, thief, or chimney-sweep. So now you know what to expect,
Master Anerley."
Stephen Anerley never made light of his wife's opinions in those
few cases wherein they differed from his own. She agreed with him
so generally that in common fairness he thought very highly of her
wisdom, and the present subject was one upon which she had an
especial right to be heard.
"Sophy," he said, as he set up his coat to be off to a cutting of
clover on the hill--for no reaping would begin yet for another
month--"the things you have said shall abide in my mind. Only you
be a-watching of the little wench. Harry Tanfield is the man I
would choose for her of all others. But I never would force any
husband on a lass; though stern would I be to force a bad one off,
or one in an unfit walk of life. No inkle in your mind who it is,
or wouldst have told me?"
"Well, I may, or I may not. I never like to speak promiscuous.
You have the first right to know what I think. But I beg you to
let me be a while. Not even to you, Steve, would I say it, without
more to go upon than there is yet. I might do the lass a great
wrong in my surmising; and then you would visit my mistake on me,
for she is the apple of your eye, no doubt."
"There is never such another maid in all York County, nor in
England, to my thinking."
"She is my daughter as well as yours, and I would be the last to
make cheap of her. I will not say another word until I know. But
if I am right--which the Lord forbid--we shall both be ashamed of
her, Stephen."
"The Lord forbid! The Lord forbid! Amen. I will not hear another
word." The farmer snatched up his hat, and made off with a haste
unusual for him, while his wife sat down, and crossed her arms, and
began to think rather bitterly. For, without any dream of such a
possibility, she was jealous sometimes of her own child. Presently
the farmer rushed back again, triumphant with a new idea. His eyes
were sparkling, and his step full of spring, and a brisk smile
shone upon his strong and ruddy face.
"What a pair of stupes we must be to go on so!" he cried, with a
couple of bright guineas in his hand. "Mary hath not had a new
frock even, going on now for a year and a half. Sophy, it is
enough to turn a maid into thinking of any sort of mischief. Take
you these and make everything right. I was saving them up for her
birthday, but maybe another will turn up by that. My dear, you
take them, and never be afeared."
"Stephen, you may leave them, if you like. I shall not be in any
haste to let them go. Either give them to the lass yourself, or
leave it to me purely. She shall not have a sixpence, unless it is
deserved."
"Of course I leave it in your hands, wife. I never come between
you and your children. But young folk go piping always after money
now; and even our Mary might be turning sad without it."
He hastened off again, without hearing any more; for he knew that
some hours of strong labor were before him, and to meet them with a
heavy heart would be almost a new thing for him. Some time ago he
had begun to hold the plough of heaviness, through the difficult
looseness of Willie's staple, and the sudden maritime slope of
Jack; yet he held on steadily through all this, with the strength
of homely courage. But if in the pride of his heart, his Mary, he
should find no better than a crooked furrow, then truly the labor
of his latter days would be the dull round of a mill horse.
Now Mary, in total ignorance of that council held concerning her,
and even of her mother's bad suspicions, chanced to come in at the
front porch door soon after her father set off to his meadows by
way of the back yard. Having been hard at work among her flowers,
she was come to get a cupful of milk for herself, and the cheery
content and general goodwill encouraged by the gardener's gentle
craft were smiling on her rosy lips and sparkling in her eyes. Her
dress was as plain as plain could be--a lavender twill cut and
fitted by herself--and there was not an ornament about her that
came from any other hand than Nature's. But simple grace of
movement and light elegance of figure, fair curves of gentle face
and loving kindness of expression, gladdened with the hope of
youth--what did these want with smart dresses, golden brooches, and
two guineas? Her mother almost thought of this when she called
Mary into the little parlor. And the two guineas lay upon the
table.
"Mary, can you spare a little time to talk with me? You seem
wonderfully busy, as usual."
"Mother, will you never make allowance for my flowers? They depend
upon the weather, and they must have things accordingly."
"Very well; let them think about what they want next, while you sit
down a while and talk with me."
The girl was vexed; for to listen to a lecture, already manifest in
her mother's eyes, was a far less agreeable job than gardening.
And the lecture would have done as well by candle-light, which
seldom can be said of any gardening. However, she took off her
hat, and sat down, without the least sign of impatience, and
without any token of guilt, as her mother saw, and yet stupidly
proceeded just the same.
"Mary," she began, with a gaze of stern discretion, which the girl
met steadfastly and pleasantly, "you know that I am your own
mother, and bound to look after you well, while you are so very
young; for though you are sensible some ways, Mary, in years and in
experience what are you but a child? Of the traps of the world and
the wickedness of people you can have no knowledge. You always
think the best of everybody; which is a very proper thing to do,
and what I have always brought you up to, and never would dream of
discouraging. And with such examples as your father and your
mother, you must be perverse to do otherwise. Still, it is my duty
to warn you, Mary--and you are getting old enough to want it--that
the world is not made up of fathers and mothers, brothers and
sisters, and good uncles. There are always bad folk who go
prowling about like wolves in--wolves in--what is it--"
"Sheep's clothing," the maiden suggested, with a smile, and then
dropped her eyes maliciously.
"How dare you be pert, miss, correcting your own mother? Do I ever
catch you reading of your Bible? But you seem to know so much
about it, perhaps you have met some of them?"
"How can I tell, mother, when you won't tell me?"
"I tell you, indeed! It is your place to tell me, I think. And
what is more, I insist at once upon knowing all about it. What
makes you go on in the way that you are doing? Do you take me for
a drumledore, you foolish child? On Tuesday afternoon I saw you
sewing with a double thread. Your father had potato-eyes upon his
plate on Sunday; and which way did I see you trying to hang up a
dish-cover? But that is nothing; fifty things you go wandering
about in; and always out, on some pretense, as if the roof you were
born under was not big enough for you. And then your eyes--I have
seen your eyes flash up, as if you were fighting; and the bosom of
your Sunday frock was loose in church two buttons; it was not hot
at all to speak of, and there was a wasp next pew. All these
things make me unhappy, Mary. My darling, tell me what it is."
Mary listened with great amazement to this catalogue of crimes. At
the time of their commission she had never even thought of them,
although she was vexed with herself when she saw one eye--for in
verity that was all--of a potato upon her father's plate. Now she
blushed when she heard of the buttons of her frock--which was only
done because of tightness, and showed how long she must have worn
it; but as to the double thread, she was sure that nothing of that
sort could have happened.
"Why, mother dear," she said, quite softly, coming up in her
coaxing way, which nobody could resist, because it was true and
gentle lovingness, "you know a hundred times more than I do. I
have never known of any of the sad mistakes you speak of, except
about the potato-eye, and then I had a round-pointed knife. But I
want to make no excuses, mother; and there is nothing the matter
with me. Tell me what you mean about the wolves."
"My child," said her mother, whose face she was kissing, while they
both went on with talking, "it is no good trying to get over me.
Either you have something on your mind, or you have not--which is
it?"
"Mother, what can I have on my mind? I have never hurt any one,
and never mean to do it. Every one is kind to me, and everybody
likes me, and of course I like them all again. And I always have
plenty to do, in and out, as you take very good care, dear mother.
My father loves me, and so do you, a great deal more than I
deserve, perhaps. I am happy in a Sunday frock that wants more
stuff to button; and I have only one trouble in all the world.
When I think of the other girls I see--"
"Never mind them, my dear. What is your one trouble?"
"Mother, as if you could help knowing! About my dear brother Jack,
of course. Jack was so wonderfully good to me! I would walk on my
hands and knees all the way to York to get a single glimpse of
him."
"You would never get as far as the rick-yard hedge. You children
talk such nonsense. Jack ran away of his own free-will, and out of
downright contrariness. He has repented of it only once, I dare
say, and that has been ever since he did it, and every time he
thought of it. I wish he was home again, with all my heart, for I
can not bear to lose my children. And Jack was as good a boy as
need be, when he got everything his own way. Mary, is that your
only trouble? Stand where I can see you plainly, and tell me every
word the truth. Put your hair back from your eyes now, like the
catechism."
"If I were saying fifty catechisms, what more could I do than speak
the truth?" Mary asked this with some little vexation, while she
stood up proudly before her mother, and clasped her hands behind
her back. "I have told you everything I know, except one little
thing, which I am not sure about."
"What little thing, if you please? and how can you help being sure
about it, positive as you are about everything?"
"Mother, I mean that I have not been sure whether I ought to tell
you; and I meant to tell my father first, when there could be no
mischief."
"Mary, I can scarcely believe my ears. To tell your father before
your mother, and not even him until nothing could be done to stop
it, which you call 'mischief!' I insist upon knowing at once what
it is. I have felt that you were hiding something. How very
unlike you, how unlike a child of mine!"
"You need not disturb yourself, mother dear. It is nothing of any
importance to me, though to other people it might be. And that is
the reason why I kept it to myself."
"Oh, we shall come to something by-and-by! One would really think
you were older than your mother. Now, miss, if you please, let us
judge of your discretion. What is it that you have been hiding so
long?"
Mary's face grew crimson now, but with anger rather than with
shame; she had never thought twice about Robin Lyth with anything
warmer than pity, but this was the very way to drive her into
dwelling in a mischievous manner upon him.
"What I have been hiding," she said, most distinctly, and
steadfastly looking at her mother, "is only that I have had two
talks with the great free-trader Robin Lyth."
"That arrant smuggler! That leader of all outlaws! You have been
meeting him on the sly!"
"Certainly not. But I met him once by chance; and then, as a
matter of business, I was forced to meet him again, dear mother."
"These things are too much for me," Mrs. Anerley said, decisively.
"When matters have come to such a pass, I must beg your dear father
to see to them."
"Very well, mother; I would rather have it so. May I go now and
make an end of my gardening?"
"Certainly--as soon as you have made an end of me, as you must
quite have laid your plans to do. I have seen too much to be
astonished any more. But to think that a child of mine, my one and
only daughter, who looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth,
should be hand in glove with the wickedest smuggler of the age, the
rogue everybody shoots at--but can not hit him, because he was born
to be hanged---the by-name, the by-word, the by-blow, Robin Lyth!"
Mrs. Anerley covered her face with both hands.
"How would you like your own second cousin," said Mary, plucking up
her spirit, "your own second cousin, Mistress Cockscroft, to hear
you speak so of the man that supports them at the risk of his life,
every hour of it? He may be doing wrong--it is not for me to say--
but he does it very well, and he does it nobly. And what did you
show me in your drawer, dear mother? And what did you wear when
that very cruel man, Captain Carroway, came here to dine on
Sunday?"
"You wicked, undutiful child! Go away! I wish to have nothing
more to say to you."
"No, I will not go away," cried Mary, with her resolute spirit in
her eyes and brow; "when false and cruel charges are brought
against me, I have the right to speak, and I will use it. I am not
hand in glove with Robin Lyth, or any other Robin. I think a
little more of myself than that. If I have done any wrong, I will
meet it, and be sorry, and submit to any punishment. I ought to
have told you before, perhaps; that is the worst you can say of it.
But I never attached much importance to it; and when a man is
hunted so, was I to join his enemies? I have only seen him twice:
the first time by purest accident, and the second time to give him
back a piece of his own property. And I took my brother with me;
but he ran away, as usual."
"Of course, of course. Every one to blame but you, miss. However,
we shall see what your father has to say. You have very nearly
taken all my breath away; but I shall expect the whole sky to
tumble in upon us if Captain Anerley approves of Robin Lyth as a
sweetheart for his daughter."
"I never thought of Captain Lyth; and Captain Lyth never thought of
me. But I can tell you one thing, mother--if you wanted to make me
think of him, you could not do it better than by speaking so
unjustly."
"After that perhaps you will go back to your flowers. I have heard
that they grow very fine ones in Holland. Perhaps you have got
some smuggled tulips, my dear."
Mary did not condescend to answer, but said to herself, as she went
to work again, "Tulips in August! That is like the rest of it.
However, I am not going to be put out, when I feel that I have not
done a single bit of harm." And she tried to be happy with her
flowers, but could not enter into them as before.
Mistress Anerley was as good as her word, at the very first
opportunity. Her husband returned from the clover-stack tired and
hungry, and angry with a man who had taken too much beer, and ran
at him with a pitchfork; angry also with his own son Willie for not
being anywhere in the way to help. He did not complain; and his
wife knew at once that he ought to have done so, to obtain relief.
She perceived that her own discourse about their daughter was still
on his mind, and would require working off before any more was said
about it. And she felt as sure as if she saw it that in his
severity against poor Willie--for not doing things that were
beneath him--her master would take Mary's folly as a joke, and fall
upon her brother, who was so much older, for not going on to
protect and guide her. So she kept till after supper-time her
mouthful of bad tidings.
And when the farmer heard it all, as he did before going to sleep
that night, he had smoked three pipes of tobacco, and was calm; he
had sipped (for once in a way) a little Hollands, and was hopeful.
And though he said nothing about it, he felt that without any order
of his, or so much as the faintest desire to be told of it, neither
of these petty comforts would bear to be rudely examined of its
duty. He hoped for the best, and he believed the best, and if the
king was cheated, why, his loyal subject was the same, and the
women were their masters.
"Have no fear, no fear," he muttered back through the closing gate
of sleep; "Mary knows her business--business--" and he buzzed it off
into a snore.
In the morning, however, he took a stronger and more serious view
of the case, pronouncing that Mary was only a young lass, and no
one could ever tell about young lasses. And he quite fell into his
wife's suggestion, that the maid could be spared till harvest-time,
of which (even with the best of weather) there was little chance
now for another six weeks, the season being late and backward. So
it was resolved between them both that the girl should go on the
following day for a visit to her uncle Popplewell, some miles the
other side of Filey. No invitation was required; for Mr. and Mrs.
Popplewell, a snug and comfortable pair, were only too glad to have
their niece, and had often wanted to have her altogether; but the
farmer would never hear of that.
CHAPTER XV
CAUGHT AT LAST
While these little things were doing thus, the coast from the mouth
of the Tees to that of Humber, and even the inland parts, were in a
great stir of talk and work about events impending. It must not be
thought that Flamborough, although it was Robin's dwelling-place--
so far as he had any--was the principal scene of his operations, or
the stronghold of his enterprise. On the contrary, his liking was
for quiet coves near Scarborough, or even to the north of Whitby,
when the wind and tide were suitable. And for this there were many
reasons which are not of any moment now.
One of them showed fine feeling and much delicacy on his part. He
knew that Flamborough was a place of extraordinary honesty, where
every one of his buttons had been safe, and would have been so
forever; and strictly as he believed in the virtue of his own free
importation, it was impossible for him not to learn that certain
people thought otherwise, or acted as if they did so. From the
troubles which such doubts might cause, he strove to keep the
natives free.
Flamburians scarcely understood this largeness of good-will to
them. Their instincts told them that free trade was every Briton's
privilege; and they had the finest set of donkeys on the coast for
landing it. But none the more did any of them care to make a
movement toward it. They were satisfied with their own old way--to
cast the net their father cast, and bait the hook as it was baited
on their good grandfather's thumb.
Yet even Flamborough knew that now a mighty enterprise was in hand.
It was said, without any contradiction, that young Captain Robin
had laid a wager of one hundred guineas with the worshipful mayor
of Scarborough and the commandant of the castle, that before the
new moon he would land on Yorkshire coast, without firing pistol or
drawing steel, free goods to the value of two thousand pounds, and
carry them inland safely. And Flamborough believed that he would
do it.
Dr. Upround's house stood well, as rectories generally contrive to
do. No place in Flamborough parish could hope to swindle the wind
of its vested right, or to embezzle much treasure of the sun, but
the parsonage made a good effort to do both, and sometimes for
three days together got the credit of succeeding. And the dwellers
therein, who felt the edge of the difference outside their own
walls, not only said but thoroughly believed that they lived in a
little Goshen.
For the house was well settled in a wrinkle of the hill expanding
southward, and encouraging the noon. From the windows a pleasant
glimpse might be obtained of the broad and tranquil anchorage,
peopled with white or black, according as the sails went up or
down; for the rectory stood to the southward of the point, as the
rest of Flamborough surely must have stood, if built by any other
race than armadillos. But to see all those vessels, and be sure
what they were doing, the proper place was a little snug "gazebo,"
chosen and made by the doctor himself, near the crest of the gully
he inhabited.
Here upon a genial summer day--when it came, as it sometimes dared
to do--was the finest little nook upon the Yorkshire coast for
watching what Virgil calls "the sail-winged sea." Not that a man
could see round the Head, unless his own were gifted with very
crooked eyes; but without doing that (which would only have
disturbed the tranquillity of his prospect) there was plenty to
engage him in the peaceful spread of comparatively waveless waters.
Here might he see long vessels rolling, not with great misery, but
just enough to make him feel happy in the firmness of his bench,
and little jolly-boats it was more jolly to be out of, and faraway
heads giving genial bobs, and sea-legs straddled in predicaments
desirable rather for study than for practice. All was highly
picturesque and nice, and charming for the critic who had never got
to do it.
"Now, papa, you must come this very moment," cried Miss Janetta
Upround, the daughter of the house, and indeed the only daughter,
with a gush of excitement, rushing into the study of this deeply
read divine; "there is something doing that I can not understand.
You must bring up the spy-glass at once and explain. I am sure
that there is something very wrong."
"In the parish, my dear?" the rector asked, with a feeble attempt
at malice, for he did not want to be disturbed just now, and for
weeks he had tried (with very poor success) to make Janetta useful;
for she had no gift in that way.
"No, not in the parish at all, papa, unless it runs out under
water, as I am certain it ought to do, and make every one of those
ships pay tithe. If the law was worth anything, they would have to
do it. They get all the good out of our situation, and they save
whole thousands of pounds at a time, and they never pay a penny,
nor even hoist a flag, unless the day is fine, and the flag wants
drying. But come along, papa, now. I really can not wait; and
they will have done it all without us."
"Janetta, take the glass and get the focus. I will come presently,
presently. In about two minutes--by the time that you are ready."
"Very well, papa. It is very good of you. I see quite clearly
what you want to do; and I hope you will do it. But you promise
not to play another game now?"
"My dear, I will promise that with pleasure. Only do please be off
about your business."
The rector was a most inveterate and insatiable chess-player. In
the household, rather than by it, he was, as a matter of lofty
belief, supposed to be deeply engaged with theology, or magisterial
questions of almost equal depth, or (to put it at the lowest)
parochial affairs, the while he was solidly and seriously engaged
in getting up the sound defense to some Continental gambit. And
this, not only to satisfy himself upon some point of theory, but
from a nearer and dearer point of view--for he never did like to be
beaten.
At present he was laboring to discover the proper defense to a new
and slashing form of the Algaier gambit, by means of which Robin
Lyth had won every game in which he had the move, upon their last
encounter. The great free-trader, while a boy, had shown an
especial aptitude for chess, and even as a child he had seemed to
know the men when first, by some accident, he saw them. The rector
being struck by this exception to the ways of childhood--whose
manner it is to take chess-men for "dollies," or roll them about
like nine-pins--at once included in the education of "Izunsabe,"
which he took upon himself, a course of elemental doctrine in the
one true game. And the boy fought his way up at such a pace that
he jumped from odds of queen and rook to pawn and two moves in less
than two years. And now he could almost give odds to his tutor,
though he never presumed to offer them; and trading as he did with
enlightened merchants of large Continental sea-ports, who had
plenty of time on their hands and played well, he imported new
openings of a dash and freedom which swallowed the ground up under
the feet of the steady-going players, who had never seen a book
upon their favorite subject. Of course it was competent to all
these to decline such fiery onslaught; but chivalry and the true
love of analysis (which without may none play chess) compelled the
acceptance of the challenge, even with a trembling forecast of the
taste of dust.
"Never mind," said Dr. Upround, as he rose and stretched himself, a
good straight man of threescore years, with silver hair that shone
like silk; "it has not come to me yet; but it must, with a little
more perseverance. At Cambridge I beat everybody; and who is this
uncircumcised--at least, I beg his pardon, for I did myself baptize
him--but who is Robin Lyth, to mate his pastor and his master? All
these gambits are like a night attack. If once met properly and
expelled, you are in the very heart of the enemy's camp. He has
left his own watch-fires to rush at yours. The next game I play, I
shall be sure to beat him."
Fully convinced of this great truth, he took a strong oak staff and
hastened to obey his daughter. Miss Janetta Upround had not only
learned by nature, but also had been carefully taught by her
parents, and by every one, how to get her own way always, and to be
thanked for taking it. But she had such a happy nature, full of
kindness and good-will, that other people's wishes always seemed to
flow into her own, instead of being swept aside. Over her father
her government was in no sort constitutional, nor even a quiet
despotism sweetened with liberal illusions, but as pure a piece of
autocracy as the Continent could itself contain, in the time of
this first Napoleon.
"Papa, what a time you have been, to be sure!" she exclaimed, as
the doctor came gradually up, probing his way in perfect leisure,
and fragrant still of that gambit; "one would think that your
parish was on dry land altogether, while the better half of it, as
they call themselves--though the women are in righteousness the
better half a hundredfold--"
"My dear, do try to talk with some little sense of arithmetic, if
no other. A hundredfold the half would be the unit multiplied by
fifty. Not to mention that there can be no better half--"
"Yes, there can, papa, ever so many; and you may see one in mamma
every day. Now you put one eye to this glass, and the half is
better than the whole. With both, you see nothing; with one,
you see better, fifty times better, than with both before. Don't
talk of arithmetic after that. It is algebra now, and quod
demonstrandum."
"To reason with the less worthy gender is degeneration of reason.
What would they have said in the Senate-house, Janetta? However, I
will obey your orders. What am I to look at?"
"A tall and very extraordinary man, striking his arms out, thus and
thus. I never saw any one looking so excited; and he flourishes a
long sword now and again, as if he would like to cut everybody's
head off. There he has been going from ship to ship, for an hour
or more, with a long white boat, and a lot of men jumping after
him. Every one seems to be scared of him, and he stumps along the
deck just as if he were on springs, and one spring longer than the
other. You see that heavy brig outside the rest, painted with ten
port-holes; well, she began to make sail and run away, but he fired
a gun--quite a real cannon--and she had to come back again and drop
her colors. Oh, is it some very great admiral, papa? Perhaps Lord
Nelson himself; I would go and be seasick for three days to see
Lord Nelson. Papa, it must be Lord Nelson."
"My dear, Lord Nelson is a little, short man, with a very brisk
walk, and one arm gone. Now let me see who this can be.
Whereabout is he now, Janetta?"
"Do you see that clumsy-looking schooner, papa, just behind a
pilot-boat? He is just in front of her foremast--making such a
fuss--"
"What eyes you have got, my child! You see better without the
glass than I do with it.--Oh, now I have him! Why, I might have
guessed. Of course it is that very active man and vigilant officer
Lieutenant Carroway."
