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7 | IN A HOT PLACE. | Making inquiries, Harry found that his father was living at a house in the college of Brazenose, and thither he made his way. Not a little surprised was the trooper, who was on guard before the door, to recognize his master's son in one of the two lads who, in the clothes of apprentices shrunk with water and stained with mud and travel, presented themselves before him. Harry ascended at once to Sir Henry's room, and the latter was delighted to see him again, for he had often feared that be had acted rashly in sending him to London. Harry briefly told his adventures, and introduced his friend Jacob to his father.
Sir Henry immediately sent for a clothier, and Harry was again made presentable; while a suit of serviceable clothes adapted to the position of a young gentleman of moderate means was obtained for Jacob. Then, accompanied by his son, Sir Henry went to the king's chambers, and informed his majesty of all that had happened. As, from the reports which had reached the king of the temper of the people of London, he had but small hope that anything would come of the attempt that was being made, he felt but little disappointed at hearing of the sudden return of his emissary. Harry was again asked in, and his majesty in a few words expressed to him his satisfaction at the zeal and prudence which he had shown, and at his safe return to court.
On leaving the king Harry awaited anxiously what his father would determine concerning his future, and was delighted when Sir Henry said, "It is now a year once these troubles began, Harry, and you have so far embarked upon them, that I fear you would find it difficult to return to your studies. You have proved yourself possessed of qualities which will enable you to make your way in the world, and I therefore think the time has come when you can take your place in the ranks. I shall ask of the king a commission for you as captain in my regiment, and as one of my officers has been killed you will take his place, and will have the command of a troop."
Harry was delighted at this intimation; and the following day received the king's commission.
A few days afterward he had again to ride over to Furness Hall, which was now shut up, to collect some rents, and as he returned through Abingdon he saw Lucy Rippinghall walking in the streets. Rather proud of his attire as a young cavalier in full arms, Harry dismounted and courteously saluted her.
"I should hardly have known you, Master Furness," she said. "You look so fierce in your iron harness, and so gay with your plumes and ribands. My brother would be glad to see you. My father as you know, is away. Will you not come in for a few minutes?"
Harry, after a few moments' hesitation, assented. He longed to see his old friend, and as the latter was still residing at Abingdon, while he himself had already made his mark in the royal cause, he did not fear that any misconstruction could be placed upon his visit to the Puritan's abode. Herbert received him with a glad smile of welcome.
"Ah, Harry," he said, "so you have fairly taken to man's estate. Of course, I think you have done wrong; but we need not argue on that now. I am glad indeed to see you. Lucy," he said, "let supper be served at once."
It was a pleasant meal, and the old friends chatted of their schooldays and boyish pastimes, no allusion being made to the events of the day, save that Herbert said, "I suppose that you know that my father is now a captain in the force of the Commons, and that I am doing my best to keep his business going during his absence."
"I had heard as much," Harry answered. "It is a heavy weight to be placed on your shoulders, Herbert."
"Yes," he said, "I am growing learned in wools, and happily the business is not falling off in my hands."
It was characteristic of the civil war in England that during the whole time of its existence the affairs of the country went on as usual. Business was conducted, life and property were safe, and the laws were enforced just as before. The judges went their circuits undisturbed by the turmoil of the times, acting under the authority alike of the Great Seals of the King and Parliament. Thus evildoers were repressed, crime put down, and the laws of the land administered just as usual, and as if no hostile armies were marching and fighting on the fair fields of England. In most countries during such troubled times, all laws have been at an end, bands of robbers and disbanded soldiers have pillaged and ruined the country, person and property alike have been unsafe, private broils and enmities have broken forth, and each man has carried his life in his hand. Thus, even in Abingdon, standing as it did halfway between the stronghold of the crown at Oxford, and the Parliament army at Reading, things remained quiet and tranquil. Its fairs and markets were held as usual, and the course of business went on unchecked.
On his return to Oxford Harry learned that the king, with a portion of the army, was to set out at once for Gloucester, to compel that city, which had declared for the Commons, to open its gates. With a force of thirteen thousand men the king moved upon Gloucester. When he arrived outside its walls, on the 10th of August, he sent a summons to the town to surrender, offering pardon to the inhabitants, and demanding an answer within two hours. Clarendon has described how the answer was returned. "Within less than the time described, together with a trumpeter, returned two citizens from the town with lean, pale, sharp, and bad visages, indeed, faces so strange and unusual, and in such a garb and posture, that at once made the most severe countenances merry, and the most cheerful heart sad, for it was impossible such ambassadors could bring less than a defiance. The men, without any circumstance of duty or good manners, in a pert, shrill, undismayed accent, said that they brought an answer from the godly city of Gloucester to the king, and were so ready to give insolent and seditious answers to any questions, as if their business were chiefly to provoke the king to violate his own safe-conduct." The answers which these strange messengers brought was that the inhabitants and soldiers kept the city for the use of his majesty, but conceived themselves "only bound to obey the commands of his majesty signified by both houses of Parliament." Setting fire to the houses outside their walls, the men of Gloucester prepared for a resolute resistance. The walls were strong and well defended, and the king did not possess artillery sufficient to make breaches therein, and dreading the great loss which an assault upon the walls would inflict upon his army, he determined to starve the city into submission. The inhabitants, although reduced to sore straits, yet relying upon assistance coming to them, held out, and their hopes were not disappointed, as Essex, at the head of a great army, was sent from London to relieve the place. Upon his approach, the king and his councilors, deciding that a battle could not be fought with advantage, drew off from the town, and gave up the siege.
Both armies now moved in the direction of London; but Prince Rupert, hearing that a small body of Parliament horse were besieging the house of Sir James Strangford, an adherent of the crown, took with him fifty horse, and rode away to raise the siege, being ever fond of dashing exploits in the fashion of the knights of old. The body which he chose to accompany him was the troop commanded by Harry Furness, whose gayety of manner and lightness of heart had rendered him a favorite with the prince. The besieged house was situated near Hereford; and at the end of a long day's march Prince Rupert, coming in sight of the Roundheads, charged them with such fury that they were overthrown with scarce any resistance, and fled in all directions. Having effected his object, the prince now rode to Worcester, where he slept, and thence by a long day's march to a village where he again halted for the night.
An hour after his arrival, a messenger came in from Lady Sidmouth, the wife of Sir Henry Sidmouth, asking him to ride over and take up his abode for the night at her house. Bidding Harry accompany him, the prince rode off, leaving the troop under the charge of Harry's lieutenant, Jacob, who had proved himself an active soldier, and had been appointed to that rank at Gloucester. The house was a massive structure of the reign of Henry VIII.; but being built at a time when the castellated abodes were going out of fashion, was not capable of standing a siege, and had not indeed been put in any posture of defense. Sir Henry was with the king, and only a few retainers remained in the house. Prince Rupert was received at the entrance by Lady Sidmouth, who had at her side her daughter, a girl of fourteen, whom Harry thought the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. The prince alighted, and doffing his broad plumed hat, kissed the lady's hand, and conducted her into the house again, Harry doing the same to her daughter.
"You must pardon a rough reception," the lady said to the prince. "Had I had notice of your coming, I would have endeavored to receive you in a manner more befitting; but hearing from one of my retainers, who happened to be in the village when you arrived, of your coming, I thought that the accommodation--poor as it is--would be better than that which you could obtain there."
Prince Rupert replied gayly, and in a few minutes they were seated at supper. The conversation was lightly kept up, when suddenly a tremendous crash was heard, shouts of alarm were raised, and a retainer rushed into the hall, saying that the place was attacked by a force of Roundheads.
"Defense is hopeless," the lady said, as Prince Rupert and Harry drew their swords. "There are but five or six old men here, and the door appears to be already yielding. There is a secret chamber here where you can defy their search."
Prince Rupert, dreading above all things to be taken prisoner, and seeing that resistance would be, as their hostess said, vain, followed her into an adjoining room hung with arras. Lifting this, she showed a large stone. Beneath it, on the floor was a tile, in no way differing from the others. She pressed it, and the stone, which was but slight, turned on a hinge, and disclosed an iron door. This she opened with a spring, showing a small room within, with a ladder leading to another above.
"Mount that," she said. "You will find in the chamber above a large stone. Pull the ladder up with you and lower the stone, which exactly fits into the opening. Even should they discover this chamber, they will not suspect that another lies above it."
Prince Rupert, taking a light from her hands, hastily mounted, followed by Harry, and pulled the steps after him, just as they heard the iron door close. It needed the united strength of the prince and Harry to lift the stone, which was a large one, with an iron ring in the center, and to place it in the cavity. Having done this, they looked round. The room was about eight feet long by six wide, and lighted by a long narrow loophole extending from the ground to the roof. They deemed from its appearance that it was built in one of the turrets of the building.
"That was a narrow escape, Master Harry," the prince said. "It would have been right bad news for my royal uncle if I had been caught here like a rat in a trap. I wonder we heard nothing of a Roundhead force in this neighborhood. I suppose that they must have been stationed at some place further north, and that the news of our passing reached them. I trust that they have no suspicion that we are in the house; but I fear, from this sudden attack upon an undefended building, that some spy from the village must have taken word to them."
Lady Sidmouth had just time to return to the hall when the doors gave way, and a body of Roundheads burst into the room. They had drawn swords in their hands, and evidently expected an attack. They looked round with surprise at seeing only Lady Sidmouth and her daughter.
"Where is the malignant Rupert?" the leader exclaimed. "We have sure news that he rode, attended by an officer only, hither, and that he was seen to enter your house."
"If you want Prince Rupert, you must find him," the lady said calmly. "I say not that he has not been here; but I tell you that he is now beyond your reach."
"He has not escaped," the officer said, "for the house is surrounded. Now, madam, I insist upon your telling me where you have hidden him."
"I have already told you, sir, that he is beyond your reach, and nothing that you can do will wring any further explanation from me."
The officer hesitated. For a moment he advanced a step toward her, with a menacing gesture. But, heated as the passions of men were, no violence was done to women, and with a fierce exclamation he ordered his troopers to search the house. For a quarter of an hour they ransacked it high and low, overturned every article of furniture, pulling down the arras, and tapping the walls with the hilts of their swords.
"Take these two ladies away," he said to his lieutenant, "and ride with them at once to Storton. They will have to answer for having harbored the prince."
The ladies were immediately taken off, placed on pillions behind two troopers, and carried away to Storton. In the meantime the search went on, and presently the hollow sound given by the slab in the wall was noticed. The spring could not be discovered, but crowbars and hammers being brought, the slab of stone was presently shivered. The discovery of the iron door behind it further heightened their suspicion that the place of concealment was found. The door, after a prolonged resistance, was battered in. But the Roundheads were filled with fury, on entering, to discover only a small, bare cell, with no signs of occupation whatever. The search was now prolonged in other directions; but, becoming convinced that it was useless, and that the place of concealment was too cunningly devised to admit of discovery, the captain ordered the furniture to be piled together, and setting light to it and the arras in several places, withdrew his men from the house, saying that if a rat would not come out of his hole, he must be smoked in it.
The prince and Harry from their place of concealment had heard the sound of blows against the doors below.
"They have found the way we have gone," the prince said, "but I think not that their scent is keen enough to trace us up here. If they do so, we will sell our lives dearly, for I will not be taken prisoner, and sooner or later our troop will hear of the Roundheads' attack, and will come to our rescue."
They heard the fall of the iron door, and the exclamations and cries with which the Roundheads broke into the room below. Then faintly they heard the sound of voices, and muffled knocks, as they tried the walls. Then all was silent again.
"The hounds are thrown off the scent," the prince said. "It will need a clever huntsman to put them on it. What will they do next, I wonder?"
Some time passed, and then Harry exclaimed: "I perceive a smell of something burning, your royal highness."
"Peste! methinks I do also," the prince said. "I had not thought of that. If these rascals have set fire to the place we shall be roasted alive here."
A slight wreath of smoke was seen curling up through the crevice of the tightly-fitting stone.
"We will leap out, and die sword in hand," the prince said; and seizing the ring, he and Harry pulled at it. Ere they raised the stone an inch, a volume of dense smoke poured up, and they at once dropped it into its place again, feeling that their retreat was cut off. The prince put his sword in its scabbard.
"We must die, my lad," he said. "A strange death, too, to be roasted in a trap. But after all, whether by that or the thrust of a Roundhead sword makes little difference in the end. I would fain have fallen in the field, though."
"Perhaps," Harry suggested, "the fire may not reach us here. The walls are very thick, and the chamber below is empty."
The prince shook his head.
"The heat of the fire in a house like this will crack stone walls," he said.
He then took off his cloak and threw it over the stone, dressing it down tightly to prevent the smoke from curling in. Through the loophole they could now hear a roar, and crackling sounds, and a sudden glow lit up the country.
"The flames are bursting through the windows," Harry said. "They will bring our troop down ere long."
"The troop will do us no good," Prince Rupert replied. "All the king's army could not rescue us. But at least it would be a satisfaction before we die to see these crop-eared knaves defeated."
Minute after minute passed, and a broad glare of light illumined the whole country round. Through the slit they could see the Roundheads keeping guard round the house in readiness to cut off any one who might seek to make his escape, while at a short distance off they had drawn up the main body of the force. Presently, coming along the road at a rapid trot, they saw a body of horse.
"There are our men," the prince exclaimed.
The Roundheads had seen them too. A trumpet was sounded, and the men on guard round the house leaped to their horses, and joined the main body, just as the Cavaliers charged upon them. The Roundheads fought stoutly; but the charge of the Cavaliers was irresistible. Furious at the sight of the house in flames, and ignorant of the fate which had befallen their prince and their master's son, they burst upon the Roundheads with a force which the latter were unable to withstand. For four or five minutes the fight continued, and then such of the Roundheads as were able clapped spurs to their horses and galloped off, hotly pursued by the Cavaliers. The pursuit was a short one. Several of the Cavaliers were gathered at the spot where the conflict had taken place, and were, apparently, questioning a wounded man. Then the trumpeter who was with them sounded the recall, and in a few minutes the Royalist troops came riding back. They could see Jacob pointing to the burning building and gesticulating with his arms. Then a party dashed up to the house, and were lost to sight.
The prince and Harry both shouted at the top of their voices, but the roar of the flames and the crash of falling beams deadened the sound. The heat had by this time become intense. They had gradually divested themselves of their clothing, and were bathed in perspiration.
"This heat is terrific," Prince Rupert said. "I did not think the human frame could stand so great a heat. Methinks that water would boil were it placed here."
This was indeed the case--the human frame, as is now well known, being capable of sustaining a heat considerably above that of boiling water. The walls were now so hot that the hand could not be borne upon them for an instant.
"My feet are burning!" the prince exclaimed, "Reach down that ladder from the wall."
They laid the ladder on the ground and stood upon it, thus avoiding any contact with the hot stone.
"If this goes on," Prince Rupert said, with a laugh; "there will be nothing but our swords left. We are melting away fast, like candles before a fire. Truly I do not think that there was so much water in a man as has floated down from me during the last half-hour."
Harry was so placed that he could command a sight through the loophole, and he exclaimed, "They are riding away!"
This was indeed the case. The whole building was now one vast furnace, and having from the first no hope that their friends, if there, could have survived, they had, hearing that Lady Sidmouth and her daughter had been taken to Storton, determined to ride thither to take them from the hands of the Roundheads, and to learn from them the fate of their leaders.
Another two hours passed. The heat was still tremendous, but they could not feel that it was increasing. Once or twice they heard terrific crashes, as portions of the wall fell. They would long since have been roasted, were it not for the cool air which flowed in through the long loophole, and keeping up a circulation in the chamber, lowered the temperature of the air within it. At the end of the two hours Harry gave a shout.
"They are coming back."
The light had now sunk to a quiet red glow, so that beyond the fact that a party was approaching, nothing could be seen. They rode, however, directly toward the turret, and then, when they halted, Harry saw the figures of two ladies who were pointing toward the loophole. Harry now stepped from the ladder on to the door and shouted at the top of his voice through the loophole. The reply came back in a joyous shout.
"We are being roasted alive," Harry cried. "Get ladders as quickly as possible, with crowbars, and break down the wall."
Men were seen to ride off in several directions instantly, and for the first time a ray of hope illumined, the minds of the prince and Harry that they might be saved. Half an hour later long ladders tied together were placed against the wall, and Jacob speedily made his appearance at the loophole.
"All access is impossible from the other side," he said, "for the place where the house stood is a red-hot furnace, Most of the walls have fallen. We had no hope of finding you alive."
"We are roasting slowly," Harry cried. "In Heaven's name bring us some water."
Soon a bottle of water was passed in through the loophole, and then three or four ladders being placed in position, the men outside began with crowbars and pickaxes to enlarge the loophole sufficiently for the prisoners to escape. It took three hours' hard work, at the end of which time the aperture was sufficiently wide to allow them to emerge, and utterly exhausted and feeling, as the prince said, "baked to a turn," they made their way down the ladder, being helped on either side by the men, for they themselves were too exhausted to maintain their feet.
| {
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8 | THE DEFENSE OF AN OUTPOST. | The effect of the fresh air and of cordials poured down their throats soon restored the vigor to Prince Rupert and Harry Furness. They were still weak, for the great effort which nature had made to resist the force of the heat during those long hours had taxed their constitutions to the utmost.
Lady Sidmouth was rejoiced indeed to find them alive, for she had made sure that they were lost. It was not until she had been placed in a room strongly barred, and under a guard at Storton, that she perceived the light arising from her residence, and guessed that the men of the Commons, unable to find the hiding-place of Prince Rupert, had set it on fire. Then she had knocked loudly at the door; but the sentry had given no answer either to that or to her entreaties for a hearing. She soon, indeed, desisted from her efforts, for the fire which blazed up speedily convinced her that all hope was gone. When Jacob and the Royalists arrived, driving out the small remnant of the Roundheads who remained in the village, he had found Lady Sidmouth and her daughter bathed in tears, under the belief that their guests had perished in the old house that they loved so well. It was with no hope that they had mounted on the instant, and ridden at full gallop to the castle, and it was not until they saw that that wall was still standing that even the slightest hope entered their minds. Even then it appeared incredible that any one could be alive, and the shout from the loophole had surprised almost as much as it had delighted them.
In the course of three or four hours, refreshed and strengthened by a hearty breakfast and draughts of burgundy, the prince and Harry mounted their horses. Lady Sidmouth determined to remain for a few days at one of her tenant's houses, and then to go quietly on to Oxford--for by this time the main army of Essex was rapidly moving east, and the country would soon be secure for her passage. The prince and Harry rode at full speed to rejoin the army. That night, by riding late, they reached it. They found that Essex had, in his retreat, surprised Cirencester and had passed Farringdon.
The prince, with five thousand horse, started, and marching with great rapidity, got between Reading and the enemy, and, near Newbury, fell upon the Parliament horse. For several hours sharp skirmishing went on, and Essex was forced to halt his army at Hungerford. This gave time for the king, who was marching at the head of his infantry, to come up. The royal army occupied Newbury, and by the position they had taken up, were now between the Roundheads and London.
On the morning of the 20th of September the outpost of each force became engaged, and the battle soon raged along the whole line. It was to some extent a repetition of the battle of Edgehill. Prince Rupert, with his Cavaliers, swept away the horse of the enemy; but the pikemen of London, who now first were tried in combat, forced back the infantry of the king. Prince Rupert, returning from the pursuit, charged them with all his cavalry; but so sharply did they shoot, and so steadily did the line of pikes hold together, that the horse could make no impression upon them.
The night fell upon an undecided battle, and the next morning the Roundheads, as at Edgehill, drew off from the field, leaving to the Royalists the honor of a nominal success, a success, however, which was in both cases tantamount to a repulse.
Three leading men upon the king's side fell--Lords Falkland, Carnarvon, and Sunderland. The former, one of the finest characters of the times, may be said to have thrown away his life. He was utterly weary of the terrible dissensions and war in which England was plunged. He saw the bitterness increasing on both sides daily--the hopes of peace growing less and less; and as he had left the Parliamentary party, because he saw that their ambition was boundless, and that they purposed to set up a despotic tyranny, so he must have bitterly grieved at seeing upon the side of the king a duplicity beyond all bounds, and want of faith which seemed to forbid all hope of a satisfactory issue. Thus, then, when the day of Newbury came, Falkland, whose duties in nowise led him into the fight, charged recklessly and found the death which there can be little doubt he sought.
Although the Cavaliers claimed Newbury as a great victory, instead of advancing upon London they fell back as usual to Oxford.
During the skirmishes Harry had an opportunity of doing a service to an old friend. The Parliament horse, although valiant and better trained than that of the Royalists, were yet unable to withstand the impetuosity with which the latter always attacked, the men seeming, indeed, to be seized with a veritable panic at the sight of the gay plumes of Rupert's gentlemen. In a fierce skirmish between Harry's troop and a party of Parliament horse of about equal strength, the latter were defeated, and Harry, returning with the main body, found a Puritan officer dismounted, with his back against a tree, defending himself from the attacks of three of his men. Harry rode hastily up and demanded his surrender. The officer looked up, and to his surprise Harry saw his friend Herbert.
"I am your prisoner, Harry," Herbert said, as he lowered the point of his sword.
"Not at all!" Harry exclaimed. "It would indeed be a strange thing, Herbert, were I to make you a prisoner. I thought you settled at Abingdon?"
Ordering one of his troopers to catch a riderless horse which was galloping near, he spoke for a moment or two with his friend, and then, as the horse was brought up, he told him to mount and ride.
"But you may get into trouble for releasing me," Herbert said.
"I care not if I do," Harry replied. "But you need not be uneasy about me, for Prince Rupert will stand my friend, and hold me clear of any complaint that may be made. I will ride forward with you a little, till you can join your friends."
As Harry rode on by the side of Herbert a Royalist officer, one Sir Ralph Willoughby, dashed up.
"What means this?" he exclaimed. "Do I see an officer of his majesty riding with one of the Roundheads? This is treason and treachery!"
"I will answer to the king, if need be," Harry said, "for my conduct. I am not under your orders, Sir Ralph, and shall use my discretion in this matter. This gentleman is as a brother to me."
"And I would cut down my brother," Sir Ralph said furiously, "if I found him in the ranks of the enemy!"
"Then, sir, we differ," Harry replied, "for that would not I. There are your friends," he said to Herbert, pointing to a body of Roundheads at a short distance, "Give me your word, however, that you will not draw sword again to-day."
Herbert readily gave the required promise, and riding off, was soon with his friends. Sir Ralph and Harry came to high words after he had left; and the matter might then and there have been decided by the sword, had not a party of Roundheads, seeing two cavalry officers so near to them, charged down, and compelled them to ride for their lives.
The following day Sir Ralph reported the circumstance to the general, and he to Prince Rupert. The prince laughed at the charge.
"Harry Furness," he said, "is as loyal a gentleman as draws sword in our ranks, and as he and I have been well-nigh roasted together, it were vain indeed that any complaint were made to me touching his honor. I will speak to him, however, and doubt not that his explanation will be satisfactory."
The prince accordingly spoke to Harry, who explained the circumstances of his relations with the young Roundhead.
"Had he been a great captain, sir," Harry said, "I might have deemed it my duty to hold him in durance, however near his relationship to myself. But as a few weeks since he was but a schoolboy, methought that the addition of his sword to the Roundhead cause would make no great difference in our chances of victory that afternoon. Moreover, I had received his pledge that he would not draw sword again in the battle."
As even yet, although the bitterness was quickly increasing, it was far from having reached that point which it subsequently attained, and prisoners on both sides were treated with respect, no more was said regarding Harry's conduct in allowing his friend to escape. But from that moment, between himself and Sir Ralph Willoughby there grew up a strong feeling of animosity, which only needed some fitting pretext to break out.
It was, indeed, an unfortunate point in the royal cause, that there was very far from being unity among those who fought side by side. There were intrigues and jealousies. There were the king's men, who would have supported his majesty in all lengths to which he might have gone, and who were ever advising him to resist all attempts at pacification, and to be content with nothing less than a complete defeat of his enemies. Upon the other hand, there were the grave, serious men, who had drawn the sword with intense reluctance, and who desired nothing so much as peace--a peace which would secure alike the rights of the crown and the rights of the people.
They were shocked, too, by the riotous and profligate ways of some of the wilder spirits, and deemed that their cause was sullied by the reckless conduct and wild ways of many of their party. Sir Henry Furness belonged to this section of the king's adherents, and Harry, who had naturally imbibed his father's opinions, held himself a good deal aloof from the wild young spirits of the king's party.
Skirmishes took place daily between the cavalry outposts of the two armies. Sir Henry was asked by the prince to send some of his troops across the river to watch the enemy, and he chose that commanded by Harry, rather for the sake of getting the lad away from the temptations and dissipation of Oxford than to give him an opportunity of distinguishing himself. The troop commanded by Sir Ralph Willoughby was also on outpost duty, and lay at no great distance from the village in which Harry quartered his men after crossing the river. The Roundhead cavalry were known to be but three or four miles away, and the utmost vigilance was necessary.
Harry gave orders that the troops should be distributed through the village--five men to a house. Straw was to be brought in at night, and laid on the floor of the kitchens, and the men were there to sleep, with their arms by their sides, ready for instant service. One of each party was to stand sentry over the five horses which were to be picketed to the palings in front of the house. At the first alarm he was at once to awake his comrades, who were to mount instantly, and form in column in the street. Two pickets were placed three hundred yards from the village, and two others a quarter of a mile further in advance. Harry and Jacob took up their residence in the village inn, and arranged alternately to visit the pickets and sentries every two hours.
"They shall not catch us napping, Jacob. This is my first command on detached duty. You and I have often remarked upon the reckless ways of our leaders. We have an opportunity now of carrying our own ideas into effect."
At three o'clock Jacob visited the outposts. All was still, and nothing had occurred to give rise to any suspicion of the vicinity of an enemy. Half an hour later one of the advanced pickets galloped in. They heard, he said, a noise as of a large body of horse, away to the right, and it seemed as if it was proceeding toward Chalcombe, the village where Sir Ralph Willoughby's troop was quartered. Two minutes later, thanks to Harry's arrangements, the troop were mounted and in readiness for action.
The first faint dawn of day had begun. Suddenly the stillness was broken by the sound of pistol shots and shouts from the direction of Chalcombe, which lay a mile away.
"It is likely," Harry said, "that Sir Ralph has been caught napping. He is brave, but he is reckless, and the discipline of his troop is of the slackest. Let us ride to his rescue."
The troop filed out from the village, and turned down the side road leading to Chalcombe. Harry set spurs to his horse and led the column at a gallop. The sound of shots continued without intermission, and presently a bright light shot up.
"Methinks," Harry said to Jacob, "the Roundheads have caught our men asleep, and it is an attack upon the houses rather than a cavalry fight."
It was scarcely five minutes from the time they started when they approached the village. By the light of a house which had been set on fire, Harry saw that his conjecture was well founded. The Roundheads were dismounted, and were attacking the houses.
Halting just outside the village, Harry formed his men with a front across the whole road, and directed the lines to advance, twenty yards apart. Then, placing himself at their head, he gave the word, and charged down the street upon the Roundheads. The latter, occupied by their attack upon the houses, were unconscious of the presence of their foe until he was close upon them, and were taken utterly by surprise. The force of the charge was irresistible, and the Roundheads, dispersed and on foot, were cut down in all directions. Groups of twos and threes stood together and attempted resistance, but the main body thought only of regaining their horses. In three minutes after the Royalists entered the village the surviving Roundheads were in full flight, hotly pursued by the victorious Cavaliers. These, being for the most part better mounted, overtook and slew many of the Roundheads, and not more than half the force which had set out returned to their quarters at Didcot. The pursuit continued to within half a mile of that place, and then Harry, knowing that there was a force of Roundhead infantry there, drew off from the pursuit, and returned to Chalcombe. He found that more than half of Sir Ralph Willoughy's men had been killed, many having been cut down before they could betake themselves to their arms, those quartered in the inn, and at two or three of the larger houses, having alone maintained a successful resistance until the arrival of succor.
Sir Ralph Willoughby was furious. The disaster was due to his own carelessness in having contented himself with placing two pickets in advance of the village, and permitting the whole remainder of his force to retire to bed. Consequently the picket, on riding in upon the approach of the enemy, were unable to awake and call them to arms before the Roundheads were upon them. In his anger he turned upon Harry, and fiercely demanded why he had not sent him news of the approach of the enemy.
"You must have known it," he said. "Your men were all mounted and in readiness, or they could not have arrived here so soon. You must have been close at hand, and only holding off in order that you might boast of having come to my relief."
Harry, indignant at these words, turned on heel without deigning to give an answer to the angry man, and at once rode back to his own quarters. Two hours later Prince Rupert rode up. The firing had been reported, and Prince Rupert had ridden with a body of horse to Chalcombe. Here he had heard Sir Ralph Willoughby's version of the story, and had requested that officer to ride with him to Harry's quarters. The prince, with several of his principal officers, alighted at the inn, outside which Harry received him. Prince Rupert led the way into the house.
"Master Furness," he said, "Sir Ralph Willoughby accuses you of having played him false, and left his party to be destroyed on account of the quarrel existing between you, touching that affair at Newbury. What have you to say to this? He alleges that you must have been close at hand, and moved not a finger to save him until half his troop was destroyed."
"It is wholly false, sir," Harry said. "Seeing that the enemy were so close, I had placed my pickets well in advance, and ordered my men to lie down in their clothes, with their arms beside them, on straw in the kitchens, ready to mount at a moment's warning. I quartered five in each house, having their horses fastened in front, and one of each party stationed at the door, where he could observe the horses and wake the men on the instant. Thus, when my pickets came in with the news that troops were heard moving toward Chalcombe, my troop was in less than two minutes in the saddle. As we rode out of the village we heard the first shot, and five minutes later charged the Roundheads in the streets of the village. Had we not hastened, methinks that neither Sir Ralph Willoughby nor any of his troops would have been alive now to tell the tale. You can question, sir, my lieutenant, or any of my troopers, and you will hear that matters went precisely as I have told you."
"You have done well indeed, Master Furness," Prince Rupert said warmly, "and I would that many of my other officers showed the same circumspection and care as you have done. Now, Sir Ralph, let me hear what arrangements you made against surprise."
"I set pickets in front of the village," Sir Ralph said sulkily.
"And what besides?" the prince asked. "Having done that, did you and your officers and men go quietly to sleep, as if the enemy were a hundred miles away?"
Sir Ralph was silent.
"Fie, for shame, sir!" the prince said sternly. "Your own carelessness has brought disaster upon you, and instead of frankly owning your fault, and thanking Master Furness for having redeemed your error, saved the remnant of your troop, and defeated the Roundheads heavily, your jealousy and envy of the lad have wrought you to bring false accusations against him. Enough, sir," he said peremptorily, seeing the glance of hatred which Sir Ralph cast toward Harry. "Sufficient harm has been done already by your carelessness--see that no more arises from your bad temper. I forbid this quarrel to go further; until the king's enemies are wholly defeated there must be no quarrels between his friends. And should I hear of any further dispute on your part with Master Furness, I shall bring it before the king, and obtain his warrant for your dismissal from this army."
The following day Harry and his troop moved further down the river, the enemy having fallen back from Didcot. He was placed at a village where there was a ford across the river. The post was of importance, as its position prevented the enemy from making raids into the country, where stores of provisions and cattle had been collected for the use of the army at Oxford. Harry's force was a small one for the defense of such a post; but there appeared little danger of an attack, as Prince Rupert, with a large force of cavalry, lay but a mile or two distant. A few days after their arrival, however, Prince Rupert started with his horse to drive back a party of the enemy whom he heard were lying some miles north of Reading.
"Prince Rupert never seems to have room for two ideas in his head at the same time," Jacob said. "The moment he hears of an enemy off he rides at full gallop, forgetting that he has left us alone here. It is well if the Roundheads at Reading do not sally out and attack us, seeing how useful this ford would be to them."
"I agree with you, Jacob, and we will forthwith set to work to render the place as defensible as we may."
"We had best defend the other side of the ford, if they advance," Jacob said. "We could make a far better stand there."
"That is true, Jacob; but though we could there bar them from entering our country, they, if they obtained the village, would shut the door to our entering theirs. No, it is clear that it our duty to defend the village as long as we can, if we should be attacked."
Harry now set his men to work to make loopholes in the cottages and inclosure walls, and to connect the latter by banks of earth, having thorn branches set on the top. Just at the ford itself stood a large water-mill, worked by a stream which here ran into the river. Harry placed sacks before all the windows, leaving only loopholes through which to fire. Some of the troop carried pistols only; others had carbines; and some, short, wide-mouthed guns, which carried large charges of buckshot. Pickets were sent forward a mile toward Reading.
Early in the afternoon these galloped in with the news that a heavy column of infantry and cavalry, with two pieces of artillery, were approaching along the road. Harry at once dispatched a messenger, with orders to ride until he found Prince Rupert, to tell him of the state he was in, and ask him to hurry to his assistance, giving assurance that he would hold the village as long as possible. All now labored vigorously at the works of defense. Half an hour after the alarm had been given the enemy were seen approaching.
"There must be over five hundred men, horse and foot," Jacob said, as from the upper story of the mill he watched with Harry the approach of the enemy. "With fifty men we shall never be able to defend the circuit of the village."
"Not if they attack all round at once," Harry agreed. "But probably they will fall upon us in column, and behind stone walls we can do much. We must keep them out as long as we can; then fall back here, and surround ourselves with a ring of fire."
As soon as it was known that the enemy were approaching Harry had given orders that all the inhabitants should evacuate their houses and cross the river, taking with them such valuables as they could carry. There were several horses and carts in the village, and these were at once put in requisition, and the people crossing and recrossing the river rapidly carried most of their linen and other valuables over in safety, the men continuing to labor for the preservation of their goods, even after the fight commenced.
The Roundheads halted about four hundred yards from the village. Just as they did so there was a trampling of horses, and Sir Ralph Willoughby, with his troop, now reduced to thirty strong, rode into the village. He drew up his horse before Harry.
"Master Furness," he said, "Prince Rupert has forbidden me to test your courage in the way gentlemen usually do so. But there is now a means open. Let us see which will ride furthest--you or I--into the ranks of yonder horsemen."
Harry hesitated a moment; then he said gravely: "My life is not my own to throw away, Sir Ralph. My orders are to hold this place. That I can best do on foot, for even if our troops united were to rout the enemy's cavalry, their footmen would still remain, and would carry the village. No, sir, my duty is to fight here."
"I always thought you a coward!" Sir Ralph exclaimed; "now I know it," and, with a taunting laugh, he ordered his men to follow him, issued from the village, and prepared, with his little band, to charge the Roundhead horse, about a hundred and fifty strong.
Just as they formed line, however, the enemy's' guns opened, and a shot struck Sir Ralph full in the chest, hurling him, a shattered corpse, to the ground.
His men, dismayed at the fall of their leader, drew rein.
"Fall back, men," Harry shouted from behind, "fall back, and make a stand here. You must be cut to pieces if you advance."
The troop, who had no other officer with them, at once obeyed Harry's orders. They had heard the conversation between him and their leader, and although prepared to follow Sir Ralph, who was the landlord of most of them, they saw that Harry was right, and that to attack so numerous a body of horse and foot was but to invite destruction.
| {
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9 | A STUBBORN DEFENSE. | A half-dozen or so of Sir Ralph Willoughby's troopers declared that now their lord was dead they would fight no further, and straightway rode off through the village and across the ford. The rest, however, seeing that a brave fight against odds was about to commence, declared their willingness to put themselves under Harry's orders. They were at once dismounted and scattered along the line of defenses. After the Roundhead cannon had fired a few shots their cavalry charged, thinking to ride into the village. But the moment Sir Ralph's troopers had re-entered it Harry had heaped up across the road a quantity of young trees and bushes which he had cut in readiness. Not a shot was fired until the horsemen reached this obstacle, and then so heavy a fire was poured upon them, as they dismounted and tried to pull it asunder, that, with a loss of many men, they were forced to retreat.
The infantry now advanced, and a severe fight began. Harry's eighty men, sheltered behind their walls, inflicted heavy damage upon the enemy, who, however, pressed on stoutly, one column reaching the obstruction across the road, and laboring to destroy it. All the horses, with the exception of twenty, had been sent across the ford, and when Harry saw that in spite of the efforts of his men the enemy were destroying the abattis, he mounted twenty men upon these horses, placing Jacob at their head. Then he drew off as many defenders from other points as he could, and bade these charge their pistols and blunderbusses to the mouth with balls. As the enemy effected a breach in the abattis and streamed in, Jacob with his horse galloped down upon them at full speed. The reserve poured the fire of their heavily loaded pieces upon the mass still outside, and then aided Jacob's horse by falling suddenly on those within. So great was the effect that the enemy were driven back, and the column retired, the breach in the abattis being hastily filled up, before the cavalry, who were waiting the opportunity, could charge down upon it.
In the meantime, however, the enemy were forcing their way in at other points, and Harry gave word for the outside line of houses to be fired. The thatched roofs speedily were in flames, and as the wind was blowing from the river dense clouds of smoke rolled down upon the assailants. It was now only the intervals between the houses which had to be defended, and for an hour the stubborn resistance continued, the Royalist troops defending each house with its inclosure to the last, and firing them as they retreated, their own loss being trifling in comparison with that which they inflicted upon their assailants.
At last the whole of the defenders were gathered in and round the mill. This was defended from attack by the mill stream, which separated it from the village, and which was crossed only by the road leading down to the ford. The bridge was a wooden one, and this had been already partly sawn away. As soon as the last of the defenders crossed the remainder of the bridge was chopped down. Along the line of the stream Harry had erected a defense, breast high, of sacks of wheat from the mill. The enemy, as they straggled out through the burning village, paused, on seeing the strong position which yet remained to be carried. The mill stream was rapid and deep, and the approaches swept by the fire from the mill. There was a pause, and then the cannon were brought up and fire opened upon the mill, the musketry keeping up an incessant rattle from every wall and clump of bushes.
The mill was built of wood, and the cannon shot went through and through it. But Harry directed his men to place rows of sacks along each floor facing the enemy, and lying down behind these to fire through holes pierced in the planks. For half an hour the cannonade continued, and then the enemy were seen advancing, carrying beams and the trunks of small trees, to make a bridge across the stream. Had Harry's men been armed with muskets it would have been next to impossible for the enemy to succeed in doing this in the face of their fire. But the fire of their short weapons was wild and uncertain, except at short distances. Very many of the Roundheads fell, but others pressed forward bravely, and succeeded in throwing their beams across the stream. By this time Harry had led out all his force from the mill, and a desperate fight took place at the bridge. The enemy lined the opposite bank in such force that none of the defenders could show their heads above the barricade of sacks, and Harry came to the conclusion that further resistance was vain. He ordered Jacob to take all the men with the exception of ten and to retire at once across the ford. He himself with the remainder would defend the bridge till they were fairly across, and would then rush over and join them as he might.
With a heavy heart Jacob was preparing to obey this order, when he heard a loud cheer, and saw Prince Rupert, heading a large body of horse, dash into the river on the other side. The enemy saw him too. There was an instant cessation of their fire, and before Prince Rupert had gained the bank the Roundheads were already in full retreat for Reading. The bridge was hastily repaired, and the prince pursued for some distance, chasing their cavalry well-nigh into Reading. Their infantry, however, held together, and regained that town in safety.
Upon his return Prince Rupert expressed his warm admiration at the prolonged and gallant defense which Harry had made, and said that the oldest soldier in the army could not have done better. At Harry's request he promised the villagers that the next day money should be sent out from the king's treasury to make good the losses which they had sustained. Then he left a strong body of horse to hold the village, and directed Harry to ride with him with his troop to Oxford.
"I have a mission for you, Master Furness," he said, as they rode along. "I have already told his majesty how coolly and courageously you conducted yourself in that sore strait in which we were placed together. The king has need of a messenger to Scotland. The mission is a difficult one, and full of danger. It demands coolness and judgment as well as courage. I have told his majesty that, in spite of your youth, you possess these qualities, but the king was inclined to doubt whether you were old enough to be intrusted with such a commission. After to-day's doings he need have no further hesitation. I spoke to your father but yesterday, and he has given consent that you shall go, the more readily, methinks, because the good Cavalier thinks that the morals and ways of many of our young officers to be in no wise edifying for you, and I cannot but say that he is right. What sayest thou?"
Harry expressed his willingness to undertake any mission with which he might be charged. He thought it probable that no great movements would be undertaken in the south for some time, and with a lad's natural love of adventure, was pleased at the thought of change and variety.
The Scots were at this time arranging for a close alliance with the Parliament, which had sent emissaries to Edinburgh to negotiate a Solemn League and Covenant. Sir Henry Vane, who was an Independent, had been forced to accede to the demand of the Scotch Parliament, that the Presbyterian religious system of Scotland should be adopted as that of England, and after much chaffering for terms on both sides, the document was signed, and was to bind those who subscribed it to endeavor, without respect of persons, to extirpate popery and prelacy.
On the 25th of September, nearly a week after the battle of Newbury, all the members of Parliament still remaining in London assembled in St. Margaret's Church, and signed the Solemn League and Covenant; but even at this moment of enthusiasm the parties were not true to each other. The Scotch expected that Presbyterianism would be introduced into England, and that Episcopacy would be entirely abolished. The English members, however, signed the declaration with the full intent of preserving their own religion, that of a form of Episcopacy, altered much indeed from that of the Church of England, but still differing widely from the Scotch system.
The king had many adherents in Scotland, chief of whom was the Earl of Montrose, a most gallant and loyal nobleman.
Upon the day after the fight in the village the king, on Prince Rupert's recommendation, appointed Harry Furness to bear dispatches to the earl, and as he was going north, Prince Rupert placed Lady Sidmouth and her daughter under his charge to convey to the army of the Earl of Newcastle, under whom her husband was at this time engaged.
Upon asking what force he should take with him the prince said that he had better proceed with his own troop, as an escort to the ladies, as far as the camp of Newcastle, filling up the places of those who had fallen in the skirmishes and fight of Newbury with other men, so as to preserve his full tale of fifty troopers. When he had fulfilled the first part of his mission he was to place his troop at the earl's service until his return, and to proceed in such manner and disguise as might seem best to him.
Harry started for the north in high spirits, feeling very proud of the charge confided to him. Lady Sidmouth and her daughter were placed in a light litter between two horses. Harry took his place beside it. Half the troop, under the command of the lieutenant, rode in front; the other half followed. So they started for the north. It was a long journey, as they were forced to avoid many towns occupied by Roundheads. Upon the fourth day of their journey they suddenly heard the explosion of pistols, and the shouts of men in conflict. Harry ordered his lieutenant to ride forward with half the troop to some rising ground just in front, and there they saw a combat going on between a party of Cavaliers and a force of Roundheads, much superior to them in numbers. Harry joined the lieutenant, and sending back a man with orders to the remaining half of the troop to form a guard round the litter, he headed the advance party, and the twenty-five men rode headlong down into the scene of conflict. It was a sharp fight for a few minutes, and then the accession of strength which the Cavaliers had gained gave them the superiority, and the Roundheads fell back, but in good order.
"You arrived just in time, sir," the leader of the party engaged said. "I am Master John Chillingworth, and am marching to Hardley House, which the Puritans are about to besiege. There is no time to delay, for see you not on yonder hill the gleam of pikes? That is the enemy's footmen. It is only an advanced party of their horse with which we have had this affair. You cannot go forward in this direction. There is a strong body of Roundheads lying a few miles to the north."
Harry rode back to Lady Sidmouth, and after a consultation with her and with Master Chillingworth, they decided to throw themselves into Hardley House, where the addition of strength which they brought might enable them to beat off the Roundheads, and then to proceed on their way. They learned indeed from a peasant that several bodies of Roundheads were advancing from various directions, and that Hardley House was strong and well defended. Of the choice of evils, therefore, they thought this to be the lightest, and, after an hour's hard riding, they arrived before its walls. It was an old castellated building, with bastions and walls capable of standing a siege. The party were gladly received by the master, Sir Francis Burdett, who had placed his castle in a posture of defense, but was short of men. Upon the news of the approach of the enemy he had hastily driven a number of cattle into the yard, and had stores of provisions sufficient to stand a siege for some time.
In a short time the Parliament force, consisting of five hundred footmen and two hundred horse, appeared before the castle, and summoned it to surrender. Sir Francis refused to do so, and fired a gun in token of defiance. Soon a train was seen approaching in the distance, and four guns were dragged by the enemy to a point of high ground near the castle. Here the Roundheads began to throw up a battery, but were mightily inconvenienced while doing so by the guns of the castle, which shot briskly against them. Working at night, however, in two days they completed the battery, which, on the third morning, opened fire upon the castle. The guns were much heavier than those upon the walls, and the shot, directed at a curtain between two towers, battered the stone sorely. The Parliament footmen were drawn back a space from the walls so as to avoid the fire of muskets from the defenders. There were in all in the castle about two hundred men, one hundred having been collected before the arrival of the troops of horse. These determined upon making a desperate resistance when the wall should give way, which would, they doubted not, be upon the following day. Everything that could be done was tried to hinder the destruction made by the enemy's shot. Numbers of sacks were filled with earth, and lowered from the walls above so as to hang in regular order before it, and so break the force of the shot. This had some effect, but gradually the wall crumbled beneath the blows of the missiles from the Roundhead guns.
"We are useless here, save as footmen," Harry said that night to his host. "There is a postern gate, is there not, behind the castle? Methinks that if we could get out in the dark unobserved, and form close to the walls, so that their pickets lying around might not suspect us of purposing to issue forth, we might, when daylight dawned, make an attack upon their guns, and if we could spike these the assault would probably cease."
The attempt was determined upon. The Roundhead infantry were disposed behind as well as in front of the castle, so as to prevent the escape of the besieged; but the camp was at a distance of some four hundred yards. The chains of the drawbridge across the moat were oiled, as were the bolts of the doors, and at three in the morning the gate was opened, and the drawbridge lowered across the moat. A thick layer of sacks was then placed upon the drawbridge. The horses' hoofs were also muffled with sacking, and then, one by one, the horses were led out, the drawbridge was drawn up again, and all was quiet. No sound or motion in the Puritan camp betrayed that their exit was observed, and they could hear the challenges of the circuit of sentries passed from man to man.
When the first streak of dawn was seen in the east the troop mounted their horses, and remained quiet until the light should be sufficient to enable them to see the nature of the ground over which they would have to pass. This they would be able to do before they themselves were observed, standing as they were close under the shadow of the walls of the castle. As soon as it was sufficiently light the trumpets sounded, and with a burst they dashed across the country. Heeding not the bugle calls in the camp of the Puritan infantry, they rode straight at the guns. These were six hundred yards distant, and before the artillerymen could awake to their danger, the Royalists were upon them. Those that stood were cut down, and in a minute the guns were spiked. Then the cavalry swept round, and as the Puritan horse hastily formed up, they charged them. Although but half their numbers, they had the superiority in the surprise at which they took their foes, and in the fact of the latter being but half armed, not having had time to put on their breastplates. The combat was a short one, and in a few minutes the Puritans were flying in all directions. The pikemen were now approaching on either side in compact bodies, and against these Harry knew that his horsemen could do nothing. He therefore drew them off from the castle, and during the day circled round and round the place, seizing several carts of provisions destined for the wants of the infantry, and holding them in a sort of leaguer.
That night, finding that their guns were disabled, their horse defeated, and themselves cut off, the rebel infantry drew off, and gave up the siege of the place. The next morning the cavalry re-entered the castle in triumph, and having received the hearty thanks of Sir Francis Burdett, and leaving with him the troop of Master Chillingworth, who intended to remain there, Harry proceeded on his way north, and reached York without further adventure.
During the ten days that they had journeyed together Lady Sidmouth had been greatly pleased with the attention and character of Harry Furness. He was always cheerful and courteous, without any of that light tone of flippancy which distinguished the young Cavaliers of the period, and her little daughter was charmed with her companion. Harry received the hearty thanks of Sir Henry Sidmouth for the care with which he had conducted his wife through the dangers of the journey, and then, having so far discharged his duty, he left his troop at York, and started for Scotland.
On the way he had discussed with Jacob the measures which he intended to take for his journey north. Jacob had begged earnestly to accompany him, and as Harry deemed that his shrewdness might be of great use, he determined to take him with him, as well as another of his troop. The latter was a merry fellow, named William Long. He was of grave and sober demeanor, and never smiled, even while causing his hearers to be convulsed with laughter. He had a keen sense of humor, was a ready-witted and courageous fellow, and had frequently distinguished himself in the various skirmishes. He was the son of a small tenant of Sir Henry Furness.
His farm was near the hall, and, although three or four years older than Harry, he had as a boy frequently accompanied him when out hawking, and in other amusements. Harry felt that, with two attached and faithful comrades like these, he should he able to make his way through many dangers. At York he had procured for himself and his followers suits of clothes of a grave and sober cut, such as would be worn by yeomen; and here they laid aside their Cavalier garments, and proceeded northward. They traveled quietly forward as far as Durham, and then went west, as Berwick was held for the Parliament. They carried weapons, for at that time none traveled unarmed, and the country through which they had to pass was greatly disturbed, the moss troopers having taken advantage of the disorders of the times to renew the habits of their forefathers, and to make raids upon their southern neighbors, and carry off cattle and horses. They carried with them but little money, a small quantity in their valises, and a few gold pieces concealed about their persons, each choosing a different receptacle, so that in case of pillage some at least might retain sufficient to carry them on their way. Avoiding the large towns, where alone they would be likely to be questioned, they crossed the border, and rode into Scotland.
Upon the day after their crossing the frontier they saw a body of horsemen approaching them. These drew up when they reached them, Harry having previously warned his comrades to offer no resistance, as the party were too strong for them, and his mission was too important to allow the king's cause to be hazarded by any foolish acts of pugnacity.
"Are you for the king or the kirk?" the leader asked.
"Neither for one nor the other," Harry said. "We are peaceable yeomen traveling north to buy cattle, and we meddle not in the disputes of the time."
"Have you any news from the south?"
"Nothing," Harry replied. "We come from Durham, and since the news of the battle of Newbury, no tidings have come of importance."
The man looked inquisitively at the horses and valises; but Harry had chosen three stout ponies sufficiently good to carry them, but offering no temptations to pillagers, and the size of the valises promised but little from their contents.
"Since you are riding north to buy cattle," the leader said, "you must have money with you, and money is short with us in these bad times."
"We have not," Harry said; "judging it possible that we might meet with gentlemen who felt the pressure of the times, we have provided ourselves with sufficient only to take us up to Kelso, where dwells our correspondent, who will, we trust, have purchased and collected sufficient cattle for us to take south when we shall learn that a convoy of troops is traveling in this direction, for we would not place temptation in the way of those whom we might meet."
"You are a fellow of some humor," the leader said grimly. "But it is evil jesting on this side of the border."
"I jest not," Harry said. "There is a proverb in Latin, with which doubtless your worship is acquainted, to the effect that an empty traveler may sing before robbers, and, although far from including you and your worshipful following in that category, yet we may be pardoned for feeling somewhat light-hearted, because we are not overburdened with money."
The leader looked savagely at the young man; but seeing that his demeanor and that of his followers was resolute, that they carried pistols at their holsters and heavy swords, and deeming that nothing but hard knocks would come of an attack upon them, he surlily bade his company follow him, and rode on his way again.
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10 | THE COMMISSIONER OF THE CONVENTION. | At Kelso Harry procured changes of garments, attiring himself as a Lowland farmer, and his companions as two drovers. They were, as before, mounted; but the costume of English farmers could no longer have been supported by any plausible story. They learned that upon the direct road north they should find many bodies of Scotch troops, and therefore made for the coast. Two days' riding brought them to the little port of Ayton.
After taking their supper in the common room of the hostelry, there was a stir outside, and three men, attired as Puritan preachers, entered the room. Mine host received them with courtesy, but with none of the eager welcome usually displayed to guests; for these gentry, although feared--for their power was very great at the time--were by no means loved, and their orders at a hostelry were not likely to swell the purse of the host. Stalking to an unoccupied table next to that at which Harry and his party were sitting, they took their seats and called for supper.
Harry made a sign to his companions to continue talking together, while he listened attentively to the conversation of the men behind him. He gathered from their talk that they were commissioners proceeding from the Presbyterian Convention in London to discuss with that at Edinburgh upon the points upon which they could come to an agreement for a common basis of terms. Their talk turned principally upon doctrinal questions, upon which Harry's ignorance was entire and absolute; but he saw at once that it would do good service to the king if he could in some way prevent these men continuing upon their journey, and so for a time arrest the progress of the negotiations between the king's enemies in England and Scotland, for at this time the preachers were the paramount authorities in England. It was they who insisted upon terms, they who swayed the councils of the nation, and it was not until Cromwell, after overthrowing the king, overthrew the Parliament, which was for the main part composed of their creatures, that the power of the preachers came to an end. It would, of course, have been easy for Harry and his friends to attack these men during their next day's journey, but this would have involved the necessity of killing them--from which he shrank--for an assault upon three godly men traveling on the high business of the Convention to the Scottish capital would have caused such an outcry that Harry could not hope to continue on his way without the certainty of discovery and arrest.
Signing to his comrades to remain in their seats, he strolled off toward the port, and there entered a public house, which, by its aspect, was frequented by seafaring men. It was a small room that he entered, and contained three or four fishermen, and one whom a certain superiority in dress betokened to be the captain of a vessel. They were talking of the war, and of the probability of the Scottish army taking part in it. The fishermen were all of the popular party; but the captain, who seemed a jovial fellow, shrugged his shoulders over the religious squabbles, and said that, for his part, he wanted nothing but peace.
"Not," he said, "that the present times do not suit are rarely in purse. Men are too busy now to look after the doings of every lugger that passes along the coast, and never were French goods so plentiful or so cheap. Moreover," he said, "I find that not unfrequently passengers want to be carried to France or Holland. I ask no questions; I care not whether they go on missions from the Royalists or from the Convention; I take their money; I land them at their destination; no questions are asked. So the times suit me bravely; but for all that I do not like to think of Englishmen and Scotchmen arrayed against their fellows. I cannot see that it matters one jot whether we are predestinate or not predestinate, or whether it is a bishop who governs a certain church or a presbyter. I say let each worship in his own way, and not concern himself about his fellows. If men would but mind their own affairs in religion as they do in business it would be better for us all."