"Captain Carroway from Bridlington, papa? Why, what can he be
doing with such authority? I have often heard of him, but I
thought he was only a coast-guard."
"He is, as you say, showing great authority, and, I fear, using
very bad language, for which he is quite celebrated. However, the
telescope refuses to repeat it, for which it is much to be
commended. But every allowance must be made for a man who has to
deal with a wholly uncultivated race, and not of natural piety,
like ours."
"Well, papa, I doubt if ours have too much, though you always make
the best of them. But let me look again, please; and do tell me
what he can be doing there."
"You know that the revenue officers must take the law into their
own hands sometimes. There have lately been certain rumors of some
contraband proceedings on the Yorkshire coast. Not in Flamborough
parish, of course, and perhaps--probably, I may say--a long way
off---"
"Papa dear, will you never confess that free trade prevails and
flourishes greatly even under your own dear nose?"
"Facts do not warrant me in any such assertion. If the fact were
so, it must have been brought officially before me. I decline to
listen to uncharitable rumors. But however that matter may be,
there are officers on the spot to deal with it. My commission as a
justice of the peace gives me no cognizance of offenses--if such
there are--upon the high seas. Ah! you see something particular;
my dear, what is it?"
"Captain Carroway has found something, or somebody, of great
importance. He has got a man by the collar, and he is absolutely
dancing with delight. Ah! there he goes, dragging him along the
deck as if he were a cod-fish or a conger. And now, I declare, he
is lashing his arms and legs with a great thick rope. Papa, is
that legal, without even a warrant?"
"I can hardly say how far his powers may extend, and he is just the
man to extend them farther. I only hope not to be involved in the
matter. Maritime law is not my province."
"But, papa, it is much within three miles of the shore, if that has
got anything to do with it. My goodness me! They are all coming
here; I am almost sure that they will apply to you. Yes, two boat-
loads of people, racing to get their oars out, and to be here
first. Where are your spectacles, dear papa? You had better go
and get up the law before they come. You will scarcely have time,
they are coming so fast--a white boat and a black boat. The
prisoner is in the white boat, and the officer has got him by the
collar still. The men in the white boat will want to commit him,
and the men in the black boat are his friends, no doubt, coming for
a habeas corpus--"
"My dear, what nonsense you do talk! What has a simple justice of
the peace--"
"Never mind that, papa; my facts are sound--sounder than yours
about smuggling, I fear. But do hurry in, and get up the law.
I will go and lock both gates, to give you more time."
"Do nothing of the kind, Janetta. A magistrate should be
accessible always; and how can I get up the law, without knowing
what it is to be about--or even a clerk to help me? And perhaps
they are not coming here at all. They may be only landing their
prisoner."
"If that were it, they would not be coming so, but rowing toward
the proper place, Bridlington Quay, where their station-house is.
Papa, you are in for it, and I am getting eager. May I come and
hear all about it? I should be a great support to you, you know.
And they would tell the truth so much better!"
"Janetta, what are you dreaming of? It may even be a case of
secrecy."
"Secrecy, papa, with two boat-loads of men and about thirty ships
involved in it! Oh, do let me hear all about it!"
"Whatever it may be, your presence is not required, and would be
improper. Unless I should happen to want a book; and in that case
I might ring for you."
"Oh, do, papa, do! No one else can ever find them. Promise me now
that you will want a book. If I am not there, there will be no
justice done. I wish you severely to reprimand, whatever the facts
of the case may be, and even to punish, if you can, that tall,
lame, violent, ferocious man, for dragging the poor fellow about
like that, and cutting him with ropes, when completely needless,
and when he was quite at his mercy. It is my opinion that the
other man does not deserve one bit of it; and whatever the law may
be, papa, your duty is to strain it benevolently, and question
every syllable upon the stronger side."
"Perhaps I had better resign, my dear, upon condition that you
shall be appointed in the stead of me. It might be a popular
measure, and would secure universal justice."
"Papa, I would do justice to myself--which is a thing you never do.
But here, they are landing; and they hoist him out as if he were a
sack, or a thing without a joint. They could scarcely be harder
with a man compelled to be hanged to-morrow morning."
"Condemned is what you mean, Janetta. You never will understand
the use of words. What a nice magistrate you would make!"
"There can be no more correct expression. Would any man be hanged
if he were not compelled? Papa, you say the most illegal things
sometimes. Now please to go in and get up your legal points. Let
me go and meet those people for you. I will keep them waiting till
you are quite ready."
"My dear, you will go to your room, and try to learn a little
patience. You begin to be too pat with your own opinions, which in
a young lady is ungraceful. There, you need not cry, my darling,
because your opinions are always sensible, and I value them very
highly; but still you must bear in mind that you are but a girl."
"And behave accordingly, as they say. Nobody can do more so. But
though I am only a girl, papa, can you put your hand upon a better
one?"
"Certainly not, my dear; for going down hill, I can always depend
on you."
Suiting the action to the word, Dr. Upround, whose feet were a
little touched with gout, came down from his outlook to his
kitchen-garden, and thence through the shrubbery back to his own
study, where, with a little sigh, he put away his chess-men, and
heartily hoped that it might not be his favorite adversary who was
coming before him to be sent to jail. For although the good rector
had a warm regard, and even affection, for Robin Lyth, as a waif
cast into his care, and then a pupil wonderfully apt (which breeds
love in the teacher), and after that a most gallant and highly
distinguished young parishioner--with all this it was a difficulty
for him to be ignorant that the law was adverse. More than once he
had striven hard to lead the youth into some better path of life,
and had even induced him to "follow the sea" for a short time in
the merchant service. But the force of nature and of circumstances
had very soon prevailed again, and Robin returned to his old
pursuits with larger experience, and seamanship improved.
A violent ringing at the gate bell, followed by equal urgency upon
the front door, apprised the kind magistrate of a sharp call on his
faculties, and perhaps a most unpleasant one. "The poor boy!" he
said to himself--"poor boy! From Carroway's excitement I greatly
fear that it is indeed poor Robin. How many a grand game have we
had! His new variety of that fine gambit scarcely beginning to be
analyzed; and if I commit him to the meeting next week, when shall
we ever meet again? It will seem as if I did it because he won
three games; and I certainly was a little vexed with him. However,
I must be stern, stern, stern. Show them in, Betsy; I am quite
prepared."
A noise, and a sound of strong language in the hall, and a dragging
of something on the oil-cloth, led up to the entry of a dozen rough
men, pushed on by at least another dozen.
"You will have the manners to take off your hats," said the
magistrate, with all his dignity; "not from any undue deference to
me, but common respect to his Majesty."
"Off with your covers, you sons of"--something, shouted a loud
voice; and then the lieutenant, with his blade still drawn, stood
before them.
"Sheathe your sword, Sir," said Dr. Upround, in a voice which
amazed the officer.
"I beg your Worship's pardon," he began, with his grim face
flushing purple, but his sword laid where it should have been; "but
if you knew half of the worry I have had, you would not care to
rebuke me. Cadman, have you got him by the neck? Keep your
knuckles into him, while I make my deposition."
"Cast that man free, I receive no depositions with a man half
strangled before me."
The men of the coast-guard glanced at their commander, and
receiving a surly nod, obeyed. But the prisoner could not stand as
yet; he gasped for breath, and some one set him on a chair.
"Your Worship, this is a mere matter of form," said Carroway, still
keeping eyes on his prey; "if I had my own way, I would not trouble
you at all, and I believe it to be quite needless. For this man is
an outlaw felon, and not entitled to any grace of law; but I must
obey my orders."
"Certainly you must, Lieutenant Carroway, even though you are
better acquainted with the law. You are ready to be sworn? Take
this book, and follow me."
This being done, the worthy magistrate prepared to write down what
the gallant officer might say, which, in brief, came to this, that
having orders to seize Robin Lyth wherever he might find him, and
having sure knowledge that said Robin was on board of a certain
schooner vessel, the Elizabeth, of Goole, the which he had laden
with goods liable to duty, he, Charles Carroway, had gently laid
hands on him, and brought him to the nearest justice of the peace,
to obtain an order of commitment.
All this, at fifty times the length here given, Lieutenant Carroway
deposed on oath, while his Worship, for want of a clerk, set it
down in his own very neat handwriting. But several very coaly-
looking men, who could scarcely be taught to keep silence, observed
that the magistrate smiled once or twice; and this made them wait a
bit, and wink at one another.
"Very clear indeed, Lieutenant Carroway," said Dr. Upround, with
spectacles on nose. "Good Sir, have the kindness to sign your
deposition. It may become my duty to commit the prisoner, upon
identification. Of that I must have evidence, confirmatory
evidence. But first we will hear what he has to say. Robin Lyth,
stand forward."
"Me no Robin Lyth, Sar; no Robin man or woman," cried the captive,
trying very hard to stand; "me only a poor Francais, make liberty
to what you call--row, row, sweem, sweem, sail, sail, from la belle
France; for why, for why, there is no import to nobody."
"Your Worship, he is always going on about imports," Cadman said,
respectfully; "that is enough to show who he is."
"You may trust me to know him," cried Lieutenant Carroway. "My
fine fellow, no more of that stuff! He can pass himself off for
any countryman whatever. He knows all their jabber, Sir, better
than his own. Put a cork between his teeth, Hackerbody. I never
did see such a noisy rogue. He is Robin Lyth all over."
"I'll be blest if he is, nor under nayther," cried the biggest of
the coaly men; "this here froggy come out of a Chaise and Mary as
had run up from Dunkirk. I know Robin Lyth as well as our own
figure-head. But what good to try reason with that there revenue
hofficer?"
At this, all his friends set a good laugh up, and wanted to give
him a cheer for such a speech; but that being hushed, they were
satisfied with condemning his organs of sight and their own quite
fairly.
"Lieutenant Carroway," his Worship said, amidst an impressive
silence, "I greatly fear that you have allowed zeal, my dear Sir,
to outrun discretion. Robin Lyth is a young, and in many ways
highly respected, parishioner of mine. He may have been guilty of
casual breaches of the laws concerning importation--laws which
fluctuate from year to year, and require deep knowledge of
legislation both to observe and to administer. I heartily trust
that you may not suffer from having discharged your duty in a
manner most truly exemplary, if only the example had been the right
one. This gentleman is no more Robin Lyth than I am."
CHAPTER XVI
DISCIPLINE ASSERTED
As soon as his troublesome visitors were gone, the rector sat down
in his deep arm-chair, laid aside his spectacles, and began to
think. His face, while he thought, lost more and more of the calm
and cheerful expression which made it so pleasant a face to gaze
upon; and he sighed, without knowing it, at some dark ideas, and
gave a little shake of his grand old head. The revenue officer had
called his favorite pupil and cleverest parishioner "a felon
outlaw;" and if that were so, Robin Lyth was no less than a
convicted criminal, and must not be admitted within his doors.
Formerly the regular penalty for illicit importation had been the
forfeiture of the goods when caught, and the smugglers (unless they
made resistance or carried fire-arms) were allowed to escape and
retrieve their bad luck, which they very soon contrived to do. And
as yet, upon this part of the coast, they had not been guilty of
atrocious crimes, such as the smugglers of Sussex and Hampshire--
who must have been utter fiends--committed, thereby raising all the
land against them. Dr. Upround had heard of no proclamation,
exaction, or even capias issued against this young free-trader; and
he knew well enough that the worst offenders were not the bold
seamen who contracted for the run, nor the people of the coast who
were hired for the carriage, but the rich indwellers who provided
all the money, and received the lion's share of all the profits.
And with these the law never even tried to deal. However, the
magistrate-parson resolved that, in spite of all the interest of
tutorship and chess-play, and even all the influence of his wife
and daughter (who were hearty admirers of brave smuggling), he must
either reform this young man, or compel him to keep at a distance,
which would be very sad.
Meanwhile the lieutenant had departed in a fury, which seemed to be
incapable of growing any worse. Never an oath did he utter all the
way to the landing where his boat was left; and his men, who knew
how much that meant, were afraid to do more than just wink at one
another. Even the sailors of the collier schooner forbore to jeer
him, until he was afloat, when they gave him three fine rounds of
mock cheers, to which the poor Frenchman contributed a shriek. For
this man had been most inhospitably treated, through his strange
but undeniable likeness to a perfidious Briton.
"Home!" cried the officer, glowering at those fellows, while his
men held their oars, and were ready to rush at them. "Home, with a
will! Give way, men!" And not another word he spoke, till they
touched the steps at Bridlington. Then he fixed stern eyes upon
Cadman, who vainly strove to meet them, and he said, "Come to me in
one hour and a half." Cadman touched his hat without an answer,
saw to the boat, and then went home along the quay.
Carroway, though of a violent temper, especially when laughed at,
was not of that steadfast and sedentary wrath which chews the cud
of grievances, and feeds upon it in a shady place. He had a good
wife--though a little overclean--and seven fine-appetited children,
who gave him the greatest pleasure in providing victuals. Also, he
had his pipe, and his quiet corners, sacred to the atmosphere and
the private thoughts of Carroway. And here he would often be
ambitious even now, perceiving no good reason why he might not yet
command a line-of-battle ship, and run up his own flag, and nobly
tread his own lofty quarter-deck. If so, he would have Mrs.
Carroway on board, and not only on the boards, but at them; so that
a challenge should be issued every day for any other ship in all
the service to display white so wholly spotless, and black so void
of streakiness. And while he was dwelling upon personal matters--
which, after all, concerned the nation most--he had tried very hard
to discover any reason (putting paltry luck aside) why Horatio
Nelson should be a Lord, and what was more to the purpose, an
admiral, while Charles Carroway (his old shipmate, and in every way
superior, who could eat him at a mouthful, if only he were good
enough) should now be no more than a 'long-shore lieutenant, and a
Jonathan Wild of the revenue. However, as for envying Nelson, the
Lord knew that he would not give his little Geraldine's worst frock
for all the fellow's grand coat of arms, and freedom in a snuff-
box, and golden shields, and devices, this, that, and the other,
with Bona Robas to support them.
To this conclusion he was fairly come, after a good meal, and with
the second glass of the finest Jamaica pine-apple rum--which he
drank from pure principle, because it was not smuggled--steaming
and scenting the blue curls of his pipe, when his admirable wife
came in to say that on no account would she interrupt him.
"My dear, I am busy, and am very glad to hear it. Pish! where have
I put all those accounts?"
"Charles, you are not doing any accounts. When you have done your
pipe and glass, I wish to say a quiet word or two. I am sure that
there is not a woman in a thousand--"
"Matilda, I know it. Nor one in fifty thousand. You are very good
at figures: will you take this sheet away with you? Eight o'clock
will be quite time enough for it."
"My dear, I am always too pleased to do whatever I can to help you.
But I must talk to you now; really I must say a few words about
something, tired as you may be, Charles, and well deserving of a
little good sleep, which you never seem able to manage in bed. You
told me, you know, that you expected Cadman, that surly, dirty
fellow, who delights to spoil my stones, and would like nothing
better than to take the pattern out of our drawing-room
Kidderminster. Now I have a reason for saying something. Charles,
will you listen to me once, just once?"
"I never do anything else," said the husband, with justice, and
meaning no mischief.
"Ah! how very seldom you hear me talk; and when I do, I might just
as well address the winds! But for once, my dear, attend, I do
implore you. That surly, burly Cadman will be here directly, and I
know that you are much put out with him. Now I tell you he is
dangerous, savagely dangerous; I can see it in his unhealthy skin.
Oh, Charles, where have you put down your pipe? I cleaned that
shelf this very morning! How little I thought when I promised to
be yours that you ever would knock out your ashes like that! But
do bear in mind, dear, whatever you do, if anything happened to
you, what ever would become of all of us? All your sweet children
and your faithful wife--I declare you have made two great rings
with your tumbler upon the new cover of the table."
"Matilda, that has been done ever so long. But I am almost certain
this tumbler leaks."
"So you always say; just as if I would allow it. You never will
think of simply wiping the rim every time you use it; when I put
you a saucer for your glass, you forget it; there never was such a
man, I do believe. I shall have to stop the rum and water
altogether."
"No, no, no. I'll do anything you like. I'll have a tumbler made
with a saucer to it--I'll buy a piece of oil-cloth the size of a
foretop-sail--I'll--"
"Charles, no nonsense, if you please: as if I were ever
unreasonable! But your quickness of temper is such that I dread
what you may say to that Cadman. Remember what opportunities he
has, dear. He might shoot you in the dark any night, my darling,
and put it upon the smugglers. I entreat you not to irritate the
man, and make him your enemy. He is so spiteful; and I should be
in terror the whole night long."
"Matilda, in the house you may command me as you please--even in my
own cuddy here. But as regards my duty, you know well that I
permit no interference. And I should have expected you to have
more sense. A pretty officer I should be if I were afraid of my
own men! When a man is to blame, I tell him so, in good round
language, and shall do so now. This man is greatly to blame, and I
doubt whether to consider him a fool or a rogue. If it were not
that he has seven children, as we have, I would discharge him this
very night."
"Charles, I am very sorry for his seven children, but our place is
to think of our own seven first. I beg you, I implore you, to
discharge the man; for he has not the courage to harm you, I
believe, except with the cowardly advantage he has got. Now
promise me either to say nothing to him, or to discharge him, and
be done with him."
"Matilda, of such things you know nothing; and I can not allow you
to say any more."
"Very well, very well. I know my duty. I shall sit up and pray
every dark night you are out, and the whole place will go to the
dogs, of course. Of the smugglers I am not afraid one bit, nor of
any honest fighting, such as you are used to. But oh, my dear
Charles, the very bravest man can do nothing against base
treachery."
"To dream of such things shows a bad imagination," Carroway
answered, sternly; but seeing his wife's eyes fill with tears, he
took her hand gently, and begged her pardon, and promised to be
very careful, "I am the last man to be rash," he said, "after
getting so many more kicks than coppers. I never had a fellow
under my command who would lift a finger to harm me. And you must
remember, my darling Tilly, that I command Englishmen, not
Lascars."
With this she was forced to be content, to the best of her ability;
and Geraldine ran bouncing in from school to fill her father's pipe
for him; so that by the time John Cadman came, his commander had
almost forgotten the wrath created by the failure of the morning.
But unluckily Cadman had not forgotten the words and the look he
received before his comrades.
"Here I am, Sir, to give an account of myself," he said, in an
insolent tone, having taken much liquor to brace him for the
meeting. "Is it your pleasure to say out what you mean?"
"Yes, but not here. You will follow me to the station." The
lieutenant took his favorite staff, and set forth, while his wife,
from the little window, watched him with a very anxious gaze. She
saw her husband stride in front with the long rough gait she knew
so well, and the swing of his arms which always showed that his
temper was not in its best condition; and behind him Cadman
slouched along, with his shoulders up and his red hands clinched.
And the poor wife sadly went back to work, for her life was a truly
anxious one.
The station, as it was rather grandly called, was a hut, about the
size of a four-post bed, upon the low cliff, undermined by the sea,
and even then threatened to be swept away. Here was a tall flag-
staff for signals, and a place for a beacon-light when needed, and
a bench with a rest for a spy-glass. In the hut itself were signal
flags, and a few spare muskets, and a keg of bullets, with maps and
codes hung round the wall, and flint and tinder, and a good many
pipes, and odds and ends on ledges. Carroway was very proud of
this place, and kept the key strictly in his own pocket, and very
seldom allowed a man to pass through the narrow doorway. But he
liked to sit inside, and see them looking desirous to come in.
"Stand there, Cadman," he said, as soon as he had settled himself
in the one hard chair; and the man, though thoroughly primed for
revolt, obeyed the old habit, and stood outside.
"Once more you have misled me, Cadman, and abused my confidence.
More than that, you have made me a common laughing-stock for scores
of fools, and even for a learned gentleman, magistrate of divinity.
I was not content with your information until you confirmed it by
letters you produced from men well known to you, as you said, and
even from the inland trader who had contracted for the venture.
The schooner Elizabeth, of Goole, disguised as a collier, was to
bring to, with Robin Lyth on board of her, and the goods in her
hold under covering of coal, and to run the goods at the South
Flamborough landing this very night. I have searched the Elizabeth
from stem to stern, and the craft brought up alongside of her; and
all I have found is a wretched Frenchman, who skulked so that I
made sure of him, and not a blessed anker of foreign brandy, nor
even a forty-pound bag of tea. You had that packet of letters in
your neck-tie. Hand them to me this moment--"
"If your Honor has made up your mind to think that a sailor of the
Royal Navy--"
"Cadman, none of that! No lick-spittle lies to me; those letters,
that I may establish them! You shall have them back, if they are
right. And I will pay you a half crown for the loan."
"If I was to leave they letters in your hand, I could never hold
head up in Burlington no more."
"That is no concern of mine. Your duty is to hold up your head
with me, and those who find you in bread and butter."
"Precious little butter I ever gets, and very little bread to speak
of. The folk that does the work gets nothing. Them that does
nothing gets the name and game."
"Fellow, no reasoning, but obey me!" Carroway shouted, with his
temper rising. "Hand over those letters, or you leave the
service."
"How can I give away another man's property?" As he said these
words, the man folded his arms, as who should say, "That is all you
get out of me."
"Is that the way you speak to your commanding officer? Who owns
those letters, then, according to your ideas?"
"Butcher Hewson; and he says that you shall have them as soon as he
sees the money for his little bill."
This was a trifle too much for Carroway. Up he jumped with
surprising speed, took one stride through the station door, and
seizing Cadman by the collar, shook him, wrung his ear with the
left hand, which was like a pair of pincers, and then with the
other flung him backward as if he were an empty bag. The fellow
was too much amazed to strike, or close with him, or even swear,
but received the vehement impact without any stay behind him. So
that he staggered back, hat downward, and striking one heel on a
stone, fell over the brink of the shallow cliff to the sand below.
The lieutenant, who never had thought of this, was terribly scared,
and his wrath turned cold. For although the fall was of no great
depth, and the ground at the bottom so soft, if the poor man had
struck it poll foremost, as he fell, it was likely that his neck
was broken. Without any thought of his crippled heel, Carroway
took the jump himself.
As soon as he recovered from the jar, which shook his stiff joints
and stiffer back, he ran to the coast-guardsman and raised him, and
found him very much inclined to swear. This was a good sign, and
the officer was thankful, and raised him in the gravelly sand, and
kindly requested him to have it out, and to thank the Lord as soon
as he felt better. But Cadman, although he very soon came round,
abstained from every token of gratitude. Falling with his mouth
wide open in surprise, he had filled it with gravel of inferior
taste, as a tidy sewer pipe ran out just there, and at every
execration he discharged a little.
"What can be done with a fellow so ungrateful?" cried the
lieutenant, standing stiffly up again; "nothing but to let him come
back to his manners. Hark you, John Cadman, between your bad
words, if a glass of hot grog will restore your right wits, you can
come up and have it, when your clothes are brushed."
With these words Carroway strode off to his cottage, without even
deigning to look back, for a minute had been enough to show him
that no very serious harm was done.
The other man did not stir until his officer was out of sight; and
then he arose and rubbed himself, but did not care to go for his
rummer of hot grog.
"I must work this off," the lieutenant said, as soon as he had told
his wife, and received his scolding; "I can not sit down; I must do
something. My mind is becoming too much for me, I fear. Can you
expect me to be laughed at? I shall take a little sail in the
boat; the wind suits, and I have a particular reason. Expect me,
my dear, when you see me."
In half an hour the largest boat, which carried a brass swivel-gun
in her bows, was stretching gracefully across the bay, with her
three white sails flashing back the sunset. The lieutenant
steered, and he had four men with him, of whom Cadman was not one,
that worthy being left at home to nurse his bruises and his
dudgeon. These four men now were quite marvellously civil, having
heard of their comrade's plight, and being pleased alike with that
and with their commander's prowess. For Cadman was by no means
popular among them, because, though his pay was the same as theirs,
he always tried to be looked up to; the while his manners were not
distinguished, and scarcely could be called polite, when a supper
required to be paid for. In derision of this, and of his desire
for mastery, they had taken to call him "Boatswain Jack," or "John
Boatswain," and provoked him by a subscription to present him with
a pig-whistle. For these were men who liked well enough to receive
hard words from their betters who were masters of their business,
but saw neither virtue nor value in submitting to superior airs
from their equals.
The Royal George, as this boat was called, passed through the fleet
of quiet vessels, some of which trembled for a second visitation;
but not deigning to molest them, she stood on, and rounding
Flamborough Head, passed by the pillar rocks called King and Queen,
and bore up for the North Landing cove. Here sail was taken in,
and oars were manned; and Carroway ordered his men to pull in to
the entrance of each of the well-known caves.
To enter these, when any swell is running, requires great care and
experience; and the Royal George had too much beam to do it
comfortably, even in the best of weather. And now what the sailors
call a "chopping sea" had set in with the turn of the tide,
although the wind was still off-shore; so that even to lie to at
the mouth made rather a ticklish job of it. The men looked at one
another, and did not like it, for a badly handled oar would have
cast them on the rocks, which are villainously hard and jagged, and
would stave in the toughest boat, like biscuit china. However,
they durst not say that they feared it; and by skill and steadiness
they examined all three caves quite enough to be certain that no
boat was in them.
The largest of the three, and perhaps the finest, was the one they
first came to, which already was beginning to be called the cave of
Robin Lyth. The dome is very high, and sheds down light when the
gleam of the sea strikes inward. From the gloomy mouth of it, as
far as they could venture, the lapping of the wavelets could be
heard all round it, without a boat, or even a balk of wood to break
it. Then they tried echo, whose clear answer hesitates where any
soft material is; but the shout rang only of hard rock and glassy
water. To make assurance doubly sure, they lit a blue-light, and
sent it floating through the depths, while they held their position
with two boat-hooks and a fender. The cavern was lit up with a
very fine effect, but not a soul inside of it to animate the scene.
And to tell the truth, the bold invaders were by no means grieved
at this; for if there had been smugglers there, it would have been
hard to tackle them.
Hauling off safely, which was worse than running in, they pulled
across the narrow cove, and rounding the little headland, examined
the Church Cave and the Dovecote likewise, and with a like result.
Then heartily tired, and well content with having done all that man
could do, they set sail again in the dusk of the night, and forged
their way against a strong ebb-tide toward the softer waters of
Bridlington, and the warmer comfort of their humble homes.
CHAPTER XVII
DELICATE INQUIRIES
A genuine summer day pays a visit nearly once in the season to
Flamborough; and when it does come, it has a wonderful effect.
Often the sun shines brightly there, and often the air broods hot
with thunder; but the sun owes his brightness to sweep of the wind,
which sweeps away his warmth as well; while, on the other hand, the
thunder-clouds, like heavy smoke capping the headland, may oppress
the air with heat, but are not of sweet summer's beauty.
For once, however, the fine day came, and the natives made haste to
revile it. Before it was three hours old they had found a hundred
and fifty faults with it. Most of the men truly wanted a good
sleep, after being lively all the night upon the waves, and the
heat and the yellow light came in upon their eyes, and set the
flies buzzing all about them. And even the women, who had slept
out their time, and talked quietly, like the clock ticking, were
vexed with the sun, which kept their kettles from good boiling, and
wrote upon their faces the years of their life. But each made
allowance for her neighbor's appearance, on the strength of the
troubles she had been through. For the matter of that, the sun
cared not the selvage of a shadow what was thought of him, but went
his bright way with a scattering of clouds and a tossing of vapors
anywhere. Upon the few fishermen who gave up hope of sleep, and
came to stand dazed in their doorways, the glare of white walls and
chalky stones, and dusty roads, produced the same effect as if they
had put on their fathers' goggles. Therefore they yawned their way
back to their room, and poked up the fire, without which, at
Flamborough, no hot weather would be half hot enough.
The children, however, were wide-awake, and so were the washer-
women, whose turn it had been to sleep last night for the labors of
the morning. These were plying hand and tongue in a little field
by the three cross-roads, where gaffers and gammers of by-gone time
had set up troughs of proven wood, and the bilge of a long storm-
beaten boat, near a pool of softish water. Stout brown arms were
roped with curd, and wedding rings looked slippery things, and
thumb-nails bordered with inveterate black, like broad beans ripe
for planting, shone through a hubbub of snowy froth; while sluicing
and wringing and rinsing went on over the bubbled and lathery turf;
and every handy bush or stub, and every tump of wiry grass, was
sheeted with white, like a ship in full sail, and shining in the
sun-glare.
From time to time these active women glanced back at their
cottages, to see that the hearth was still alive, or at their
little daughters squatting under the low wall which kept them from
the road, where they had got all the babies to nurse, and their
toes and other members to compare, and dandelion chains to make.
But from their washing ground the women could not see the hill that
brings to the bottom of the village the crooked road from Sewerby.
Down that hill came a horseman slowly, with nobody to notice him,
though himself on the watch for everybody; and there in the bottom
below the first cottage he allowed his horse to turn aside and cool
hot feet and leathery lips, in a brown pool spread by Providence
for the comfort of wayworn roadsters.
The horse looked as if he had labored far, while his rider was
calmly resting; for the cross-felled sutures of his flank were
crusted with gray perspiration, and the runnels of his shoulders
were dabbled; and now it behooved him to be careful how he sucked
the earthy-flavored water, so as to keep time with the heaving of
his barrel. In a word, he was drinking as if he would burst--as
his hostler at home often told him--but the clever old roadster
knew better than that, and timing it well between snorts and
coughs, was tightening his girths with deep pleasure.
"Enough, my friend, is as good as a feast," said his rider to him,
gently, yet strongly pulling up the far-stretched head, "and too
much is worse than a famine."
The horse, though he did not belong to this gentleman, but was
hired by him only yesterday, had already discovered that, with him
on his back, his own judgment must lie dormant, so that he quietly
whisked his tail and glanced with regret at the waste of his drip,
and then, with a roundabout step, to prolong the pleasure of this
little wade, sadly but steadily out he walked, and, after the
necessary shake, began his first invasion of the village. His
rider said nothing, but kept a sharp look-out.
Now this was Master Geoffrey Mordacks, of the ancient city of York,
a general factor and land agent. What a "general factor" is, or is
not, none but himself can pretend to say, even in these days of
definition, and far less in times when thought was loose; and
perhaps Mr. Mordacks would rather have it so. But any one who paid
him well could trust him, according to the ancient state of things.
To look at him, nobody would even dare to think that money could be
a consideration to him, or the name of it other than an insult. So
lofty and steadfast his whole appearance was, and he put back his
shoulders so manfully. Upright, stiff, and well appointed with a
Roman nose, he rode with the seat of a soldier and the decision of
a tax-collector. From his long steel spurs to his hard coned hat
not a soft line was there, nor a feeble curve. Stern honesty and
strict purpose stamped every open piece of him so strictly that a
man in a hedge-row fostering devious principles, and resolved to
try them, could do no more than run away, and be thankful for the
chance of it.
But in those rough and dangerous times, when thousands of people
were starving, the view of a pistol-butt went further than sternest
aspect of strong eyes. Geoffrey Mordacks well knew this, and did
not neglect his knowledge. The brown walnut stock of a heavy
pistol shone above either holster, and a cavalry sword in a
leathern scabbard hung within easy reach of hand. Altogether this
gentleman seemed not one to be rashly attacked by daylight.
No man had ever dreamed as yet of coming to this outlandish place
for pleasure of the prospect. So that when this lonely rider was
descried from the washing field over the low wall of the lane, the
women made up their minds at once that it must be a justice of the
peace, or some great rider of the Revenue, on his way to see Dr.
Upandown, or at the least a high constable concerned with some
great sheep-stealing. Not that any such crime was known in the
village itself of Flamborough, which confined its operations to the
sea; but in the outer world of land that malady was rife just now,
and a Flamborough man, too fond of mutton, had farmed some sheep on
the downs, and lost them, which was considered a judgment on him
for willfully quitting ancestral ways.
But instead of turning at the corner where the rector was trying to
grow some trees, the stranger kept on along the rugged highway, and
between the straggling cottages, so that the women rinsed their
arms, and turned round to take a good look at him, over the
brambles and furze, and the wall of chalky flint and rubble.
"This is just what I wanted," thought Geoffrey Mordacks: "skill
makes luck, and I am always lucky. Now, first of all, to recruit
the inner man."
At this time Mrs. Theophila Precious, generally called "Tapsy," the
widow of a man who had been lost at sea, kept the "Cod with a Hook
in his Gills," the only hostelry in Flamborough village, although
there was another toward the Landing. The cod had been painted
from life--or death--by a clever old fisherman who understood him,
and he looked so firm, and stiff, and hard, that a healthy man,
with purse enough to tire of butcher's-meat, might grow in appetite
by gazing. Mr. Mordacks pulled up, and fixed steadfast eyes upon
this noble fish, the while a score of sharp eyes from the green and
white meadow were fixed steadfastly on him.
"How he shines with salt-water! How firm he looks, and his gills
as bright as a rose in June! I have never yet tasted a cod at
first hand. It is early in the day, but the air is hungry. My
expenses are paid, and I mean to live well, for a strong mind will
be required. I will have a cut out of that fish, to begin with."
Inditing of this, and of matters even better, the rider turned into
the yard of the inn, where an old boat (as usual) stood for a
horse-trough, and sea-tubs served as buckets. Strong sunshine
glared upon the oversaling tiles, and white buckled walls, and
cracky lintels; but nothing showed life, except an old yellow cat,
and a pair of house-martins, who had scarcely time to breathe, such
a number of little heads flipped out with a white flap under the
beak of each, demanding momentous victualling. At these the yellow
cat winked with dreamy joyfulness, well aware how fat they would be
when they came to tumble out.
"What a place of vile laziness!" grumbled Mr. Mordacks, as he got
off his horse, after vainly shouting "Hostler!" and led him to the
byre, which did duty for a stable. "York is a lazy hole enough,
but the further you go from it, the lazier they get. No energy, no
movement, no ambition, anywhere. What a country! what a people! I
shall have to go back and enlist the washer-women."
A Yorkshireman might have answered this complaint, if he thought it
deserving of an answer, by requesting Master Mordacks not to be so
overquick, but to bide a wee bit longer before he made so sure of
the vast superiority of his own wit, for the long heads might prove
better than the sharp ones in the end of it. However, the general
factor thought that he could not have come to a better place to get
all that he wanted out of everybody. He put away his saddle, and
the saddlebags and sword, in a rough old sea-chest with a padlock
to it, and having a sprinkle of chaff at the bottom. Then he
calmly took the key, as if the place were his, gave his horse a
rackful of long-cut grass, and presented himself, with a lordly
aspect, at the front door of the silent inn. Here he made noise
enough to stir the dead; and at the conclusion of a reasonable
time, during which she had finished a pleasant dream to the
simmering of the kitchen pot, the landlady showed herself in the
distance, feeling for her keys with one hand, and rubbing her eyes
with the other. This was the head-woman of the village, but seldom
tyrannical, unless ill-treated, Widow Precious, tall and square,
and of no mean capacity.
"Young mon," with a deep voice she said, "what is tha' deein' wi'
aw that clatter?"
"Alas, my dear madam, I am not a young man; and therefore time is
more precious to me. I have lived out half my allotted span, and
shall never complete it unless I get food."
"T' life o' mon is aw a hoory," replied Widow Precious, with slow
truth. "Young mon, what 'll ye hev?"
"Dinner, madam; dinner at the earliest moment. I have ridden far,
and my back is sore, and my substance is calling for renewal."
"Ate, ate, ate, that's t' waa of aw menkins. Bud ye maa coom in,
and crack o' it."
"Madam, you are most hospitable; and the place altogether seems to
be of that description. What a beautiful room! May I sit down? I
perceive a fine smell of most delicate soup. Ah, you know how to
do things at Flamborough."
"Young mon, ye can ha' nune of yon potty. Yon's for mesell and t'
childer."
"My excellent hostess, mistake me not. I do not aspire to such
lofty pot-luck. I simply referred to it as a proof of your
admirable culinary powers."
"Yon's beeg words. What 'll ye hev te ate?"
"A fish like that upon your sign-post, madam, or at least the upper
half of him; and three dozen oysters just out of the sea, swimming
in their own juice, with lovely melted butter."
"Young mon, hast tha gotten t' brass? Them 'at ates offens forgets
t' reck'nin'."
"Yes, madam, I have the needful in abundance. Ecce signum! Which
is Latin, madam, for the stamps of the king upon twenty guineas.
One to be deposited in your fair hand for a taste, for a sniff,
madam, such as I had of your pot."
"Na, na. No tokkins till a' airned them. What ood your Warship be
for ating when a' boileth?"
The general factor, perceiving his way, was steadfast to the
shoulder cut of a decent cod; and though the full season was
scarcely yet come, Mrs. Precious knew where to find one. Oysters
there were none, but she gave him boiled limpets, and he thought it
the manner of the place that made them tough. After these things
he had a duck of the noblest and best that live anywhere in
England. Such ducks were then, and perhaps are still, the most
remarkable residents of Flamborough. Not only because the air is
fine, and the puddles and the dabblings of extraordinary merit, and
the wind fluffs up their pretty feathers while alive, as the
eloquent poulterer by-and-by will do; but because they have really
distinguished birth, and adventurous, chivalrous, and bright blue
Norman blood. To such purpose do the gay young Vikings of the
world of quack pour in (when the weather and the time of year
invite), equipped with red boots and plumes of purple velvet, to
enchant the coy lady ducks in soft water, and eclipse the familiar
and too legal drake. For a while they revel in the change of
scene, the luxury of unsalted mud and scarcely rippled water, and
the sweetness and culture of tame dilly-ducks, to whom their
brilliant bravery, as well as an air of romance and billowy peril,
commends them too seductively. The responsible sire of the pond is
grieved, sinks his unappreciated bill into his back, and vainly
reflects upon the vanity of love.
From a loftier point of view, however, this is a fine provision;
and Mr. Mordacks always took a lofty view of everything.
"A beautiful duck, ma'am; a very grand duck!" in his usual loud and
masterful tone, he exclaimed to Widow Precious. "I understand your
question now as to my ability to pay for him. Madam, he is worth a
man's last shilling. A goose is a smaller and a coarser bird. In
what manner do you get them?"
"They gets their own sells, wi' the will of the Lord. What will
your Warship be for ating, come after?"
"None of your puddings and pies, if you please, nor your excellent
jellies and custards. A red Dutch cheese, with a pat of fresh
butter, and another imperial pint of ale."
"Now yon is what I call a man," thought Mrs. Precious, having
neither pie nor pudding, as Master Mordacks was well aware; "aisy
to please, and a' knoweth what a' wants. A' mought 'a been born i'
Flaambro. A' maa baide for a week, if a' hath the tokkins."
Mr. Mordacks felt that he had made his footing; but he was not the
man to abide for a week where a day would suit his purpose. His
rule was never to beat about the bush when he could break through
it, and he thought that he saw his way to do so now. Having
finished his meal, he set down his knife with a bang, sat upright
in the oaken chair, and gazed in a bold yet pleasant manner at the
sturdy hostess.
"You are wondering what has brought me here. That I will tell you
in a very few words. Whatever I do is straightforward, madam; and
all the world may know it. That has been my character throughout
life; and in that respect I differ from the great bulk of mankind.
You Flamborough folk, however, are much of the very same nature as
I am. We ought to get on well together. Times are very bad--very
bad indeed. I could put a good trifle of money in your way; but
you tell the truth without it, which is very, very noble. Yet
people with a family have duties to discharge to them, and must
sacrifice their feelings to affection. Fifty guineas is a tidy
little figure, ma'am. With the famine growing in the land, no
parent should turn his honest back upon fifty guineas. And to get
the gold, and do good at the same time, is a very rare chance
indeed."
This speech was too much for Widow Precious to carry to her settled
judgment, and get verdict in a breath. She liked it, on the whole,
but yet there might be many things upon the other side; so she did
what Flamborough generally does, when desirous to consider things,
as it generally is. That is to say, she stood with her feet well
apart, and her arms akimbo, and her head thrown back to give the
hinder part a rest, and no sign of speculation in her eyes,
although they certainly were not dull. When these good people are
in this frame of mind and body, it is hard to say whether they look
more wise or foolish. Mr. Mordacks, impatient as he was, even
after so fine a dinner, was not far from catching the infection of
slow thought, which spreads itself as pleasantly as that of slow
discourse.
"You are heeding me, madam; you have quick wits," he said, without
any sarcasm, for she rescued the time from waste by affording a
study of the deepest wisdom; "you are wondering how the money is to
come, and whether it brings any risk with it. No, Mistress
Precious, not a particle of risk. A little honest speaking is the
one thing needed."
"The money cometh scores of times more freely fra wrong-doing."
"Your observation, madam, shows a deep acquaintance with the human
race. Too often the money does come so; and thus it becomes mere
mammon. On such occasions we should wash our hands, and not forget
the charities. But the beauty of money, fairly come by, is that we
can keep it all. To do good in getting it, and do good with it,
and to feel ourselves better in every way, and our dear children
happier--this is the true way of considering the question. I saw
some pretty little dears peeping in, and wanted to give them a
token or two, for I do love superior children. But you called them
away, madam. You are too stern."
Widow Precious had plenty of sharp sense to tell her that her
children were by no means "pretty dears" to anybody but herself,
and to herself only when in a very soft state of mind; at other
times they were but three gew-mouthed lasses, and two looby loons
with teeth enough for crunching up the dripping-pan.
"Your Warship spaketh fair," she said; "a'most too fair, I'm
doubting. Wad ye say what the maning is, and what name goeth
pledge for the fafty poon, Sir?"
"Mistress Precious, my meaning always is plainer than a pikestaff;
and as to pledges, the pledge is the hard cash down upon the nail,
ma'am."
"Bank-tokkins, mayhap, and I prummeese to paa, with the sign of the
Dragon, and a woman among sheeps."
"Madam, a bag of solid gold that can be weighed and counted. Fifty
new guineas from the mint of King George, in a water-proof bag just
fit to be buried at the foot of a tree, or well under the thatch,
or sewn up in the sacking of your bedstead, ma'am. Ah, pretty
dreams, what pretty dreams, with a virtuous knowledge of having
done the right! Shall we say it is a bargain, ma'am, and wet it
with a glass, at my expense, of the crystal spring that comes under
the sea?"
"Naw, Sir, naw!--not till I knaw what. I niver trafficks with the
divil, Sir. There wur a chap of Flaambro deed--"
"My good madam, I can not stop all day. I have far to ride before
night-fall. All that I want is simply this, and having gone so
far, I must tell you all, or make an enemy of you. I want to match
this; and I have reason to believe that it can be matched in
Flamborough. Produce me the fellow, and I pay you fifty guineas."
With these words Mr. Mordacks took from an inner pocket a little
pill-box, and thence produced a globe, or rather an oblate
spheroid, of bright gold, rather larger than a musket-ball, but
fluted or crenelled like a poppy-head, and stamped or embossed with
marks like letters. Widow Precious looked down at it, as if to
think what an extraordinary thing it was, but truly to hide from
the stranger her surprise at the sudden recognition. For Robin
Lyth was a foremost favorite of hers, and most useful to her
vocation; and neither fifty guineas nor five hundred should lead
her to do him an injury. At a glance she had known that this bead
must belong to the set from which Robin's ear-rings came; and
perhaps it was her conscience which helped her to suspect that a
trap was being laid for the free-trade hero. To recover herself,
and have time to think, as well as for closer discretion, she
invited Master Mordacks to the choice guest-chamber.
"Set ye doon, Sir, hereaboot," she said, opening a solid door into
the inner room; "neaver gain no fear at aw o' crackin' o' the
setties; fairm, fairm anoo' they be, thoo sketterish o' their
lukes, Sir. Set ye doon, your Warship; fafty poons desarveth a
good room, wi'oot ony lugs o' anemees."
"What a beautiful room!" exclaimed Mr. Mordacks; "and how it savors
of the place! I never should have thought of finding art and taste
of such degree in a little place like Flamborough. Why, madam, you
must have inherited it direct from the Danes themselves."
"Naw, Sir, naw. I fetched it aw oop fra the breck of the say and
the cobbles. Book-folk tooneth naw heed o' what we do."
"Well, it is worth a great deal of heed. Lovely patterns of sea-
weed on the floor--no carpet can compare with them; shelves of--I
am sure I don't know what--fished up from the deep, no doubt; and
shells innumerable, and stones that glitter, and fish like glass,
and tufts like lace, and birds with most wonderful things in their
mouths: Mistress Precious, you are too bad. The whole of it ought
to go to London, where they make collections!"
"Lor, Sir, how ye da be laffin' at me. But purty maa be said of
'em wi'out ony lees."
The landlady smiled as she set for him a chair, toward which he
trod gingerly, and picking every step, for his own sake as well as
of the garniture. For the black oak floor was so oiled and
polished, to set off the pattern of the sea-flowers on it (which
really were laid with no mean taste and no small sense of color),
that for slippery boots there was some peril.
"This is a sacred as well as beautiful place," said Mr. Mordacks.
"I may finish my words with safety here. Madam, I commend your
prudence as well as your excellent skill and industry. I should
like to bring my daughter Arabella here: what a lesson she would
gain for tapestry! But now, again, for business. What do you say?