Harry, as he drank the glass of beer he had ordered, had joined occasionally in the conversation, not taking any part, but agreeing chiefly with the sea-captain in his desire for peace.
"I too," he said, "have nothing to grumble at. My beasts fetch good prices for the army, and save that there is a want of hands, I was never doing better. Still I would gladly see peace established."
Presently the fishermen, having finished their liquor, retired, and the captain, looking keenly at Harry, said, "Methinks, young sir, that you are not precisely what you seem!"
"That is so," Harry replied; "I am on business here, It matters not on which side, and it may be that we may strike a bargain together."
"Do you want to cross the channel?" the captain asked, laughing. "You seem young to have put your head in a noose already."
"No," Harry said, "I do not want to cross myself; but I want to send some others across. I suppose that if a passenger or two were placed on board your ship, to be landed in Holland, you would not deem it necessary to question them closely, or to ascertain whether they also were anxious to arrive at that destination?"
"By no means," the captain replied. "Goods consigned to me will be delivered at the port to which they are addressed, and I should consider that with passengers as with goods, I must carry them to the port for which their passage is taken."
"Good," Harry said; "if that is the case, methinks that when you sail--and," he asked, breaking off, "when do you sail?"
"To-morrow morning, if the wind is fair," the captain answered. "But if it would pay me better to stop for a few hours, I might do so."
"To-morrow night, if you will wait till then," Harry said, "I will place three passengers on board, and will pay you your own sum to land them at Flushing, or any other place across the water to which you may be bound. I will take care that they will make no complaints whatever, or address any remonstrance to you, until after you have fairly put to sea. And then, naturally, you will feel yourself unable to alter the course of your ship."
"But," the captain observed, "I must be assured that these passengers who are so anxious to cross the water are not men whose absence might cause any great bother. I am a simple man, earning my living as honestly as the times will allow me to do, and I wish not to embroil myself with the great parties of the State."
"There may be an inquiry," Harry replied; "but methinks it will soon drop. They are three preachers of London, who are on their way to dispute concerning points of religion with the divines in Scotland. The result of their disputation may perchance be that an accord may be arrived at between the divines of London and Edinburgh; and in that case, I doubt not that the army now lying at Dundee would move south, and that the civil war would therefore become more extended and cruel than ever."
The captain laughed.
"I am not fond of blackbirds on board my ship," he said. "They are ever of ill omen on the sea. But I will risk it for so good a cause. It is their pestilent religious disputes which have stirred up the nations to war, and I doubt not that even should some time elapse before these gentlemen can again hold forth in England, there are plenty of others to supply their place."
An agreement was speedily arrived at as to the terms of passage, for Harry was well provided with money, having drawn at Kelso from an agent devoted to the Royal cause, upon whom he had letters of credit.
The next morning early Harry went to a carter in the town, and hired a cart for the day, leaving a deposit for its safe return at night. Then, mounting their horses, the three Royalists rode off just as the preachers were going forth from the inn. The latter continued their course at the grave pace suitable to their calling and occupation, conversing vigorously upon the points of doctrine which they intended to urge upon their fellows at Edinburgh. Suddenly, just where the road emerged from a wood on to a common, three men dashed out, and fell upon them. The preachers roared lustily for mercy, and invoked the vengeance of the Parliament upon those who ventured to interfere with them.
"We are charged," one said, "with a mission to the Convention at Edinburgh, and it is as much as your heads are worth to interfere with us."
"Natheless," Harry said, "we must even risk our heads. You must follow us into the wood, or we shall be under the necessity of 'blowing out your brains.'"
Much crestfallen, the preachers followed their captors into the wood. There they were despoiled of their hats and doublets, tied securely by cords, gagged, and placed, in spite of their remonstrances and struggles, in three huge sacks.
At midnight the Annette was lying alongside the wharf at Ayton, when a cart drove up. Three men alighted from it, and one hailed the captain, who was standing on deck.
"I have brought the three parcels thou wottest of," he said. "They will need each two strong men to carry them on board."
The captain, with two sailors, ascended to the quay.
"What have we here?" said one of the sailors; "there is some live creature in this sack."
"It is a young calf," Harry said; "when you are well out to sea you can give it air."
The men laughed, for having frequently had passengers to cross to the Continent, they shrewdly guessed at the truth; and the captain had already told them that the delay of a day would put some money into each of their pockets. Having seen the three sacks deposited on the deck of the ship, when the sails were immediately hoisted, and the Annette glided away on her course seaward, the cart was driven round to the house where it had been hired. The stipulated price was paid, the deposit returned, and the hirer then departed.
Riding toward Edinburgh, Harry agreed with his comrades that as he, as the apparent leader of the party, would be the more likely to be suspected and arrested, it would be better for the documents of which they were the carriers, as well as the papers found upon the persons of the Puritans, to be intrusted to the charge of Jacob and William Long. Harry charged them, in the event of anything happening to him, to pay no heed to him whatever, but to separate from him and mix with the crowd, and then to make their way, as best they might, to the Earl of Montrose.
"It matters nothing," he said, "my being arrested, They can prove nothing against me, as I shall have no papers on my body, while it is all-important that you should get off. The most that they can do to me is to send me to London, and a term of imprisonment as a malignant is the worst that will befall me."
The next day they entered the town by the Canongate, and were surprised and amused at the busy scene passing there. Riding to an inn, they put up their horses and dismounted. Harry purposed to remain there for three or four days to learn the temper of the people.
The next morning he strolled out into the streets, followed at some little distance by Jacob and William Long, He had not the least fear of being recognized, and for the time gave himself up thoroughly to the amusement of the moment. He had not proceeded far, however, when he ran full tilt against a man in a black garb, who, gazing at him, at once shouted out at the top of his voice, "Seize this man, he is a malignant and a spy," and to his horror Harry discovered the small preacher with whom he had twice already been at loggerheads, and who, it seems, had been dispatched as a member of a previous commission by his party in London.
In a moment a dozen sturdy hands seized him by his collar. Feeling the utter uselessness of resistance, and being afraid that should he attempt to struggle, his friends might be drawn into the matter, Harry quietly proceeded along the street until he reached the city guardhouse, in a cell of which he was thrust.
"One would think," he muttered to himself, "that little preacher is an emissary of Satan himself. Go where I will, this lantern-jawed knave is sure to crop up and I feel convinced that until I have split his skull I shall have no safety. I thought I had freed myself of him forever when I got out of London; and here, in the middle of the Scotch capital, he turns up as sharpsighted and as venomous as ever."
An hour or two later Harry was removed under a guard to the city prison, and in the evening the doors were opened and a guard appeared and briefly ordered him to follow. Under the escort of four men he was led through the streets to a large building, and then conducted to a room in which a number of persons, some of them evidently of high rank, were sitting. At the head of the table was a man of sinister aspect. He had red hair and eyebrows, and a foxy, cunning face, and Harry guessed at once that he was in the presence of the Earl of Argyll--a man who, even more than the rest of his treacherous race, was hated and despised by loyal Scotchmen. In all their history, a great portion of the Scottish nobles were ever found ready to take English gold, and to plot against their country. But the Argylls had borne a bad pre-eminence even among these. They had hunted Wallace, had hounded down Bruce, and had ever been prominent in fomenting dissensions in their country; the present earl was probably the coldest and most treacherous of his race.
"We are told," he said sternly to the prisoner, "that you are a follower of the man Charles; that you have been already engaged in plottings among the good citizens of London, and we shrewdly suspect that your presence here bodes no good to the state. What hast thou to say in thy defense?"
"I do not know that I am charged with any offence," Harry said quietly. "I am an English gentleman, who, wishing to avoid the disorders in his own country, has traveled north for peace and quietness. If you have aught to urge against me or any evidence to give, I shall be prepared to confute it. As for the preacher, whose evidence has caused my arrest, he hath simply a grudge against me for a boyish freak, from which he suffered at the time when I made my escape from a guardroom in London, and his accusation against me is solely the result of prejudice."
Harry had already, upon his arrival at the jail, been searched thoroughly, having been stripped, and even the folds and linings of his garments ripped open, to see that they contained no correspondence. Knowing that nothing whatever could have been found against him, unless, indeed, his followers had also fallen into the hands of the Roundheads, Harry was able to assume a position of injured innocence.
"Your tone comports not with your condition," the Earl of Argyll said harshly. "We have found means here to make men of sterner mold than thine speak the truth, and in the interests of the state we shall not hesitate to use them against you also. The torturer here hath instruments which would tear you limb from limb, and, young sir, these will not be spared unless that malapert tongue of thine gives us the information we desire to learn."
"I decline to answer any questions beyond what I have already said," Harry replied firmly. "I tell you that I am an English gentleman traveling here on my own private business, and it were foul wrong for me to be seized and punished upon the suspicion of such a one as that man there;" and he pointed contemptuously to the preacher.
"You will be brought up again in two days," the earl said, "and if by that time you have not made up your mind to confess all, it will go hard with you. Think not that the life of a varlet like you will weigh for one moment in the scale with the safety of the nation, or that any regard for what you may consider in England the usages of war will prevail here."
He waved his hand, and Harry was conducted back to jail, feeling far more uneasy than he had done, for he knew that in Scotland very different manners prevailed to those which characterized the English. In England, throughout the war, no unnecessary bloodshed took place, and up to that time the only persons executed in cold blood had been the two gentlemen convicted of endeavoring to corrupt the Parliament in favor of the king. But in Scotland, where civil broils were constant, blood was ever shed recklessly on both sides; houses were given to the flames; men, women, and children slaughtered; lands laid waste; and all the atrocities which civil war, heightened by religious bigotry, could suggest, perpetrated.
Late that evening, the door of the prison opened, and a preacher was shown into the room.
"I have come," he said in a nasal tone, "misguided young man, to pray you to consider the wickedness of your ways. It is written that the ungodly shall perish, and I would fain lead you from the errors of your way before it is too late."
Harry had started as the speaker began; but he remained immovable until the jailer closed the door.
"Jacob," he exclaimed, "how mad, how imprudent of you! I ordered you specially, if I was arrested, to pay no heed, but to make your way north."
"I know that you did," Jacob said. "But you see you yourself talked of remaining for three days in Edinburgh. Therefore, I knew that there could be no pressing need of my journey north; and hearing some whispers of the intention of the lord president to extract from a certain prisoner the news of a plot with which he was supposed to be connected, I thought it even best to come and see you."
"But how have you obtained this garb?" Harry asked; "and how, above all, have you managed to penetrate hither?"
"Truly," Jacob said, "I have undertaken a difficult task in thy behalf, for I have to-night to enter into a disputation with many learned divines, and I dread that more than running the risk of meeting the Earl of Argyll, who, they say, has the face of a fox, and the heart of a devil."
"What mean you?" Harry asked.
"After we saw you dragged off by the townsmen, on being denounced by that little preacher whose hat I spoiled in St. Paul's churchyard, we followed your orders, and made back to our hostelry. There William Long and myself talked the matter over. In the first place, we took all the papers and documents which were concealed about us, and lifting a board in the room, hid them beneath it, so that in case of our arrest they would be safe. As we took out the documents, the commission which we borrowed from the preachers met our eyes, and it struck me that, armed with this, we might be enabled to do you service. I therefore at once purchased cloaks and hats fitting for us as worthy divines from London, and then, riding a mile or two into the country, we changed our garments, and entered the good city of Edinburgh as English divines. We proceeded direct to the house of the chief presbyter, to whom the letters of commission were addressed, and were received by him with open arms. I trust that we played our part rarely, and, in truth, the unctuousness and godliness of William Long passeth belief, and he plays his part well. Looking as he does far older than I--although in these days of clean-shaven faces I can make up rarely for thirty--he assumed the leading part. The presbyter would fain have summoned a number of his divines for a discussion this evening. But we, pleading fatigue, begged him to allow us two days of rest. He has, however, invited a few of his fellows, and we are to wrestle with them this evening in argument. How we shall get out of it I know not, for my head is altogether in ignorance of the points in issue. However, there was, among the documents of the preachers, one setting forth the points in which the practice of the sect in England and Scotland differed, with the heads of the arguments to be used. We have looked through these, and, as well as we could understand the jumble of hard words, have endeavored to master the points at issue, so we shall to-night confine ourselves to a bare exposition of facts, and shall put off answering the arguments of the other side until the drawn battle, which will be fixed for the day after to-morrow. By the way, we accounted for the absence of our colleague by saying that he fell sick on the way."
"But what is the use of all this risk?" Harry asked, laughing at the thought of his two followers discussing theology with the learned divines of the Scotch Church.
"That, in truth," Jacob said, "I do not yet exactly see; but I trust that to-morrow we shall have contrived some plan of getting you out of this prison. I shall return at the same time to-morrow evening."
"How did you get in here?" he asked.
"I had an order from the chief presbyter for entry. Saying that I believed I knew you, and that my words might have some effect in turning you from the evil of your ways, I volunteered to exhort you, and shall give such an account of my mission as will lead them to give me a pass to see you again to-morrow night."
The following evening Jacob again called, this time accompanied by William. They brought with them another dress similar to their own. Their visit was an hour later than upon the preceding evening.
"I learned," Jacob said, "that the guard was changed at eight o'clock, and it is upon this that the success of our scheme depends. William will immediately leave, and as he has been seen to enter by the guards without, and by those at the prison gate, he will pass out without questioning. In half an hour a fresh guard will be placed at both these points, and you and I will march out together, armed with permission for two preachers to pass."
The scheme appeared a hopeful one, and William took his departure after a few minutes, saying to the guards without that he went to fetch a book of reference which he needed to convince the hard-hearted reprobate within. He left the door partly ajar, and the guards without were edified by catching snatches of a discourse of exceeding godliness and unction, delivered by the preacher to the prisoner.
Presently a trampling without informed Harry and Jacob that the guard was being changed, and half an hour later they opened the door, and Jacob, standing for a moment as they went out, addressed a few words of earnest exhortation to the prisoner supposed to be within, adjuring him to bethink himself whether it was better to sacrifice his life in the cause of a wicked king than to purchase his freedom by forsaking the error of his ways, and turning to the true belief. Then, closing the door after him, Jacob strode along, accompanied by Harry, to the guardroom. They passed through the yard of the prison to the gate. There Jacob produced his pass for the entrance and exit of two divines, and the guard, suspecting no evil, at once suffered them to go forth. William had already been to the inn where they stopped, and had told the host that he was charged to examine the chamber where the persons who abode there upon the previous day had stopped. There he had taken the various documents from their hiding-place, and had made his way from the city. Outside the gates he was joined by the others, and all, at a speedy but still dignified pace, made their way to the spot where the horses were concealed, in a little wood in a retired valley. Here they changed their dress, and, making a bonfire of the garments which they had taken off, mounted their horses, and rode for the north.
| {
"id": "11565"
} |
11 | MONTROSE. | They stopped for the night at a village fifteen miles away from Edinburgh, and after they had had their supper Harry inquired of Jacob how his dispute with the divines had passed off the evening before.
Jacob burst into a fit of laughter.
"It was the funniest thing you ever saw," he said, "Imagine a large room, with the chief presbyter sitting at a table, and eight other men, with sour countenances and large turned-down collars and bands, sitting round it. William Long and I faced them at the other end, looking as grave and sanctimonious as the rest of them. The proceedings were, of course, opened with a lengthy prayer, and then the old gentleman in the center introduced us as the commissioners from London. William rose, and having got up by heart the instructions to the commissioners, he said that he would first briefly introduce to his fellow divines the points as to which differences appeared to exist between the Presbyterians of the north and those of the south, and concerning which he was instructed to come to an agreement with them. First, he gave a list of the points at variance; then he said that he understood that these, quoting from his document, were the views of his Scotch brethren; and he then proceeded to give briefly the arguments with which he had been furnished. He said that his reverend brother and himself were much wearied with long travel, and that they would fain defer the debate for another two days, but that in the meantime they would be glad to hear the views of their friends. Then did one after another of these eight worthy men rise, and for six mortal hours they poured forth their views. I do not know whether it was most difficult to avoid laughter or yawning; but, indeed, Master Harry, it was a weary time. I dared not look at William, for he put such grave attention and worshipful reverence on his face that you would have thought he had been born and bred to the work. When the last of the eight had sat dawn he rose again, and expressed a marvelous admiration of the learning and eloquence which his brethren had displayed. Many of their arguments he said, were new to him--and in this, indeed, I doubt not he spoke truth--and he perceived that it would be hard to answer all that they had so learnedly adduced. Upon the other hand, he had much to say; but he was willing to allow that upon some points he should have difficulty in combating their views. He prayed them, therefore, to defer the meeting for two days, when he would willingly give them his views upon the subject, and his learned brother would also address them. He proposed that the party should be as small a one as that he saw before him, and that, after hearing him, they should, if possible, come to some arrangement upon a few, at least, of the points in dispute, so as to leave as small a number as might be open to for the public disputation which would follow. The worshipful party appeared mightily taken with the idea, and, after an hour's prayer from the chairman, we separated. I hardly slept all night for laughing, and I would give much to see the faces of that honorable council when they hear that they have been fooled."
"You have both shown great wisdom, Jacob," Harry said, "and have behaved in a sore strait with much judgment and discretion. It was lucky for you that your reverend friend did not, among his eight champions, think of inviting our little friend from London, for I fear that he would at once have denounced you as not being the divines whose credentials you presented."
"I was afraid of that," Jacob said, "and therefore begged him specially, on this our first conference, to have only ministers of his own circle present. He mentioned that one or two godly ministers from London were present in the capital. I replied that I was well aware of that, but that, as these men were not favored with the instructions of the convention, and knew not the exact turn which affairs had taken up to the period of my leaving, their presence might be an embarrassment--which, indeed, was only the truth."
"We must make a circuit to-morrow," Harry said, "to avoid Stirling, and will go round by Doune, and thence make for the north. Once among the mountains we shall be safe from all pursuit, and from any interference by the Roundheads, for I believe that the clans of this part are all in favor of Montrose--Argyll's power lying far to the west."
"It will be a comfort," Jacob said, "not to be obliged to talk through one's nose, and to cast one's eyes upward. I imagine that these Highlanders are little better than savages."
"That is so," Harry said. "They are, I believe, but little changed since the days when the Romans struggled with them, and could make no head north of the Forth."
The next day, by a long circuit, they traveled round Stirling, and reached the bridge of Doune, there crossing the Teith unquestioned. They soon left the main road, and struck into the hills. They had not traveled far when three strange figures suddenly presented themselves. These men were clad in a garb which to the lads was strange and wild indeed. The kilt, as worn by Highlanders on show occasions in the present day is a garment wholly unlike that worn by their ancestors, being, indeed, little more than a masquerade dress. The kilt of the old time resembled indeed the short petticoat now worn by savage peoples. It consisted of a great length of cloth wound round and round the loins, and falling like a loose petticoat to the knees, a portion being brought over one shoulder, and then wrapped round and round the body. It was generally of dark material; the tartans now supposed to be peculiar to the various clans being then unknown, or at least not worn by the common people, although the heads of the clans may have worn scarfs of those patterns. A Highland gentleman or chief, however, dressed in the same garb as Englishmen--that is, in armor, with doublet and hose. His wild followers lived in huts of the most primitive description, understood no language but their own, obeyed the orders of their chiefs to the death, and knew nothing either of kings or of parliaments. For arms these men carried a broad target or shield made of bull's hide, and a broadsword of immense length hanging behind them, the hilt coming above the shoulder.
What they said the lads could not understand. But when Harry repeated the word "Montrose," the Highlanders nodded, and pointed to signify that the road they were pursuing was the right one, and two of them at once set out with them as escorts.
For several days they traveled north, stopping at little groups of cabins, where they were always received with rough hospitality, the assertion of their guides that they were going to the great earl being quite sufficient passport for them. Bannocks of oatmeal with collops, sometimes of venison, sometimes of mountain sheep, were always at their service, washed down by a drink new to the boys, and which at first brought the water into their eyes. This was called usquebaugh, and had a strange peaty flavor, which was at first very unpleasant to them, but to which before they left Scotland they became quite accustomed. The last two days they traveled upon broad roads again, and being now in a country devoted to the Earl of Montrose, were under no apprehension whatever of interference.
At last they reached the place where the earl was residing. His castle differed in no way from those of the nobility of England. It was surrounded by walls and towers, and had a moat and other means of defense. The gate was guarded by men similar in appearance to their guides, but dressed in better material, and with some attempt at uniformity. Large numbers of these were gathered in the courtyard, and among them were men-at-arms attired in southern fashion. The guides, having performed their duty of conducting these strangers from the borders of their country, now handed them over to an officer, and he, upon learning their errand, at once conducted them to the earl.
Montrose was a noble figure, dressed in the height of the fashion of the day. His face was oval, with a pointed mustache; long ringlets fell round his head; and his bearing was haughty and majestic. He rose from his chair and advanced a step toward them.
"Do I understand," he said, "that you are bearers of dispatches from his gracious majesty?"
"We are, sir," Harry said. "The king was pleased to commit to me various documents intended for your eye. We left him at Oxford, and have journeyed north with as little delay as might be in these times. The dispatches, I believe, will speak for themselves, I have no oral instructions committed to me."
So saying, Harry delivered the various documents with which they were charged. The earl instructed the officer to see that they were well lodged and cared for, and at once proceeded to his private cabinet to examine the instructions sent him by the king. These were in effect that, so soon as the army of the convention moved south from Dundee, he should endeavor to make a great raid with his followers upon the south, specially attacking the country of Argyll, so as to create a diversion, and, if possible, cause the recall of the Scotch army to defend their own capital.
For some weeks the lads stopped with Montrose. They had been furnished with garments suitable to their condition, and Harry was treated by the earl with the greatest kindness and courtesy. He often conversed with him as to the state of politics and of military affairs in England, and expressed himself as sanguine that he should be able to restore the authority of the king in Scotland.
"These sour men of the conventicles have ever been stiff-necked and rebellious," he said, "and have enforced their will upon our monarchs. I have not forgotten," he went on, striking the hilt of his sword angrily, "the insults which were put upon Queen Mary when she was preached to and lectured publicly by the sour fanatic Knox, and was treated, forsooth, as if she had been some trader's daughter who had ventured to laugh on a Sunday. Her son, too, was kept under the control of these men until he was summoned to England. It is time that Scotland were rid of the domination of these knaves, and if I live I will sweep them from the land. In courage my wild men are more than a match for the Lowlanders. It is true that in the old days the clans could never carry their forays southward, for, unaccustomed to discipline and unprovided with horses or even with firearms, they fared but badly when opposed to steel-clad men and knights in armor. But I trust it will be different this time. I cannot hope to infuse any great discipline among them. But they can at least be taught to charge in line, and their broad claymores may be trusted to hew a way for them through the lines of the Lowlanders. I trust, above all things, that the king will not be persuaded to negotiate with the traitors who are opposed to him. I know, Master Furness, that, from what you have said, your views run not there with mine, and that you think a compromise is desirable. But you do not know these fanatics as I do. While they clamor for toleration, they are the narrowest of bigots, and will themselves tolerate nothing. Already I have news that the convention between the Scotch conventicle and the English rebels is agreed to, and that an order has gone forth that the Presbyterian rites are to be observed in all the churches of England. They say that thousands of divines will be turned from their churches and their places filled with ignorant fanatics, and this they call religious liberty. Why, when Laud was in power his rule was as a silken thread compared to the hempen rope of these bigots, and should the king make terms with them, it will be only to rule henceforth at their bidding, and to be but an instrument in their hands for enforcing their will upon the people of these countries."
Much as Harry desired peace and leaned toward compromise, he saw that there was much in what the earl said. All the accounts that reached them from the youth told of the iron tyranny which was being exercised throughout England. Everywhere good and sincere men were being driven from their vicarages to live how best they might, for refusing to accept the terms of the convention. Everywhere their places were filled with men at once ignorant, bigoted, and intolerant; holy places were desecrated; the cavalry of the Commons was stabled in St. Paul's; the colored windows of the cathedrals and churches were everywhere destroyed; monuments were demolished; and fanaticism of the narrowest and most stringent kind was rampant.
During the time they spent at the castle the lads were greatly amused in watching the sports and exercises of the Highlanders. These consisted in throwing great stones and blocks of wood, in contests with blunted claymores, in foot races, and in dances executed to the wild and strange music of the bagpipes--music which Jacob declared was worse than the caterwauling upon the housetops in Cheapside.
The lads had deferred their journey south owing to the troubled state of the country, and the fact that the whole of the south of Scotland was in the hands of the convention. They were therefore waiting an opportunity for taking ship and traveling by sea into Wales, where the followers of the king were in the ascendency. At length the earl told them that an occasion offered, and that although he would gladly keep them by him to accompany him when he moved south, if they considered that their duty compelled them to leave he would place them on board a ship bound for that destination. He did not furnish them with any documents, but bade Harry repeat to the king the sentiments which he had expressed, which, indeed, were but the repetition of loyal assurances which he had sent south by a trusty messenger immediately upon their arrival at the castle.
The boat in which they embarked was a small one, but was fast; which proved fortunate, for they were twice chased by ships of the Parliament. They landed, however, safely at Pembroke, and thence made their way through the mountains of Wales to Hereford, and joined the king, who was still at Oxford.
Events had traveled but slowly in England; the doings of the convention being at that time of greater importance than those of the armies. On the 19th of January the Scotch army had entered England, having marched from Edinburgh through the snow. The Marquis of Newcastle was in winter quarters at York. The town of Newcastle had held out successfully against the Scots. The English regiments in Ireland had been recalled; but had been defeated near Nantwich by Sir Thomas Fairfax. Negotiation after negotiation between the king and the Parliament had failed, and the king had issued writs for a Parliament to assemble at Oxford. This met on the 22d of January, and forty-three peers and a hundred and eighteen commoners had taken their place beside many absent with the army. Of the peers a large majority were with the Royalist Parliament at Oxford while at Westminster a majority of the members sent up by the towns assembled. The Royalist Parliament was sitting at Oxford when Harry arrived; but their proceedings had not upon the whole been satisfactory to the king. They had, indeed, passed votes for the raising of taxes and supplies; but had also insisted upon the king granting several reforms. Charles, untaught by adversity, was as obstinate as ever; and instead of using the opportunity for showing a fair disposition to redress the grievances which had led to the civil war, and to grant concessions which would have rallied all moderate persons to his cause, he betrayed much irritation at the opposition which he met with, and the convocation of Parliament, instead of bringing matters nearer to an issue, rather heightened the discontents of the times. The Parliament at Westminster, upon their side, formed a council, under the title of the committee of the two kingdoms, consisting of seven lords, fourteen members of the commons, and four Scottish commissioners, into whose hands the entire conduct of the war, the correspondence with foreign states, and indeed the whole executive power of the kingdom was given.
The king received Harry with great condescension and favor, and heard with satisfaction of the preparations which Montrose was making for an invasion of the Lowlands of Scotland, and promised Sir Henry to bestow the rank of knighthood upon his son as soon as he attained the age of twenty-one.