Unless I am mistaken, you have some knowledge of the matter
depending on this bauble. You must not suppose that I came to you
at random. No, madam, no; I have heard far away of your great
intelligence, caution, and skill, and influence in this important
town. 'Mistress Precious is the Mayor of Flamborough,' was said to
me only last Saturday; 'if you would study the wise people there,
hang up your hat in her noble hostelry.' Madam, I have taken that
advice, and heartily rejoice at doing so. I am a man of few words,
very few words--as you must have seen already--but of the strictest
straightforwardness in deeds. And now again, what do you say,
ma'am?"
"Your Warship hath left ma nowt to saa. Your Warship hath had the
mooth aw to yosell."
"Now Mistress, Mistress Precious, truly that is a little too bad of
you. It is out of my power to help admiring things which are
utterly beyond me to describe, and a dinner of such cooking may
enlarge the tongue, after all the fine things it has been rolling
in. But business is my motto, in the fewest words that may be.
You know what I want; you will keep it to yourself, otherwise other
people might demand the money. Through very simple channels you
will find out whether the fellow thing to this can be found here or
elsewhere; and if so, who has got it, and how it was come by, and
everything else that can be learned about it; and when you know
all, you just make a mark on this piece of paper, ready folded and
addressed; and then you will seal it, and give it to the man who
calls for the letters nearly twice a week. And when I get that, I
come and eat another duck, and have oysters with my cod-fish, which
to-day we could not have, except in the form of mussels, ma'am."
"Naw, not a moosel--they was aw gude flithers."
"Well, ma'am, they may have been unknown animals; but good they
were, and as fresh as the day. Now, you will remember that my
desire is to do good. I have nothing to do with the revenue, nor
the magistrates, nor his Majesty. I shall not even go to your
parson, who is the chief authority, I am told; for I wish this
matter to be kept quiet, and beside the law altogether. The whole
credit of it shall belong to you, and a truly good action you will
have performed, and done a little good for your own good self. As
for this trinket, I do not leave it with you, but I leave you this
model in wax, ma'am, made by my daughter, who is very clever. From
this you can judge quite as well as from the other. If there are
any more of these things in Flamborough, as I have strong reason to
believe, you will know best where to find them, and I need not tell
you that they are almost certain to be in the possession of a
woman. You know all the women, and you skillfully inquire, without
even letting them suspect it. Now I shall just stretch my legs a
little, and look at your noble prospect, and in three hours' time a
little more refreshment, and then, Mistress Precious, you see the
last of your obedient servant, until you demand from him fifty gold
guineas."
After seeing to his horse again, he set forth for a stroll, in the
course of which he met with Dr. Upround and his daughter. The
rector looked hard at this distinguished stranger, as if he desired
to know his name, and expected to be accosted by him, while quick
Miss Janetta glanced with undisguised suspicion, and asked her
father, so that Mr. Mordacks overheard it, what business such a man
could have, and what could he come spying after, in their quiet
parish? The general factor raised his hat, and passed on with a
tranquil smile, taking the crooked path which leads along and
around the cliffs, by way of the light-house, from the north to the
southern landing. The present light-house was not yet built, but
an old round tower, which still exists, had long been used as a
signal station, for semaphore by day, and at night for beacon, in
the times of war and tumult; and most people called it the
"Monument." This station was now of very small importance, and
sometimes did nothing for a year together; but still it was very
good and useful, because it enabled an ancient tar, whose feet had
been carried away by a cannon-ball, to draw a little money once a
month, and to think himself still a fine British bulwark.
In the summer-time this hero always slung his hammock here, with
plenty of wind to rock him off to sleep, but in winter King AEolus
himself could not have borne it. "Monument Joe," as almost
everybody called him, was a queer old character of days gone by.
Sturdy and silent, but as honest as the sun, he made his rounds as
regularly as that great orb, and with equally beneficent object.
For twice a day he stumped to fetch his beer from Widow Precious,
and the third time to get his little pannikin of grog. And now the
time was growing for that last important duty, when a stranger
stood before him with a crown piece in his hand.
"Now don't get up, captain, don't disturb yourself," said Mr.
Mordacks, graciously; "your country has claimed your activity, I
see, and I hope it makes amends to you. At the same time I know
that it very seldom does. Accept this little tribute from the
admiration of a friend."
Old Joe took the silver piece and rung it on his tin tobacco-box,
then stowed it inside, and said, "Gammon! What d'ye want of me?"
"Your manners, my good Sir, are scarcely on a par with your merits.
I bribe no man; it is the last thing I would ever dream of doing.
But whenever a question of memory arises, I have often observed a
great failure of that power without--without, if you will excuse
the expression, the administration of a little grease."
"Smooggling? Aught about smooggling?" Old Joe shut his mouth
sternly; for he hated and scorned the coast-guards, whose wages
were shamefully above his own, and who had the impudence to order
him for signals; while, on the other hand, he found free trade a
policy liberal, enlightening, and inspiriting.
"No, captain, no; not a syllable of that. You have been in this
place about sixteen years. If you had only been here four years
more, your evidence would have settled all I want to know. No
wreck can take place here, of course, without your knowledge?"
"Dunno that. B'lieve one have. There's a twist of the tide here--
but what good to tell landlubbers?"
"You are right. I should never understand such things. But I find
them wonderfully interesting. You are not a native of this place,
and knew nothing of Flamborough before you came here?"
Monument Joe gave a grunt at this, and a long squirt of tobacco
juice. "And don't want," he said.
"Of course, you are superior, in every way superior. You find
these people rough, and far inferior in manners. But either, my
good friend, you will re-open your tobacco-box, or else you will
answer me a few short questions, which trespass in no way upon your
duty to the king, or to his loyal smugglers."
Old Joe looked up, with weather-beaten eyes, and saw that he had no
fool to deal with, in spite of all soft palaver. The intensity of
Mr. Mordacks's eyes made him blink, and mutter a bad word or two,
but remain pretty much at his service. And the last intention he
could entertain was that of restoring this fine crown piece.
"Spake on, Sir," he said; "and I will spake accordin'."
"Very good. I shall give you very little trouble. I wish to know
whether there was any wreck here, kept quiet perhaps, but still
some ship lost, about three or four years before you came to this
station. It does not matter what ship, any ship at all, which may
have gone down without any fuss at all. You know of none such?
Very well. You were not here; and the people of this place are
wonderfully close. But a veteran of the Royal Navy should know how
to deal with them. Make your inquiries without seeming to inquire.
The question is altogether private, and can not in any way bring
you into trouble. Whereas, if you find out anything, you will be a
made man, and live like a gentleman. You hate the lawyers? All
the honest seamen do. I am not a lawyer, and my object is to fire
a broadside into them. Accept this guinea; and if it would suit
you to have one every week for the rest of your life, I will pledge
you my word for it, paid in advance, if you only find out for me
one little fact, of which I have no doubt whatever, that a merchant
ship was cast away near this Head just about nineteen years agone."
That ancient sailor was accustomed to surprises; but this, as he
said, when he came to think of it, made a clean sweep of him, fore
and aft. Nevertheless, he had the presence of mind required for
pocketing the guinea, which was too good for his tobacco-box; and
as one thing at a time was quite enough upon his mind, he probed
away slowly, to be sure there was no hole. Then he got up from his
squatting form, with the usual activity of those who are supposed
to have none left, and touched his brown hat, standing cleverly.
"What be I to do for all this?" he asked.
"Nothing more than what I have told you. To find out slowly, and
without saying why, in the way you sailors know how to do, whether
such a thing came to pass, as I suppose. You must not be stopped
by the lies of anybody. Of course they will deny it, if they got
some of the wrecking; or it is just possible that no one even heard
of it; and yet there may be some traces. Put two and two together,
my good friend, as you have the very best chance of doing; and soon
you may put two to that in your pocket, and twenty, and a hundred,
and as much as you can hold."
"When shall I see your good honor again, to score log-run, and come
to a reckoning?"
"Master Joseph, work a wary course. Your rating for life will
depend upon that. You may come to this address, if you have
anything important. Otherwise you shall soon hear of me again.
Good-by."
CHAPTER XVIII
GOYLE BAY
While all the world was at cross-purposes thus--Mr. Jellicorse
uneasy at some rumors he had heard; Captain Carroway splitting his
poor heel with indignation at the craftiness of free-traders;
Farmer Anerley vexed at being put upon by people, without any
daughter to console him, or catch shrimps; Master Mordacks pursuing
a noble game, strictly above-board, as usual; Robin Lyth troubled
in his largest principles of revolt against revenue by a nasty
little pain that kept going to his heart, with an emptiness there,
as for another heart; and last, and perhaps of all most important,
the rector perpetually pining for his game of chess, and utterly
discontented with the frigid embraces of analysis--where was the
best, and most simple, and least selfish of the whole lot, Mary
Anerley?
Mary was in as good a place as even she was worthy of. A place not
by any means so snug and favored by nature as Anerley Farm, but
pretty well sheltered by large trees of a strong and hardy order.
And the comfortable ways of good old folk, who needed no labor to
live by spread a happy leisure and a gentle ease upon everything
under their roof-tree. Here was no necessity for getting up until
the sun encouraged it; and the time for going to bed depended upon
the time of sleepiness. Old Johnny Popplewell, as everybody called
him, without any protest on his part, had made a good pocket by the
tanning business, and having no children to bring up to it, and
only his wife to depend upon him, had sold the good-will, the yard,
and the stock as soon as he had turned his sixtieth year. "I have
worked hard all my life," he said, "and I mean to rest for the rest
of it."
At first he was heartily miserable, and wandered about with a
vacant look, having only himself to look after. And he tried to
find a hole in his bargain with the man who enjoyed all the smells
he was accustomed to, and might even be heard through a gap in the
fence rating the men as old Johnny used to do, at the same time of
day, and for the same neglect, and almost in the self-same words
which the old owner used, but stronger. Instead of being happy,
Master Popplewell lost more flesh in a month than he used to lay on
in the most prosperous year; and he owed it to his wife, no doubt,
as generally happens, that he was not speedily gathered to the
bosom of the hospitable Simon of Joppa. For Mrs. Popplewell said,
"Go away; Johnny, go away from this village; smell new smells, and
never see a hide without a walking thing inside of it. Sea-weed
smells almost as nice as tan; though of course it is not so
wholesome." The tanner obeyed, and bought a snug little place
about ten miles from the old premises, which he called, at the
suggestion of the parson, "Byrsa Cottage."
Here was Mary, as blithe as a lark, and as petted as a robin-
redbreast, by no means pining, or even hankering, for any other
robin. She was not the girl to give her heart before it was even
asked for; and hitherto she had regarded the smuggler with pity
more than admiration. For in many points she was like her father,
whom she loved foremost of the world; and Master Anerley was a law-
abiding man, like every other true Englishman. Her uncle
Popplewell was also such, but exerted his principles less strictly.
Moreover, he was greatly under influence of wife, which happens
more freely to a man without children, the which are a source of
contradiction. And Mistress Popplewell was a most thorough and
conscientious free-trader.
Now Mary was from childhood so accustomed to the sea, and the
relish of salt breezes, and the racy dance of little waves that
crowd on one another, and the tidal delivery of delightful rubbish,
that to fail of seeing the many works and plays and constant
variance of her never wearying or weary friend was more than she
could long put up with. She called upon Lord Keppel almost every
day, having brought him from home for the good of his health, to
gird up his loins, or rather get his belly girths on, and come
along the sands with her, and dig into new places. But he, though
delighted for a while with Byrsa stable, and the social charms of
Master Popplewell's old cob, and a rick of fine tan-colored clover
hay and bean haulm, when the novelty of these delights was passed,
he pined for his home, and the split in his crib, and the knot of
hard wood he had polished with his neck, and even the little dog
that snapped at him. He did not care for retired people--as he
said to the cob every evening--he liked to see farm-work going on,
or at any rate to hear all about it, and to listen to horses who
had worked hard, and could scarcely speak, for chewing, about the
great quantity they had turned of earth, and how they had answered
very bad words with a bow. In short, to put it in the mildest
terms, Lord Keppel was giving himself great airs, unworthy of his
age, ungrateful to a degree, and ungraceful, as the cob said
repeatedly; considering how he was fed, and bedded, and not a thing
left undone for him. But his arrogance soon had to pay its own
costs.
For, away to the right of Byrsa Cottage, as you look down the
hollow of the ground toward the sea, a ridge of high scrubby land
runs up to a forefront of bold cliff, indented with a dark and
narrow bay. "Goyle Bay," as it is called, or sometimes "Basin
Bay," is a lonely and rugged place, and even dangerous for unwary
visitors. For at low spring tides a deep hollow is left dry,
rather more than a quarter of a mile across, strewn with kelp and
oozy stones, among which may often be found pretty shells, weeds
richly tinted and of subtle workmanship, stars, and flowers, and
love-knots of the sea, and sometimes carnelians and crystals. But
anybody making a collection here should be able to keep one eye
upward and one down, or else in his pocket to have two things--a
good watch and a trusty tide-table.
John and Deborah Popplewell were accustomed to water in small
supplies, such as that of a well, or a road-side pond, or their own
old noble tan-pits; but to understand the sea it was too late in
life, though it pleased them, and gave them fine appetites now to
go down when it was perfectly calm, and a sailor assured them that
the tide was mild. But even at such seasons they preferred to keep
their distance, and called out frequently to one another. They
looked upon their niece, from all she told them, as a creature
almost amphibious; but still they were often uneasy about her, and
would gladly have kept her well inland. She, however, laughed at
any such idea; and their discipline was to let her have her own
way. But now a thing happened which proved forever how much better
old heads are than young ones.
For Mary, being tired of the quiet places, and the strands where
she knew every pebble, resolved to explore Goyle Bay at last, and
she chose the worst possible time for it. The weather had been
very fine and gentle, and the sea delightfully plausible, without a
wave--tide after tide--bigger than the furrow of a two-horse
plough; and the maid began to believe at last that there never were
any storms just here. She had heard of the pretty things in Goyle
Bay, which was difficult of access from the land, but she resolved
to take opportunity of tide, and thus circumvent the position; she
would rather have done it afoot, but her uncle and aunt made a
point of her riding to the shore, regarding the pony as a safe
companion, and sure refuge from the waves. And so, upon the
morning of St. Michael, she compelled Lord Keppel, with an adverse
mind, to turn a headland they had never turned before.
The tide was far out and ebbing still, but the wind had shifted,
and was blowing from the east rather stiffly, and with increasing
force. Mary knew that the strong equinoctial tides were running at
their height; but she had timed her visit carefully, as she
thought, with no less than an hour and a half to spare. And even
without any thought of tide, she was bound to be back in less time
than that, for her uncle had been most particular to warn her to be
home without fail at one o'clock, when the sacred goose, to which
he always paid his duties, would be on the table. And if anything
marred his serenity of mind, it was to have dinner kept waiting.
Without any misgivings, she rode into Basin Bay, keeping within the
black barrier of rocks, outside of which wet sands were shining.
She saw that these rocks, like the bar of a river, crossed the
inlet of the cove; but she had not been told of their peculiar
frame and upshot, which made them so treacherous a rampart. At the
mouth of the bay they formed a level crescent, as even as a set of
good teeth, against the sea, with a slope of sand running up to
their outer front, but a deep and long pit inside of them. This
pit drained itself very nearly dry when the sea went away from it,
through some stony tubes which only worked one way, by the closure
of their mouths when the tide returned; so that the volume of the
deep sometimes, with tide and wind behind it, leaped over the brim
into the pit, with tenfold the roar, a thousandfold the power, and
scarcely less than the speed, of a lion.
Mary Anerley thought what a lovely place it was, so deep and
secluded from anybody's sight, and full of bright wet colors. Her
pony refused, with his usual wisdom, to be dragged to the bottom of
the hole, but she made him come further down than he thought just,
and pegged him by the bridle there. He looked at her sadly, and
with half a mind to expostulate more forcibly, but getting no
glimpse of the sea where he stood, he thought it as well to put up
with it; and presently he snorted out a tribe of little creatures,
which puzzled him and took up his attention.
Meanwhile Mary was not only puzzled, but delighted beyond
description. She never yet had come upon such treasures of the
sea, and she scarcely knew what to lay hands upon first. She
wanted the weeds of such wonderful forms, and colors yet more
exquisite, and she wanted the shells of such delicate fabric that
fairies must have made them, and a thousand other little things
that had no names; and then she seemed most of all to want the
pebbles. For the light came through them in stripes and patterns,
and many of them looked like downright jewels. She had brought a
great bag of strong canvas, luckily, and with both hands she set to
to fill it.
So busy was the girl with the vast delight of sanguine acquisition--
this for her father, and that for her mother, and so much for
everybody she could think of--that time had no time to be counted
at all, but flew by with feathers unheeded. The mutter of the sea
became a roar, and the breeze waxed into a heavy gale, and spray
began to sputter through the air like suds; but Mary saw the
rampart of the rocks before her, and thought that she could easily
get back around the point. And her taste began continually to grow
more choice, so that she spent as much time in discarding the
rubbish which at first she had prized so highly as she did in
collecting the real rarities, which she was learning to distinguish.
But unluckily the sea made no allowance for all this.
For just as Mary, with her bag quite full, was stooping with a long
stretch to get something more--a thing that perhaps was the very
best of all, and therefore had got into a corner--there fell upon
her back quite a solid lump of wave, as a horse gets the bottom of
the bucket cast at him. This made her look up, not a minute too
soon; and even then she was not at all aware of danger, but took it
for a notice to be moving. And she thought more of shaking that
saltwater from her dress than of running away from the rest of it.
But as soon as she began to look about in earnest, sweeping back
her salted hair, she saw enough of peril to turn pale the roses and
strike away the smile upon her very busy face. She was standing
several yards below the level of the sea, and great surges were
hurrying to swallow her. The hollow of the rocks received the
first billow with a thump and a slush, and a rush of pointed
hillocks in a fury to find their way back again, which failing,
they spread into a long white pool, taking Mary above her pretty
ankles. "Don't you think to frighten me," said Mary; "I know all
your ways, and I mean to take my time."
But even before she had finished her words, a great black wall
(doubled over at the top with whiteness, that seemed to race along
it like a fringe) hung above the rampart, and leaped over, casting
at Mary such a volley that she fell. This quenched her last
audacity, although she was not hurt; and jumping up nimbly, she
made all haste through the rising water toward her pony. But as
she would not forsake her bag, and the rocks became more and more
slippery, towering higher and higher surges crashed in over the
barrier, and swelled the yeasty turmoil which began to fill the
basin; while a scurry of foam flew like pellets from the rampart,
blinding even the very best young eyes.
Mary began to lose some of her presence of mind and familiar
approval of the sea. She could swim pretty well, from her frequent
bathing; but swimming would be of little service here, if once the
great rollers came over the bar, which they threatened to do every
moment. And when at length she fought her way to the poor old
pony, her danger and distress were multiplied. Lord Keppel was in
a state of abject fear; despair was knocking at his fine old heart;
he was up to his knees in the loathsome brine already, and being so
twisted up by his own exertions that to budge another inch was
beyond him, he did what a horse is apt to do in such condition--he
consoled himself with fatalism. He meant to expire; but before he
did so he determined to make his mistress feel what she had done.
Therefore, with a sad nudge of white old nose, he drew her
attention to his last expression, sighed as plainly as a man could
sigh, and fixed upon her meek eyes, telling volumes.
"I know, I know that it is all my fault," cried Mary, with the
brine almost smothering her tears, as she flung her arms around his
neck; "but I never will do it again, my darling. And I never will
run away and let you drown. Oh, if I only had a knife! I can not
even cast your bridle off; the tongue has stuck fast, and my hands
are cramped. But, Keppel, I will stay, and be drowned with you."
This resolve was quite unworthy of Mary's common-sense; for how
could her being drowned with Keppel help him? However, the mere
conception showed a spirit of lofty order; though the body might
object to be ordered under. Without any thought of all that, she
stood, resolute, tearful, and thoroughly wet through, while she
hunted in her pocket for a penknife.
The nature of all knives is, not to be found; and Mary's knife was
loyal to its kind. Then she tugged at her pony, and pulled out his
bit, and labored again at the obstinate strap; but nothing could be
done with it. Keppel must be drowned, and he did not seem to care,
but to think that the object of his birth was that. If the stupid
little fellow would have only stepped forward, the hands of his
mistress, though cramped and benumbed, might perhaps have unbuckled
his stiff and sodden reins, or even undone their tangle; on the
other hand, if he would have jerked with all his might, something
or other must have given way; but stir he would not from one
fatuous position, which kept all his head-gear on the strain, but
could not snap it. Mary even struck him with her heavy bag of
stones, to make him do something; but he only looked reproachful.
"Was there ever such a stupid?" the poor girl cried, with the water
rising almost to her waist, and the inner waves beginning to dash
over her, while the outer billows threatened to rush in and crush
them both. "But I will not abuse you any more, poor Keppel. What
will dear father say? Oh, what will he think of it?"
Then she burst into a fit of sobs, and leaned against the pony, to
support her from a rushing wave which took her breath away, and she
thought that she would never try to look up any more, but shut her
eyes to all the rest of it. But suddenly she heard a loud shout
and a splash, and found herself caught up and carried like an
infant.
"Lie still. Never mind the pony: what is he? I will go for him
afterward. You first, you first of all the world, my Mary."
She tried to speak, but not a word would come; and that was all the
better. She was carried quick as might be through a whirl of
tossing waters, and gently laid upon a pile of kelp; and then Robin
Lyth said, "You are quite safe here, for at least another hour. I
will go and get your pony."
"No, no; you will be knocked to pieces," she cried; for the pony,
in the drift and scud, could scarcely be seen but for his helpless
struggles. But the young man was half way toward him while she
spoke, and she knelt upon the kelp, and clasped her hands.
Now Robin was at home in a matter such as this. He had landed many
kegs in a sea as strong or stronger, and he knew how to deal with
the horses in a surf. There still was a break of almost a fathom
in the level of the inner and the outer waves, for the basin was so
large that it could not fill at once; and so long as this lasted,
every roller must comb over at the entrance, and mainly spend
itself. "At least five minutes to spare," he shouted back, "and
there is no such thing as any danger." But the girl did not
believe him.
Rapidly and skillfully he made his way, meeting the larger waves
sideways, and rising at their onset; until he was obliged to swim
at last where the little horse was swimming desperately. The
leather, still jammed in some crevice at the bottom, was jerking
his poor chin downward; his eyes were screwed up like a new-born
kitten's, and his dainty nose looked like a jelly-fish. He thought
how sad it was that he should ever die like this, after all the
good works of his life--the people he had carried, and the chaise
that he had drawn, and all his kindness to mankind. Then he turned
his head away to receive the stroke of grace, which the next wave
would administer.
No! He was free. He could turn his honest tail on the sea, which
he always had detested so; he could toss up his nose and blow the
filthy salt out, and sputter back his scorn, while he made off for
his life. So intent was he on this that he never looked twice to
make out who his benefactor was, but gave him just a taste of his
hind-foot on the elbow, in the scuffle of his hurry to be round
about and off. "Such is gratitude!" the smuggler cried; but a clot
of salt-water flipped into his mouth, and closed all cynical
outlet. Bearing up against the waves, he stowed his long knife
away, and then struck off for the shore with might and main.
Here Mary ran into the water to meet him, shivering as she was with
fright and cold, and stretched out both hands to him as he waded
forth; and he took them and clasped them, quite as if he needed
help. Lord Keppel stood afar off, recovering his breath, and
scarcely dared to look askance at the execrable sea.
"How cold you are!" Robin Lyth exclaimed. "You must not stay a
moment. No talking, if you please--though I love your voice so.
You are not safe yet. You can not get back round the point. See
the waves dashing up against it! You must climb the cliff, and
that is no easy job for a lady, in the best of weather. In a
couple of hours the tide will be over the whole of this beach a
fathom deep. There is no boat nearer than Filey; and a boat could
scarcely live over that bar. You must climb the cliff, and begin
at once, before you get any colder."
"Then is my poor pony to be drowned, after all? If he is, he had
better have been drowned at once."
The smuggler looked at her with a smile, which meant, "Your
gratitude is about the same as his;" but he answered, to assure
her, though by no means sure himself:
"There is time enough for him; he shall not be drowned. But you
must be got out of danger first. When you are off my mind, I will
fetch up pony. Now you must follow me step by step, carefully and
steadily. I would carry you up if I could; but even a giant could
scarcely do that, in a stiff gale of wind, and with the crag so
wet."
Mary looked up with a shiver of dismay. She was brave and nimble
generally, but now so wet and cold, and the steep cliff looked so
slippery, that she said: "It is useless; I can never get up there.
Captain Lyth, save yourself, and leave me."
"That would be a pretty thing to do!" he replied; "and where should
I be afterward? I am not at the end of my devices yet. I have got
a very snug little crane up there. It was here we ran our last
lot, and beat the brave lieutenant so. But unluckily I have no
cave just here. None of my lads are about here now, or we would
make short work of it. But I could hoist you very well, if you
would let me."
"I would never think of such a thing. To come up like a keg!
Captain Lyth, you must know that I never would be so disgraced."
"Well, I was afraid that you might take it so, though I can not see
why it should be any harm. We often hoist the last man so."
"It is different with me," said Mary. "It may be no harm; but I
could not have it."
The free-trader looked at her bright eyes and color, and admired
her spirit, which his words had roused.
"I pray your forgiveness, Miss Anerley," he said; "I meant no harm.
I was thinking of your life. But you look now as if you could do
anything almost."
"Yes, I am warm again. I have no fear. I will not go up like a
keg, but like myself. I can do it without help from anybody."
"Only please to take care not to cut your little hands," said
Robin, as he began the climb; for he saw that her spirit was up to
do it.
"My hands are not little; and I will cut them if I choose. Please
not even to look back at me. I am not in the least afraid of
anything."
The cliff was not of the soft and friable stuff to be found at
Bridlington, but of hard and slippery sandstone, with bulky ribs
oversaling here and there, and threatening to cast the climber
back. At such spots nicks for the feet had been cut, or broken
with a hammer, but scarcely wider than a stirrup-iron, and far less
inviting. To surmount these was quite impossible except by a
process of crawling; and Mary, with her heart in her mouth,
repented of her rash contempt for the crane sling. Luckily the
height was not very great, or, tired as she was, she must have
given way; for her bodily warmth had waned again in the strong wind
buffeting the cliff. Otherwise the wind had helped her greatly by
keeping her from swaying outward; but her courage began to fail at
last, and very near the top she called for help. A short piece of
lanyard was thrown to her at once, and Robin Lyth landed her on the
bluff, panting, breathless, and blushing again.
"Well done!" he cried, gazing as she turned her face away. "Young
ladies may teach even sailors to climb. Not every sailor could get
up this cliff. Now back to Master Popplewell's as fast as you can
run, and your aunt will know what to do with you."
"You seem well acquainted with my family affairs," said Mary, who
could not help smiling. "Pray how did you even know where I am
staying?"
"Little birds tell me everything, especially about the best, and
most gentle, and beautiful of all birds."
The maiden was inclined to be vexed; but remembering how much he
had done, and how little gratitude she had shown, she forgave him,
and asked him to come to the cottage.
"I will bring up the little horse. Have no fear," he replied. "I
will not come up at all unless I bring him. But it may take two or
three hours."
With no more than a wave of his hat, he set off, as if the coast-
riders were after him, by the path along the cliffs toward Filey,
for he knew that Lord Keppel must be hoisted by the crane, and he
could not manage it without another man, and the tide would wait
for none of them. Upon the next headland he found one of his men,
for the smugglers maintained a much sharper look-out than did the
forces of his Majesty, because they were paid much better; and
returning, they managed to strap Lord Keppel, and hoist him like a
big bale of contraband goods. For their crane had been left in a
brambled hole, and they very soon rigged it out again. The little
horse kicked pretty freely in the air, not perceiving his own
welfare; but a cross-beam and pulley kept him well out from the
cliff, and they swung him in over handsomely, and landed him well
up on the sward within the brink. Then they gave him three cheers
for his great adventure, which he scarcely seemed to appreciate.
CHAPTER XIX
A FARM TO LET
That storm on the festival of St. Michael broke up the short summer
weather of the north. A wet and tempestuous month set in, and the
harvest, in all but the very best places, lay flat on the ground,
without scythe or sickle. The men of the Riding were not disturbed
by this, as farmers would have been in Suffolk; for these were
quite used to walk over their crops, without much occasion to lift
their feet. They always expected their corn to be laid, and would
have been afraid of it if it stood upright. Even at Anerley Farm
this salam of the wheat was expected in bad seasons; and it suited
the reapers of the neighborhood, who scarcely knew what to make of
knees unbent, and upright discipline of stiff-cravated ranks.
In the northwest corner of the county, where the rocky land was
mantled so frequently with cloud, and the prevalence of western
winds bore sway, an upright harvest was a thing to talk of, as the
legend of a century, credible because it scarcely could have been
imagined. And this year it would have been hard to imagine any
more prostrate and lowly position than that of every kind of crop.
The bright weather of August and attentions of the sun, and gentle
surprise of rich dews in the morning, together with abundance of
moisture underneath, had made things look as they scarcely ever
looked--clean, and straight, and elegant. But none of them had
found time to form the dry and solid substance, without which
neither man nor his staff of life can stand against adversity.
"My Lady Philippa," as the tenants called her, came out one day to
see how things looked, and whether the tenants were likely to pay
their Michaelmas rents at Christmas. Her sister, Mrs. Carnaby,
felt like interest in the question, but hated long walks, being
weaker and less active, and therefore rode a quiet pony. Very
little wheat was grown on their estates, both soil and climate
declining it; but the barley crop was of more importance, and
flourished pretty well upon the southern slopes. The land, as a
rule, was poor and shallow, and nourished more grouse than
partridges; but here and there valleys of soft shelter and fair
soil relieved the eye and comforted the pocket of the owner. These
little bits of Goshen formed the heart of every farm; though
oftentimes the homestead was, as if by some perversity, set up in
bleak and barren spots, outside of comfort's elbow.
The ladies marched on, without much heed of any other point than
one--would the barley crop do well? They had many tenants who
trusted chiefly to that, and to the rough hill oats, and wool, to
make up in coin what part of their rent they were not allowed to
pay in kind. For as yet machinery and reeking factories had not
besmirched the country-side.
"How much further do you mean to go, Philippa?" asked Mrs. Carnaby,
although she was not travelling by virtue of her own legs. "For my
part, I think we have gone too far already."
"Your ambition is always to turn back. You may turn back now if
you like. I shall go on." Miss Yordas knew that her sister would
fail of the courage to ride home all alone.
Mrs. Carnaby never would ride without Jordas or some other serving-
man behind her, as was right and usual for a lady of her position;
but "Lady Philippa" was of bolder strain, and cared for nobody's
thoughts, words, or deeds. And she had ordered her sister's
servant back for certain reasons of her own.
"Very well, very well. You always will go on, and always on the
road you choose yourself. Although it requires a vast deal of
knowledge to know that there is any road here at all."
The widow, who looked very comely for her age, and sat her pony
prettily, gave way (as usual) to the stronger will; though she
always liked to enter protest, which the elder scarcely ever
deigned to notice. But hearing that Eliza had a little cough at
night, and knowing that her appetite had not been as it ought to
be, Philippa (who really was wrapped up in her sister, but never or
seldom let her dream of such a fact) turned round graciously and
said:
"I have ordered the carriage here for half past three o'clock. We
will go back by the Scarbend road, and Heartsease can trot behind
us."
"Heartsease, uneasy you have kept my heart by your shufflings and
trippings perpetual. Philippa, I want a better-stepping pony. Pet
has ruined Heartsease."
"Pet ruins everything and everybody; and you are ruining him,
Eliza. I am the only one who has the smallest power over him. And
he is beginning to cast off that. If it comes to open war between
us, I shall be sorry for Lancelot."
"And I shall be sorry for you, Philippa. In a few years Pet will
be a man. And a man is always stronger than a woman; at any rate
in our family."
"Stronger than such as you, Eliza. But let him only rebel against
me, and he will find himself an outcast. And to prove that, I have
brought you here."
Mistress Yordas turned round, and looked in a well-known manner at
her sister, whose beautiful eyes filled with tears, and fell.
"Philippa," she said, with a breath like a sob, "sometimes you look
harder than poor dear papa, in his very worst moments, used to
look. I am sure that I do not at all deserve it. All that I pray
for is peace and comfort; and little do I get of either."
"And you will get less, as long as you pray for them, instead of
doing something better. The only way to get such things is to make
them."
"Then I think that you might make enough for us both, if you had
any regard for them, or for me, Philippa."
Mistress Yordas smiled, as she often did, at her sister's style of
reasoning. And she cared not a jot for the last word, so long as
the will and the way were left to her. And in this frame of mind
she turned a corner from the open moor track into a little lane, or
rather the expiring delivery of a lane, which was leading a better
existence further on.
Mrs. Carnaby followed dutifully, and Heartsease began to pick up
his feet, which he scorned to do upon the negligence of sward. And
following this good lane, they came to a gate, corded to an ancient
tree, and showing up its foot, as a dog does when he has a thorn in
it. This gate seemed to stand for an ornament, or perhaps a
landmark; for the lane, instead of submitting to it, passed by upon
either side, and plunged into a dingle, where a gray old house was
sheltering. The lonely moorside farm--if such a wild and desolate
spot could be a farm--was known as "Wallhead," from the relics of
some ancient wall; and the folk who lived there, or tried to live,
although they possessed a surname--which is not a necessary
consequence of life--very seldom used it, and more rarely still had
it used for them. For the ancient fashion still held ground of
attaching the idea of a man to that of things more extensive and
substantial. So the head of the house was "Will o' the Wallhead;"
his son was "Tommy o' Will o' the Wallhead;" and his grandson,
"Willy o' Tommy o' Will o' the Wallhead." But the one their great
lady desired to see was the unmarried daughter of the house, "Sally
o' Will o' the Wallhead."
Mistress Yordas knew that the men of the house would be out upon
the land at this time of day, while Sally would be full of
household work, and preparing their homely supper. So she walked
in bravely at the open door, while her sister waited with the pony
in the yard. Sally was clumping about in clog-shoes, with a child
or two sprawling after her (for Tommy's wife was away with him at
work), and if the place was not as clean as could be, it seemed as
clean as need be.
The natives of this part are rough in manner, and apt to regard
civility as the same thing with servility. Their bluntness does
not proceed from thickness, as in the south of England, but from a
surety of their own worth, and inferiority to no one. And to deal
with them rightly, this must be entered into.
Sally o' Will o' the Wallhead bobbed her solid and black curly
head, with a clout like a jelly on the poll of it, to the owner of
their land, and a lady of high birth; but she vouchsafed no
courtesy, neither did Mistress Yordas expect one. But the active
and self-contained woman set a chair in the low dark room, which
was their best, and stood waiting to be spoken to.
"Sally," said the lady, who also possessed the Yorkshire gift of
going to the point, "you had a man ten years ago; you behaved badly
to him, and he went into the Indian Company."
"A' deed," replied the maiden, without any blush, because she had
been in the right throughout; "and noo a' hath coom in a better
moind."
"And you have come to know your own mind about him. You have been
steadfast to him for ten years. He has saved up some money, and is
come back to marry you."
"I heed nane o' the brass. But my Jack is back again."
"His father held under us for many years. He was a thoroughly
honest man, and paid his rent as often as he could. Would Jack
like to have his father's farm? It has been let to his cousin, as
you know; but they have been going from bad to worse; and
everything must be sold off, unless I stop it."
Sally was of dark Lancastrian race, with handsome features and fine
brown eyes. She had been a beauty ten years ago, and could still
look comely, when her heart was up.
"My lady," she said, with her heart up now, at the hope of soon
having a home of her own, and something to work for that she might
keep, "such words should not pass the mouth wi'out bin meant."
What she said was very different in sound, and not to be rendered
in echo by any one born far away from that country, where three
dialects meet and find it hard to guess what each of the others is
up to. Enough that this is what Sally meant to say, and that
Mistress Yordas understood it.
"It is not my custom to say a thing without meaning it," she
answered; "but unless it is taken up at once, it is likely to come
to nothing. Where is your man Jack?"
"Jack is awaa to the minister to tell of us cooming tegither."
Sally made no blush over this, as she might have done ten years
ago.
"He must be an excellent and faithful man. He shall have the farm
if he wishes it, and can give some security at going in. Let him
come and see Jordas tomorrow."
After a few more words, the lady left Sally full of gratitude, very
little of which was expressed aloud, and therefore the whole was
more likely to work, as Mistress Yordas knew right well.
The farm was a better one than Wallhead, having some good barley
land upon it; and Jack did not fail to present himself at Scargate
upon the following morning. But the lady of the house did not
think fit herself to hold discourse with him. Jordas was bidden to
entertain him, and find out how he stood in cash, and whether his
character was solid; and then to leave him with a jug of ale, and
come and report proceedings. The dogman discharged this duty well,
being as faithful as the dogs he kept, and as keen a judge of human
nature.
"The man hath no harm in him," he said, touching his hair to the
ladies, as he entered the audit-room. "A' hath been knocked aboot
a bit in them wars i' Injury, and hath only one hand left; but a'
can lay it upon fifty poon, and get surety for anither fifty."
"Then tell him, Jordas, that he may go to Mr. Jellicorse to-morrow,
to see about the writings, which he must pay for. I will write
full instructions for Mr. Jellicorse, and you go and get your
dinner; and then take my letter, that he may have time to consider
it. Wait a moment. There are other things to be done in
Middleton, and it would be late for you to come back to-night, the
days are drawing in so. Sleep at our tea-grocer's; he will put you
up. Give your letter at once into the hands of Mr. Jellicorse, and
he will get forward with the writings. Tell this man Jack that he
must be there before twelve o'clock to-morrow, and then you can
call about two o'clock, and bring back what there may be for
signature; and be careful of it. Eliza, I think I have set forth
your wishes."
"But, my lady, lawyers do take such a time; and who will look after
Master Lancelot? I fear to have my feet two moiles off here--"
"Obey your orders, without reasoning; that is for those who give
them. Eliza, I am sure that you agree with me. Jordas, make this
man clearly understand, as you can do when you take the trouble.
But you first must clearly understand the whole yourself. I will
repeat it for you."
Philippa Yordas went through the whole of her orders again most
clearly, and at every one of them the dogman nodded his large head
distinctly, and counted the nods on his fingers to make sure; for
this part is gifted with high mathematics. And the numbers stick
fast like pegs driven into clay.
"Poor Jordas! Philippa, you are working him too hard. You have
made great wrinkles in his forehead. Jordas, you must have no
wrinkles until you are married."
While Mrs. Carnaby spoke so kindly, the dogman took his fingers off
their numeral scale, and looked at her. By nature the two were
first cousins, of half blood; by law and custom, and education, and
vital institution, they were sundered more widely than black and
white. But, for all that, the dogman loved the lady, at a faithful
distance.
"You seem to me now to have it clearly, Jordas," said the elder
sister, looking at him sternly, because Eliza was so soft; "you
will see that no mischief can be done with the dogs or horses while
you are away; and Mr. Jellicorse will give you a letter for me, to
say that everything is right. My desire is to have things settled
promptly, because your friend Jack has been to set the banns up;
and the Church is more speedy in such matters than the law. Now
the sooner you are off, the better."
Jordas, in his steady but by no means stupid way, considered at his
leisure what such things could mean. He knew all the property, and
the many little holdings, as well as, and perhaps a great deal
better than, if they had happened to be his own. But he never had
known such a hurry made before, or such a special interest shown
about the letting of any tenement, of perhaps tenfold the value.
However, he said, like a sensible man (and therefore to himself
only), that the ways of women are beyond compute, and must be
suitably carried out, without any contradiction.
CHAPTER XX
AN OLD SOLDIER
Now Mr. Jellicorse had been taking a careful view of everything.
He wished to be certain of placing himself both on the righteous
side and the right one; and in such a case this was not to be done
without much circumspection. He felt himself bound to his present
clients, and could not even dream of deserting them; but still
there are many things that may be done to conciliate the adversary
of one's friend, without being false to the friend himself. And
some of these already were occurring to the lawyer.
It was true that no adversary had as yet appeared, nor even shown
token of existence; but some little sign of complication had
arisen, and one serious fact was come to light. The solicitors of
Sir Ulphus de Roos (the grandson of Sir Fursan, whose daughter had
married Richard Yordas) had pretty strong evidence, in some old
letters, that a deed of appointment had been made by the said
Richard, and Eleanor his wife, under the powers of their
settlement. Luckily they had not been employed in the matter, and
possessed not so much as a draft or a letter of instructions; and
now it was no concern of theirs to make, or meddle, or even move.
Neither did they know that any question could arise about it; for
they were a highly antiquated firm, of most rigid respectability,
being legal advisers to the Chapter of York, and clerks of the
Prerogative Court, and able to charge twice as much as almost any
other firm, and nearly three times as much as poor Jellicorse.
Mr. Jellicorse had been most skillful and wary in sounding these
deep and silent people; for he wanted to find out how much they
knew, without letting them suspect that there was anything to know.
And he proved an old woman's will gratis, or at least put it down
to those who could afford it--because nobody meant to have it
proved--simply for the sake of getting golden contact with Messrs.
Akeborum, Micklegate, and Brigant. Right craftily then did he
fetch a young member of the firm, who delighted in angling, to take
his holiday at Middleton, and fish the goodly Tees; and by gentle
and casual discourse of gossip, in hours of hospitality, out of him
he hooked and landed all that his firm knew of the Yordas race.
Young Brigant thought it natural enough that his host, as the
lawyer of that family, and their trusted adviser for five-and-
twenty years, should like to talk over things of an elder date,
which now could be little more than trifles of genealogical
history. He got some fine fishing and good dinners, and found
himself pleased with the river and the town, and his very kind host
and hostess; and it came into his head that if Miss Emily grew up
as pretty and lively as she promised to be, he might do worse than
marry her, and open a connection with such a fishing station. At
any rate he left her as a "chose in action," which might be reduced
into possession some fine day.
Such was the state of affairs when Jordas, after a long and muddy
ride, sent word that he would like to see the master, for a minute
or two, if convenient. The days were grown short, and the candles
lit, and Mr. Jellicorse was fast asleep, having had a good deal to
get through that day, including an excellent supper. The lawyer's
wife said: "Let him call in the morning. Business is over, and
the office is closed. Susanna, your master must not be disturbed."
But the master awoke, and declared that he would see him.
Candles were set in the study, while Jordas was having a trifle of
refreshment; and when he came in, Mr. Jellicorse was there, with
his spectacles on, and full of business.
"Asking of your pardon. Sir, for disturbing of you now," said the
dogman, with the rain upon his tarred coat shining, in a little
course of drainage from his great brown beard, "my orders wur to
lay this in your own hand, and seek answer to-morrow by dinner-
time, if may be."
"Master Jordas, you shall have it, if it can be. Do you know
anybody who can promise more than that?"
"Plenty, Sir, to promise it, as you must know by this time; but
never a body to perform so much as half. But craving of your
pardon again, and separate, I wud foin spake a word or two of
myself."
"Certainly, Jordas, I shall listen with great pleasure. A fine-
looking fellow like you must have affairs. And the lady ought to
make some settlement. It shall all be done for you at half price."
"No, Sir, it is none o' that kind of thing," the dogman answered,
with a smile, as if he might have had such opportunities, but would
trouble no lawyer about them; "and I get too much of half price at
home. It is about my ladies I desire to make speech. They keep
their business too tight, master."
"Jordas, you have been well taught and trained; and you are a man
of sagacity. Tell me faithfully what you mean. It shall go no
further. And it may be of great service to your ladies."
"It is not much, Master Jellicoose; and you may make less than that
of it. But a lie shud be met and knocked doon, Sir, according to
my opinion."
"Certainly, Jordas, when an action will not lie; and sometimes even
where it does, it is wise to commit a defensible assault, and so to
become the defendant. Jordas, you are big enough to do that."
"Master Jellicoose, you are a pleasant man; but you twist my
maning, as a lawyer must. They all does it, to keep their hand in.
I am speaking of the stories, Sir, that is so much about. And I
think that my ladies should be told of them right out, and come
forward, and lay their hands on them. The Yordases always did
wrong, of old time; but they never was afraid to jump on it."
"My friend, you speak in parables. What stories have arisen to be
jumped upon?"
"Well, Sir, for one thing, they do tell that the proper owner of
the property is Sir Duncan, now away in India. A man hath come
home who knows him well, and sayeth that he is like a prince out
there, with command of a country twice as big as Great Britain, and
they up and made 'Sir Duncan' of him, by his duty to the king. And
if he cometh home, all must fall before him."
"Even the law of the land, I suppose, and the will of his own
father. Pretty well, so far, Jordas. And what next?"
"Nought, Sir, nought. But I thought I wur duty-bound to tell you
that. What is women before a man Yordas?"
"My good friend, we will not despair. But you are keeping back
something; I know it by your feet. You are duty-bound to tell me
every word now, Jordas."