For some weeks Harry resided with his father at Furness Hall. He then fell back into Oxford upon the advance of an army from London destined to besiege that town. This force was far greater than any that the king could raise. It consisted of two separate forces, under the command of Essex and Waller. Presently the town was besieged, and although the walls were very strong, the attacking force was so numerous that resistance appeared to be hopeless. On the night of the 3d of June the king left the city secretly, attended only by two or three personal friends, and passed safely between the two armies. These, instead of acting in unison, in which case the besieging lines would have been complete, and the king unable to leave the place, were kept apart by the dissensions of their generals. A council of war took place, and Essex determined to march to the west. The committee in London ordered him to retrace his steps, and go in pursuit of the king, who had made for Worcester. But Essex replied to the committee that he could not carry on war in pursuance of directions from London, and that all military discipline would be subverted if they took upon themselves to direct his plans.
In the meantime, Waller, raising the siege of Oxford, had gone in pursuit of the king. Charles, seeing that his enemies were separated, returned to Oxford, where he was received with great enthusiasm, and the whole force there, marching out, fell upon Waller at Cropredy Bridge, near Banbury, and defeated him. Having scattered the rebels here, he turned his course west in pursuit of Essex, for his force was sufficient to cope with either of the armies separately, although he had been unable to meet them when united.
Harry and his father were not present at the battle of Cropredy Bridge, having with their troops left Oxford on the approach of the Roundheads, together with many other bodies of cavalry, as they could do no good in the case of a siege, and were wanted in the north, where Rupert was on his way to take the command. Joining his force, amounting in all to twenty thousand men, they advanced toward York. Leaving the greater portion of his army at a short distance away, Rupert entered York with two thousand men. Newcastle was in favor of prudent steps, knowing that dissensions existed in the Parliamentary army between the Scots and their English allies. Prince Rupert, however, insisted that he had the command of the king to fight at once, and so, with all the force he could collect, advanced against the Scots. Newcastle was much offended at the domineering manner and headstrong course of the prince and took no part in the forthcoming battle, in which his military genius and caution would have been of vast service to the royal cause.
On the 2d of July, having rested two days, the Royalist army marched out against the Roundheads. The contending parties met on Marston Moor, and it was late in the evening when the battle began. It was short but desperate, and when it ended four thousand one hundred and fifty men had been killed. Here, as in every other fight in which he was engaged, the impetuosity of Prince Rupert proved the ruin of the Royalists. With his cavaliers upon the right of the Royalist army, he charged the Scotch horse, scattered them in every direction and rode after them, chasing and slaying. The center of each army, composed of infantry, fought desperately, and without much advantage to either side. But upon the Royalist left the fate of the day was decided. There a new element was introduced into the struggle, for the right of the Roundhead force was commanded by Cromwell, who had raised and disciplined a body of cavalry called the Ironsides. These men were all fanatics in religion and fought with a sternness and vigor which carried all before them. In the eastern counties they had already done great service; but this was the first pitched battle at which they had been present. Their onslaught proved irresistible. The Royalist cavalry upon the left were completely broken, and the Roundhead horse then charged down upon the rear of the king's infantry. Had Rupert rallied his men and performed the same service upon the Parliament infantry, the battle might have been a drawn one; but, intoxicated with victory, he was chasing the Scottish horse far away, while Cromwell's Ironsides were deciding the fate of the battle. When he returned to the field all was over. Fifteen hundred prisoners, all the artillery, and more than a hundred banners had fallen into the hands of the cavalry; and with the remnants of his army Prince Rupert retired with all haste toward Chester, while Newcastle left York and embarked at Scarborough for the Continent.
Colonel Furness' troop had been with the wing under Prince Rupert, and deep indeed was their mortification when, upon returning to the field of battle, they found that all was lost.
"Unless a very different discipline is introduced upon our side," Colonel Furness said to his son that night in York, "it is clear that the king's cause is ruined. The Ironsides fight in a solid mass, and, after having given a charge, they are ready at order to wheel about and to deliver their attack wheresoever their general commands them. With us, no sooner do we defeat the enemy than we break into confusion, each man scatters in pursuit as if we were hunting a fox, and when at last we draw rein, miles away from the battle, we ever find that upon our return our footmen have been defeated. I fear much that Prince Rupert, with all his bravery, is a hindrance rather than an aid to the Royal cause. His counsels have always been on the side of resistance. He has supported the king in his too obstinate insistance upon what he deems his rights, while in the field his command is fatal to us. I fear, my boy, that the struggle will end badly, and I foresee bad times for England, and for all of us who have supported the cause of the king."
As the dispirited army marched back they received news which somewhat raised their hearts. The king had marched after Essex into Cornwall, and there had driven him into sore straits. He had endeavored to induce Essex to make a general treaty of peace; but the earl replied that he had no authority to treat, and that, even did he do so, the Parliament would not submit to be bound by it. With a considerable portion of his cavalry, he succeeded in passing through the Royal lines; but the whole of the infantry under General Skippon were forced to capitulate, the king giving them honorable terms, and requiring only the surrender of the artillery, arms, and ammunition. The whole of the army returned as scattered fugitives to London.
The king resolved again to march upon the capital. Montrose was now in arms in Scotland, and had gained two considerable victories over the Covenanters. The defeat at Marston had been outbalanced by the victories over Waller and Essex, and the Scotch, alarmed by the successes of Montrose, were ready to listen to terms, Steadily the king advanced eastward, and at Newbury the armies again met. As upon the previous occasion on that field, the battle led to no decisive results. Each side fought stoutly, and at nightfall separated without achieving substantial results. The king fell back upon Oxford, and the Parliament army upon Readings and negotiations were once again renewed between king and Parliament.
| {
"id": "11565"
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12 | AN ESCAPE FROM PRISON. | There was no sadder or more gloomy face among the officers of the Parliament than that of Herbert Rippinghall--sad, not from the sour asceticism which distinguished the great portion of these officers, but from his regrets over the struggle in which he was taking a part. While Harry Furness saw much to find fault with in the conduct of many of his fellows, and in the obstinacy with which the king refused to grant concessions which might up to this time have restored peace to the land, Herbert, on his side, was shocked at the violence and excessive demands on the part of the Parliament, and at the rank hypocrisy which he saw everywhere around him. Both lads still considered that the balance of justice was on the side upon which they fought. But both, Herbert perhaps because more thoughtful, therefore more strongly, saw that the faults upon one side balanced those upon the other. Herbert had not taken up the sword willingly, as Harry had done. He was by disposition far less prone to adventure and more given to sober thought, and the violence of his father and the bigoted opinions which he held had repelled him from rather than attracted him toward the principles which he advocated. When, however, the summons came from his father to join him at Reading, with the rest of the hands employed in the business, he did not hesitate. He still hoped that the pacific party in Parliament would overcome the more violent, and that the tyranny of a small minority toward which the country appeared to be drifting would be nipped in the bud.
The divisions, indeed, in the Parliament were far greater than in the councils of the king. Between the Independents and the Presbyterians a wide gulf existed. The latter party, which was much the more numerous in Parliament, and which had moreover the countenance and alliance of the Scotch Presbyterians, viewed with the greatest jealousy the increasing arrogance of the Independents and of the military party. They became alarmed when they saw that they were rapidly drifting from the rule of the king to that of Cromwell, and that while they themselves would be satisfied with ample concessions and a certain amount of toleration, the Independents were working for much more than this. Upon the Presbyterian side, Lord Essex was regarded as their champion with the army, as against Cromwell, Fairfax, and Ireton. So strong did the feeling become that it was moved in the Commons "that no member of either House should, during the war, enjoy or execute any office or command, civil or military." A long and furious debate followed; but the ordinance was passed by the Lower House, and went up to the Lords, and was finally passed by them.
Now, however, occurred an episode which added greatly to the religious hatred prevailing between the two parties, and shocked many of the adherents of the Parliament by the wanton bigotry which it displayed. Archbishop Laud had now lain for four years in prison, and by an ordinance of Parliament, voted by only seven lords, he was condemned for high treason, and was beheaded on the 10th of January. This cruel and unnecessary murder showed only too plainly that the toleration which the Dissenters had clamored for meant only toleration for themselves, and intolerance toward all others; and a further example of this was given by the passing of an ordinance forbidding the use of the Liturgy of the Church of England in any place of worship in the country.
Rendered nervous by the increasing power of the Independents, the majority in Parliament now determined to open fresh negotiations with the king, and these offered a fairer prospect of peace than any which had hitherto preceded them. Commissioners were appointed by Parliament and by the king, and these met at Uxbridge, a truce being made for twenty days. Had the king been endowed with any sense of the danger of his position, or any desire to treat in a straightforward and honest manner with his opponents, peace might now have been secured. But the unfortunate monarch was seeking to cajole his foes rather than to treat with them, and his own papers, afterward discovered, show too plainly that the concessions which he offered were meant only to be kept so long as it might please him. The twenty precious days were frittered away in disputes. The king would grant one day concessions which he would revoke the next. The victories which Montrose was gaining in the north had roused his hopes, and the evil advice of his wife and Prince Rupert, and the earnest remontrances which he received from Montrose against surrendering to the demands of Parliament, overpowered the advice of his wiser counselors. At the end of twenty days the negotiations ceased, and the commissioners of Parliament returned to London, convinced that there was no hope of obtaining a permanent peace with a man so vacillating and insincere as the king.
Herbert had been with his father at Uxbridge, as the regiment of foot to which he belonged was on guard here, and it was with a heavy heart that he returned to London, convinced that the war must go on, but forboding as great a disaster to the country in the despotism which he saw the Independents would finally establish as in the despotism of King Charles.
There was a general gloom in the city when the news of the unsuccessful termination of the negotiations became known. The vast majority of the people were eagerly desirous of peace. The two years which the war had already lasted had brought nothing save ruin to trade and general disaster, and the great body of the public who were not tinged with the intense fanaticism of the Independents, and who did not view all pleasure and enjoyment in life as sinful, longed for the merry old days when Englishmen might smile without being accused of sin, and when life was not passed solely in prayer and exhortation. Several small riots had broken out in London; but these were promptly suppressed. Among the 'prentice boys, especially, did the spirit of revolt against the gloomy asceticism of the time prevail, and there can be little doubt that if at this period, or for a long time subsequent, the king could have appeared suddenly in the city at the head of a few score troops, he would have been welcomed with acclamation, and the great body of the citizens would have rallied round him.
When the Parliament commissioners reached London Fairfax received his commission as sole general of the army. The military services of Cromwell were of such importance that Fairfax and his officers urged that an exception should be made to the ordinance in his case, and that he should be temporarily appointed lieutenant-general and chief commander of horse. The moderate party yielded to the demand of the Independents. The Earls of Essex, Manchester, and Denbigh gave in their resignations. Many of the more moderate advisers of Charles also retired to their estates, despairing of a conflict in which the king's obstinacy admitted of no hope of a favorable termination. They, too, had, as much perhaps as the members of the recalcitrant Parliament, hoped for reforms; but it was clear that the king would never consent to reign except as an absolute monarch, and for this they were unprepared. The violent party among the Cavaliers now ruled supreme in the councils of Charles. For a short time the royal cause seemed in the ascendant. Leicester had been taken by storm, Taunton was besieged, Fairfax was surrounding Oxford, but was doing nothing against the town. On the 5th of June he was ordered to raise the siege, and to go to the Midland counties after the royal army. On the 13th Fairfax and Cromwell joined their forces, and pursued the king, whom they overtook the next day near Naseby.
Herbert had accompanied the army of Fairfax, and seeing the number and resolution of the troops, he hoped that a victory might be gained which would terminate for good and all this disastrous conflict. The ground round Naseby is chiefly moorland. The king's army was drawn up a mile from Market Harborough. Prince Rupert commanded the left wing, Sir Marmaduke Langdale the right, Lord Ashley the main body. Fairfax commanded the center of the Roundheads, with General Skippon under him. Cromwell commanded the right and Ireton the left. Rupert had hurried on with his horse in advance, and coming upon the Roundheads, at once engaged them. So sudden was the attack that neither party had formed its lines for battle, and the artillery was in the rear. Between the armies lay a wide level known as Broadmoor. It was across this that Rupert had ridden, and charging up the hill on the other side, fell upon the left wing of Fairfax. Cromwell, upon the other hand, from the extreme right charged down the hill upon Langdale's squadrons. Prince Rupert, as usual, carried all before him. Shouting his battle cry, "Queen Mary," he fell upon Ireton's left wing, and drove them from the field, chasing them back to Naseby, where, as usual, he lost time in capturing the enemy's baggage. Cromwell, with his Ironsides, upon the other hand, had broken Langdale's horse and driven them from the field. In the center the fight was hot. The king's foot had come up the hill and poured volley after volley into the parliament ranks. Hand to hand the infantry were fighting, and gradually the Roundheads were giving way. But now, as at Marston, Cromwell, keeping his Ironsides well in hand, returned from the defeat of Langdale's horse, and fell upon the rear of the Royalists. Fairfax rallied his men as he saw the horse coming up to his assistance. Rupert's troopers were far from the field, and a panic seizing the king's reserve of horse, who had they charged might have won the day, the Earl of Carnewarth, taking hold of King Charles' horse, forced him from the field, and the battle ended, with the complete defeat of the royal troops, before Rupert returned to the field of battle.
The Royalists lost in killed and prisoners five thousand men, their twelve guns, and all their baggage train, and what was of even greater importance, the king's private cabinet, which contained documents which did more to precipitate his ruin even than the defeat of his army. Here were found letters proving that while he had professed his desire to treat, he had no intention of giving way in the slightest degree. Here were copies of letters to foreign princes asking for aid, and to the Papists in Ireland, promising all kinds of concessions if they would rise in his favor. Not only did the publication of this correspondence and of the private letters between the king and queen add to the indignation of the Commons and to their determination to fight to the bitterest end, but it disgusted and alienated a vast number of Royalists who had hitherto believed in the king and trusted to his royal word.
Among the prisoners taken at Naseby was Harry Furness, whose troop had been with Langdale's horse, and who, his charger having been shot, had fallen upon the field, his head being cut by the sweep of the sword of a Roundhead soldier, who struck at him as he was lying on the ground. Soon after the battle, when it became known what prisoners had been taken, he was visited by his friend Herbert.
"We are changing sides, Herbert," Harry said, with a faint smile. "The last time we met you were nigh falling into the hands of the Royalists, now I have altogether fallen into yours."
"Yes, and unfortunately," Herbert said, "I cannot repeat your act of generosity. However, Harry, I trust that with this great battle the war is nearly over, and that all prisoners now taken will speedily be released. At any rate, I need not assure you that you will have my aid and assistance in any matter."
The Parliamentary leaders did not allow the grass to grow under their feet after Naseby. Prince Rupert, with considerable force, had marched to Bristol, and Fairfax and Cromwell followed him there. A considerable portion of the prisoners were sent to London, but some were retained with the army. Among these was Harry Furness, whom it was intended to confine with many others in some sure place in the south. Under a guard they were conducted to Reading, where they were for awhile to be kept. Essex and Cromwell advanced to Bristol, which they surrounded; and Prince Rupert, after a brave defense, was forced to capitulate, upon terms similar to those which had been granted by the king to the army of Lord Essex the year before. In his conduct of the siege the prince had certainly not failed. But this misfortune aroused the king's anger more than the faults which had done such evil service on the fields of Naseby and Marston, and he wrote to the prince, ordering him to leave the kingdom at once.
It would have been well had King Charles here ceased the struggle, for the cause of the Royalists was now hopeless. Infatuated to the last, however, and deeming ever that the increasing contentions and ill-will between the two parties in Parliament would finally end by one of them bidding for the Royal support, and agreeing to his terms, the king continued the contest. Here and there isolated affrays took place; risings in Kent and other counties occurring, but being defeated summarily by the vigor of Fairfax and his generals.
The time passed but slowly with Harry at Reading. He and his fellow-prisoners were assigned quarters in a large building, under the guard of a regiment of Parliament troops. Their imprisonment was not rigorous. They were fairly fed and allowed exercise in a large courtyard which adjoined the house. The more reckless spirits sang, jested, wrote scurrilous songs on the Roundheads, and passed the time as cheerfully as might be. Harry, however, with the restlessness of his age, longed for liberty. He knew that Prince Charles was in command of the army in the west, and he longed to join him and try once more the fortunes of battle. The guard set round the building was close and vigilant, and the chances of escape appeared small. Still, Harry thought that if he could escape from an upper window on a dark night he could surely make his way through the line of sentries. He had observed on moonlight nights the exact position which each of these occupied. The intervals were short between them; but it would be quite possible on a dark night for a person to pass noiselessly without being perceived. The watch would have been even more strict than it was, had not the Puritans regarded the struggle as virtually at an end, and were, therefore, less careful as to their prisoners than they would otherwise have been. Harry prepared for escape by tearing up the blankets of his bed and knotting them into ropes. A portion he wrapped round his shoes, so as to walk noiselessly, and taking advantage of a dark, moonless night, when the fog hung thick upon the low land round Reading, he opened his window, threw out his rope, and slipped down to the ground.
So dark was the fog that it was difficult for him to see two paces in advance, and he soon found that the careful observations which he had taken of the place of the sentries would be altogether useless. Still, in the darkness and thickness of the night, he thought that the chance of detection was small. Creeping quietly and noiselessly along, he could hear the constant challenges of the sentries round him. These, excited by the unusual darkness of the night, were unusually vigilant. Harry approached until he was within a few yards of the line, and the voices of the men as they challenged enabled him to ascertain exactly the position of those on the right and left of him. Passing between these, he could see neither, although they were but a few paces on either hand, and he would have got off unobserved had he not suddenly fallen into a deep stream running across his way, and which in the darkness he did not see until he fell into it. At the sound there was an instant challenge, and then a piece was discharged. Harry struggled across the stream, and clambered out on the opposite side. As he did so a number of muskets were fired in his direction by the men who came rushing up to the point of alarm. One ball struck him in the shoulder. The rest whizzed harmlessly by, and at the top of his speed he ran forward.
He was now safe from pursuit, for in the darkness of the night it would have been absolutely impossible to follow him. In a few minutes he ceased running, for when all became quiet behind him, he could no longer tell in what direction he was advancing. So long as he could hear the shouts of the sentries he continued his way, and then, all guidance being lost, he lay down under a hedge and waited for morning. It was still thick and foggy; but wandering aimlessly about for some time, he succeeded at last in striking upon a road, and judging from the side upon which he had entered it in which direction Reading must lie, he took the western way and went forward. The ball had passed only through the fleshy part of his shoulder, missing the bone; and although it caused him much pain, he was able, by wrapping his arm tightly to his body, to proceed. More than once he had to withdraw from the road into the fields beyond, when he heard troops of horse galloping along.
After a long day's walk he arrived near Abingdon, and there made for the hall. Instead of going to the door he made for the windows, and, looking in, saw a number of Roundhead soldiers in the hall, and knew that there was no safety for him. As he glanced in one of the soldiers happened to cast his eyes up, and gave a shout on seeing a figure looking in at the window. Instantly the rest sprang to their feet, and started out to secure the intruder. Harry fled along the road, and soon reached Abingdon. He had at first thought of making for one of his father's farms; but he felt sure that here also Roundhead troops would be quartered. After a moment's hesitation he determined to make for Mr. Rippinghall's. He knew the premises accurately, and thought that he might easily take refuge in the warehouses, in which large quantities of wool were wont to be stored. The streets were deserted, for it was now late at night, and he found his way without interruption to the wool-stapler's. Here he climbed over a wall, made his way into the warehouse, and clambering over a large number of bales, laid himself down next to the wall, secure from any casual observation. Here he went off to sleep, and it was late next day before he opened his eyes. He was nearly uttering an exclamation at the pain which his movement on waking gave to his wounded arm. He, however, repressed it, and it was well he did so, as he heard voices in the warehouse. Men were removing bales of wool, and for some hours this process went on. Harry, being well back, had little fear that he should be disturbed.
The hours passed wearily. He was parched and feverish from the pain of his wound, and was unable to deliberate as to his best course. Sometimes he dozed off into snatches of sleep, and after one of these he found that the warehouse was again silent, and that darkness had set in. He determined to wait at least for another day, and also that he would early in the morning look out from the window before the men entered, in hopes that he might catch sight of his old playfellow, Lucy, who would, he felt sure, bring him some water and refreshment if she were able. Accordingly, in the morning, he took his place so as to command a view of the garden, and presently to his great surprise he saw Herbert, whom he had believed with the army, come out together with Lucy. They had not taken four paces in the garden when their attention was attracted by a tap at the window, and looking up, they were astonished at beholding Harry's pale face there. With an exclamation of surprise they hurried into the warehouse.
"My dear Harry," Herbert exclaimed, "how did you get here? The troops have been searching for you high and low. Your escape from Reading was bruited abroad a few hours after it took place, and the party at the hall having reported seeing some one looking in at the window, there was no doubt felt that you had gained this neighborhood, and a close watch has been kept. All your father's farms have been carefully examined, and their occupants questioned, and the general belief is that you are still hidden somewhere near."
"I got a ball through my shoulder," Harry said, "in making my way through the sentries, and have felt myself unable to travel until I could obtain some food. I thought that I should be safer from search here, and believing you were away in the army, thought that your sister would perhaps be moved by compassion to aid her old playfellow."
"Yes, indeed," the girl said; "I would have done anything for you, Harry. To think of your being hidden so close to us, while we were sleeping quietly. I will at once get you some food, and then you and Herbert can talk over what is best to be done."
So saying she ran into the house, and returned in a few minutes with a bowl of milk and some freshly made cakes, which Harry drank and ate ravenously. In the meantime, he was discussing with Herbert what was the best course to pursue.
"It would not be safe," Herbert said, "for you to try and journey further at present. The search for you is very keen, and it happens, unfortunately, that the officer in command here is the very man whose face you sliced when he came to Furness Hall some two years back. It would be a bad thing for you were you to fall into his hands."
Lucy at first proposed that Harry should be taken into the house, and go at once to bed. She and Herbert would then give out that a friend had arrived from a distance, who was ill, and, waiting upon him themselves, should prevent suspicion being attracted. This, however, Herbert did not think would be safe. It would be asked when the inmate had arrived, and who he was, and why the servants should not, as usual, attend upon him.
"I think," he said, "that if to-night I go forth, having said at dinner in the hearing of the servant that I am expecting a friend from London, you can then join me outside, and return with me. You must crop off those long ringlets of yours, and turn Roundhead for the nonce. I can let you have a sober suit which was made for me when I was in London, and which has not yet been seen by my servants. I can say that you are in bad health, and this will enable you to remain at home, sleeping upon a couch to nurse your shoulder."
"The shoulder is of no consequence," Harry said. "A mere flesh wound like that would not detain me away from the saddle. It is only the fatigue and loss of blood, together with want of food, which has weakened me."
As no other course presented itself this was followed. Harry remained during the day in his place of concealment in the warehouse, and at nightfall went out, and, being joined by Herbert, returned with him to the house. The door was opened by Lucy and he entered unperceived by the domestics. The first operation was to cut off the whole of his hair close to his head. He was then attired in Herbert's clothes, and looked, as Lucy told him, a quiet and decent young gentleman. Then he took his place on a couch in the sitting-room, and Herbert rung for supper, which he had ordered to be prepared for a guest as well as for Lucy and himself.
| {
"id": "11565"
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13 | PUBLIC EVENTS. | For some days Harry remained quietly with his friend. He did not stir beyond the door, although he had but little fear of any of his old friends recognizing him. The two years which had passed since he was at school had greatly changed his appearance, and his closely-cut hair, and the somber and Puritanical cut of his garments so completely altered him that it would have been a keen eye indeed which had recognized him when merely passing in the street. A portion of each day he spent out in the garden strolling with Lucy, or sitting quietly while she read to him. The stiffness in his arm was now abating, and as the search for him had to a great extent ceased, he intended in a short time to make for Oxford.
The news from the various points at which the conflict still continued was everywhere disastrous for the king. Montrose had been defeated. The king, endeavoring to make his way north to join him, had been smartly repulsed. The Royalists were everywhere disorganized and broken. Negotiations were once again proceeding, and as the Scottish army was marching south, and the affairs of the crown seemed desperate, there was every hope that the end of the long struggle was approaching. Harry's departure was hastened by a letter received by Herbert from his father, saying that he had obtained leave from his regiment, and should be down upon the following day.
"My father will not blame me," Herbert said, "for what I have done, when he comes to know it. But I am not sure that he would himself approve of your remaining here. His convictions are so earnest, and his sense of duty so strong, that I do not think he would harbor his nearest relative, did he believe him to be in favor of the king."
Harry next morning mounted a horse of Herbert's and started to ride from the town, after taking an affectionate farewell of his hosts. When two miles out of Abingdon he suddenly came upon a body of Parliament horse, in the leader of whom he recognized, by a great scar across his face, the officer with whom he had fallen out at Furness Hall. Relying upon his disguise, and upon the fact that it was only for a minute that the officer had seen him, he rode quietly on.
"Whom have we here?" the Roundhead said, reining in his horse.
"My name is Roger Copley, and I am making my way from London to my people, who reside in the west. There is no law, I believe, against my so doing."
"There is no law for much that is done or undone," the Roundhead said. "Malignants are going about the country in all sorts of disguises, stirring up men to ungodly enterprises, and we cannot be too particular whom we let pass. What hast thou been doing in London?"
"I have been serving my time as apprentice to Master Nicholas Fleming, the merchant in velvets and silks in the Chepe."
"Hast thou any papers to prove thy identity?"
"I have not," Harry said; "not knowing that such were needed. I have traveled thus far without interruption or question, and am surprised to find hindrance upon the part of an officer of the Commons."
"You must turn your horse, and ride back with me into Abingdon," the officer said. "I doubt me much that you are as you pretend to be. However, it is a matter which we can bring to the proof."
Harry wondered to himself of what proof the matter was capable. But without a word he turned his horse's head toward Abingdon. Scarcely a word was spoken on the way, and Harry was meditating whether he should say that he had been staying with his friend Herbert. But thinking that this might lead the latter into trouble, he determined to be silent on that head. They stopped at the door of the principal trader in the town and the captain roughly told his prisoner to alight and enter with him.
"Master Williamson," he said, "bring out some pieces of velvet. This man, whom I suspect to be a Cavalier in disguise, saith that he has been an apprentice to Master Nicholas Fleming, a velvet dealer of London. I would fain see how far his knowledge of these goods extends. Bring out five or six pieces of various qualities, and put them upon your table promiscuously, and not in order of value."
The mercer did as requested.
"These goods," he said, "were obtained from Master Fleming himself. I bought them last year, and have scarce sold a piece of such an article since."
Harry felt rather nervous at the thought of being obliged to distinguish between the velvets, for although he had received some hints and instructions from the merchant, he knew that the appearance of one kind of velvet differed but slightly from that of the inferior qualities. To his satisfaction, however, he saw at the end of the rolls the pieces of paper intact upon which Master Fleming's private marks were placed.
"I need not," he said, "look at the velvets, for I see my master's private marks upon them, and can of course tell you their value at once."
So saying, from the private marks he read off the value of each roll of velvet per yard, and as these tallied exactly with the amount which the mercer had paid for them, no further doubts remained upon the mind of the officer.