"The lawyers is the devil," said the dogman to himself; and being
quite used to this reflection, Mr. Jellicorse smiled and nodded;
"but if you must have it all, Sir, it is no more than this. Jack
o' the Smithies, as is to marry Sally o' Will o' the Wallhead, is
to have the lease of Shipboro' farm, and he is the man as hath told
it all."
"Very well. We will wish him good luck with his farm," Mr.
Jellicorse answered, cheerfully; "and what is even rarer nowadays,
I fear, good luck of his wife, Master Jordas."
But as soon as the sturdy retainer was gone, and the sound of his
heavy boots had died away, Mr. Jellicorse shook his head very
gravely, and said, as he opened and looked through his packet,
which confirmed the words of Jordas, "Sad indiscretion--want of
legal knowledge--headstrong women--the very way to spoil it all!
My troubles are beginning, and I had better go to bed."
His good wife seconded this wise resolve; and without further
parley it was put into effect, and proclaimed to be successful by a
symphony of snores. For this is the excellence of having other
people's cares to carry (with the carriage well paid), that they
sit very lightly on the springs of sleep. That well-balanced
vehicle rolls on smoothly, without jerk, or jar, or kick, so long
as it travels over alien land.
In the morning Mr. Jellicorse was up to anything, legitimate,
legal, and likely to be paid for. Not that he would stir half the
breadth of one wheat corn, even for the sake of his daily bread,
from the straight and strict line of integrity. He had made up his
mind about that long ago, not only from natural virtue, strong and
dominant as that was, but also by dwelling on his high repute, and
the solid foundations of character. He scarcely knew anybody, when
he came to think of it, capable of taking such a lofty course; but
that simply confirmed him in his stern resolve to do what was right
and expedient.
It was quite one o'clock before Jack o' the Smithies rang the bell
to see about his lease. He ought to have done it two hours sooner,
if he meant to become a humble tenant; and the lawyer, although he
had plenty to do of other people's business, looked upon this as a
very bad sign. Then he read his letter of instructions once more,
and could not but admire the nice brevity of these, and the
skillful style of hinting much and declaring very little.
For after giving full particulars about the farm, and the rent, and
the covenants required, Mistress Yordas proceeded thus:
"The new tenant is the son of a former occupant, who proved to be a
remarkably honest man, in a case of strong temptation. As happens
too often with men of probity, he was misled and made bankrupt, and
died about twelve years ago, I think. Please to verify this by
reference. The late tenant was his nephew, and has never perceived
the necessity of paying rent. We have been obliged to distrain, as
you know; and I wish John Smithies to buy in what he pleases. He
has saved some capital in India, where I am told that he fought
most gallantly. Singular to say, he has met with, and perhaps
served under, our lamented and lost brother Duncan, of whom and his
family he may give us interesting particulars. You know how this
neighborhood excels in idle talk, and if John Smithies becomes our
tenant, his discourse must be confined to his own business. But he
must not hesitate to impart to you any facts you may think it right
to ask about. Jordas will bring us your answer, under seal."
"Skillfully put, up to that last word, which savors too much of
teaching me my own business. Aberthaw, are you quite ready with
that lease? It is wanted rather in a hurry."
As Mr. Jellicorse thought the former, and uttered the latter part
of these words, it was plain to see that he was fidgety. He had
put on superior clothes to get up with; and the clerks had
whispered to one another that it must be his wedding day, and ought
to end in a half-holiday all round, and be chalked thenceforth on
the calendar; but instead of being joyful and jocular, like a man
who feels a saving Providence over him, the lawyer was as dismal,
and unsettled and splenetic, as a prophet on the brink of wedlock.
But the very last thing that he ever dreamed of doubting was his
power to turn this old soldier inside out.
Jack o' the Smithies was announced at last; and the lawyer, being
vexed with him for taking such a time, resolved to let him take a
little longer, and kept him waiting, without any bread and cheese,
for nearly half an hour. The wisdom of doing this depended on the
character of the man, and the state of his finances. And both of
these being strong enough to stand, to keep him so long on his legs
was unwise. At last he came in, a very sturdy sort of fellow,
thinking no atom the less of himself because some of his anatomy
was honorably gone.
"Servant, Sir," he said, making a salute; "I had orders to come to
you about a little lease."
"Right, my man, I remember now. You are thinking of taking to your
father's farm, after knocking about for some years in foreign
parts. Ah, nothing like old England after all. And to tread the
ancestral soil, and cherish the old associations, and to nurture a
virtuous family in the fear of the Lord, and to be ready with the
rent--"
"Rent is too high, Sir; I must have five pounds off. It ought to
be ten, by right. Cousin Joe has taken all out, and put nought
in."
"John o' the Smithies, you astonish me. I have strong reason for
believing that the rent is far too low. I have no instructions to
reduce it."
"Then I must try for another farm, Sir. I can have one of better
land, under Sir Walter; only I seemed to hold on to the old place;
and my Sally likes to be under the old ladies."
"Old ladies! Jack, what are you come to? Beautiful ladies in the
prime of life--but perhaps they would be old in India. I fear that
you have not learned much behavior. But at any rate you ought to
know your own mind. Is it your intention to refuse so kind an
offer (which was only made for your father's sake, and to please
your faithful Sally) simply because another of your family has not
been honest in his farming?"
"I never have took it in that way before," the steady old soldier
answered, showing that rare phenomenon, the dawn of a new opinion
upon a stubborn face. "Give me a bit to turn it over in my mind,
Sir. Lawyers be so quick, and so nimble, and all-cornered."
"Turn it over fifty times, Master Smithies. We have no wish to
force the farm upon you. Take a pinch of snuff, to help your sense
of justice. Or if you would like a pipe, go and have it in my
kitchen. And if you are hungry, cook will give you eggs and
bacon."
"No, Sir; I am very much obliged to you. I never make much o' my
thinking. I go by what the Lord sends right inside o' me, whenever
I have decent folk to deal with. And spite of your cloth, Sir, you
have a honest look."
"You deserve another pinch of snuff for that. Master Smithies, you
have a gift of putting hard things softly. But this is not
business. Is your mind made up?"
"Yes, Sir. I will take the farm, at full rent, if the covenants
are to my liking. They must be on both sides--both sides, mind
you."
Mr. Jellicorse smiled as he began to read the draft prepared from a
very ancient form which was firmly established on the Scargate Hall
estates. The covenants, as usual, were all upon one side, the
lessee being bound to a multitude of things, and the lessor to
little more than acceptance of the rent. But such a result is in
the nature of the case. Yet Jack o' the Smithies was not well
content. In him true Yorkshire stubbornness was multiplied by the
dogged tenacity of a British soldier, and the aggregate raised to
an unknown power by the efforts of shrewd ignorance; and at last
the lawyer took occasion to say,
"Master John Smithies, you are worthy to serve under the colors of
a Yordas."
"That I have, Sir, that I have," cried the veteran, taken unawares,
and shaking the stump of his arm in proof; "I have served under Sir
Duncan Yordas, who will come home some day and claim his own; and
he won't want no covenants of me."
"You can not have served under Duncan Yordas," Mr. Jellicorse
answered, with a smile of disbelief, craftily rousing the pugnacity
of the man; "because he was not even in the army of the Company, or
any other army. I mean, of course, unless there was some other
Duncan Yordas."
"Tell me!" Jack o' Smithies almost shouted--"tell me about Duncan
Yordas, indeed! Who he was, and what he wasn't! And what do
lawyers know of such things? Why, you might have to command a
regiment, and read covenants to them out there! Sir Duncan was not
our colonel, nor our captain; but we was under his orders all the
more; and well he knew how to give them. Not one in fifty of us
was white; but he made us all as good as white men; and the enemy
never saw the color of our backs. I wish I was out there again, I
do, and would have staid, but for being hoarse of combat; though
the fault was never in my throat, but in my arm."
"There is no fault in your throat, John Smithies, except that it is
a great deal too loud. I am sorry for Sally, with a temper such as
yours."
"That shows how much you know about it. I never lose my temper,
without I hearken lies. And for you to go and say that I never saw
Sir Duncan--"
"I said nothing of the kind, my friend. But you did not come here
to talk about Duncan, or Captain, or Colonel, or Nabob, or Rajah,
or whatever potentate he may be--of him we desire to know nothing
more--a man who ran away, and disgraced his family, and killed his
poor father, knows better than ever to set his foot on Scargate
land again. You talk about having a lease from him, a man with
fifty wives, I dare say, and a hundred children! We all know what
they are out there."
There are very few tricks of the human face divine more forcibly
expressive of contempt than the lowering of the eyelids so that
only a narrow streak of eye is exposed to the fellow-mortal, and
that streak fixed upon him steadfastly; and the contumely is
intensified when (as in the present instance) the man who does it
is gifted with yellow lashes on the under lid. Jack o' the
Smithies treated Mr. Jellicorse to a gaze of this sort; and the
lawyer, whose wrath had been feigned, to rouse the other's, and so
extract full information, began to feel his own temper rise. And
if Jack had known when to hold his tongue, he must have had the
best of it. But the lawyer knew this, and the soldier did not.
"Master Jellicorse," said the latter, with his forehead deeply
wrinkled, and his eyes now opened to their widest, "in saying of
that you make a liar of yourself. Lease or no lease--that you do.
Leasing stands for lying in the Bible, and a' seemeth to do the
same thing in Yorkshire. Fifty wives, and a hundred children! Sir
Duncan hath had one wife, and lost her, through the Neljan fever
and her worry; and a Yorkshire lady, as you might know--and never
hath he cared to look at any woman since. There now, what you make
of that--you lawyers that make out every man a rake, and every
woman a light o' love? Get along! I hate the lot o' you."
"What a strange character you are! You must have had jungle fever,
I should think. No, Diana, there is no danger"--for Jack o' the
Smithies had made such a noise that Mrs. Jellicorse got frightened
and ran in: "this poor man has only one arm; and if he had two, he
could not hurt me, even if he wished it. Be pleased to withdraw,
Diana. John Smithies, you have simply made a fool of yourself. I
have not said a word against Sir Duncan Yordas, or his wife, or his
son--"
"He hath no son, I tell you; and that was partly how he lost his
wife."
"Well, then, his daughters, I have said no harm of them."
"And very good reason--because he hath none. You lawyers think you
are so clever; and you never know anything rightly. Sir Duncan
hath himself alone to see to, and hundreds of thousands of darkies
to manage, with a score of British bayonets. But he never heedeth
of the bayonets, not he."
"I have read of such men, but I never saw them," Mr. Jellicorse
said, as if thinking to himself; "I always feel doubt about the
possibility of them."
"He hath ten elephants," continued Soldier Smithies, resolved to
crown the pillar of his wonders while about it--"ten great
elephants that come and kneel before him, and a thousand men ready
to run to his thumb; and his word is law--better law than is in
England--for scores and scores of miles on the top of hundreds."
"Why did you come away, John Smithies? Why did you leave such a
great prince, and come home?"
"Because it was home, Sir. And for sake of Sally."
"There is some sense in that, my friend. And now if you wish to
make a happy life for Sally, you will do as I advise you. Will you
take my advice? My time is of value; and I am not accustomed to
waste my words."
"Well, Sir, I will hearken to you. No man that meaneth it can say
more than that."
"Jack o' the Smithies, you are acute. You have not been all over
the world for nothing. But if you have made up your mind to
settle, and be happy in your native parts, one thing must be
attended to. It is a maxim of law, time-honored and of the highest
authority, that the tenant must never call in question the title of
his landlord. Before attorning, you may do so; after that you are
estopped. Now is it or is it not your wish to become the tenant of
the Smithies farm, which your father held so honorably? Farm
produce is fetching great prices now; and if you refuse this offer,
we can have a man, the day after to-morrow, who will give my ladies
10 pounds more, and who has not been a soldier, but a farmer all his
life."
"Lawyer Jellicorse, I will take it; for Sally hath set her heart on
it; and I know every crumple of the ground better than the wisest
farmer doth. Sir, I will sign the articles."
"The lease will be engrossed by next market day; and the sale will
be stopped until you have taken whatever you wish at a valuation.
But remember what I said--you are not to go prating about this
wonderful Sir Duncan, who is never likely to come home, if he lives
in such grand state out there, and who is forbidden by his father's
will from taking an acre of the property. And as he has no heirs,
and is so wealthy, it can not matter much to him."
"That is true," said the soldier; "but he might love to come home,
as all our folk in India do; and if he doth, I will not deny him.
I tell you fairly, Master Jellicorse."
"I like you for being an outspoken man, and true to those who have
used you well. You could do him no good, and you might do harm to
others, and unsettle simple minds, by going on about him among the
tenants."
"His name hath never crossed my lips till now, and shall not again
without good cause. Here is my hand upon it, Master Lawyer."
The lawyer shook hands with him heartily, for he could not but
respect the man for his sturdiness and sincerity. And when Jack
was gone, Mr. Jellicorse played with his spectacles and his snuff-
box for several minutes before he could make up his mind how to
deal with the matter. Then hearing the solid knock of Jordas, who
was bound to take horse for Scargate House pretty early at this
time of year (with the weakening of the day among the mountains),
he lost a few moments in confusion. The dogman could not go
without any answer; and how was any good answer to be given in half
an hour, at the utmost? A time had been when the lawyer studied
curtness and precision under minds of abridgment in London. But
the more he had labored to introduce rash brevity into Yorkshire,
and to cut away nine words out of ten, when all the ten meant one
thing only, the more of contempt for his ignorance he won, and the
less money he made out of it. And no sooner did he marry than he
was forced to give up that, and, like a respectable butcher, put in
every pennyweight of fat that could be charged for. Thus had he
thriven and grown like a goodly deed of fine amplification; and if
he had made Squire Philip's will now, it would scarcely have gone
into any breast pocket. Unluckily it is an easier thing to make a
man's will than to carry it out, even though fortune be favorable.
In the present case obstacles seemed to be arising which might at
any moment require great skill and tact to surmount them; and the
lawyer, hearing Jordas striding to and fro impatiently in the
waiting-room, was fain to win time for consideration by writing a
short note to say that he proposed to wait upon the ladies the very
next day. For he had important news which seemed expedient to
discuss with them. In the mean time he begged them not to be at
all uneasy, for his news upon the whole was propitious.
CHAPTER XXI
JACK AND JILL GO DOWN THE GILL
Upon a little beck that runs away into the Lune, which is a
tributary of the Tees, there stood at this time a small square
house of gray stone, partly greened with moss, or patched with
drip, and opening to the sun with small dark windows. It looked as
if it never could be warm inside, by sunshine or by fire-glow, and
cared not, although it was the only house for miles, whether it
were peopled or stood empty. But this cold, hard-looking place
just now was the home of some hot and passionate hearts.
The people were poor; and how they made their living would have
been a mystery to their neighbors, if there had been any. They
rented no land, and they followed no trade, and they took no alms
by land or post; for the begging-letter system was not yet
invented. For the house itself they paid a small rent, which
Jordas received on behalf of his ladies, and always found it ready;
and that being so, he had nothing more to ask, and never meddled
with them. They had been there before he came into office, and it
was not his place to seek into their history; and if it had been,
he would not have done it. For his sympathies were (as was natural
and native to a man so placed) with all outsiders, and the people
who compress into one or two generations that ignorance of lineage
which some few families strive to defer for centuries, showing
thereby unwise insistence, if latter-day theories are correct.
But if Master Jordas knew little of these people, somebody else
knew more about them, and perhaps too much about one of them.
Lancelot Carnaby, still called "Pet," in one of those rushes after
random change which the wildness of his nature drove upon him, had
ridden his pony to a stand-still on the moor one sultry day of that
August. No pity or care for the pony had he, but plenty of both
for his own dear self. The pony might be left for the crows to
pick his bones, so far as mattered to Pet Carnaby; but it mattered
very greatly to a boy like him to have to go home upon his own
legs. Long exertion was hateful to him, though he loved quick
difficulty; for he was one of the many who combine activity with
laziness. And while he was wondering what he should do, and
worrying the fine little animal, a wave of the wind carried into
his ear the brawling of a beck, like the humming of a hive. The
boy had forgotten that the moor just here was broken by a narrow
glen, engrooved with sliding water.
Now with all his strength, which was not much, he tugged the
panting and limping little horse to the flat breach, and then down
the steep of the gill, and let him walk into the water and begin to
slake off a little of the crust of thirst. But no sooner did he
see him preparing to rejoice in large crystal draughts (which his
sobs had first forbidden) than he jerked him with the bit, and made
a bad kick at him, because he could bear to see nothing happy. The
pony had sense enough to reply, weary as he was, with a stronger
kick, which took Master Lancelot in the knee, and discouraged him
for any further contest. Bully as he was, the boy had too much of
ancient Yordas pith in him to howl, or cry, or even whimper, but
sat down on a little ridge to nurse his poor knee, and meditate
revenge against the animal with hoofs. Presently pain and wrath
combined became too much for the weakness of his frame, and he fell
back and lay upon the hard ground in a fainting fit.
At such times, as everybody said (especially those whom he knocked
about in his lively moments), this boy looked wonderfully lovely.
His features were almost perfect; and he had long eyelashes like an
Andalusian girl, and cheeks more exquisite than almost any doll's,
a mouth of fine curve, and a chin of pert roundness, a neck of the
mould that once was called "Byronic," and curly dark hair flying
all around, as fine as the very best peruke. In a word, he was
just what a boy ought not to be, who means to become an Englishman.
Such, however, was not the opinion of a creature even more
beautiful than he, in the truer points of beauty. Coming with a
pitcher for some water from the beck, Insie of the Gill (the
daughter of Bat and Zilpie of the Gill) was quite amazed as she
chanced round a niche of the bank upon this image. An image fallen
from the sun, she thought it, or at any rate from some part of
heaven, until she saw the pony, who was testing the geology of the
district by the flavor of its herbage. Then Insie knew that here
was a mortal boy, not dead, but sadly wounded; and she drew her
short striped kirtle down, because her shapely legs were bare.
Lancelot Carnaby, coming to himself (which was a poor return for
him), opened his large brown eyes, and saw a beautiful girl looking
at him. As their eyes met, his insolent languor fell--for he
generally awoke from these weak lapses into a slow persistent rage--
and wonder and unknown admiration moved something in his nature
that had never moved before. His words, however, were scarcely up
to the high mark of the moment. "Who are you?" was all he said.
"I am called 'Insie of the Gill.' My father is Bat of the Gill,
and my mother Zilpie of the Gill. You must be a stranger, not to
know us."
"I never heard of you in all my life; although you seem to be
living on my land. All the land about here belongs to me; though
my mother has it for a little time."
"I did not know," she answered, softly, and scarcely thinking what
she said, "that the land belonged to anybody, besides the birds and
animals. And is the water yours as well?"
"Yes; every drop of it, of course. But you are quite welcome to a
pitcherful." This was the rarest affability of Pet; and he
expected extraordinary thanks.
But Insie looked at him with surprise. "I am very much obliged to
you," she said; "but I never asked any one to give it me, unless it
is the beck itself; and the beck never seems to grudge it."
"You are not like anybody I ever saw. You speak very different
from the people about here; and you look very different ten times
over."
Insie reddened at his steadfast gaze, and turned her sweet soft
face away. And yet she wanted to know more. "Different means a
great many things. Do you mean that I look better, or worse?"
"Better, of course; fifty thousand times better! Why, you look
like a beautiful lady. I tell you, I have seen hundreds of ladies;
perhaps you haven't, but I have. And you look better than all of
them."
"You say a great deal that you do not think," Insie answered,
quietly, yet turning round to show her face again. "I have heard
that gentlemen always do; and I suppose that you are a young
gentleman."
"I should hope so indeed. Don't you know who I am? I am Lancelot
Yordas Carnaby."
"Why, you look quite as if you could stop the river," she answered,
with a laugh, though she felt his grandeur. "I suppose you
consider me nobody at all. But I must get my water."
"You shall not carry water. You are much too pretty. I will carry
it for you."
Pet was not "introspective;" otherwise he must have been astonished
at himself. His mother and aunt would have doubted their own eyes
if they had beheld this most dainty of the dainty, and mischievous
of the mischievous (with pain and passion for the moment
vanquished), carefully carrying an old brown pitcher. Yet this he
did, and wonderfully well, as he believed; though Insie only
laughed to see him. For he had on the loveliest gaiters in the
world, of thin white buckskin with agate buttons, and breeches of
silk, and a long brocaded waistcoat, and a short coat of rich
purple velvet, also a riding hat with a gray ostrich plume. And
though he had very little calf inside his gaiters, and not much
chest to fill out his waistcoat, and narrower shoulders than a
velvet coat deserved, it would have been manifest, even to a
tailor, that the boy had lineal, if not lateral, right to his rich
habiliments.
Insie of the Gill (who seemed not to be of peasant birth, though so
plainly dressed), came gently down the steep brook-side to see what
was going to be done for her.
She admired Lancelot, both for bravery of apparel and of action;
and she longed to know how he would get a good pitcher of water
without any splash upon his clothes. So she stood behind a little
bush, pretending not to be at all concerned, but amused at having
her work done for her. But Pet was too sharp to play cat's-paw for
nothing.
"Smile, and say 'thank you,'" he cried, "or I won't do it. I am
not going up to my middle for nothing; I know that you want to
laugh at me."
"You must have a very low middle," said Insie; "why, it never comes
half way to my knees."
"You have got no stockings, and no new gaiters," Lancelot answered,
reasonably; and then, like two children, they set to and laughed,
till the gill almost echoed with them.
"Why, you're holding the mouth of the pitcher down stream!" Insie
could hardly speak for laughing. "Is that how you go to fill a
pitcher?"
"Yes, and the right way too," he answered; "the best water always
comes up the eddies. You ought to be old enough to know that."
"I don't know anything at all--except that you are ruining your
best clothes."
"I don't care twopence for such rubbish. You ought to see me on a
Sunday, Insie, if you want to know what is good. There, you never
drew such a pitcher as that. And I believe there is a fish in the
bottom of it."
"Oh, if there is a fish, let me have him in my hands. I can nurse
a fish on dry land, until he gets quite used to it. Are you sure
that there is a little fish?"
"No, there is no fish; and I am soaking wet. But I never care what
anybody thinks of me. If they say what I don't like, I kick them."
"Ah, you are accustomed to have your own way. That any one might
know by looking at you. But I have got a quantity of work to do.
You can see that by my fingers."
The girl made a courtesy, and took the pitcher from him, because he
was knocking it against his legs; but he could not be angry when he
looked into her eyes, though the habit of his temper made him try
to fume.
"Do you know what I think?" she said, fixing bright hazel eyes upon
him; "I think that you are very passionate sometimes."