"These marks," he said to the mercer, "are, I suppose, private, and could not be read save by one in the merchant's confidence?"
"That is so," the mercer replied. "I myself am in ignorance of the meaning of these various symbols."
"You will forgive me," the Parliament officer said to Harry. "In these times one cannot be too suspicious, and even the best friends of the Commons need not grudge a little delay in their journeyings, in order that the doings of the malignants may be arrested."
Harry in a few words assured the officer that he bore him no malice for his arrest, and that, indeed, his zeal in the cause did him credit. Then again mounting his horse, he quietly rode out of Abingdon. This time he met with no difficulties, and an hour later entered Oxford.
Here he found his father and many of his acquaintances. A great change had come over the royal city. The tone of boastfulness and anticipated triumph which had pervaded it before the second battle of Newbury had now entirely disappeared. Gloom was written upon all faces, and few entertained any hopes of a favorable termination to their cause. Here a year passed slowly and heavily. The great proportion of Sir Henry Furness' troop were allowed to return to their farms, as at present there was no occasion for their services in the field.
All this time the king was negotiating and treating; the Parliament quarreling furiously among themselves. The war had languished everywhere. In the west a rising had been defeated by the Parliament troops. The Prince of Wales had retired to France; and there was now no force which could be called an army capable of taking the field.
The bitterness of the conflict had for a long time ceased; and in the general hope that peace was at hand, the rancor of Cavalier against Roundhead softened down, A great many of the adherents of Charles returned quietly to their homes, and here they were allowed to settle down without interruption.
The contrast between this state of things and that which prevailed in Scotland was very strong, and has been noted by more than one historian. In England men struggled for principle, and, having fought the battle out, appeared to bear but little animosity to each other, and returned each to his own pursuits unmolested and unharmed. In Scotland, upon the other hand, after the defeat of Montrose, large numbers of prisoners were executed in cold blood, and sanguinary persecutions took place.
In Parliament the disputes between the Independents and Presbyterians grew more and more bitter, the latter being strengthened by the presence of the Scotch army in England. They were greatly in the majority in point of numbers; but the Independents made up for their numerical weakness by the violence of their opinions, and by the support of the army, which was entirely officered by men of extreme views.
The king, instead of frankly dealing with the Commons, now that his hopes in the field were gone, unhappily continued his intrigues, hoping that an open breach would take place between the parties. On the 5th of December he wrote to the speaker of the House of Lords, offering to send a deputation to Westminster with propositions for the foundation of a happy and well-grounded peace. This offer was declined, and he again wrote, offering himself to proceed to Westminster to treat in person. The leaders of Parliament, and indeed with reason, suspected the sincerity of the king. Papers had been found in the carriage of the Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, who was killed in a skirmish in October, proving that the king had concluded an alliance with the Irish rebels, and that he had agreed, if they would land ten thousand men in England, that popery should be re-established in Ireland, and the Protestants brought under subjection. Letters which have since been discovered prove that in January, 1646, while urging upon the Parliament to come to terms, he was writing to the queen, saying that he was only deceiving them. In his letter he said: "Now, as to points which I expected by my treaty at London. Knowing assuredly the great animosity which is betwixt the Independents and Presbyterians, I had great reason to hope that one of the factions would so address themselves to me that I might, without great difficulty, obtain my so just ends, and, questionless, it would have given me the fittest opportunity. For considering the Scots' treaty that would be besides, I might have found means to put distractions among them, though I had found none."
Such being the spirit that animated the king, there is little reason for surprise that the negotiations came to nothing. The last hope of the crown was destroyed when, on the 22d of March, Lord Astley, marching from Worcester to join the king at Oxford, was defeated at Stow, in the Wold, and the three thousand Cavaliers with him killed, captured, or dispersed. Again the king sent a message to Parliament, offering to come to Whitehall, and proposing terms similar to those which he had rejected when the negotiators met at Uxbridge. His real object, however, was to produce such an effect by his presence in London as would create a reaction in his favor. Three days after he had sent this message he wrote to Digby: "I am endeavoring to get to London, so that the conditions may be such as a gentleman may own, and that the rebels may acknowledge me king, being not without hope that I shall be able so to draw either the Presbyterians or Independents to side with me for exterminating the one or the other, that I shall be really king again."
These offers were rejected by Parliament, and the army of Fairfax advanced toward Oxford. In the meanwhile, Montreuil, a special ambassador from France, had been negotiating with the Scottish commissioners in London to induce the Scots to take up the cause of the king. He then proceeded to Edinburgh, and afterward to the Scotch army. At first the Scotch were willing to receive him; but they perceived the danger which would be involved in a quarrel with the English Parliament. Already there were many causes of dispute. The army had not received the pay promised them when they marched south, and being without money had been obliged to live upon the country, creating great disorders and confusion, and rendering themselves bitterly hated by the people. Thus their answers continued to be ambiguous, making no absolute promise, but yet giving a sort of encouragement to the king to place himself in their hands.
Toward the end of April Fairfax was drawing so close around Oxford that the king felt that hesitation was no longer possible, and accompanied only by his chaplain, Dr. Michael Hudson, and by a groom of his bedchamber, named Jack Ashburnham, he left Oxford at night, and after many adventures arrived at the Scotch army, before Newark, where upon his arrival "many lords came instantly to wait on his majesty, with professions of joy to find that he had so far honored their army as to think it worthy his presence after so long an opposition." Lord Leven, however, who commanded the Scotch army, while receiving the king with professions of courtesy and honor, yet gave him to understand that he must in some way consider himself as a prisoner. The king, at the request of the Scotch, signed an order to his governor of Newark, who had been for months bravely holding out, to surrender the place, and this having been done, the Scottish army with the king marched to Newcastle.
After the king's surrender to the Scotch the civil war virtually ceased, although many places still held out. Oxford, closely invested, maintained itself until the 22d of June, when it capitulated to Fairfax, upon the terms that the garrison "should march out of the city of Oxford with their horses and complete arms that properly belong under them proportionable to their present or past commands, flying colors, trumpets sounding, drums beating, matches alight at both ends, bullets in their mouths, and every soldier to have twelve charges of powder, match and bullet proportionable." Those who desired to go to their houses or friends were to lay down their arms within fifteen miles of Oxford, and then to have passes, with the right of free quarter, and those who wished to go across the sea to serve any foreign power were to be allowed to do so. This surrender was honorable to both parties, and upon the city being given up, the garrison marched out, and then scattered to their various houses and counties, without let or molestation from the troops of the Commons.
Harry Furness and his father had not far to go. They were soon installed in their old house, where although some confusion prevailed owing to its having been frequently in the occupation of bodies of Parliament troops, yet the damage done was not serious, and in a short time it was restored to its former condition. Several of the more valuable articles were allowed to remain in the hiding-places in which they had been concealed, as none could yet say how events might finally turn out. A portion of the Parliamentary troops were also disbanded, and allowed to return to their homes; among these were Master Rippinghall and his son, and for some months matters went on at Abingdon as if the civil war had never been. Harry often saw his friend Herbert; but so long as the king remained in a doubtful position in the army of the Scots, no close intercourse could take place between members of parties so opposed to each other.
The time went slowly with Harry, for after the past three years of excitement it was difficult to settle down to a quiet life at Furness Hall. He was of course too old now for schooling, and the times were yet too disturbed for men to engage in the field sports which occupy so large a portion of country life. Colonel Furness, indeed, had determined that in no case would he again take up arms. He was discontented with the whole course of events, and foresaw that, with the unhappy temper of the king, no favorable issue could possibly be looked for. He had done his best, he said, for the crown and would do no more. He told his son, however, that he should place no rein upon his inclinations should he choose to meddle further in the matter. Harry would fain have gone abroad, whither so many of the leading Cavaliers had already betaken themselves, and entered the service of some foreign court for a few years. But his father dissuaded him from this, at any rate for the present.
"These delays and negotiations," he said, "cannot last forever. I care not whether Presbyterians or Independents get the power over our unhappy country. The Independents are perhaps the more bigoted; the Presbyterians the more intolerant. But as the latter would certainly respect the royal authority more than the former, whose rage appears to me to pass the bounds of all moderation, I would gladly see the Presbyterians obtain the upper hand."
For months the negotiations dragged wearily on, the king, as usual, maintaining an indecisive attitude between the two parties. At length, however, the negotiations ended in a manner which brought an eternal disgrace upon the Scotch, for they agreed, upon the receipt of a large sum of money as the deferred pay of the army, to deliver the king into the hands of the English Parliament. A great convoy of money was sent down from London, and the day that the cash was in the hands of the Scots they handed over the king to the Parliamentary commissioners sent down to receive him. The king was conducted to Holmby House, a fine mansion within six miles of Northampton, and there was at first treated with great honor. A large household and domestic servants were chosen for him, an excellent stable kept, and the king was allowed a large amount of personal liberty. The nobles and gentlemen of his court were permitted to see him, and in fact he was apparently restored to his rank and estate. The Presbyterian party were in power; but while they treated the king with the respect due to his exalted station, they had no more regard to the rights of his conscience than to those of the consciences of the people at large. He desired to have chaplains of the Episcopal church; but the Parliament refused this, and sent him two Presbyterian ministers, whom the king refused to receive.
While King Charles remained at Holmby Parliament quarreled furiously. The spirit of the Independents obtained a stronger and stronger hold upon the army. Cromwell himself, with a host of others, preached daily among them, and this general, although Fairfax was the commander-in-chief, came gradually to be regarded as the leader of the army. There can be no doubt that Cromwell was thoroughly sincere in his convictions, and the charges of hypocrisy which have been brought against him, are at least proved to be untrue. He was a man of convictions as earnest as those of the king himself, and as firmly resolved to override the authority of the Parliament, when the Parliament withstood him.
Three days after the king arrived at Holmby House the Commons voted that the army should be disbanded, with the exception of troops required for the suppression of rebellion in Ireland, and for the service of the garrisons. It was also voted that there should be no officers, except Fairfax, of higher rank than colonel, and that every officer should take the covenant and conform to the Presbyterian Church. A loan was raised in the city to pay off a portion of the arrears of pay due to the army. The sum, however, was insufficient, and there were great murmurings among the men and officers. Fourteen of the latter petitioned Parliament on the subject of arrears, asking that auditors should be appointed to report on what was due to them, and laying down some conditions with regard to their employment in Ireland. Five days afterward the House, on receipt of this petition, declared that whoever had a hand in promoting it, or any other such petition, was an enemy to the State, and a disturber of the public peace. The army were furious at this declaration. Deputations from them went to the House, and from the House to the army. The Presbyterian members were highly indignant at their pretensions, and Cromwell saw that the time was at hand when the army would take the affair entirely into their hands. The soldiers organized a council of delegates, called "Adjutators," to look after their rights. The Parliament voted eight weeks' pay, and a committee went to the army to see it disbanded. The army declined to disband, and said that eight times eight weeks' pay was due. The feeling grew hotter and hotter, and the majority in Parliament came to the conclusion that Cromwell should be arrested. Cromwell, however, obtained word of what was intended, and left London.
Upon the same day a party of soldiers went down to Holmby, and forcibly carried off King Charles from the Parliamentary commissioners, the troops stationed at Holmby fraternizing with their comrades. The king, under the charge of these new guards, arrived at Royston on the 7th of June, and Fairfax and Cromwell met him there. He asked if they had commissioned Joyce, who was at the head of the party of men who had carried him off, to remove him. They denied that they had done so.
"I shall not believe you," said the king, "unless you hang him."
And his majesty had good ground for his disbelief.
Cromwell returned to London and took his place in the House, and there blamed the soldiers, protesting that he would stick to the Parliament; but the same night he went away again down to the army, and there declared to them the actions and designs of Parliament. Commissioners came down on the 10th from the Commons; but the army formed up, and when the votes were read, refused to obey them. The same afternoon a letter, signed by Fairfax, Cromwell, Ireton, and ten other officers, was sent to the city, stating that they were about to advance upon London, and declaring that if the city did not take part against them "in their just desires to resist that wicked party which would embroil us and the kingdom, neither we nor our soldiers shall give you the least offense." The army marched to St. Albans, and thence demanded the impeachment of eleven members of the Commons, all leading Presbyterians. The city and Parliament were in a state of consternation. The army advanced to Uxbridge. It demanded a month's pay, and received it; but it continued to advance. On the 26th of April Parliament gave way. The eleven members retired from the House, the Commons passed a vote approving of the proceedings of the army, and commissioners were appointed.
All this time the king was treated as honorably as he had been when at Holmby House. He was always lodged at great houses in the neighborhood of the army--at the Earl of Salisbury's, at Hatfield, when the troops were at St. Albans, and at the Earl of Craven's, at Caversham, when the army moved further back. And at both of these places he was allowed to receive the visits of his friends, and to spend his time as he desired.
More critical times were now, however, at hand.
| {
"id": "11565"
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14 | LAST ATTEMPT TO RESCUE THE KING. | The king, after London had been overawed by the army, was lodged in Hampton Court. At this time the feeling throughout England was growing stronger and stronger in favor of the re-establishment of the monarchy, It was now a year since, with the fall of Oxford, the civil war had virtually concluded, and people yearned for a settled government and a return to ancient usages and manners. The great majority of that very Parliament which had withstood and conquered Charles were of one mind with the people in general; but England was no longer free to choose for itself. The army had won the victory for the Commons, and was determined to impose its will upon the nation. At this time Cromwell, Ireton, and Fairfax were disposed to an arrangement, but their authority was overshadowed by that of the preachers, who, in their harangues to the troops, denounced these generals as traitors, and then finding that they were likely to lose their influence, and to become obnoxious to both parties, henceforth threw their lot in with the army, and headed it in its struggle with the Parliament. Even yet the long misfortunes which Charles had suffered were insufficient to teach him wisdom. Had he now heartily thrown himself into the hands of the moderate majority in Parliament he might--aided by them and by the Scots, who, seeing that the Independents were ignoring all the obligations which had been undertaken by the Solemn League and government, were now almost openly hostile to the party of the army--have again mounted the throne, amid the joyful acclamations of the whole country. The army would have fought, but Charles, with England at his back, would assuredly have conquered. Unfortunately, the king could not be honest. His sole idea of policy was to set one section of his opponents against the other. He intrigued at once with the generals and with the Parliament, and had the imprudence to write continually to the queen and others, avowing that he was deceiving both. Several of these letters were intercepted, and although desirous of playing off the king against the army, the Commons felt that they could place no trust in him whatever; while the preachers and the army clamored more and more loudly that he should be brought to trial as a traitor.
Harry Furness had, after the fall of Oxford, remained quietly with his father at Furness Hall. Once or twice only had he gone up to London, returning with reports that the people there were becoming more and more desirous of the restoration of the king to his rights. The great majority were heartily sick of the rule of the preachers, with their lengthy exhortations, their sad faces, and their abhorrence of amusement of all kinds. There had been several popular tumults, in which the old cry of "God save the king," had again been raised. The apprentices were ready to join in any movement which might bring back the pleasant times of old. Cavaliers now openly showed themselves in the streets, and London was indeed ripe for an insurrection against the sovereignty which the army had established over the nation. Had the king at this time escaped from Hampton Court, and ridden into London at the head of only twenty gentlemen, and issued a proclamation appealing to the loyalty of the citizens, and promising faithfully to preserve the rights of the people, and to govern constitutionally, he would have been received with acclamation. The majority of Parliament would have declared for him, England would have received the news with delight, and the army alone would not have sufficed to turn the tide against him. Unhappily for Charles, he had no more idea now than at the commencement of the war of governing constitutionally, and instead thinking of trusting himself to the loyalty and affection of his subjects, he was meditating an escape to France. Harry received a letter from one of the king's most attached adherents, who was in waiting upon him at Hampton, begging him to repair there at once, as his majesty desired the aid of a few of those upon whom he could best rely, for an enterprise which he was about to undertake. Harry showed the letter to his father.
"You must do as you will, Harry," the colonel said. "For myself, I stick to my determination to meddle no more in the broils of this kingdom. Could I trust his Majesty, I would lay down my life for him willingly; but I cannot trust him. All the misfortunes which have befallen him, all the blood which has been poured out by loyal men in his cause, all the advice which his best councilors have given him, have been thrown away upon him. He is as lavish with his promises as ever, but all the time he is intending to break them as soon as he gets ample chance. Were he seated upon the throne again to-morrow, he would be as arbitrary as he was upon the day he ascended it. I do not say that I would not far rather see England under the tyranny of one man than under that of an army of ambitious knaves; but the latter cannot last. The king's authority, once riveted again on the necks of the people, might enslave them for generations, but England will never submit long to the yoke of military dictators. The evil is great, but it will right itself in time. But do you do as you like, Harry. You have, I hope, a long life before you, and 'twere best that you chose your own path in it. But think it over, my son. Decide nothing to-night, and in the morning let me know what you have determined."
Harry slept but little that night. When he met his father at breakfast he said: "I have decided, father. You know that my opinions run with yours as to the folly of the king, and the wrongfulness and unwisdom of his policy. Still he is alone, surrounded by traitors to whose ambition he is an obstacle, and who clamor for his blood. I know not upon what enterprise he may now be bent, but methinks that it must be that he thinks of an escape from the hands of his jailers. If so, he must meditate a flight to France. There he will need faithful followers, who will do their best to make him feel that he is still a king who will cheer his exile and sustain his hopes. It may be that years will pass before England shakes off the iron yoke which Cromwell and his army are placing upon her neck. But, as you say, I am young and can wait. There are countries in Europe where a gentleman can take service in the army, and should aught happen to King Charles there I will enroll myself until these evil days be all passed. I would rather never see England again than live here to be ruled by King Cromwell and his canting Ironsides."
"So be it, my son," the colonel said. "I do not strive to dissuade you, for methinks had I been of your age I should have chosen the same. Should your fortunes lead you abroad, as they likely will, I shall send you a third of my income here. The rest will be ample for me. There will be little feasting or merriment at Furness Hall until the cloud which overshadows England be passed away, and you be again by my side. There is little fear of my being disturbed. Those who laid down their arms when the war ceased were assured of the possession of their property, and as I shall draw sword no more there will be no excuse for the Roundheads to lay hands on Furness Hall. And now, my boy, here are a hundred gold pieces. Use them in the king's service. When I hear that you are abroad I will write to Master Fleming to arrange with his correspondents, whether in France or Holland, as you may chance to be, to pay the money regularly into your hands. You will, I suppose, take Jacob with you?"
"Assuredly I will," Harry said. "He is attached and faithful, and although he cares not very greatly for the King's cause, I know he will follow my fortunes. He is sick to death of the post which I obtained for him after the war, with a scrivener at Oxford. I will also take William Long with me, if he will go. He is a merry fellow, and has a wise head. He and Jacob did marvelously at Edinburgh, when they cozened the preachers, and got me out of the clutches of Argyll. With two such trusty followers I could go through Europe. I will ride over to Oxford at once."
As Harry anticipated, Jacob was delighted at the prospect of abandoning his scrivener's desk.
"I don't believe," he said, when he had learned from Harry that they were going to the king at Hampton, "that aught will come of these plottings. As I told you when we were apprentices together, I love plots, but there are men with whom it is fatal to plot. Such a one, assuredly, is his gracious majesty. For a plot to be successful, all to be concerned in it must know their own minds, and be true as steel to each other. The King never knows his own mind for half an hour together, and, unfortunately, he seems unable to be true to any one. So let it be understood, Master Harry, that I go into this business partly from love of you, who have been truly a most kind friend to me, partly because I love adventure, and hate this scrivener's desk, partly because there is a chance that I may benefit by the change."
Harry bade him procure apparel as a sober retainer in a Puritan family, and join him that night at Furness Hall, as he purposed to set out at daybreak. William Long also agreed at once to follow Harry's fortunes. The old farmer, his father, offered no objection.
"It is right that my son should ride with the heir of Furness Hall," he said. "We have been Furness tenants for centuries, and have ever fought by our lords in battle. Besides, Master Harry, I doubt me whether William will ever settle down here in peace. His elder brother will have the farm after me, so it matters not greatly, but your wars and journeyings have turned his head, and he thinks of arms and steel caps more than of fat beeves or well-tilled fields."
The next morning, soon after daybreak, Harry and his followers left Furness Hall, and arrived the same night at Hampton. Here they put up at a hostelry, and Harry sent a messenger to Lord Ashburnham, who had summoned him, and was in attendance upon the king, to say that he had arrived.
An hour later Lord Ashburnham joined him. "I am glad you have come, Master Furness," he said. "The king needs faithful servants; and it's well that you have come to-day, as I have been ordered by those in power to remove from the king's person. His majesty has lost all hope of coming to an agreement with either party here. At one time it seemed that Cromwell and Ireton were like to have joined him, but a letter of the king's, in which he spoke of them somewhat discourteously, fell into their hands, and they have now given themselves wholly over to the party most furious against the king. Therefore he has resolved to fly. Do you move from hence and take up your quarters at Kingston, where no curious questions are likely to be asked you. I shall take lodgings at Ditton, and shall there await orders from the king. It may be that he will change his mind, but of this Major Legg, who attends him in his bedchamber, will notify us. Our design is to ride to the coast near Southampton and there take ship, and embark for France. It is not likely that we shall be attacked by the way, but as the king may be recognized in any town through which we may pass, it is as well to have half a dozen good swords on which we can rely."
"I have with me," Harry said, "my friend Jacob, who was lieutenant in my troop, and who can wield a sword well, and one of my old troopers, a stout and active lad. You can rely upon them as on me."
Lord Ashburnham stayed but a few minutes with Harry, and then mounted and rode to Ditton, while Harry the same afternoon journeyed on into Kingston, and there took up his lodgings. On the 11th of November, three days after their arrival, Harry received a message from Lord Ashburnham, asking him to ride over to Ditton. At his lodgings there he found Sir John Berkeley. Major Legg shortly after arrived, and told them that the king had determined, when he went into his private room for evening prayer, to slip away, and make for the river side, where they were to be in readiness for him with horses. Harry had brought his followers with him, and had left them at an inn while he visited Lord Ashburnham. William Long at once rode back to Kingston, and there purchased two good horses, with saddles, for the king and Major Legg. At seven in the evening the party mounted, William Long and Jacob each leading a spare horse. Lord Ashburnham and Sir John Berkeley joined them outside the village, and they rode together until, crossing the bridge at Hampton, they stopped on the river bank, at the point arranged, near the palace. Half an hour passed, and then footsteps were heard, and two figures approached. Not a word was spoken until they were near enough to discern their faces.
"Thank God you are here, my Lord Ashburnham," the king said. "Fortune is always so against me that I feared something might occur to detain you. Ha! Master Furness, I am glad to see so faithful a friend."
The king and Major Legg now mounted, and the little party rode off. Their road led through Windsor Forest, then of far greater extent than at present. Through this the king acted as guide. The night was wild and stormy, but the king was well acquainted with the forest, and at daybreak the party, weary and drenched, arrived at Sutton, in Hampshire. Here they found six horses, which Lord Ashburnham had on the previous day sent forward, and mounting these, they again rode on. As the sun rose their spirits revived, and the king entered into conversation with Ashburnham, Berkeley, and Harry as to his plans. The latter was surprised and disappointed to find that so hurriedly had the king finally made up his mind to fly that no ship had been prepared to take him from the coast, and that it was determined that for the time the king should go to the Isle of Wight. The governor of the Isle of Wight was Colonel Hammond, who was connected with both parties. His uncle was chaplain to the king, and he was himself married to a daughter of Hampden. It was arranged that the king and Major Legg should proceed to a house of Lord Southampton at Titchfield, and that Berkeley and Lord Ashburnham should go to the Isle of Wight to Colonel Hammond, to find if he would receive the king. Harry, with his followers, was to proceed to Southampton, and there to procure a ship, which was to be in readiness to embark the king when a message was received from him. Agents of the king had already received orders to have a ship in readiness, and should this be done, it was at once to be brought round to Titchfield.
"This seems to me," Jacob said, as, after separating from the king, they rode to Southampton, "to be but poor plotting. Here has the king been for three months at Hampton Court, and could, had he so chosen, have fixed his flight for any day at his will. A vessel might have been standing on and off the coast, ready to receive him, and he could have ridden down, and embarked immediately he reached the coast. As it is, there is no ship and no arrangement, and for aught he knows he may be a closer prisoner in the Isle of Wight than he was at Hampton, while both parties with whom he has been negotiating will be more furious than ever at finding that he has fooled them. If I could not plot better than this I would stick to a scrivener's desk all my life."
It was late in the afternoon when they rode into Southampton. They found the city in a state of excitement. A messenger had, an hour before, ridden in from London with the news of the king's escape, and with orders from Parliament that no vessel should be allowed to leave the port. Harry then rode to Portsmouth, but there also he was unable to do anything. He heard that in the afternoon the king had crossed over onto the Isle of Wight, and that he had been received by the governor with marks of respect. They, therefore, again returned to Southampton, and there took a boat for Cowes. Leaving his followers there, Harry rode to Newport, and saw the king. The latter said that for the present he had altogether changed his mind about escaping to France, and that Sir John Berkeley would start at once to negotiate with the heads of the army. He begged Harry to go to London, and to send him from time to time sure news of the state of feeling of the populace.
Taking his followers with him, Harry rode to London, disguised as a country trader. He held communication with many leading citizens, as well as with apprentices and others with whom he could get into conversation in the streets and public resorts. He found that the vast majority of the people of London were longing for the overthrow of the rule of the Independents, and for the restoration of the king. The preachers were as busy as ever haranguing people in the streets, and especially at Paul's Cross. In the cathedral of St. Paul's the Independent soldiers had stabled their horses, to the great anger of many moderate people, who were shocked at the manner in which those who had first begun to fight for liberty of conscience now tyrannized over the consciences and insulted the feelings of all others. Harry and his followers mixed among the groups, and aided in inflaming the temper of the people by passing jeering remarks, and loudly questioning the statements of the preachers. These, unaccustomed to interruption, would rapidly lose temper, and they and their partisans would make a rush through the crowd to seize their interrogators. Then the apprentices would interfere, blows would be exchanged, and not unfrequently the fanatics were driven in to take refuge with the troops in St. Paul's. Harry found a small printer of Royalist opinions, and with the assistance of Jacob, strung together many doggerel verses, making a scoff of the sour-faced rulers of England, and calling upon the people not to submit to be tyrannized over by their own paid servants, the army. These verses were then set in type by the printer, and in the evening, taking different ways, they distributed them in the streets to passers-by.
Day by day the feeling in the city rose higher, as the quarrels at Westminster between the Independents, backed by the army and the Presbyterian majority, waxed higher and higher. All this time the king was negotiating with commissioners from the army, and with others sent by the Scots, one day inclining to one party, the next to the other, making promises to both, but intending to observe none, as soon as he could gain his ends.
On Sunday, the 9th of April, Harry and his friends strolled up to Moor Fields to look at the apprentices playing bowls there. Presently from the barracks of the militia hard by a party of soldiers came out, and ordered them to desist, some of the soldiers seizing upon the bowls.
"Now, lads," Harry shouted, "you will not stand that, will you? The London apprentices were not wont to submit to be ridden rough-shod over by troops. Has all spirit been taken out of you by the long-winded sermons of these knaves in steeple hats?"
Some of the soldiers made a rush at Harry. His two friends closed in by him. The two first of the soldiers who arrived were knocked down. Others, however, seized the young men, but the apprentices crowded up, pelted the soldiers with stones, and, by sheer weight, overthrew those who had taken Harry and carried him off. The soldiers soon came pouring out of their barracks, but fleet-footed lads had, at the commencement of the quarrel, run down into the streets, raising the shout of "clubs," and swarms of apprentices came running up. Led by Harry and his followers, who carried heavy sticks, they charged the militia with such fury that these, in spite of their superior arms, were driven back fighting into their barracks. When the gates were shut Harry mounted on a stone and harangued the apprentices--he recalled to them the ancient rights of the city, rights which the most absolute monarchs who had sat upon the throne had not ventured to infringe, that no troops should pass through the streets or be quartered there to restrict the liberties of the citizens. "No king would have ventured so to insult the people of London; why should the crop-haired knaves at Westminster dare to do so? If you had the spirit of your fathers you would not bear it for a moment."
"We will not, we will not," shouted the crowd. "Down with the soldiers!"
At this moment a lad approached at full run to say that the cavalry were coming from St. Paul's. In their enthusiasm the apprentices prepared to resist, but Harry shouted to them: "Not here in the fields. Scatter now and assemble in the streets. With the chains up, we can beat them there."
The apprentices gave a cheer, and, scattering, made their way from the fields just as the cavalry issued into the open space. Hurrying in all directions, the apprentices carried the news, and soon the streets swarmed with their fellows. They were quickly joined by the watermen--in those days a numerous and powerful body. These were armed with oars and boat-stretchers. The chains which were fastened at night across the ends of the streets were quickly placed in position, and all was prepared to resist the attack of the troops.
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15 | A RIOT IN THE CITY. | So quickly were the preparations made that by the time the cavalry came riding back from Moor Fields they found the way barred to them. The commander of the cavalry ordered his men to charge. Harry, who had now taken the command of the crowd, ordered a few of the apprentices to stand before the first line of chains, so that these would not be visible until the horses were close upon them. Behind the chains he placed a strong body of watermen with their oars, while behind these, and at the windows of the houses, were the apprentices, each armed with a quantity of stones and broken bricks. The cavalry charged down upon the defense. When they reached within a few yards of the apprentices in front, these slipped under the chain. The leading troopers halted, but were pressed by those behind them gainst the chain. Then a ram of stones and brickbats opened upon them, and the watermen struck down men and horses with their heavy oars. In vain the troopers tried with their swords to reach their opponents. In vain they fired their pistols into the mass. They were knocked down by the stones and brickbats in numbers, and at last, their commander having been struck senseless, the rest drew off, a tremendous cheer greeting their retreat, from the crowd.
"Now," Harry shouted, taking his position on a doorstep, whence he could be seen, "attend to me. The battle has only begun yet, and they will bring up their infantry now. Next time we will let them enter the street, and defend the chains at the other end--a party must hold these--do some of you fill each lane which comes down on either side, and do ten of you enter each house and take post at the upper windows, with a good store of ammunition. Do not show yourselves until the head of their column reaches the chain. Then fling open the windows and pour volleys of stones and bricks upon them. Then let those in the side streets, each headed by parties of watermen, fall upon their flanks. Never fear their musketry. They can only give fire once before you are upon them. The oars will beat down the pikes, and your clubs will do the rest. Now let the apprentices of each street form themselves into parties, each under their captain. Let all be regular and orderly, and we will show them what the Londoners can do."
With a cheer the crowd separated, and soon took post as Harry had directed. He stationed himself at the barricade at the head of the street. A quarter of an hour later the militia were seen approaching in close column followed by the cavalry. On arriving at the end of the street the assailants removed the chain, and again advanced. The street was silent until they neared its end. The watermen had, under Harry's direction, torn up the paving stones, and formed a barricade breast high, behind which, remaining crouched, they awaited the assault.
The fight began by a volley of stones from the apprentices behind the barricade. The leading rank of the column discharged their muskets, and rushed at the barricade; the watermen sprang to oppose them. At the sound of the first shot every window in the street opened, and a rain of bricks and heavy stones poured down on all sides upon the column, while at the same time dense masses flung themselves upon its flanks, from every lane leading into it. Confused and broken by the sudden onslaught in the narrow street, the column halted, and endeavored to open a fire upon the upper windows. This, however, effected but little harm, while every brick from above told upon their crowded mass. The column was instantly in confusion, and Harry and his followers, leaping over the barricade, and followed by the watermen and apprentices behind, fell upon it with fury. In vain did the Roundheads strive to repulse the attack. Their numbers melted away as they fell, killed or senseless, from the rain of missiles from above. Already the column was rent by their assailants on the flanks, and in less than five minutes from the commencement of the assault those who remained on their legs were driven headlong out into Moor Fields.
Loud rose the triumphant cry of the defenders, "God and King Charles." Some hours elapsed before any attempt was made to renew the assault. Then toward evening fresh troops were brought up from Westminster, and the attack was renewed on two sides. Still the apprentices held their own. Attack after attack was repulsed. All night the fight continued, and when morning dawned the Royalists were still triumphant.
"How will it go, think you, Jacob?" Harry asked.
"They will beat us in the long run," Jacob said. "They have not been properly led yet. When they are, guns and swords must prevail against clubs and stones."
At eleven o'clock in the morning a heavy body of cavalry were seen approaching from Westminster. The Roundheads had brought up Cromwell's Ironsides, the victors in many a hard-fought field, against the apprentice boys of London. The Roundhead infantry advanced with their horse. As they approached the first barricade the cavalry halted, and the infantry advanced alone to within thirty yards of it. Then, just as its defenders thought they were going to charge, they halted, divided into bodies, and entered the houses on either side, and appeared at the windows. Then, as the Ironsides came down at a gallop, they opened a heavy fire on the defenders of the barricade. Harry saw at once that the tactics now adopted were irresistible, and that further attempts at defense would only lead to useless slaughter. He therefore shouted: "Enough for to-day, lads. Every man back to his own house. We will begin again when we choose. We have given them a good lesson."
In an instant the crowd dispersed, and by the time the Ironsides had dismounted, broken the chains, and pulled down the barricade sufficiently to enable them to pass, Ludgate Hill was deserted, the apprentices were back in their masters' shops, and the watermen standing by their boats ready for a fare.
Seeing that their persons were known to so many of the citizens, and would be instantly pointed out to the troops by those siding with the army, who had, during the tumult, remained quietly in their houses, watching from the windows what was going on, Harry and his friends hurried straight to Aldersgate, where they passed out into the country beyond. Dressed in laborers' smocks, which they had, in preparation for any sudden flight, left at the house of a Royalist innkeeper, a mile or two in the fields, they walked to Kingston, crossed the river there, and made for Southampton.
The king was now closely confined in Carisbrook Castle. For the first three months of his residence in the Isle of Wight he could have escaped with ease, had he chosen, and it is probable that Cromwell and the other leaders of the army would have been glad that he should go, and thus relieve the country from the inconvenience of his presence. They had become convinced that so long as he lived quiet could not be hoped for. While still pretending to negotiate with them, he had signed a treaty with the Scots, promising to establish Presbyterianism in England, and their army was already marching south. To the Irish Papists he had promised free exercise of their religion, and these were taking up arms and massacring all opposed to them, as was the custom in that barbarous country. In Wales a formidable insurrection had broken out. Essex and Kent were up in arms, and, indeed, all through the country the Royalists were stirring. The leaders had therefore determined upon bringing the king to trial.
At Southampton Harry found Sir John Berkeley concealed in a house where he had previously instructed Harry he might be looked for. He told him that the king was now a close prisoner, and would assuredly escape if means could be provided. Leaving Sir John, Harry joined his followers, and after telling them the circumstances, they walked down to the port. Here they entered into conversation with an old sailor. Seeing that he was an honest fellow, and in no way disposed toward the fanatics, Harry told him that he and those with him were Cavaliers, who sought to cross over into France.
"There is a boat, there," the sailor said, pointing to a lugger which was lying at anchor among some fishing boats, "that will carry you. The captain, Dick Wilson, is a friend of mine, and often makes a run across to France on dark nights, and brings back smuggled goods. I know where he can be found, and will lead you to him, if it so pleases you." Upon their gladly accepting the offer he led them to a small inn by the water side, and introduced them to the captain of the Moonlight, for so the lugger was called. Upon receiving a hint from the sailor that his companions wished to speak to him in private, Wilson led the way upstairs to the chamber he occupied. Here Harry at once unfolded to him the nature of the service he required. He was to lay with his boat off the bank of the island, making to sea before daylight, and returning after dusk, and was to take his station off a gap in the cliffs, known as Black Gang Chine, where a footpath from above descended to the beach. Upon a light being shown three times at the water's edge he was to send a boat immediately ashore, and embarking those whom he might find there, sail for France. If at the end of the week none should come, he would know that his services would not be required, and might sail away whither he listed. He was to receive fifty guineas at once for the service, and if he transported those who might come down to the shore, to France, he would, on arriving there, be paid two hundred and fifty more.
"It is the king, of course, who seeks to escape," the sailor said. "Well, young gentlemen, for such I doubt not that you are, I am ready to try it. We sailors are near all for the king, and the fleet last week declared for him, and sailed for Holland. So, once on board, there will be little danger. Pay me the fifty guineas at once, and you may rely upon the Moonlight being at the point named."
Harry handed over the money, and arranged that on the third night following the lugger should beat the post appointed, and that it should at once run them across and land them at Cowes. It was now the middle of May, and Harry and his friends, who were still in the disguise of countrymen, walked across to Newport. Their first step was to examine the castle. It lay a short distance from the town, was surrounded by a high wall with towers, and could offer a strong resistance to an attacking force. At the back of the castle was a small postern gate, at which they decided that his escape must, if possible, be made. Harry had been well supplied with money by Sir John Berkeley before leaving Southampton, Sir John himself, on account of his figure being so well known at Newport, during his stay there with the king, deeming it imprudent to take any personal part in the enterprise. After an examination of the exterior of the castle Harry bought a large basket of eggs, and some chickens, and with these proceeded to the castle. There was a guard at the gate, but persons could freely enter. As Harry's wares were exceedingly cheap in price, he speedily effected a sale of them to the soldiers and servants of the officers.
"I should like," he said to the man to whom he disposed of the last of the contents of his basket, "to catch a sight of the king. I ha' never seen him."
"That's easy enough," the man said. "Just mount these stairs with me to the wall. He is walking in the garden at the back of the castle."
Harry followed the man, and presently reached a spot where he could look down into the garden. The king was pacing up and down the walk, his head bent, his hands behind his back, apparently in deep thought. An attendant, a short distance behind him, followed his steps.
"Be that the king?" Harry asked. "He don't look like a king."
"That's him," the man said, "and he's not much of a king at present."
"Where does he live now?" Harry asked.
"That is his room," the man said, pointing to a window some ten feet from the ground. After a little further conversation Harry appeared to be satisfied, and returning to the courtyard, made his way from the castle. During that day and the next they remained quiet, except that Jacob walked over to Cowes, where he purchased two very fine and sharp saws, and a short length of strong rope, with a hook. The following night they hired a cart with a fast horse, and this they placed at a spot a quarter of a mile from the castle.
Leaving the man in charge of it there, Harry and his companions made for the back of the castle. They could tell by the calls upon the walls that the sentries were watchful, but the night was so dark that they had no fear whatever of being seen. Very quietly they crossed the moat, which was shallow, and with but little water in it. Then with an auger they cut four holes in a square two feet each way in the door, and, with a saw, speedily cut the piece inclosed by them out, and creeping through, entered the garden. The greater part of the lights were already extinguished, but that in the king's chamber was still burning. They made their way quietly until they stood beneath this window, and waited until the light here was also put out. Then Harry climbed on to the shoulders of his companions, which brought his face on a level with the window. He tapped at it. The king, who had been warned that his friends would attempt to open a means of escape, at once came to the window, and threw open the casement.
"Who is there?" he asked, in low tones.
"It is I, Harry Furness, your majesty. I have two trusty friends with me. We have cut a hole through the postern gate, a cart is waiting without, and a ship lies ready to receive you on the coast."
"I am ready," the king said. "Thanks, my faithful servant. But have you brought something to cut the bars?"
"The bars!" Henry exclaimed, aghast. "I did not know that there were bars!"
"There are, indeed, Master Furness," the king said, "and if you have no file the enterprise is ruined."
Harry put his hands on the stonework and pulled himself up, and felt the bars within the window.
"They are too strong for our united strength," he said, in a tone of deep disappointment. "But methinks it is possible to get between them." Putting his head between the bars he struggled though, but with great difficulty. "See, your majesty, I have got through."
"Ay, Master Furness, but you are slighter in figure than I, although you are changed indeed since first the colonel, your father, presented you to me at Oxford. However, I will try." The king tried, but in vain. He was stouter than Harry, although less broadly built, and had none of the lissomness which enabled the latter to wriggle through the bars. "It is useless," he said at last. "Providence is against me. It is the will of God that I should remain here. It may be the decree of Heaven that even yet I may sit again on the throne of my ancestors. Now go, Master Furness. It is too late to renew the attempt to-night. Should Charles Stuart ever reign again over England, he will not forget your faithful service."
Harry kissed the king's hand, and with a prayer for his welfare he again made his way through the bars and dropped from the window, by the side of his companions, the tears streaming down his cheeks with the disappointment and sorrow he felt at the failure of his enterprise. "It is all over," he said. "The king cannot force his way through the bars."
Without another word they made their way down to the postern, passed through it, and replaced the piece of wood in its position, in the faint hope that it might escape notice. Then they rejoined the driver with the cart, paid him handsomely, and told him that his services would not be required that night at least. They then returned to their lodgings in the town. The next morning early Jacob started for Cowes to buy some sharp files and aquafortis, but an hour later the news passed through Newport that an attempt had been made in the night to free the king, that a hole had been cut in the postern, and the marks of footsteps discovered under the king's window. Perceiving that it would be useless to renew the attempt now that the suspicions of the garrison were aroused, Harry and William Long, fearing that a search would be instituted, at once started for Cowes. They met Jacob close to that town, crossed in a boat to the mainland, and walked to Southampton. They hesitated whether they should join Lord Goring, who had risen in Kent, or Lord Capel and Sir Charles Lucas, who had collected a large force at Colchester. They determined upon the latter course, as the movement appeared to promise a better chance of success. Taking passage in a coaster, they sailed to the mouth of the Thames, and being landed near Tilbury, made their way to Colchester. Harry was, on his arrival, welcomed by the Royalist leaders, who were well acquainted with him. They proposed to march upon London, which would, they felt sure, declare for the king upon their approach. They had scarcely set their force in motion when they heard that Fairfax, at the head of an army, was marching against them. A debate was held among the leaders as to the best course to pursue. Some were for marching north, but the eastern counties had, from the commencement of the troubles, been wholly on the side of the Parliament. Others were for dispersing the bands, and awaiting a better opportunity for a rising. Sir Charles Lucas, however, urged that they should defend Colchester to the last.
"Here," he said, "we are doing good service to the Royal cause, and by detaining Fairfax here, we shall give time to our friends in Wales, Kent, and other parts to rise and organize. If it is seen that whenever we meet the Roundheads we disperse at once, hope and confidence will be lost."
The next day the town was invested by Fairfax, and shortly after the siege began in earnest. The Royalists fought with great bravery, and for two months every attempt of the Roundheads to storm the place was repulsed. At length, however, supplies ran short, several breaches had been made in the walls by the Roundhead artillery, and a council of war was held, at which it was decided that further resistance was useless, and would only inflict a great slaughter upon their followers, who, in the event of surrender, would for the most part be permitted to return to their homes. Harry Furness was present at the council and agreed to the decision. He said, however, that he would endeavor, with his two personal followers, to effect his escape, as, if he were taken a prisoner to London, he should be sure to be recognized there as the leader of the rising in May, in which case he doubted not that little mercy would be shown to him. The Royalist leaders agreed with him, but pointed out that his chances of escape were small, as the town was closely beleaguered. Harry, however, declared that he preferred the risk of being shot while endeavoring to escape, to the certainty of being executed if carried to London.
That night they procured some bladders, for although Jacob and Harry were able to swim, William Long could not do so, and in any case it was safer to float than to swim. The bladders were blown out and their necks securely fastened. The three adventurers were then lowered from the wall by ropes, and having fastened the bladders around them, noiselessly entered the water. A numerous flotilla of ships and boats of the Commons lay below the town; the tide was running out, however, and the night dark, and keeping hold of each other, so as not to be separated by the tide, they drifted through these unobserved. Once safely out of hearing, Jacob and Harry struck out and towed their companion to shore. While at Colchester they had been attired as Royalist officers, but they had left these garments behind them, and carried, strapped to their shoulders, above water, the countrymen's clothes in which they had entered the town. They walked as far as Brentwood, where they stopped for a few days, and learned the news of what was passing throughout the country.
Colchester surrendered on the 27th of August, the morning after they left it. Lord Capel was sent a prisoner to London to be tried for his life; but Fairfax caused Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle to be tried by court-martial, and shot. On the 10th of July the town and castle of Pembroke had surrendered to Cromwell, who immediately afterward marched north to meet the Scotch army, which six days before had entered England. The Duke of Hamilton, who commanded it, was at once joined by five thousand English Royalists under Sir Marmaduke Langdale. General Lambert, who commanded the Parliamentary troops in the north, fell back to avoid a battle until Cromwell could join him.
The Scotch army could not be called a national force. The Scotch Parliament, influenced by the Duke of Hamilton and others, had entered into an agreement with King Charles, and undertook to reinstate him on the throne. The more violent section, headed by Argyll, were bitterly hostile to the step. The Duke of Hamilton's army, therefore, consisted entirely of raw and undisciplined troops. Cromwell marched with great speed through Wales to Gloucester, and then on through Leicester and Nottingham, and joined Lambert at Barnet Castle on the 12th of August. Then he marched against the Scotch army, which, straggling widely and thinking Cromwell still at a distance, was advancing toward Manchester. On the 16th the duke with his advanced guard was at Preston, with Langdale on his left. Cromwell attacked Langdale with his whole force next morning, and the Royalists after fighting stoutly were entirely defeated. Then he fell upon the Duke of Hamilton and the force under him at Preston, and after four hours' sharp fighting in the inclosures round the place, defeated and drove them out of the town. That night the Scots determined to retreat, and at once began to scatter. General Baillie, after some hard fighting around Warrington, surrendered with his division. The duke with three thousand men went to Nantwich. The country was hostile, his own troops, wearied and dispirited, mutinied, and declared they would fight no longer; the Duke of Hamilton thereupon surrendered, the Scotch invasion of England came to an end.
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16 | THE EXECUTION OF KING CHARLES. | The news of the failure of the Welsh insurrection and the Scotch invasion, while the risings in Kent and Essex were crushed out, showed Harry Furness that, for the time at least, there was no further fighting to be done. Cromwell, after the defeat of the Scotch, marched with his army to Edinburgh, where he was received with enthusiasm by Argyll and the fanatic section, who were now again restored to power, and recommenced a cruel persecution of all suspected of Royalist opinions. Now that the Scotch had been beaten, and the Royalist rising everywhere crushed out, the Parliament were seized with fear as to the course which Cromwell and his victorious army might pursue. If they had been so arrogant and haughty before, what might not be expected now. Negotiations were at once opened with the king. He was removed from Carisbrook to a good house at Newport. Commissioners came down there, and forty days were spent in prolonged argument, and the commissioners returned to London on the 28th of November with a treaty signed. It was too late. The army stationed at St. Albans sent in a remonstrance to Parliament, calling upon them to bring the king to trial, and stating that if Parliament neglected its duty the army would take the matter into its own hands. This remonstrance caused great excitement in the Commons. No steps were taken upon it however, and the Commons proceeded to discuss the treaty, and voted that the king's concessions were sufficient. On the 29th a body of soldiers went across to the Isle of Wight, surrounded the king's house, seized him and carried him to Hurst Castle. The next day Parliament voted that they would not debate the remonstrance of the army, and in reply the army at Windsor marched on the 2d of December into London. On the 5th the Commons debated all day upon the treaty.
Prynne, formerly one of the stanchest opposers of King Charles, spoke with others strongly in his favor, and it was carried by a hundred and twenty-nine to thirty-eight. The same day some of the leaders of the army met, and determined to expel from the house all those opposed to their interests. On the 7th the Trained Bands of the city were withdrawn from around the House, and Colonel Pride with his regiment of foot surrounded it. As the members arrived forty-one of them were turned back. The same process was repeated on the two following days, until over a hundred members had been arrested. Thus the army performed a revolution such as no English sovereign has dared to carry out. After this it is idle to talk of the Parliament as in any way representing the English people. The representatives who supported the king had long since left it. The whole of the moderate portion of those who had opposed him, that is to say, those who had fought to support the liberties of Englishmen against encroachments by the king, and who formed the majority after the Royalists had retired, were now expelled; there remained only a small body of fanatics devoted to the interests of the army, and determined to crush out all liberties of England under its armed heel. This was the body before whom the king was ere long to undergo the mockery of a trial.
King Charles was taken to Hurst Castle on the 17th of December, and three days later carried to Windsor. On the 2d of January, 1649, the Commons voted that in making war against the Parliament the king had been guilty of treason, and should be tried by a court of a hundred and fifty commissioners. The Peers rejected the bill, and the Commons then voted that neither the assent of the Peers nor the king was necessary for a law passed by themselves.
All the encroachments of King Charles together were as nothing to this usurpation of despotic power.
In consequence of the conduct of the Peers, the number of commissioners was reduced to a hundred and thirty-five; but of these only sixty-nine assembled at the trial. Thus the court which was to try the king consisted only of those who were already pledged to destroy him. Before such a court as this there could be but one end to the trial. When, after deciding upon their sentence, the king was brought in to hear it, the chief commissioner told him that the charges were brought against him in the name of the people of England, when Lady Fairfax from the gallery cried out, "It's a lie! Not one-half of them." Had she said not one hundredth of them, she would have been within the mark.
On the 27th sentence was pronounced. On the 29th the court signed the sentence, which was to be carried out on the following day.
From the time when Harry Furness left Brentwood at the end of August until the king was brought to London, he had lived quietly at Southampton. He feared to return home, and chose this port as his residence, in order that he might, if necessary, cross into France at short notice. When the news came that the king had been brought up from Windsor, Harry and his friends at once rode to London, Every one was so absorbed in the great trial about to take place that Harry had little fear of attracting attention or of being molested should any one recognize in the young gentleman in sober attire the rustic who had led the rising in the spring. To London, too, came many other Cavaliers from all parts of the country, eager to see if something might not be attempted to rescue the king. Throughout London the consternation was great at the usurpation by the remnant of the Commons of all the rights of the Three Estates, and still more, at the trial of the king. The army, however, lay in and about London, and, with Cromwell at its head, it would, the people felt, easily crush out any attempt at a rising in the city. Within a few hours of his arrival in London, Harry saw that there was no hope from any effort in this direction, and that the only possible chance of saving the king was by his arranging for his escape. His majesty, on his arrival from Windsor, had been lodged in St. James' Palace, and as this was completely surrounded by the Roundhead troops, there was no chance of effecting an invasion thence. The only possible plan appeared to be a sudden attack upon his guards on his way to execution.
Harry gathered round him a party of thirty Cavaliers, all men ready like himself to sacrifice their lives for the king. Their plan was to gather near Whitehall, where the execution was to take place, to burst through the soldiers lining the way, to cut down the guards, and carry the king to a boat in readiness behind Whitehall, This was to convey him across to Lambeth, where fleet horses were to be stationed, which would take him down to the Essex coast.
The plan was a desperate one, but it might possibly have succeeded, could the Cavaliers have gained the position which they wished. The whole of the army was, however, placed in the streets and passages leading to Whitehall, and between that place and the city the cavalry were drawn up, preventing any from coming in or going out. When they found that this was the case, the Cavaliers in despair mounted their horses, and rode into the country, with their hearts filled with grief and rage.
On the 30th, an hour after the king's execution, proclamation was made that whoever should proclaim a new king would be deemed a traitor, and a week later, the Commons, now reduced to a hundred members, formally abolished the House of Peers. A little later Lord Capel, Lord Holland, and the Duke of Hamilton were executed.
Had the king effected his escape, Harry Furness had determined to return to Abingdon and live quietly at home, believing that now the army had grasped all power, and crushed all opposition, it was probable that they would abstain from exciting further popular animosity by the persecution of those who had fought against them. The fury, however, excited in his mind by the murder of the king after the mockery of a trial, determined him to fight to the last, wherever a rising might be offered, however hopeless a success that rising might appear. He would not, however, suffer Jacob and William Long any longer to follow his fortunes, although they earnestly pleaded to do so. "I have no hope of success," he said. "I am ready to die, but I will not bring you to that strait. I have written to my father begging him, Jacob, to receive you as his friend and companion, and to do what he can, William, to assist you in whatever mode of life your wishes may hereafter lead you to adopt. But come with me you shall not."
Not without tears did Harry's faithful companions yield themselves to his will, and set out for Abingdon, while he, with eight or ten comrades as determined as himself, kept on west until they arrived at Bristol, where they took ship and crossed to Ireland. They landed at Waterford, and journeyed north until they reached the army, with which the Marquis of Ormonde was besieging Dublin. Nothing that Harry had seen of war in England prepared him in any way for the horrors which he beheld in Ireland. The great mass of the people there were at that time but a few degrees advanced above savages, and they carried on their war with a brutal cruelty and bloodshed which could now only be rivaled in the center of Africa. Between the Protestants and the English and Scotch settlers on the one hand, and the wild peasantry on the other, a war of something like extermination went on. Wholesale massacres took place, at which men, women, and children were indiscriminately butchered, the ferocity shown being as great upon one side as the other. In fact, beyond the possession of a few large towns, Ireland had no claim whatever to be considered a civilized country. As Harry and his comrades rode from Waterford they beheld everywhere ruined fields and burned houses; and on joining the army of the Marquis of Ormonde, Harry felt even more strongly than before the hopelessness of the struggle on which he was engaged. These bands of wild, half-clad kernes, armed with pike and billhook, might be brave indeed, but could do nothing against the disciplined soldiers of the Parliament. There were with Ormonde, indeed, better troops than these. Some of the companies were formed of English and Welsh Royalists. Others had been raised by the Catholic gentry of the west, and into these some sort of order and discipline had been introduced. The army, moreover, was deficient in artillery, and not more than one-third of the footmen carried firearms. Harry was, a day or two after reaching the camp of Lord Ormonde, sent off to the West to drill some of the newly-raised levies there. It was now six years since he had begun to take an active part in the war, and he was between twenty-one and twenty-two. His life of active exertion had strengthened his muscles, broadened his frame, and given a strength and vigor to his tall and powerful figure.
Foreseeing that the siege of Dublin was not likely to be successful, Harry accepted his commission to the West with pleasure. He felt already that with all his devotion to the Royalist cause he could not wish that the siege of Dublin should be successful; for he saw that the vast proportion of the besieging army were animated by no sense of loyalty, by no interest in the constitutional question at stake, but simply with a blind hatred of the Protestant population of Dublin, and that the capture of the city would probably be followed by the indiscriminate slaughter of its inhabitants.