"Well, if I am, it is my own business. Who told you anything about
it? Whoever it was shall pay out for it."
"Nobody told me, Sir. You must remember that I never even heard of
your name before."
"Oh, come, I can't quite take down that. Everybody knows me for
fifty miles or more; and I don't care what they think of me."
"You may please yourself about believing me," she answered, without
concern about it. "No one who knows me doubts my word, though I am
not known for even five miles away."
"What an extraordinary girl you are! You say things on purpose to
provoke me. Nobody ever does that; they are only too glad to keep
me in a good temper."
"If you are like that, Sir, I had better run away. My father will
be home in about an hour, and he might think that you had no
business here."
"I! No business upon my own land! This place must be bewitched, I
think. There is a witch upon the moors, I know, who can take
almost any shape; but--but they say she is three hundred years of
age, or more."
"Perhaps, then, I am bewitched," said Insie; "or why should I stop
to talk with you, who are only a rude boy, after all, even
according to your own account?"
"Well, you can go if you like. I suppose you live in that queer
little place down there?"
"The house is quite good enough for me and my father and mother and
brother Maunder. Good-by; and please never to come here again."
"You don't understand me. I have made you cry. Oh, Insie, let me
have hold of your hand. I would rather make anybody cry than you.
I never liked anybody so before."
"Cry, indeed! Who ever heard me cry? It is the way you splashed
the water up. I am not in the habit of crying for a stranger.
Good-by, now; and go to your great people. You say that you are
bad; and I fear it is too true."
"I am not bad at all. It is only what everybody says, because I
never want to please them. But I want to please you. I would give
anything to do it; if you would only tell me how."
The girl having cleverly dried her eyes, poured all their bright
beauty upon him, and the heart of the youth was enlarged with a
new, very sweet, and most timorous feeling. Then his dark eyes
dropped, and he touched her gently, and only said, "Don't go away."
"But I must go away," Insie answered, with a blush, and a look as
of more tears lurking in her eyes. "I have stopped too long; I
must go away at once."
"But when may I come again? I will hold you, and fight for you
with everybody in the world, unless you tell me when to come
again."
"Hush! I am quite ashamed to hear you talk so. I am a poor girl,
and you a great young gentleman."
"Never mind that. That has nothing to do with it. Would you like
to make me miserable, and a great deal more wicked than I ever was
before? Do you hate me so much as all that, Insie?"
"No. You have been very kind to me. Only my father would be
angry, I am sure; and my brother Maunder is dreadful. They all go
away every other Friday, and that is the only free time I have."
"Every other Friday! What a long time, to be sure! Won't you come
again for water this day fortnight?"
"Yes; I come for water three or four times every day. But if they
were to see you, they would kill you first, and then lock me up
forever. The only wise plan is for you to come no more."
"You can not be thinking for a moment what you say. I will tell
you what; if you don't come, I will march up to the house, and beat
the door in. The landlord can do that, according to law."
"If you care at all for me," said Insie, looking as if she had
known him for ten years, "you will do exactly what I tell you. You
will think no more about me for a fortnight; and then if you fancy
that I can do you good by advice about your bad temper, or by
teaching you how to plait reeds for a bat, and how to fill a
pitcher--perhaps I might be able to come down the gill again."
"I wish it was to-morrow. I shall count the days. But be sure to
come early, if they go away all day. I shall bring my dinner with
me; and you shall have the first help, and I will carve. But I
should like one thing before I go; and it is the first time I ever
asked anybody, though they ask me often enough, I can tell you."
"What would you like? You seem to me to be always wanting
something."
"I should like very much--very much indeed--just to give you one
kiss, Insie."
"It can not be thought of for a moment," she replied; "and the
first time of my ever seeing you, Sir!"
Before he could reason in favor of a privilege which goes
proverbially by favor, the young maid was gone upon the winding
path, with the pitcher truly balanced on her well-tressed head.
Then Pet sat down and watched her; and she turned round in the
distance, and waved him a kiss at decorous interval.
Not more than three days after this, Mrs. Carnaby came into the
drawing-room with a hasty step, and a web of wrinkles upon her
generally smooth, white forehead.
"Eliza," asked her sister, "what has put you out so? That chair is
not very strong, and you are rather heavy. Do you call that
gracefully sinking on a seat, as we used to learn the way to do at
school?"
"No, I do not call it anything of the kind. And if I am heavy, I
only keep my heart in countenance, Philippa. You know not the
anxieties of a mother."
"I am thankful to say that I do not. I have plenty of larger cares
to attend to, as well as the anxieties of an aunt and sister. But
what is this new maternal care?"
"Poor Pet's illness--his serious illness. I am surprised that you
have not noticed it, Philippa; it seems so unkind of you."
"There can not be anything much amiss with him. I never saw any
one eat a better breakfast. What makes you fancy that the boy must
be unwell?"
"It is no fancy. He must be very ill. Poor dear! I can not bear
to think of it. He has done no mischief for quite three days."
"Then he must indeed be at the point of death. Oh, if we could
only keep him always so, Eliza!"
"My dear sister, you will never understand him. He must have his
little playful ways. Would you like him to be a milksop?"
"Certainly not. But I should like him first to be a manly boy, and
then a boyish man. The Yordases always have been manly boys;
instead of puling, and puking, and picking this, that, and the
other."
"The poor child can not help his health, Philippa. He never had
the Yordas constitution. He inherits his delicate system from his
poor dear gallant father."
Mrs. Carnaby wiped away a tear; and her sister (who never was hard
to her) spoke gently, and said there were many worse boys than he,
and she liked him for many good and brave points of character, and
especially for hating medicine.
"Philippa, you are right; he does hate medicine," the good mother
answered, with a soft, sad sigh; "and he kicked the last apothecary
in the stomach, when he made certain of its going down. But such
things are trifles, dear, in comparison with now. If he would only
kick Jordas, or Welldrum, or almost any one who would take it
nicely, I should have some hope that he was coming to himself. But
to see him sit quiet is so truly sad. He gets up a tree with his
vast activity, and there he sits moping by the hour, and gazing in
one fixed direction. I am almost sure that he has knocked his leg;
but he flew into a fury when I wanted to examine it; and when I
made a poultice, there was Saracen devouring it; and the nasty dog
swallowed one of my lace handkerchiefs."
"Then surely you are unjust, Eliza, in lamenting all lack of
mischief. But I have noticed things as well as you. And yesterday
I saw something more portentous than anything you have told me. I
came upon Lancelot suddenly, in the last place where I should have
looked for him. He was positively in the library, and reading--
reading a real book."
"A book, Phillppa! Oh, that settles everything. He must have gone
altogether out of his sane mind."
"Not only was it a book, but even a book of what people call
poetry. You have heard of that bold young man over the mountains,
who is trying to turn poetry upside down, by making it out of every
single thing he sees; and who despises all the pieces that we used
to learn at school. I can not remember his name; but never mind.
I thought that we ought to encourage him, because he might know
some people in this neighborhood; and so I ordered a book of his.
Perhaps I told you; and that is the very book your learned boy was
reading."
"Philippa, it seems to me impossible almost. He must have been
looking at the pictures. I do hope he was only looking at the
pictures."
"There is not a picture in the hook of any sort. He was reading
it, and saying it quite softly to himself; and I felt that if you
saw him, you would send for Dr. Spraggs."
"Ring the bell at once, dear, if you will be kind enough. I hope
there is a fresh horse in the stable. Or the best way would be to
send the jumping-car; then he would be certain to come back at
once."
"Do as you like. I begin to think that we ought to take proper
precautions. But when that is done, I will tell you what I think
he may be up the tree for."
A man with the jumping-car was soon dispatched, by urgency of
Jordas, for Dr. Spraggs, who lived several miles away, in a hamlet
to the westward, inaccessible to anything that could not jump right
nimbly. But the ladies made a slight mistake: they caught the
doctor, but no patient.
For Pet being well up in his favorite tree--poring with great
wonder over Lyrical Ballads, which took his fancy somehow--thence
descried the hateful form of Dr. Spraggs, too surely approaching in
the seat of honor of the jumping-car. Was ever any poesy of such
power as to elevate the soul above the smell of physic? The lofty
poet of the lakes and fells fell into Pet's pocket anyhow, and down
the off side of the tree came he, with even his bad leg ready to be
foremost in giving leg-bail to the medical man. The driver of the
jumping-car espied this action; but knowing that he would have done
the like, grinned softly, and said nothing. And long after Dr.
Spraggs was gone, leaving behind him sage advice, and a vast
benevolence of bottles, Pet returned, very dirty and hungry, and
cross, and most unpoetical.
CHAPTER XXII
YOUNG GILLY FLOWERS
"Drum," said Pet, in his free and easy style, about ten days after
that escape, to a highly respected individual, Mr. Welldrum, the
butler--"Drum, you have heard perhaps about my being poorly."
"Ay, that I have, and too much of it," replied the portly butler,
busy in his office with inferior work, which he never should have
had to do, if rightly estimated. "What you wants, Master Lancelot,
is a little more of this here sort of thing--sleeves up--elbow
grease--scrub away at hold ancient plate, and be blowed up if you
puts a scratch on it; and the more you sweats, the less thanks you
gets."
"Drum, when you come to be my butler, you shall have all the keys
allowed you, and walk about with them on a great gold ring, with a
gold chain down to your breeches pocket. You shall dine when you
like, and have it cooked on purpose, and order it directly after
breakfast; and you shall have the very best hot-water plates;
because you hate grease, don't you, Drum?"
"That I do; especial from young chaps as wants to get something out
of me."
"I am always as good as my word; come, now."
"That you are, Sir; and nothing very grand to say, considering the
hepithets you applies to me sometimes. But you han't insulted me
for three days now; and that proves to my mind that you can't be
quite right."
"But you would like to see me better. I am sure you would. There
is nobody so good to you as I am, Drum; and you are very crusty at
times, you know. Your daughter shall be the head cook; and then
everything must be to your liking."
"Master Lancelot, you speaks fair. What can I have the honor of
doing for you, Sir, to set you up again in your poor dear 'ealth?"
"Well, you hate physic, don't you, Drum? And you make a strict
point of never taking it."
"I never knew no good to come out of no bottle, without it were a
bottle of old crusted port-wine. Ah! you likes that, Master
Lancelot."
"I'll tell you what it is, Drum; I am obliged to be very careful.
The reason why I don't get on is from taking my meals too much in-
doors. There is no fresh air in these old rooms. I have got a man
who says--I could read it to you; but perhaps you don't care to
hear poetry, Drum?" The butler made a face, and put the leather to
his ears. "Very well, then; I am only just beginning; and it's
like claret, you must learn to come to it. But from what he says,
and from my own stomach, I intend to go and dine out-of-doors to-
day."
"Lord! Master Lancelot, you must be gone clean daft. How ever
could you have hot gravy, Sir? And all the Yordases hales cold
meat. Your poor dear grandfather--ah! he was a man."
"So am I. And I have got half a guinea. Now, Drum, you do just
what I tell you; and mind, not a word to any one. It will be the
last coin you ever see of mine, either now or in all my life,
remember, if you let my mamma ever hear of it. You slip down to
the larder and get me a cold grouse, and a cold partridge, and two
of the hearth-stone cakes, and a pat of butter, and a pinch of
salt, and put them in my army knapsack Aunt Philippa gave me; also
a knife and fork and plate; and--let me see--what had I better have
to drink?"
"Well, Sir, if I might offer an opinion, a pint bottle of dry port,
or your grandfather's Madeira."
"Young ladies--young gentlemen I mean, of course--never take strong
wines in the middle of the day. Bucellas, Drum--Bucellas is the
proper thing. And when you have got it all together, turn the old
cat into the larder, and get away cleverly by your little door, and
put my knapsack in the old oak-tree, the one that was struck by
lightning. Now do you understand all about it? It must all be
ready in half an hour. And if I make a good dinner out on the
moor, why, you might get another half guinea before long." And
with these words away strode Pet.
"Well, well," the butler began muttering to himself; "what
wickedness are you up to next? A lassie in his head, and his dear
mammy thought he was sickening over his wisdom-teeth! He is
beginning airly, and no mistake. But the gals are a coarse ugly
lot about here"--Master Welldrum was not a Yorkshireman--"and the
lad hath good taste in the matter of wine; although he is that
contrairy, Solomon's self could not be upsides with him. Fall
fair, fall foul, I must humor the boy, or out of this place I go,
neck and crop."
Accordingly, Pet found all that he had ordered, and several little
things which he had not thought of, especially a corkscrew and a
glass; and forgetting half his laziness, he set off briskly,
keeping through the trees where no window could espy him, and down
a little side glen, all afoot; for it seemed to him safer to forego
his pony.
The gill (or "ghyll," as the poet writes it), from which the lonely
family that dwelt there took their name, was not upon the bridle-
road from Scargate Hall toward Middleton, nor even within eye or
reach of any road at all; but overlooked by kites alone, and
tracked with thoroughfare of nothing but the mountain streamlet.
The four who lived there--"Bat and Zilpic, Maunder and Insie, of
the Gill"--had nothing to do with, and little to say to, any of the
scatterling folk about them, across the blue distance of the moor.
They ploughed no land, they kept no cattle, they scarcely put spade
in the ground, except for about a fortnight in April, when they
broke up a strip of alluvial soil new every season, and abutting on
the brook; and there sowed or planted their vegetable crop, and
left it to the clemency of heaven. Yet twice every year they were
ready with their rent when it suited Master Jordas to come for it,
since audits at the hall, and tenants' dinners, were not to their
liking. The rent was a trifle; but Jordas respected them highly
for handing it done up in white paper, without even making him
leave the saddle. How many paid less, or paid nothing at all, yet
came to the dinners under rent reservation of perhaps one mark,
then strictly reserved their rent, but failed not to make the most
punctual and liberal marks upon roast beef and plum-pudding!
But while the worthy dogman got his little bit of money, sealed up
and so correct that (careful as he was) he never stopped now to
count it, even his keen eyes could make nothing of these people,
except that they stood upon their dignity. To him they appeared to
be of gypsy race; or partly of wild and partly perhaps of
Lancastrian origin; for they rather "featured" the Lancashire than
the Yorkshire type of countenance, yet without any rustic
coarseness, whether of aspect, voice, or manners. The story of
their settlement in this glen had flagged out of memory of gossip
by reason of their calm obscurity, and all that survived was the
belief that they were queer, and the certainty that they would not
be meddled with.
Lancelot Yordas Carnaby was brave, both in the outward and the
inward boy, when he struck into the gill from a trackless spread of
moor, not far from the source of the beck that had shaped or been
shaped by this fissure. He had made up his mind to learn all about
the water that filled sweet Insie's pitcher; and although the great
poet of nature as yet was only in early utterance, some of his
words had already touched Pet as he had never been touched before;
but perhaps that fine effect was due to the sapping power of first
love.
Yet first love, however it may soften and enlarge a petulant and
wayward nature, instead of increasing, cuts short and crisp the
patience of the patient. When Lancelot was as near as manners and
prudence allowed to that lonesome house, he sat down quietly for a
little while in a little niche of scrubby bush whence he could spy
the door. For a short time this was very well; also it was well to
be furnishing his mind with a form for the beautiful expressions in
it, and prepare it for the order of their coming out. And when he
was sure that these were well arranged, and could not fail at any
crisis, he found a further pastime in considering his boots, then
his gaiters and small-clothes (which were of lofty type), and his
waistcoat, elegant for anybody's bosom. But after a bit even this
began to pall; and when one of his feet went fast asleep, in spite
of its beautiful surroundings, he jumped up and stamped, and was
not so very far from hot words as he should have been. For his
habit was not so much to want a thing as to get it before he wanted
it, which is very poor training for the trials of the love-time.
But just as he was beginning to resolve to be wise, and eat his
victuals, now or never, and be sorry for any one who came too late--
there came somebody by another track, whose step made the heart
rise, and the stomach fall. Lancelot's mind began to fail him all
at once; and the spirit that was ready with a host of words
fluttered away into a quaking depth of silence. Yet Insie tripped
along as if the world held no one to cast a pretty shadow from the
sun beside her own.
Even the youngest girls are full of little tricks far beyond the
oldest boy's comprehension. But the wonder of all wonders is, they
have so pure a conscience as never to be thinking of themselves at
all, far less of any one who thinks too much of them. "I declare,
she has forgotten that she ever saw me!" Lancelot muttered to the
bush in which he trembled. "It would serve her right, if I walked
straight away." But he looked again, and could not help looking
more than many times again, so piercing (as an ancient poet puts
it) is the shaft from the eyes of the female women. And Insie was
especially a female girl--which has now ceased to be tautology--so
feminine were her walk, and way, and sudden variety of unreasonable
charm.
"Dear me! I never thought to see you any more, Sir;" said she,
with a bright blush, perhaps at such a story, as Pet jumped out
eagerly, with hands stretched forth. "It is the most surprising
thing. And we might have done very well with rain-water."
"Oh, Insie! don't be so cold-hearted. Who can drink rain-water? I
have got something very good for you indeed. I have carried it all
the way myself; and only a strong man could have done it. Why, you
have got stockings on, I declare; but I like you much better
without them."
"Then, Master Lancelot Yordas Carnaby, you had better go home with
all your good things."
"You are totally mistaken about that. I could never get these
things into the house again, without being caught out to a
certainty. It shows how little girls know of anything."
"A girl can not be expected," she answered, looking most innocently
at him, "to understand anything sly or cunning. Why should
anything of that sort be?"
"Well, if it comes to that," cried Pet, who (like all unreasonable
people) had large rudiments of reasoning, "why should not I come up
to your door, and knock, and say, 'I want to see Miss Insie; I am
fond of Miss Insie, and have got something good for her'? That is
what I shall do next time."
"If you do, my brother Maunder will beat you dreadfully--so
dreadfully that you will never walk home. But don't let us talk of
such terrible things. You must never come here, if you think of
such things. I would not have you hurt for all the world; for
sometimes I think that I like you very much."
The lovely girl looked at the handsome boy, as if they were at
school together, learning something difficult, which must be
repeated to the other's eyes, with a nod, or a shake of the head,
as may be. A kind, and pure, and soft gaze she gave him, as if she
would love his thoughts, if he could explain them. And Pet turned
away, because he could not do so.
"I'll tell you what it is," he said, bravely, while his heart was
thrilling with desire to speak well; "we will set to at once, and
have a jolly good spread. I told my man to put up something very
good, because I was certain that you would be very hungry."
"Surely you were not so foolish as to speak of me?"
"No, no, no; I know a trick worth two of that. I was not such a
fool as to speak of you, of course. But--"
"But I would never condescend to touch one bit. You were ashamed
to say a word about me, then, were you?"
"Insie, now, Insie, too bad of you it is. You can have no idea
what those butlers and footmen are, if ever you tell them anything.
They are worse than the maids; they go down stairs, and they get
all the tidbits out of the cook, and sit by the girl they like
best, on the strength of having a secret about their master."
"Well, you are cunning!" cried the maiden, with a sigh. "I thought
that your nature was loftier than that. No, I do not know anything
of butlers and footmen; and I think that the less I know of you the
better."
"Oh, Insie, darling Insie, if you run away like that--I have got
both your hands, and you shall not run away. Do you want to kill
me, Insie? They have had the doctor for me."
"Oh, how very dreadful! that does sound dreadful. I am not at all
crying, and you need not look. But what did he say? Please to
tell me what he said."
"He said, 'Salts and senna.' But I got up a high tree. Let us
think of nicer things. It is enough to spoil one's dinner. Oh,
Insie, what is anything to eat or drink, compared with looking at
you, when you are good? If I could only tell you the things that I
have felt, all day and all night, since this day fortnight, how
sorry you would be for having evil thoughts of me!"
"I have no evil thoughts; I have no thoughts at all. But it
puzzles me to think what on earth you have been thinking. There, I
will sit down, and listen for a moment."
"And I may hold one of your hands? I must, or you would never
understand me. Why, your hands are much smaller than mine, I
declare! And mine are very small; because of thinking about you.
Now you need not laugh--it does spoil everything to laugh so. It
is more than a fortnight since I laughed at all. You make me feel
so miserable. But would you like to know how I felt? Mind, I
would rather cut my head off than tell it to any one in the world
but you."
"Now I call that very kind of you. If you please, I should like to
know how you have been feeling." With these words Insie came quite
close up to his side, and looked at him so that he could hardly
speak. "You may say it in a whisper, if you like," she said;
"there is nobody coming for at least three hours, and so you may
say it in a whisper."
"Then I will tell you; it was just like this. You know that I
began to think how beautiful you were at the very first time I
looked at you. But you could not expect me so to love you all at
once as I love you now, dear Insie."
"I can not understand any meaning in such things." But she took a
little distance, quite as if she did.
"Well, I went away without thinking very much, because I had a bad
place in my knee--a blue place bigger than the new half crown,
where you saw that the pony kicked me. I had him up, and thrashed
him, when I got home; but that has got nothing to do with it--only
that I made him know who was his master. And then I tried to go on
with a lot of things as usual; but somehow I did not care at all.
There was a great rat hunt that I had been thinking of more than
three weeks, when they got the straddles down, to be ready for the
new ricks to come instead. But I could not go near it; and it made
them think that the whole of my inside was out of order. And it
must have been. I can see by looking back; it must have been so,
without my knowing it. I hit several people with my holly on their
shins, because they knew more than I did. But that was no good;
nor was anything else. I only got more and more out of sorts, and
could not stay quiet anywhere; and yet it was no good to me to try
to make a noise. All day I went about as if I did not care whether
people contradicted me or not, or where I was, or what time I
should get back, or whether there would be any dinner. And I
tucked up my feet in my nightgown every night; but instead of
stopping there, as they always used to do, they were down in cold
places immediately; and instead of any sleep, I bit holes by the
hundred in the sheets, with thinking. I hated to be spoken to, and
I hated everybody; and so I do now, whenever I come to think about
them!"
"Including even poor me, I suppose?" Insie had wonderfully pretty
eyebrows, and a pretty way of raising them, and letting more light
into her bright hazel eyes.
"No, I never seemed to hate you; though I often was put out,
because I could never make your face come well. I was thinking of
you always, but I could not see you. Now tell me whether you have
been like that."
"Not at all; but I have thought of you once or twice, and wondered
what could make you want to come and see me. If I were a boy,
perhaps I could understand it."
"I hate boys; I am a man all over now. I am old enough to have a
wife; and I mean to have you. How much do you suppose my waistcoat
cost? Well, never mind, because you are not rich. But I have got
money enough for both of us to live well, and nobody can keep me
out of it. You know what a road is, I suppose--a good road leading
to a town? Have you ever seen one? A brown place, with hedges on
each side, made hard and smooth for horses to go upon, and wheels
that make a rumble. Well, if you will have me, and behave well to
me, you shall sit up by yourself in a velvet dress, with a man
before you and a man behind, and believe that you are flying."
"But what would become of my father, and my mother, and my brother
Maunder?"
"Oh, they must stop here, of course. We shouldn't want them. But
I would give them all their house rent-free, and a fat pig every
Christmas. Now you sit there and spread your lap, that I may help
you properly. I want to see you eat; you must learn to eat like a
lady of the highest quality; for that you are going to be, I can
tell you."
The beautiful maid of the gill smiled sweetly, sitting on the low
bank with the grace of simple nature and the playfulness of
girlhood. She looked up at Lancelot, the self-appointed man, with
a bright glance of curious contemplation; and contemplation (of any
other subject than self) is dangerously near contempt. She thought
very little of his large, free brag, of his patronizing manner, and
fine self-content, reference of everything to his own standard,
beauty too feminine, and instead of female gentleness, highly
cultivated waywardness. But in spite of all that, she could not
help liking, and sometimes admiring him, when he looked away. And
now he was very busy with the high feast he had brought.
"To begin with," he said, when his good things were displayed, "you
must remember that nothing is more vulgar than to be hungry. A
gentleman may have a tremendous appetite, but a lady never."
"But why? but why? That does seem foolish. I have read that the
ladies are always helped first. That must be because of their
appetites."
"Insie, I tell you things, not the reasons of them. Things are
learned by seeing other people, and not by arguing about them."
"Then you had better eat your dinner first, and let me sit and
watch you. And then I can eat mine by imitation; that is to say,
if there is any left."
"You are one of the oddest people I have ever seen. You go round
the corner of all that I say, instead of following properly. When
we are married, you will always make me laugh. At one time they
kept a boy to make me laugh; but I got tired of him. Now I help
you first, although I am myself so hungry. I do it from a lofty
feeling, which my aunt Philippa calls 'chivalry.' Ladies talk
about it when they want to get the best of us. I have given you
all the best part, you see; and I only keep the worst of it for
myself."
If Pet had any hope that his self-denial would promptly be denied
to him, he made a great mistake; for the damsel of the gill had a
healthy moorland appetite, and did justice to all that was put
before her; and presently he began, for the first time in his life,
to find pleasure in seeing another person pleased. But the wine
she would not even taste, in spite of persuasion and example; the
water from the brook was all she drank, and she drank as prettily
as a pigeon. Whatever she did was done gracefully and well.
"I am very particular," he said at last; "but you are fit to dine
with anybody. How have you managed to learn it all? You take the
best of everything, without a word about it, as gently as great
ladies do. I thought that you would want me to eat the nicest
pieces; but instead of that, you have left me bones and
drumsticks."
He gave such a melancholy look at these that Insie laughed quite
merrily. "I wanted to see you practice chivalry," she said.
"Well, never mind; I shall know another time. Instead of two
birds, I shall order four, and other things in proportion. But now
I want to know about your father and your mother. They must be
respectable people, to judge by you. What is their proper name,
and how much have they got to live upon?"
"More than you--a great deal more than you," she answered, with
such a roguish smile that he forgot his grievances, or began to
lose them in the mist of beauty.
"More than me! And they live in such a hole, where only the crows
come near them?"
"Yes, more than you, Sir. They have their wits to live upon, and
industry, and honesty."
Pet was not old enough yet in the world to say, "What is the use of
all those? All their income is starvation." He was young enough
to think that those who owned them had advantage of him, for he
knew that he was very lazy. Moreover, he had heard of such people
getting on--through the striking power of exception, so much more
brilliant than the rule--when all the blind virtues found luck to
lead them. Industry, honesty, and ability always get on in story-
books, and nothing is nicer than to hear a pretty story. But in
some ways Pet was sharp enough.
"Then they never will want that house rent-free, nor the fat pig,
nor any other presents. Oh, Insie, how very much better that will
be! I find it so much nicer always to get thing's than to give
them. And people are so good-natured, when they have done it, and
can talk of it. Insie, they shall give me something when I marry
you, and as often as they like afterward."
"They will give you something you will not like," she answered,
with a laugh, and a look along the moor, "if you stay here too long
chattering with me. Do you know what o'clock it is? I know
always, whether the sun is out or in. You need show no gold watch
to me."
"Oh, that comes of living in a draught all day. The out-door
people grow too wise. What do you see about ten miles off? It
must be ten miles to that hill."
"That hill is scarcely five miles off, and what I see is not half
of that. I brought you up here to be quite safe. Maunder's eyes
are better than mine. But he will not see us, for another mile, if
you cover your grand waistcoat, because we are in the shadows.
Slip down into the gill again, and keep below the edge of it, and
go home as fast as possible."
Lancelot felt inclined to do as he was told, and keep to safe
obscurity. The long uncomfortable loneliness of prospect, and dim
airy distance of the sinking sun, and deeply silent emptiness of
hollows, where great shadows began to crawl--in the waning of the
day, and so far away from home--all these united to impress upon
the boy a spiritual influence, whose bodily expression would be the
appearance of a clean pair of heels. But, to meet this sensible
impulse, there arose the stubborn nature of his race, which hated
to be told to do anything, and the dignity of his new-born love--
such as it was--and the thought of looking small.
"Why should I go?" he said. "I will meet them, and tell them that
I am their landlord, and have a right to know all about them. My
grandfather never ran away from anybody. And they have got a
donkey with them."
"They will have two, if you stop," cried Insie, although she
admired his spirit. "My father is a very quiet man. But Maunder
would take you by the throat and cast you down into the beck."
"I should like to see him try to do it. I am not so very strong,
but I am active as a cat. I have no idea of being threatened."
"Then will you be coaxed? I do implore you, for my sake, to go, or
it will be too late. Never, never, will you see me again, unless
you do what I beseech of you."
"I will not stir one peg, unless you put your arms round my neck
and kiss me, and say that you will never have anybody else."
Insie blushed deeply, and her bright eyes flashed with passion not
of loving kind. But it went to her heart that he was brave, and
that he loved her truly. She flung her comely arms round his neck,
and touched her rosy lips with his; and before he could clasp her
she was gone, with no more comfort than these words:
"Now if you are a gentleman, you must go, and never come near this
place again."
Not a moment too soon he plunged into the gill, and hurried up its
winding course; but turning back at the corner, saw a sweet smile
in the distance, and a wave of the hand, that warmed his heart.
CHAPTER XXIII
LOVE MILITANT
So far so good. But that noble and exalted condition of the
youthful mind which is to itself pure wisdom's zenith, but to folk
of coarse maturity and tough experience "calf-love," superior as it
is to words and reason, must be left to its own course. The
settled resolve of a middle-aged man, with seven large-appetited
children, and an eighth approaching the shores of light, while
baby-linen too often transmitted betrays a transient texture, and
hose has ripened into holes, and breeches verify their name, and a
knock at the door knocks at the heart--the fixed resolution of such
a man to strike a bold stroke, for the sake of his home, is
worthier of attention than the flitting fancy of boy and girl, who
pop upon one another, and skip through zigzag vernal ecstasy, like
the weathery dalliance of gnats.
Lieutenant Carroway had dealt and done with amorous grace and
attitude, soaring rapture, and profundity of sigh, suspense (more
agonizing than suspension), despair, prostration, grinding of the
teeth, the hollow and spectral laugh of a heart forever broken, and
all the other symptoms of an annual bill of vitality; and every new
pledge of his affections sped him toward the pledge-shop. But
never had he crossed that fatal threshold; the thought of his
uniform and dignity prevailed; and he was not so mean as to send a
child to do what the father was ashamed of.
So it was scarcely to be expected that even as a man he should
sympathize deeply with the tender passion, and far less, as a
coast-guardsman, with the wooing of a smuggler. Master Robin Lyth,
by this time, was in the contraband condition known to the
authorities as love; Carroway had found out this fact; but instead
of indulging in generous emotion, he made up his mind to nab him
through it. For he reasoned as follows; and granting that reason
has any business on such premises, the process does not seem amiss.
A man in love has only got one-eighth part of his wits at home to
govern the doings of his arms, legs, and tongue. A large half is
occupied with his fancy, in all the wanderings of that creature,
dreamy, flimsy, anchoring with gossamer, climbing the sky with
steps of fog, cast into abysms (as great writers call it) by
imaginary demons, and even at its best in a queer condition,
pitiful, yet exceeding proud. A quarter of the mental power is
employed in wanting to know what the other people think; an eighth
part ought to be dwelling upon the fair distracting object; and
only a small eighth can remain to attend to the business of the
solid day. But in spite of all this, such lads get on about as
well as usual. If Bacchus has a protective power, Venus has no
less of it, and possibly is more active, as behooves a female.
And surely it was a cold-blooded scheme, which even the Revenue
should have excised from an honest scale of duties, to catch a poor
fellow in the meshes of love, because he was too sharp otherwise.
This, however, was the large idea ripening in the breast of
Carroway.
"To-night I shall have him," he said to his wife, who was inditing
of softer things, her eighth confinement, and the shilling she had
laid that it would be a boy this time. "The weather is stormy, yet
the fellow makes love between the showers in a barefaced way. That
old fool of a tanner knows it, and has no more right feeling than
if he were a boy. Aha, my Robin, fine robin as you are, I shall
catch you piping with your Jenny Wren tonight!" The lieutenant
shared the popular ignorance of simplest natural history.
"Charles, you never should have told me of it. Where is your
feeling for the days gone by? And as for his coming between the
showers, what should I have thought of you if you had made a point
of bringing your umbrella? My dear, it is wrong. And I beg you,
for my sake, not to catch him with his true love, but only with his
tubs."
"Matilda, your mind is weakened by the coming trial of your nerves.
I would rather have him with his tubs, of course; they would set us
up for several years, and his silks would come in for your
churching. But everything can not be as we desire. And he carries
large pistols when he is not courting. Do you wish me to be shot,
Matilda?"
"Captain Carroway, how little thought you have, to speak to me in
that way! And I felt before dinner that I never should get over
it. Oh, who would have the smugglers on her mind, at such a time?"
"My dear, I beg your pardon. Pray exert your strength of mind, and
cast such thoughts away from you--or perhaps it will be a smuggler.
And yet if it were, how much better it would pay!"
"Then I hope it will, Charles; I heartily hope it will be. It
would serve you quite right to be snaring your own son, after
snaring a poor youth through his sweetheart."
"Well, well, time will show. Put me up the flat bottle, Tilly, and
the knuckle of pork that was left last night. Goodness knows when
I shall be back; and I never like to rack my mind upon an empty
stomach."
The revenue officer had far to go, and was wise in providing
provender. And the weather being on the fall toward the equinox,
and the tides running strong and uncertain, he had made up his mind
to fare inland, instead of attempting the watery ways. He felt
that he could ride, as every sailor always feels; and he had a fine
horse upon hire from his butcher, which the king himself would pay
for. The inferior men had been sent ahead on foot, with orders to
march along and hold their tongues. And one of these men was John
Cadman, the self-same man who had descended the cliff without any
footpath. They were all to be ready, with hanger and pistol, in a
hole toward Byrsa Cottage.
Lieutenant Carroway enjoyed his ride. There are men to whom
excitement is an elevation of the sad and slow mind, which
otherwise seems to have nothing to do. And what finer excitement
can a good mind have than in balancing the chances of its body
tumbling out of the saddle, and evicting its poor self?
The mind of Charles Carroway was wide awake to this, and tenderly
anxious about the bad foot in which its owner ended--because of the
importance of the stirrups--and all the sanguine vigor of the heart
(which seemed to like some thumping) conveyed to the seat of reason
little more than a wish to be well out of it. The brave lieutenant
holding place, and sticking to it through a sense of duty, and of
the difficulty of getting off, remembered to have heard, when quite
a little boy, that a man who gazes steadily between his horse's
ears can not possibly tumble off the back. The saying in its
wisdom is akin to that which describes the potency of salt upon a
sparrow's tail.
While Carroway gloomily pounded the road, with reflection a
dangerous luxury, things of even deeper interest took their course
at the goal of his endeavors. Mary Anerley, still an exile in the
house of the tanner, by reason of her mother's strict coast-guard,
had long been thinking that more injustice is done in the world
than ought to be; and especially in the matter of free trade she
had imbibed lax opinions, which may not be abhorrent to a tanner's
nature, but were most unbecoming to the daughter of a farmer
orthodox upon his own land, and an officer of King's Fencibles.
But how did Mary make this change, and upon questions of public
policy chop sides, as quickly as a clever journal does? She did it
in the way in which all women think, whose thoughts are of any
value, by allowing the heart to go to work, being the more active
organ, and create large scenery, into which the tempted mind must
follow. To anybody whose life has been saved by anybody else,
there should arise not only a fine image of the preserver, but a
high sense of the service done to the universe, which must have
gone into deepest mourning if deprived of No. One. And then,
almost of necessity, succeeds the investment of this benefactor to
the world at large with all the great qualities needed for an
exploit so stupendous. He has done a great deed, he has proved
himself to be gallant, generous, magnanimous; shall I, who exist
through his grand nobility, listen to his very low enemies?
Therefore Robin was an angel now, and his persecutors must be
demons.
Captain Lyth had not been slow to enter into his good luck. He
knew that Master Popplewell had a cultivated taste for rare old
schnapps, while the partner of his life, and labor, and repose,
possessed a desire for the finer kinds of lace. Attending to these
points, he was always welcome; and the excellent couple encouraged
his affection and liberal goodwill toward them. But Mary would
accept no presents from him, and behaved for a long time very
strangely, and as if she would rather keep out of his way. Yet he
managed to keep on running after her, as much as she managed to run
away; for he had been down now into the hold of his heart,
searching it with a dark lantern, and there he had discovered
"Mary," "Mary," not only branded on the hullage of all things, but
the pith and pack of everything; and without any fraud upon
charter-party, the cargo entire was "Mary."
Who can tell what a young maid feels, when she herself is doubtful?
Somehow she has very large ideas, which only come up when she
begins to think; and too often, after some very little thing, she
exclaims that all is rubbish. The key-note of her heart is high,
and a lot of things fall below harmony, and notably (if she is not
a stupe), some of her own dear love's expressions before she has
made up her soul to love him. This is a hard time for almost any
man, who feels his random mind dipped into with a spirit-gauge and
a saccharometer. But in spite of all these indications, Robin Lyth
stuck to himself, which is the right way to get credit for
sticking.
"Johnny, my dear," said Deborah Popplewell to her valued husband,
just about the time when bold Carroway was getting hot and sore
upon the Filey Road, yet steadily enlarging all the penance of
return, "things ought to be coming to a point, I think. We ought
not to let them so be going on forever. Young people like to be
married in the spring; the birds are singing, and the price of coal
goes down. And they ought to be engaged six months at least. We
were married in the spring, my dear, the Tuesday but one that comes
next from Easter-day. There was no lilac out, but there ought to
have been, because it was not sunny. And we have never repented
it, you know."
"Never as long as I live shall I forget that day," said Popplewell;
"they sent me home a suit of clothes as were made for kidney-bean
sticks. I did want to look nice at church, and crack, crack, crack
they went, and out came all the lining. Debby, I had good legs in
those days, and could crunch down bark like brewers' grains."
"And so you could now, my dear, every bit as well. Scarcely any of
the young men have your legs. How thankful we ought to be for
them--and teeth! But everything seems to be different now, and
nobody has any dignity of mind. We sowed broad beans, like a
pigeon's foot-tread, out and in, all the way to church."
"The folk can never do such things now; we must not expect it of
such times, my dear. Five-and-forty years ago was ninety times
better than these days, Debby, except that you and I was steadfast,
and mean to be so to the end, God willing. Lord! what are the
lasses that He makes now?"
"Johnny, they try to look their best; and we must not be hard upon
them. Our Mary looks well enow, when she hath a color, though my
eyes might 'a been a brighter blue if I never hadn't took to
spectacles. Johnny, I am sure a'most that she is in her love-time.
She crieth at night, which is nobody's business; the strings of her
night-cap run out of their starch; and there looks like a channel
on the pillow, though the sharp young hussy turns it upside down.
I shall be upsides with her, if you won't."
"Certainly it shall be left to you; you are the one to do it best.
You push her on, and I will stir him up. I will smuggle some
schnapps into his tea to-night, to make him look up bolder; as mild
as any milk it is. When I was taken with your cheeks, Debby, and
your bit of money, I was never that long in telling you."
"That's true enow, Johnny; you was sarcy. But I'm thinking of the
trouble we may get into over at Anerley about it."
"I'll carry that, lass. My back's as broad as Stephen's. What
more can they want for her than a fine young fellow, a credit to
his business and the country? Lord! how I hate them rough coast-
riders! it wouldn't be good for them to come here."
"Then they are here, I tell you, and much they care. You seem to
me to have shut your eyes since ever you left off tanning. How
many times have I told you, John, that a sneaking fellow hath got
in with Sue? I saw him with my own eyes last night skulking past
the wicket-gate; and the girl's addle-pate is completely turned.
You think her such a wonder, that you won't hearken. But I know
the women best, I do."
"Out of this house she goes, neck and crop, if what you say is
true, Deb. Don't say it again, that's a kind, good soul; it spoils
my pipe to think of it."
Toward sundown Robin Lyth appeared, according to invitation. Dandy
as he generally was, he looked unusually smart this time, with
snow-white ducks and a velvet waistcoat, pumps like a dressing-
glass, lace to his shirt, and a blue coat with gold buttons. His
keen eyes glanced about for Mary, and sparkled as soon as she came
down; and when he took her hand she blushed, and was half afraid to
look at him; for she felt in her heart that he meant to say
something, if he could find occasion; but her heart did not tell
her what answer she would make, because of her father's grief and
wrath; so she tried to hope that nothing would be said, and she
kept very near her good aunt's apron-string. Such tactics,
however, were doomed to defeat. The host and hostess of Byrsa
Cottage were very proud of the tea they gave to any distinguished
visitor. Tea was a luxury, being very dear, and although large
quantities were smuggled, the quality was not, like that of other
goods so imported, equal or superior to the fair legitimate staple.
And Robin, who never was shy of his profession, confessed that he
could not supply a cup so good.
"You shall come and have another out-of-doors, my friend," said his
entertainer, graciously. "Mary, take the captain's cup to the
bower; the rain has cleared off, and the evening will be fine. I
will smoke my pipe, and we will talk adventures. Things have
happened to me that would make you stare, if I could bring myself
to tell them. Ah yes, I have lived in stirring times. Fifty years
ago men and women knew their minds; and a dog could eat his dinner
without a damask napkin."
Master Popplewell, who was of a good round form, and tucked his
heels over one another as he walked (which indicates a pleasant
self-esteem), now lit his long pipe and marched ahead, carefully
gazing to the front and far away; so that the young folk might have
free boot and free hand behind him. That they should have flutters
of loving-kindness, and crafty little breaths of whispering, and
extraordinary gifts of just looking at each other in time not to be
looked at again, as well as a strange sort of in and out of
feeling, as if they were patterned with the same zigzag--as the
famous Herefordshire graft is made--and above all the rest, that
they should desire to have no one in the world to look at them, was
to be expected by a clever old codger, a tanner who had realized a
competence, and eaten many "tanner's pies." The which is a good
thing; and so much the better because it costs nothing save the
crust and the coal. But instead of any pretty little goings on
such as this worthy man made room for, to tell the stupid truth,
this lad and lass came down the long walk as far apart and as
independent of one another as two stakes of an espalier. There had
not been a word gone amiss between them, nor even a thought the
wrong way of the grain; but the pressure of fear and of prickly
expectation was upon them both, and kept them mute. The lad was
afraid that he would get "nay," and the lass was afraid that she
could not give it.
The bower was quite at the end of the garden, through and beyond
the pot-herb part, and upon a little bank which overhung a little
lane. Here in this corner a good woman had contrived what women
nearly always understand the best, a little nook of pleasure and of
perfume, after the rank ranks of the kitchen-stuff. Not that these
are to be disdained; far otherwise; they indeed are the real
business; and herein lies true test of skill. But still the
flowers may declare that they do smell better. And not only were
there flowers here, and little shrubs planted sprucely, but also
good grass, which is always softness, and soothes the impatient
eyes of men. And on this grass there stood, or hung, or flowered,
or did whatever it was meant to do, a beautiful weeping-ash, the
only one anywhere in that neighborhood.
"I can't look at skies, and that--have seen too many of them. You
young folk, go and chirp under the tree. What I want is a little
rum and water."
With these words the tanner went into his bower, where he kept a
good store of materials in moss; and the plaited ivy of the narrow
entrance shook with his voice, and steps, and the decision of his
thoughts. For he wanted to see things come to a point, and his
only way to do it was to get quite out of sight. Such fools the
young people of the age were now!
While his thoughts were such, or scarcely any better, his partner
in life came down the walk, with a heap of little things which she
thought needful for the preservation of the tanner, and she waddled
a little and turned her toes out, for she as well was roundish.
"Ah, you ought to have Sue. Where is Sue?" said Master Popplewell.
"Now come you in out of the way of the wind, Debby; you know how
your back-sinew ached with the darning before last wash."
Mrs. Popplewell grumbled, but obeyed; for she saw that her lord had
his reasons. So Mary and Robin were left outside, quite as if they
were nothing to any but themselves. Mary was aware of all this
manoeuvring, and it brought a little frown upon her pretty
forehead, as if she were cast before the feet of Robin Lyth; but
her gentleness prevailed, because they meant her well. Under the
weeping-ash there was a little seat, and the beauty of it was that
it would not hold two people. She sat down upon it, and became
absorbed in the clouds that were busy with the sunset.
These were very beautiful, as they so often are in the broken
weather of the autumn; but sailors would rather see fair sky, and
Robin's fair heaven was in Mary's eyes. At these he gazed with a
natural desire to learn what the symptoms of the weather were; but
it seemed as if little could be made out there, because everything
seemed so lofty: perhaps Mary had forgotten his existence.
Could any lad of wax put up with this, least of all a daring
mariner? He resolved to run the cargo of his heart right in, at
the risk of all breakers and drawn cutlasses; and to make a good
beginning he came up and took her hand. The tanner in the bower
gave approval with a cough, like Cupid with a sneeze; then he
turned it to a snore.
"Mary, why do you carry on like this?" the smuggler inquired, in a
very gentle voice. "I have done nothing to offend you, have I?
That would be the last thing I would ever do."
"Captain Lyth, you are always very good; you never should think
such things of me. I am just looking at a particular cloud. And
who ever said that you might call me 'Mary'?"
"Perhaps the particular cloud said so; but you must have been the
cloud yourself, for you told me only yesterday."
"Then I will never say another word about it; but people should not
take advantage." |