He set out on his journey, furnished with letters from Ormonde to several influential gentlemen in Galway. The roads at first were fairly good, but accustomed to the comfortable inns in England, Harry found the resting-places along the road execrable. He was amused of an evening by the eagerness with which the people came round and asked for news from Dublin. In all parts of England the little sheets which then did service as newspapers carried news of the events which were taking place. It is true that none of the country population could read or write; but the alehouses served as centers of news. The village clerk, or, perhaps, the squire's bailiff, could read, as could probably the landlord, and thus the news spread quickly round the country. In Ireland news traveled only from mouth to mouth, often becoming strangely distorted on the way.
Harry was greatly struck by the bareness of the fields and the poverty of the country; and as he journeyed further west the country became still wilder and more lonely. It was seldom now that he met any one who could speak English, and as the road was often little more than a track, he had great difficulty in keeping his way, and regretted that he had not hired a servant knowing the country before leaving the army. He generally, however, was able to obtain a guide from village to village. The loneliness of the way, the wretchedness of the people, the absence of the brightness and comfort so characteristic of English life, made the journey an oppressive one, and Harry was glad when, five days after leaving Dublin, he approached the end of his ride. Upon this day he had taken no guide, being told that the road was clear and unmistakable as far as Galway.
He had not traveled many hours when a heavy mist set in, accompanied by a keen and driving rain, in his face. With his head bent down, Harry rode along, paying less attention than usual to his way. The mist grew thicker and thicker. The horse no longer proceeded at a brisk pace, and presently came to a stop. Harry dismounted, and discovered that he had left the road, Turning his horse's head, and taking the reins over his arm, he tried to retrace his steps.
For an hour he walked along, the conviction growing every moment that he was hopelessly lost. The ground was now soft and miry and was covered with tussocks of coarse grass, between which the soil was black and oozy. The horse floundered on for some distance, but with such increasing difficulty that, upon reaching a space of comparatively solid ground, Harry decided to take him no further.
The cold rain chilled him to the bone, and after awhile he determined to try and make his way forward on foot, in hopes of finding, if not a human habitation, some walls or bushes where he could obtain shelter until the weather cleared. He fastened the reins to a small shrub, took off the saddle and laid it on the grass, spread the horse rug over the animal to protect it as far as possible, and then started on his way. He had heard of Irish bogs extending for many miles, and deep enough to engulf men and animals who might stray among them, and he felt that his position was a serious one.
He blamed himself now for not having halted immediately he perceived that he had missed the road. The only guide that he had as to the direction he should take was the wind. On his way it had been in his face, and he determined now to keep it at his back, not because that was probably the way to safety, but because he could see more easily where he was going, and he thought by continuing steadily in one direction he might at last gain firm ground. His view extended but a few yards round him, and he soon found that his plan of proceeding in a straight line was impracticable. Often quagmires of black ooze, or spaces covered with light grass, which were, he found, still more treacherous, barred his way, and he was compelled to make considerable detours to the right or left in order to pass them. Sometimes widths of sluggish water were met with. For a long time Harry continued his way, leaping lightly from tuft to tuft, where the grass grew thickest, sometimes wading knee-deep in the slush and feeling carefully every foot lest he should get to a depth whence he should be unable to extricate himself. Every now and then he shouted at the top of his voice, in hopes that he might be heard by some human being. For hours he struggled on. He was now exhausted with his efforts, and the thickening darkness told him that day was fading. From the time he had left his horse he had met with no bush of sufficient height to afford him the slightest shelter.
Just as he was thinking whether he had not better stop where he was, and sit down on the firmest tuft he could find and wait for morning, when perhaps the rainstorm might cease and enable him to see where he was, he heard, and at no very great distance, the sudden bray of a donkey. He turned at once in the direction of the sound, with renewed hopes, giving a loud shout as he did so. Again and again he raised his voice, and presently heard an answering shout. He called again, and in reply heard some shouts in Irish, probably questions, but to these he could give no answer. Shouting occasionally, he made his way toward the voice, but the bog seemed more difficult and treacherous than ever, and at last he reached a spot where further advance seemed absolutely impossible. It was now nearly dark, and Harry was about to sit down in despair, when suddenly a voice sounded close to him. He answered again, and immediately a barefooted boy sprang to his side from behind. The boy stood astonished at Harry's appearance. The latter was splashed and smeared from head to foot with black mire, for he had several times fallen. His broad hat drooped a sodden mass over his shoulders, the dripping feather adding to its forlorn appearance. His high riding boots were gone, having long since been abandoned in the tenacious ooze in which they had stuck; his ringlets fell in wisps on his shoulder.
After staring at him for a minute, the boy said something in Irish. Harry shook his head.
His guide then motioned him to follow him. For some time it seemed to Harry that he was retracing his steps. Then they turned, and by what seemed a long detour, at last reached firmer ground. A minute or two later they were walking along a path, and presently stopped before the door of a cabin, by which two men were standing. They exchanged a word or two with the boy, and then motioned to Harry to enter. A peat fire was burning on the hearth, and a woman, whose age Harry from her aspect thought must be enormous, was crouched on a low stool beside it. He threw off his riding cloak and knelt by her, and held his hands over the fire to restore the circulation. One of the men lighted a candle formed of rushes dipped in tallow. Harry paid no heed to them until he felt the warmth returning to his limbs. Then he rose to his feet and addressed them in English. They shook their heads. Perceiving how wet he was one of them drew a bottle from under the thatch, and pouring some of its contents into a wooden cup offered it to him. Harry put it to his lips. At first it seemed that he was drinking a mixture of liquid fire and smoke, and the first swallow nearly choked him. However he persevered, and soon felt the blood coursing more rapidly in his veins. Finding the impossibilty of conversing, he again sat down by the fire and waited the course of events. He had observed that as he entered his young guide had, in obedience probably to the orders of one of the men, darted away into the mist.
The minutes passed slowly, and not a word was spoken in the cottage. An hour went by, and then a tramp of feet was heard, and, accompanied by the boy, eight or ten men entered. All carried pikes. Between them and the men already in the hut an eager conversation took place. Harry felt far from easy. The aspect of the men was wild in the extreme. Their hair was long and unkempt, and fell in straggling masses over their shoulders. Presently one, who appeared to be the leader, approached Harry, who had now risen to his feet, and crossed himself on the forehead and breast. Harry understood by the action that he inquired if he was a Catholic, and in reply shook his head.
An angry murmur ran through the men. Harry repressed his inclination to place his hand on his pistols, which he had on alighting from his horse taken from the holsters and placed in his belt. He felt that even with these and his sword, he should be no match for the men around him. Then he bethought of the letters of which he was a bearer. Taking them from his pocket he held them out. "Ormonde," he said, looking at the men.
No gleam of intelligence brightened their faces at the word.
Then he said "Butler," the Irish family name of the earl. Two or three of the men spoke together, and Harry thought that there was some comprehension of his meaning. Then he read aloud the addresses of the letters, and the exclamations which followed each named showed that these were familiar to the men. A lively conversation took place between them, and the leader presently approached and held out his hand.
"Thomas Blake, Killicuddery," he said. This was the address of one of the letters, and Harry at once gave it him. It was handed to the boy, with a few words of instruction. The lad at once left the hut. The men seemed to think that for the time there was nothing more to be done, laid their pikes against the wall, and assumed, Harry thought, a more friendly aspect. He reciprocated their action, by unbuckling his belt and laying aside his sword and pistols. Fresh peats were piled on the fire, another candle was lit, and the party prepared to make themselves comfortable. The bottle and wooden cup were again produced, and the owner of the hut offered some black bread to his visitor.
| {
"id": "11565"
} |
17 | THE SIEGE OF DROGHEDA. | Under the influence of the warm, close air of the hut, and the spirits he had taken, Harry soon felt drowsiness stealing over him, and the leader, perceiving this, pointed to a heap of dried fern lying in the corner of the hut. Harry at once threw himself on it, and in a very few minutes was sound asleep. When he awoke daylight was streaming in through the door of the hut. Its inmates were for the most part sitting as when he had last seen them, and Harry supposed that they had talked all night. The atmosphere of the hut was close and stifling, and Harry was glad to go to the door and breathe the fresh air outside.
The weather had changed, and the sun, which had just risen, was shining brightly. The hut stood at the foot of a long range of stony hills, while in front stretched, as far as the eye could see, an expanse of brown bog. A bridle path ran along at the foot of the hills. An hour later two figures were seen approaching along this. The one was a mounted horseman, the other running in front of him, at a long, easy trot, was Harry's guide of the preceding evening.
On reaching the cottage the gentleman on horseback alighted, and, advancing to Harry, said: "Captain Furness, I am heartily sorry to hear that you have had what must have been a disagreeable adventure. The lad here who brought your letter told me that you were regarded as a prisoner, and considered to be a Protestant emissary. I am Tom Blake, and I live nearly twenty miles from here. That is the reason why I was not here sooner. I was keeping it up with some friends last night, and had just gone to bed when the messenger arrived, and my foolish servants pretended I was too drunk to be woke. However, when they did rouse me, I started at once."
"And has that boy gone forty miles on foot since last night?" Harry asked, in surprise.
"Oh, that's nothing," Mr. Blake said. "Give him half an hour's rest, and he'd keep up with us back to Killicuddery. But where is your horse, and how did you get into this mess? The boy tells me he found you in the bog."
Harry related his adventures.
"You have had a lucky escape indeed," Mr. Blake said. "There are places in that bog thirty feet deep. I would not try to cross it for a thousand pounds on a bright day, and how you managed to do so through the mist yesterday is more than I can imagine. Now, the first thing is to get your horse. I must apologize for not having brought one, but the fact is, my head was not exactly clear when I started, and I had not taken in the fact that you'd arrived on foot. My servant was more thoughtful. He had heard from the boy that an English gentleman was here, and judging that the larder was not likely to be stocked, he put a couple of bottles of claret, a cold chicken, and some bread into my wallet, so we can have breakfast while they are looking for your horse. The ride has sharpened my appetite."
Mr. Blake now addressed a few words in Irish to the men clustered round the door of the hut. One of them climbed to the top of the hill, and presently shouted down some instructions, and another at once started across the bog.
"They see your horse," Mr. Blake said, "but we shall have to wait for two or three hours. It is some four miles off, and they will have to make a long detour to bring it back."
Mr. Blake now distributed some silver among the men, and these, with the exception of the master of the house, soon afterward left. Harry heartily enjoyed his breakfast, and in cheery chat with his host the time passed pleasantly until the peasant returned with the horse and saddle. The horse was rubbed down with dry fern, and a lump of black bread given him to eat.
"What can I do for the boy?" Harry asked. "I owe him my life, for I was so thoroughly drenched and cold that I question whether I should have lived till morning out in that bog."
"The boy thinks nothing of it," Mr. Blake said. "A few hundred yards across the bog night or day is nothing to him."
Harry gave the lad a gold piece, which he looked at in wonder.
"He has never seen such a thing before," Mr. Blake laughed. "There, Mickey," he said in Irish, "that's enough to buy you a cow, and you've only got to build a cabin and take a wife to start life as a man."
The boy said something in Irish.
"I thought so," Mr. Blake laughed. "You haven't got rid of him yet. He wants to go as your servant."
Harry laughed too. The appearance of the lad in his tattered garments was in contrast indeed to the usual aspect of a gentleman's retainer.
"You'll find him useful," Mr. Blake said. "He will run errands for you and look after your horse. These lads can be faithful to death. You cannot do better than take him."
Mickey's joy when he was told that he might accompany the English gentleman was extreme. He handed the money he had received to his father, said a few words of adieu to him, and then started on ahead of the horses.
"He had better wait and come on later," Harry said. "He must be utterly tired now."
Mr. Blake shouted after the boy, who turned round, laughed, and shook his head, and again proceeded on his way.
"He can keep up with us," Mr. Blake said. "That horse of yours is more fagged than he is."
Harry soon found that this was the case, and it took them nearly four hours' riding before they reached Killicuddery. Here a dozen barefooted men and boys ran out at their approach, and took the horses. It was a large, straggling house, as good as that inhabited by the majority of English gentlemen, but Harry missed the well-kept lawn, the trim shrubberies, and the general air of neatness and order to which he was accustomed.
"Welcome to Killicuddery," Mr. Blake said, as he alighted. "Believe me, Captain Furness, you won't find the wild Irish, now you are fairly among them, such dreadful creatures as they have been described to you. Well, Norah," he continued, as a girl some sixteen years of age bounded down the steps to meet him, "how goes it with you this morning?"
"As well as could be expected, father, considering that you kept us awake half the night with your songs and choruses. None of the others are down yet, and it's past twelve o'clock. It's downright shameful."
"Norah, I'm surprised at you," Mr. Blake said, laughing. "What will Captain Furness think of Irish girls when he hears you speaking so disrespectfully to your father. This is my daughter Norah, Captain Furness, who is, I regret to say, a wild and troublesome girl. This, my dear, is Captain Furness, a king's officer, who has fought through all the battles of the war."
"And who has lately been engaged in a struggle with an Irish bog," the girl said, laughing, for Harry's gay dress was discolored and stained from head to foot.
Harry laughed also.
"I certainly got the worst of that encounter, Miss Norah, as indeed has been the case in most of those in which I have been engaged. I never felt much more hopeless, when I thought I should have to pass the night sitting on a tuft of grass with mud and mist all round me, except when I was once nearly baked to death in, company with Prince Rupert."
"It must have been a large oven," the girl laughed; "but come in now. I am sure you will both be ready for breakfast. But papa would keep you chattering here all day if I would let him."
Mr. Blake, Harry soon found, was a widower, and his house was presided over by his eldest daughter, Kathleen, to whom Harry was introduced on entering the house. As it was now some hours since they had eaten the food which Mr. Blake had brought, they were quite ready for another meal, at which they were soon joined by six or eight other gentlemen, who had been sleeping in the house. Breakfast over, Harry retired to his room, put on a fresh suit from his wallet, and rejoined his companions, when a sort of council of war was held. Harry learned that there was no difficulty as to men, as any number of these could be recruited among the peasantry. There was, however, an entire absence of any arms save pikes. Harry knew how good a weapon are these when used by steady and well-disciplined men. The matchlocks of those days were cumbrous arms, and it was at the point of the pike that battles were then always decided.
Mr. Blake begged Harry to make his house his headquarters during his stay in the West, and the invitation was gladly accepted. The letters of which he was the bearer were dispatched to their destinations, and a few days after his arrival the recipients called upon him, and he found himself overwhelmed with invitations and offers of hospitality. The time therefore passed very pleasantly.
A few men were found in Galway who had served in the wars. These were made sergeants of the newly raised regiment, which was five hundred strong. This was not embodied, but five central places were chosen at a distance from each other, and at these the peasants assembled for drill. Several of the sons of the squires received commissions as officers, and the work of drilling went on briskly, Harry superintending that at each center by turns. In the evenings there were generally dinner parties at the houses of one or other of the gentry, and Harry greatly enjoyed the life. So some months passed.
In July the news came that the Earl of Ormonde's force outside Dublin had been routed by the garrison, under General Jones, the governor, and shortly afterward Harry received orders to march with the regiment to join the earl, who, as the king's representative, forwarded him at the same time a commission as its colonel, and the order to command it.
It was on the 13th of August that Harry with his force joined the army of Ormonde, and the next day the news came that Cromwell had landed at Dublin, and had issued a bloodthirsty proclamation against the Irish. Harry was at once ordered to march with his regiment to Tredah, now called Drogheda, a seaport about forty miles north of Dublin. At this town Harry found in garrison twenty-five hundred English troops, under the command of Sir Arthur Ashton, an old Royalist officer, he had lost a leg in the king's service.
During the six months he had passed in the West Harry had found Mike an invaluable servant. He had, of course, furnished him with decent suits of clothes, but although willing to wear shoes in the house, nothing could persuade Mike to keep these on his feet when employed without. As a messenger he was of the greatest service, carrying Harry's missives to the various posts as quickly as they could have been taken by a horseman. During that time he had picked up a great deal of English, and his affection for his master was unbounded. He had, as a matter of course, accompanied Harry on his march east, and was ready to follow him to the end of the world if need be.
The garrison of Drogheda employed themselves busily in strengthening the town to the utmost, in readiness for the siege that Cromwell would, they doubted not, lay to it. In September Cromwell moved against the place. He was prepared to carry out the campaign in a very different spirit to that with which he had warred in England. For years Ireland had been desolated by the hordes of half-savage men, who had for that time been burning, plundering, and murdering on the pretext of fighting for or against the king. Cromwell was determined to strike so terrible a blow as would frighten Ireland into quietude. He knew that mildness would be thrown away upon this people, and he defended his course, which excited a thrill of horror in England, upon the grounds that it was the most merciful in the end. Certainly, nowhere else had Cromwell shown himself a cruel man. In England the executions in cold blood had not amounted to a dozen in all. The common men on both sides were, when taken prisoners, always allowed to depart to their homes, and even the officers were not treated with harshness. It may be assumed that his blood was fired by the tales of massacre and bloodshed which reached him when he landed. The times were stern, and the policy of conciliating rebels and murderers by weak concessions was not even dreamed of. Still, no excuses or pleas of public policy can palliate Cromwell's conduct at Drogheda and Wexford. He was a student and expounder of the Bible, but it was in the old Testament rather than the new that precedents for the massacre at Drogheda must be sought for. No doubt it had the effect at the time which Cromwell looked for, but it left an impression upon the Irish mind which the lapse of over two centuries has not obliterated. The wholesale massacres and murders perpetrated by Irishmen on Irishmen have long since been forgotten, but the terrible vengeance taken by Cromwell and his saints upon the hapless towns of Drogheda and Wexford will never be forgotten by the Irish, among whom the "curse of Cromwell" is still the deadliest malediction one man can hurl at another.
Cromwell's defenders who say that he warred mildly and mercifully in England, according to English ideas, and that he fought the Irish only as they fought each other, must be hard driven when they set up such a defense. The fact that Murrogh O'Brien, at the capture of Cashel, murdered the garrison who had laid down their arms, and three thousand of the defenseless citizens, including twenty priests who had fled to the cathedral for refuge, affords no excuse whatever for the perpetration of equal atrocities by Cromwell, and no impartial historian can deny that these massacres are a foul and hideous blot in the history of a great and, for the most part, a kind and merciful man.
Upon arriving before Drogheda on the 2d of September Cromwell at once began to throw up his batteries, and opened fire on the 10th. His artillery was abundant, and was so well served that early the same afternoon two practical breaches were made, the one in the east, in the wall of St. Mary's Churchyard, the other to the south, in the wall of the town. Sir Arthur Ashton had placed Harry in command at St. Mary's Churchyard, and seeing that the wall would soon give way under the fire of the enemy's artillery, he set his men to throw up an earthwork behind.
Seven hundred of the Roundheads advanced to the assault, but so heavy was the fire that Harry's troops poured upon them that they were forced to fall back with great slaughter. At the other breach they were also repulsed, but attacking again in great force they made their way in. Near this spot was an ancient tumulus, called the Hill Mount. The sides of this were defended by strong palisades, and here the Royalists, commanded by Sir Arthur Ashton himself, opposed a desperate resistance to the enemy. These, supported by the guns on the walls, which they turned against the Mount, made repeated attacks, but were as often repulsed. The loss, however, of the defenders was great, and seeing that fresh troops were constantly brought against them they at last lost heart and surrendered, on promise of their lives; a promise which was not kept, as all were immediately massacred.
Up to this time Harry had successfully repulsed every attack made upon the other breach, but at length the news of the Roundheads' success at the Mount reached both assailants and defenders.
With exulting shouts the Roundheads poured over the wall. The garrison, headed by Harry and the other officers, strove hard to drive them back, but it was useless. Cromwell and Ireton were in the van of their troops, and these, accustomed to victory, hewed their way through the ranks of the besieged. Many of them lost heart, and, throwing down their arms, cried for quarter. With shouts of "No quarter!" "Hew down the Amalakites!" "Strike, and spare not!" the Roundheads cut down their now defenseless foes. Maddened at the sight, the besieged made another desperate effort at resistance, and for awhile fought so stoutly that the Roundheads could gain no ground of them.
Presently, however, a party of the enemy who had forced their way over the wall at another point took them in rear. Then the garrison fled in all directions pursued by their victorious enemy, who slaughtered every man they overtook. Mike had kept close to Harry through the whole of the struggle. He had picked up a pike from a fallen man, and had more than once, when Harry was nearly surrounded by his foes, dashed forward and rid him of one of the most pressing. Seeing, by the general slaughter which was going on, that the Roundhead soldiers must have received orders from their general to give no quarter, Harry determined to sell his life dearly, and rushed into a church where a score of the English soldiers were taking refuge. The door was closed and barricaded with chairs and benches, and from the windows the men opened fire upon the Roundheads, who were engaged in slaying all--men, women and children, without mercy. Soon, from every house around, a heavy fire was poured into the church, and several of those within fell dead under the fire. Under cover of this, the Roundheads attacked the door with axes. Many were killed by the fire of the defenders, but as the door yielded, Harry called these from their post, and with them ascended the belfry tower. Here they prepared to fight to the last.
Looking from a window, Harry beheld a sight which thrilled him with horror. Gathered round a cross, standing in an open space, were two hundred women on their knees. Even while Harry looked a body of Cromwell's saints fell upon them, hewing and cutting with their swords, and thrusting with their pikes, and did not desist while one remained alive. And these were the men who had the name of God ever on their lips! When the dreadful massacre began Harry turned shuddering from the window, and with white face and set teeth nerved himself to fight to the last. Already the door had been beaten down, and the assailants had streamed into the church. Then a rush of heavy feet was heard on the stairs. Assembled round its top stood Harry and the twelve men remaining. Each knew now that there was no hope of quarter, and fought with the desperation of men who cared only to sell their lives dearly. Fast as the Roundheads poured up the stairs, they fell, pierced by pike, or shot down by musket ball. For half an hour the efforts continued, and then the Roundheads, having lost over fifty men, fell back. Three times during the day the attack was renewed, and each time repulsed with the same terrible slaughter. Between the intervals the defenders could hear the never-ceasing sound of musket and pistol firing, as house after house, defended to the last by desperate men, was stormed; while loud, even above the firing, rose the thrilling shrieks of dying women and children.
In all the history of England, from its earliest times, there is no such black and ghastly page as that of the sack of Drogheda. Even supposing Cromwell's assertion that he wished only to terrify the Irish rebels to be true, no shadow of an excuse can be pleaded for the massacre of the women and children, or for that of the English Royalists who formed five-sixths of the garrison.
All through the night occasional shrieks and pistol shots could be heard, as the wretched people who had hidden themselves in closets and cellars were discovered and murdered. No further assault was made upon the church tower, nor was there any renewal of it next morning. As hour after hour passed on Harry concluded that, deterred by the great loss which his men had already sustained in endeavoring to capture the post, Cromwell had determined to reduce it by starvation.
Already the defenders were, from the effects of exertion and excitement, half-mad with thirst. As the day went on their sufferings became greater, but there was still no thought of surrender. The next day two of them leaped from the top of the tower and were killed by their fall. Then Harry saw that it was better to give in.
"My lads," he said, "it is better to go down and die by a bullet-shot than to suffer these agonies of thirst, with only death as the issue. We must die. Better to die in our senses as men, than mad like wild beasts with thirst. Mike, my lad, I am sorry to have brought you to this pass."
Mike put his parched lips to his master's hand.
"It is not your fault, master. My life is no differ to any."
The men agreed to Harry's proposal. There was a discussion whether they should go down and die fighting, or not; but Harry urged upon them that it was better not to do so. They were already weak with hunger and thirst, and it would be more dignified to meet their fate quiet and unresistingly. They accordingly laid by their arms, and, preceded by Harry, descended the stairs.
The noise of their footsteps warned the soldiers in the church below of their coming, and these formed in a semicircle round the door to receive the expected onslaught. When they saw that the Royalists were unarmed they lowered their weapons, and an officer said: "Take these men out into the street, and shoot them there, according to the general's orders."
Calmly and with dignity Harry marched at the head of his little party into the street. They were ranged with their backs to the church, and a firing party took their places opposite to them.
The officer was about to give the order, when a divine in a high-steepled hat came up. He looked at the prisoners, and then rapidly advanced between the lines and gazed earnestly at Harry.
"Is your name Master Furness?" he asked.
"I am Colonel Furness, an officer of his majesty Charles II.," Harry said coldly. "What then?"
"I am Ebenezer Stubbs," the preacher said. "Do you not remember how seven years ago you saved my life at the risk of your own in the streets of Oxford? I promised you then that if the time should come I would do as good a turn to yourself. Captain Allgood," he said, "I do beseech you to stay this execution until I have seen the general. I am, as you know, his private chaplain, and I am assured that he will not be wroth with you for consenting to my request."
The influence of the preacher with Cromwell was well known, and the officer ordered his men to ground arms, although they muttered and grumbled to themselves at the prospect of mercy being shown to men who had killed so many of their companions. A quarter of a hour later the preacher returned with an order from the general for the prisoners to be placed in durance.
"I have obtained your life," the preacher said, "but even to my prayers the general will grant no more. You and your men are to be sent to the Bermudas."
Although Harry felt that death itself would be almost preferable to a life of slavery in the plantations, he thanked the preacher for his efforts in his behalf. A week later Harry, with the eight men who had taken with him, and twenty-seven others who been discovered in hiding-places, long after the capture of the place, were placed on board a ship bound for the Bermudas, the sole survivors of the garrison--three thousand strong--and of the inhabitants of Drogheda.
| {
"id": "11565"
} |
18 | SLAVES IN THE BERMUDAS. | The Good Intent, upon which Harry Furness with thirty-five other Royalist prisoners were embarked, was a bark of two hundred tons. She carried, in addition to the prisoners, sixty soldiers, who were going out to strengthen the garrison of Barbadoes. The prisoners were crowded below, and were only allowed to come on deck in batches of five or six for an hour at a time. Four of them had died on the way, and the others were greatly reduced in strength when they landed. As soon as they reached Bermuda the prisoners were assigned as slaves to some of the planters most in favor of the Commonwealth. Four or five were allotted to each, and Harry having placed Mike next to him at the end of the line, when they were drawn up on landing, they were, together with two others of the soldiers who had defended the tower of Drogheda with him, assigned to the same master.
"He is an evil-looking scoundrel," Harry said to the Irish boy. "He looks even more sour and hypocritical than do the Puritans at home. We have had a lesson of what their idea of mercy and Christianity is when they get the upper hand. I fear we have a hard time before us, my lad."
The four prisoners were marched to the center of the island, which seemed to Harry to be, as near as he could tell, about the size of the Isle of Wight. Their new master rode in front of them, while behind rode his overseer, with pistols at his holsters, and a long whip in his hand. Upon their way they passed several negroes working in the fields, a sight which mightily astonished Mike, who had never before seen these black creatures. At that time the number of negroes in the island was comparatively small, as the slave trade was then in its infancy. It was the want of labor which made the planters so glad to obtain the services of the white prisoners from England. Many of the slaves in the island had been kidnaped as boys at the various ports in England and Scotland, the infamous traffic being especially carried on in Scotland.
When they reached the plantation the horsemen alighted in the courtyard of the residence, and the planter, whose name was Zachariah Stebbings, told the overseer to take them to the slave quarters.
"You will have," he said harshly, "to subdue your pride here, and to work honestly and hard, or the lash will become acquainted with your backs."
"Look you here, Master Stebbings, if such be your name," Harry said, "a word with you at the beginning. We are exiled to this place, and given into servitude to you through no crime but that of having fought bravely for his majesty King Charles. We are men who care not greatly for our lives, and we four, with seven others, did, as you may learn, defend the tower of Drogheda for two days against the whole army of Cromwell, and did only yield to thirst, and not to force. You may judge then, of our mettle from that fact. Now, hark you; having fallen into this strait, we are willing to conform to our condition, and to give you fair and honest work to the best of our powers; but mind you, if one finger be laid on us in anger, if so much as the end of a whip touch one of us, we have sworn that we will slay him so ventures, and you also, should you countenance it , even though afterward we be burned at the stake for doing it. That is our bargain; see you that you keep to it."
So stern and determined were Harry's words, so fierce and haughty his tone, that the planter and his overseer both turned pale and shrank back. They saw at once the manner of men with whom they had to deal, and felt that the threat would be carried out to the fullest. Muttering some inarticulate reply, the planter turned and entered the house, and the overseer, with a dogged, crestfallen look, led the way to the slave quarters. The place assigned to them was a long hut, the sides lightly constructed of woven boughs, with a thick thatch overhead. Along one side extended a long sloping bench, six feet wide. This was the bed of the slaves.
An hour afterward the other inmates of the hut entered. They consisted of four white men who had been kidnaped as boys, and two who had been apprentices, sent out, as Harry soon learned, for their share in the rising in the city, which he had headed. The negroes on the estate, some twenty in number, were confined in another hut. There were, besides, four guards, one of whom kept sentry at night over the hut, while another with a loaded firearm stood over them while they worked. The garrison of the island consisted, as Harry had learned before landing, of two hundred and fifty soldiers, besides the militia, consisting of the planters, their overseers and guards, who would number altogether about five hundred men.
The next day the work in the fields began. It consisted of hoeing the ground between the rows of young sugar canes and tobacco plants. The sun was extremely powerful, and the perspiration soon flowed in streams from the newcomers. They worked, however, steadily and well, and in a manner which gave satisfaction even to their master and his overseer. Harry had impressed upon his two men and Mike the importance of doing nothing which could afford their employer a fair opportunity for complaint. He would not, Harry felt sure, venture to touch them after the warning he had given, but he might send one or all of them back to the town, where they would be put to work as refractory slaves on the fortifications, and where their lot would be far harder than it would be on the plantation. He urged upon them above all things to have patience; sooner or later the people of England would, he felt sure, recall the young king, and then they would be restored to their country. But even before that some mode of escape, either by ship, or by raising an insurrection in concert with the white slaves scattered through the island, might present itself.
The white slaves and negroes were kept as far as possible apart during their work in all the plantations in the island. The whites were deemed dangerous, and were watched with the greatest care. The blacks were a light-hearted and merry race, not altogether discontented with their position, and the planters did their utmost to prevent the white slaves having communication with them, and stirring them up to discontent and rebellion. At the same time they were not absolutely forbidden to speak. Each slave had a small plot of ground assigned to him near the huts, and on these, after the day's work was over, they raised vegetables for their own consumption.
Mike, who, as a lad, was much less closely watched than the men, soon made friends with the negroes. He was full of fun and mischief, and became a prime favorite with them. He learned that at night, as no watch was kept over them, they would often steal away and chat with the negroes on other plantations, and that so long as there were no signs of discontent, and they did their work cheerfully, the masters placed no hindrance upon such meetings. Often at night, indeed, the sound of the negro singing and music could be heard by the prisoners, the overseers troubling themselves in no way with the proceedings of their slaves after nightfall, so long as their amusements did not interfere with their power of work next morning. Mike heard also that the treatment of the slaves, both white and black, varied greatly on different plantations, according to the nature of their masters. In some the use of the lash was almost unknown, the slaves were permitted many indulgences, and were happy and contented; while in others they were harshly and cruelly treated. Mr. Stebbings was considered one of the worst masters in the island, and, indeed, it was everywhere noticed that the masters who most conformed to the usages and talk of the Puritans at home were the most cruel taskmasters to their slaves. Many times Harry Furness' blood boiled when he saw the lash applied to the bare shoulders of the slaves, often, as it seemed to him, from pure wantonness on the part of the overseer. But the latter never once ventured to touch Harry or his three companions.
Through the negroes Mike learned that to each of the four plantations adjoining their own four white prisoners had been assigned, and among these, Harry found, on obtaining their names, were the other five soldiers who had fought with him at Drogheda.
Mike soon took to going out at night with the negroes, making his way through a small opening in the light wall of the hut. This was easily closed up on his return, and by choosing a time when the sentry was on the other side of the house, he had no difficulty in leaving or entering unseen. By means of the negroes he opened up a communication with the other soldiers, and informed them that Colonel Furness bade them hold themselves in readiness when an opportunity for escape should arise. It might be weeks or even months before this would come, but the signal would be given by a fire burning at daybreak upon a hill at no great distance from the plantation. He bade them use their discretion as to taking any white slaves with them into their confidence. At nightfall, after seeing the column of smoke, they were, as best they could, to make their way from the huts, and meet in a clump of trees near the house of Mr. Stebbings.
Harry had, indeed formed no distinct plan for escape; but he wished, should an opportunity offer, to have such a body of men at hand as might stand him in good stead.
One day, about a month after their arrival on the plantation, the overseer brutally beat an old negro who was working next to Mike. The old man resumed his work, but was so feeble that he in vain endeavored to use his hoe, and the overseer struck him to the ground with the butt end of his whip. Mike instinctively dropped his hoe and sprang to lift the old man to his feet. The infuriated overseer, enraged at this interference, brought down his whip on Mike's head and felled him by the side of the negro. In an instant Harry sprang forward, armed with his hoe; the overseer seeing him coming, retreated a step or two, drew his pistol from his belt and fired--the ball flew close to Harry's ear, and the latter, whirling his hoe round his head, brought it down with his full strength upon that of the overseer; the man fell in his tracks as if smitten with lightning. The guard ran up with his musket pointed, but Harry's two companions also advanced, armed with their hoes, and the guard, seeing that even if he shot one, he should assuredly be killed by the others, took to his heels and ran off to the house. A minute later Zachariah Stebbings with the four guards was seen running up to the spot.
"What is this?" he exclaimed furiously. "Mutiny?"
"No, Master Stebbings," Harry said calmly. "We have, as you know, worked honestly and well, but your brutal overseer has broken the agreement we made, and struck this lad to the ground without any cause. I, of course, carried out my part of the compact, though I doubt me the fellow is not killed. His hat is a thick one, and may have saved his skull. You had best leave matters alone. I and my three men are a match for you and your guards, even though they have guns, and you best know if our services are worth anything to you."
The planter hesitated. He was unwilling indeed to lose four of his best slaves, and he knew that whether he attacked them now, or whether he reported the case to the commandant of the island, he would assuredly do this. After a moment's hesitation, he said: "The fool has brought it on himself. Do you," turning to the guards, "lift him up and carry him to the house, and let old Dinah see to his head. It is an ugly cut," he said, leaning over him, "but will do him no harm, though it will not add to his beauty."
The blow had indeed been a tremendous one, and had it alighted fairly on the top of his head, would assuredly have cleft the skull, in spite of the protection afforded by the hat. It had, however, fallen somewhat on one side, and had shorn off the scalp, ear, and part of the cheek. It was three weeks before the overseer again resumed his duty, and he cast such a deadly look at Harry as assured him that he would have his life when the occasion offered.
Two days later, when the planter happened to be in the field with the overseer, two gentlemen rode from the house, where they had been to inquire for him. The sobriety of their garments showed that they belonged to the strictest sect of the Puritans.
"I have ridden hither," one said, with a strong nasal twang, "Zachariah Stebbings, having letters of introduction to you from the governor. These will tell that I am minded to purchase an estate in the island. The governor tells me that maybe you would be disposed to sell, and that if not, I might see the methods of work and culture here, and learn from you the name of one disposed to part with his property."
At the first words of the speaker Harry Furness had started, and dropped his hoe; without, however, looking round, he picked it up and applied himself to his work.
"I should not be unwilling to sell," the planter answered, "for a fair price, but the profits are good, and are likely to be better, for I hear that large numbers of malignants, taken by the sword of the Lord Cromwell at Dundalk and Waterford in Ireland, will be sent here, and with more labor to till the fields, our profits will increase."
"I have heard," the newcomer said, "that some of the ungodly followers of the man Charles have already been sent here."
"That is so," the planter agreed. "I myself, standing well in the favor of the governor, have received four of them; that boy, the two men next to him, and that big man working there. He is a noted malignant, and was known as Colonel Furness."
"Truly he is a stalwart knave," the other remarked.
"Ay is he," the planter said; "but his evil fortune has not as yet altogether driven out the evil spirit within him. He is a man of wrath, and the other day he smote nigh to death my overseer, whose head is, as you see, still bandaged up."
"Truly he is a son of Belial," the other argued, but in a tone in which a close observer might have perceived a struggle to keep down laughter. "I warrant me, you punished him heartily for such an outbreak."
"To tell you the truth," the planter said, "the man is a good workman, and like to an ox in his strength. The three others were by his side, and also withstood me. Had I laid a complaint before the governor they would all have been shot, or put on the roads to work, and I should have lost their labor. My overseer was in the wrong, and struck one of them first, so 'twas better to say naught about the matter. And now will you walk me to the house, where I can open the letter of the governor, and talk more of the business you have in hand."
The instant the man had spoken Harry had recognized the voice of his old friend Jacob, and doubted not, though he had not ventured to look round, that he who accompanied him was William Long; and he guessed that hearing he had been sent with the other captives spared at the massacre of Drogheda to the Bermudas, they had come out to try and rescue him. So excited was he at the thought that it was with difficulty he could continue steadily at his work through the rest of the day. When at nightfall he was shut up in the hut with his companions, he told them that the Puritan they had seen was a friend of his own, a captain in his troop, and that he doubted not that deliverance was at hand. He charged Mike at once to creep forth to join the negroes, and to bid them tell one of their color who served in the house to take an opportunity to whisper to one of his master's guests--for he learned that they were biding there for the night, "Be in the grove near the house when all are asleep." The negroes willingly undertook the commission, and Mike rejoined the party in the hut. Two hours later Harry himself crept out through the hole, which they had silently and at great pains enlarged for the purpose, and made his way round to the grove. There were still lights in the house, and the negroes in their hut were talking and singing. An hour later the lights were extinguished, and soon afterward he saw a figure stealthily approaching.
"Jacob," he whispered, as the man entered the shelter of the trees, and in another moment he was clasped in the arms of his faithful friend. For some time their hearts were too full to speak, and then Harry leading his companion to the side of the wood furthest from the house, they sat down and began to talk. After the first questions as to the health of Harry's father had been answered, Jacob went on: "We saw by the dispatch of Cromwell to Parliament that the sole survivors of the sack of Drogheda, being one officer, Colonel Furness, a noted malignant, and thirty-five soldiers, had been sent in slavery to the Bermudas. So, of course, we made up our minds to come and look after you. Through Master Fleming I obtained letters, introducing to the governor the worshipful Grace-be-to-the-Lord Hobson and Jeremiah Perkins, who desired to buy an estate in the Bermudas. So hither we came, William Long and I; and now, Harry, what do you advise to be done? I find that the ships which leave the port are searched before they leave, and that guards are placed over them while they load, to see that none conceal themselves there, and I see not, therefore, how you can well escape in that way. There seem to be no coasting craft here, or we might seize one of these and make for sea."
"No," Harry replied. "They allow none such in the port, for fear that they might be so taken. There are large rowing boats, pulled by twelve slaves, that come to take produce from the plantations farthest from the port round to ships there. But it would be madness to trust ourselves to sea in one of these. We should either die of hunger and thirst, or be picked up again by their cruisers. The only way would be to seize a ship."
"That is what William Long and I have been thinking of," Jacob said. "But there is a shrewd watch kept up, and the ships are moored under the guns of the battery. We passed, on our way hither, a bark bringing a number of prisoners taken at Waterford. She is a slow sailer, and, by the calculations of our captain, will not arrive here for some days yet."
"If we could intercept her," Harry said thoughtfully, "we might, with the aid of the prisoners, overcome the guard, and then turning her head, sail for Holland."
"That might be done," Jacob assented, "if you have force enough."
"I can bring forty men," Harry answered. "There are eight here, and we have communication with those in the neighboring plantations, who are ready to join me in any enterprise. That should be enough."
"It is worth trying," Jacob said. "I will hire a rowboat, as if to bring round a cargo of sugar from this plantation to the port. I will station a man on the highest point of the hills to give me notice when a sail is in sight. He may see it thence forty miles away. The winds are light and baffling, and she will make slow progress, and may bring up outside the port that night, but assuredly will not enter until next morning. The instant I know it is in sight I will ride over here, and William Long will start with the barge from the port. When you see me come, do you send round word to the others to meet at midnight on the beach, where you will see the boat drawn up. Can you let your friends know speedily?"
"Yes," Harry replied. "My signal was to have been given at daybreak, but I will send round word of the change of hour, and that if, when they are locked up for the night, they see a fire burning on the point agreed, they are to meet on the shore at midnight. Tell William Long to haul the boat up, and let the rowers go to sleep on the shore. We will seize them noiselessly. Then we will row along the shore till off the port, and at first daybreak out to the ship if she be at anchor, or away to meet her if she be not yet come. They will think that we bear a message from the port."
After some further discussion of details the friends separated, and the next day Mike sent round by the negroes the news of the change of plans. Two days later Jacob rode up to the plantation. He had upon the first occasion told Stebbings that the sum he asked for the estate seemed to him too high, but that he would return to talk it over with him, after he had seen other properties. Immediately upon his arrival, which happened just as the slaves returned from work, Mike sent off one of the negro boys, who had already collected a pile of brushwood on the beacon hill. Half an hour later a bright flame shone out on its summit.
"I wonder what that means?" the planter, who was sitting at dinner in his veranda with Jacob, said angrily.
"It looks like a signal fire," Jacob remarked calmly. "I have heard that they are sometimes lit on the seacoast of England as a signal to smugglers."
"There are no smugglers here," the planter said, "nor any cause for such a signal."
He clapped his hands, and ordered the black slave who answered to tell the overseer to take two of the guards, and at once proceed to the fire, and examine its cause. After dinner was over the planter went out to the slave huts. All the white men were sitting or lying in the open air, enjoying the rest after their labor. The negroes were singing or working in their garden plots, The list was called over, and all found to be present.
"I expect," the planter said, "that it is only a silly freak of some of these black fellows to cause uneasiness. It can mean nothing, for the garrison and militia could put down any rising without difficulty and there is no hope of escape. In a week we could search every possible hiding-place in the island."
"Yes, that is an advantage which you have over the planters in Virginia, to which place I hear our Scottish brethren have sent large numbers of the malignants. There are great woods stretching no man knoweth how far inland, and inhabited by fierce tribes of Indians, among whom those who escape find refuge."
That night when all was still Harry Furness and his seven comrades crept through the opening in the hut. In the grove they were joined by Jacob. They then made their way to the seashore, where they saw lying a large shallop, drawn partly up on the beach. A man was sitting in her, while many other dark figures lay stretched on the sand near. Harry and his party moved in that direction, and found that the men from two of the other plantations had already arrived. A few minutes later the other two parties arrived. The whole body advanced noiselessly along the shore, and seized and gagged the sleepers without the least difficulty or noise. These were bound with ropes from the boat, and laid down one by one on the sand, at a distance from each other.
| {
"id": "11565"
} |
19 | A SEA FIGHT. | The instant the rowers were secured Harry Furness embraced his faithful follower William Long. He had learned from Jacob that the ship had appeared in sight about two in the afternoon, and that it was not thought likely by the sailors of the port that she would reach it until the breeze sprang up in the morning, although she might get within a distance of five or six miles. The whole party had, in concurrence with Harry's orders, brought with them their hoes, which were the only weapons that were attainable. It was agreed that their best course would be to row along the shore until near the lights of the port, then to row out and lay on their oars half a mile beyond the entrance, where, as it was a starlight night, they would assuredly see the ship if she had come to anchor. As soon as the first dawn commenced they were to row out and meet the ship. Wrappings of cloth were fastened round the rowlocks to prevent noise, twelve men took the oars, the boat was shoved down into the sea, and they started on their voyage. The boat rowed but slowly, and it was, Harry judged, past three o'clock when they reached the point they had fixed on off the mouth of the harbor. No ship was visible outside the port, although there was sufficient light to have seen its masts had it been there.
"We had better go another half-mile further out," he said. "Should they take it into their heads on shore, when they see us, to send a fast boat out to inquire what we are doing, it might overtake us before we could reach the ship."
An hour after they had ceased rowing a faint streak of daylight appeared in the west, and a ship could be seen about three miles seaward, while the shore was nearly that distance behind them, for they had been deceived by the darkness, and were much further out than they had thought.
"It is all the better," Harry said. "It must be some time before they think of sending a boat after us, and we shall reach the ship before it can overtake us."
As soon as it became broad daylight Harry took one of the oars himself, and all save the twelve rowers, and Jacob and William Long who sat in the stern, lay down in the bottom of the boat, where some pieces of matting, used for covering cargo, were thrown over them. There was not as yet a breath of wind, and the ship's sails hung idly against the masts. After three-quarters of an hour's hard rowing the barge approached her side. There were only a few figures on the deck.
"Are you the captain of this vessel?" Jacob asked one who seemed to him of that condition.
"Ay, ay," the sailor said. "What is the news?"
"I have come off from the island," Jacob answered, "by orders of his worshipful the governor, to warn you that there is an insurrection among the slaves of the island, and to bid you not to anchor outside, or to wait for your papers being examined, but to enter at once."
By this time the boat was alongside, and Jacob climbed on board.
"You have brought some troops with you?" he asked, "They will be wanted."
"Yes, I have eighty men whom I have brought as a reinforcement to the garrison of the island, besides a hundred and fifty prisoners from Waterford, stowed away below the hatches forward. Hullo! why, what is this? Treason!"
As he spoke Harry, followed by the rowers, swarmed on board armed with their hoes. The captain and the men round him were at once knocked down. The sentries over the fore hatchway discharged their muskets, and, with some of the crew stationed there, made aft. But Harry's party had now all joined him on deck. A rush was made, and the decks entirely cleared. A few of the soldiers who came running up through the after hatchway on hearing the tumult and noise of the fight were beaten down and hurled below on those following them, and the hatches were slipped on and secured. Then a triumphant shout of "God and the King!" was raised.
The forehatches were now lifted, and the prisoners invited to come up. They rushed on deck, delighted and bewildered, for it was the first time that they had seen the sun since they left England, having been kept below, where many had died from confinement and bad air, while all were sorely weakened and brought low. Among them were many officers, of whom several were known to Harry--although they had some difficulty in recognizing in the man, bronzed brown by his exposure to the sun and clad in a tattered shirt and breeches--their former comrade, Harry Furness. A search was at once made for arms, and ranged in the passage to the captain's cabin were found twenty muskets for the use of the crew, together with as many boarding pikes and sabers. Ammunition was not wanting. The arms were divided among Harry's band of forty men, and the twenty strongest of those they had rescued. The hoes were given to the remainder.
The captain, who had by this time recovered from the blow dealt him by Harry, was now questioned. He was told that if he would consent with his crew to navigate the vessel to Holland, he should there be allowed to go free with the ship, which it seemed was his own property; but the cargo would be sold as a fair prize, to satisfy the needs of his captors. If he refused, he would be sent with his crew on shore in the barge, and his ship and cargo would alike be lost to him. The captain had no hesitation in accepting the first of these alternatives, as he would be, although no gainer by the voyage, yet no loser either. He told Harry that for himself he had no sympathy with the rulers in London, and that he sorely pitied the prisoners he was bringing over.
The hatch was now a little lifted, and the prisoners below summoned to surrender. This they refused to do. Harry and his men then, with much labor, lowered a four-pounder carronade down the forehatch, and wheeled it to within a few feet of the bulkhead which divided that portion where the prisoners had been confined from the after part. The gun was loaded to the muzzle with grape, and discharged, tearing a hole through the bulkhead and killing and wounding many within. Then the officer in command offered to surrender.
Harry ordered them at once to hand up all their firelocks and other arms through the hatchway, which was again lifted for the purpose. When those on deck had armed themselves with those weapons, the prisoners were ordered to come up, bringing their wounded with them. As they reached the deck they were passed down into the barge, from which all the oars save four had been removed. Six of the soldiers had been killed, and the remainder having entered the barge, where they were stowed as thickly as they could pack, the head rope was dropped, and they were allowed to row away. Besides the eighty muskets of the guard, a store of firelocks, sufficient to arm all on board, was found; these having been intended for the use of the garrison. A gentle breeze had by this time sprung up from the land, and the ship's head was turned seaward.
The boat was but half a mile behind them when it was joined by an eight-oared galley, which had been seen rowing out from the harbor, whence, doubtless, it had been dispatched to inquire into the errand of the boat seen rowing off to the ship. After lying alongside the barge for a minute or two she turned her head, and made back again with all speed.
"You would have done more wisely," the captain said to Harry, "if you had retained the prisoners on board until the second boat came alongside. You could have swamped that, and sent those in it back with the others, who will not reach shore until late this afternoon, for with only four oars they will make no way until the land breeze falls."
"It would have been better--far better"--Harry agreed--"but one does not always think of things at the right time. What ships are there in port, Jacob?"
"There is the vessel I came by and two others," Jacob replied, "all about the same size as this, and mounting each as many guns. You have eight, I see, captain; the one I came out in had ten."
"They will pursue us," the captain said, "you may be sure. It is known that we are not a fast sailer, and I think, sir, you will have to fight for it."
"So be it," Harry said. "There are two hundred of us, and though they might sink the ship, they will assuredly never carry it by boarding. There is not a man here who would not rather die fighting than spend his life in slavery on that island."
The vessel had gone about six miles on her course, when from the topmast the captain announced that the galley had gained the port, now twelve miles distant. "There is a gun," he said, five minutes later. "They have taken the alarm now." He then descended to the deck, leaving a sailor in the tops. Two hours later the latter announced that the topsails of three ships coming out from the harbor were visible.
"We have nigh thirty miles' start," the captain said. "They will not be up to us till to-morrow at midday."
"Do you think it would be any use to try to lose them by altering our course in the night?" Harry asked.
"No," the captain answered. "It is but ten o'clock in the day now. They will be within ten or twelve miles by nightfall, for the wind is stronger near the land than it is here, and with their night glasses they could hardly miss us on a bright starlight night. I am ready to try if you like, for I do not wish to see the ship knocked into matchwood."
After some deliberation it was determined to hold their course, and as night came on it was found that escape would have been out of the question, for the vessels behind had overhauled the Lass of Devon faster than had been anticipated, and were little more than five miles astern. They could be plainly seen after darkness set in, with the night glasses.
"What you must do, captain, is to lay her aboard the first which comes up," Harry said; "even if they have brought all the garrison we shall be far stronger than any one of them taken singly."
During the night the pursuing vessels lessened sail and maintained a position about a mile astern of the chase, evidently intending to attack in the morning. The day spent in the open air, with plenty of the best eating and drinking which could be found in the ship, had greatly reinvigorated the released prisoners, and when at daybreak the vessels behind were seen to be closing up, all were ready for the fight. The enemy, sure that their prey could not escape them, did not fire a shot as they came up in her wake. The two immediately behind were but a cable's length asunder, and evidently meant to engage on either side. Harry ordered the greater portion of men below, leaving only sufficient on deck to fight the guns, to whose use many were well accustomed. The wind was very light, and the ships were scarcely stealing through the water.
"We had better fight them broadside to broadside," Harry said; "but keep on edging down toward the ship to leeward."
The fight began with a heavy fire of musketry from the tops, where, in all three ships, the best marksmen had been posted. Then, when they were abreast of each other, the guns opened fire. The vessels were little more than fifty yards apart. For half an hour the engagement continued without intermission. Both ships of the enemy had brought all their guns over to the sides opposed to the Royalist vessel, and fought eighteen guns to his eight. Fearing to injure each other, both aimed entirely at the hull of their opponent, while Harry's guns were pointed at the masts and rigging. The sides of the Lass of Devon were splintered and broken in all directions, while those of his assailants showed scarcely a shot mark. The fire of his men in the tops--all old soldiers--had been so heavy and deadly that they had killed most of the marksmen in the enemy's tops, and had driven the rest below. All this time the Lass of Devon was raked by the fire of the third vessel which had come up behind her, and raked her fore and aft. At the end of the half-hour the mainmast of the vessel to windward, which had been several times struck, fell with a crash.
"Now, captain, lay her aboard the ship to leeward."
They had already edged down within twenty yards of this ship, and slowly as they were moving through the water, in another three or four minutes the vessels grated together. At Harry's first order the whole of his men had swarmed on deck, pouring in such a fire of musketry that none could stand alive at the enemy's tiller to keep her head away as the Lass of Devon approached. As the vessels touched Harry leaped from the bulwark on to the deck of the enemy, followed by Jacob and his men. The Parliamentary troops had also rushed on deck, and, although inferior in numbers, for they counted but eighty men, they made a sturdy stand. Gradually, however, they were driven back, when an exclamation from Mike, who, as usual, was close to Harry, caused him to look round.
The ship behind had, the moment she perceived the Lass of Devon bearing down upon her consort, crowded on more sail, and was now ranging up on the other side of her. Bidding Jacob press the enemy hard with half his force, Harry, with the remainder, leaped back on to the deck of his own ship, just as the enemy boarded from the other side. The fight was now a desperate one. The vessel which had last arrived bore a hundred of the troops of the garrison, and the numbers were thus nearly equal. The Royalists, however, fought with a greater desperation, for they knew the fate that awaited them if conquered. Gradually they cleared the deck of the Lass of Devon of the enemy, and in turn boarded their opponent. William Long led thirty men into the tops of the Lass of Devon, and poured their fire into the crowded enemy. Every step of the deck was fiercely contested, but at last the Roundheads gave way. Some threw down their arms and called for quarter, others ran below. The Royalists, with shouts of "Remember Drogheda!" fell upon them, and many of those who had surrendered were cut down before Harry could arrest the slaughter.
A loud cheer announced the victory, and the men in the other ship, who had hitherto, although with difficulty, made front against the attacks of Jacob and his men, now lost heart and ran below. The wind had by this time entirely dropped, but battening the prisoners below, Harry set his men to thrust the ships past one another, until they were sufficiently in line for their guns to be brought to bear upon the third enemy. Crippled as she was by the loss of her mast, she immediately hauled down her colors, and the victory was complete.
The prisoners were brought on deck and disarmed. Harry found that the boats of the four ships would carry two hundred men closely packed, and but a hundred and eighty of the two hundred and fifty troops who had sailed in pursuit remained alive. These, with sufficient provisions and water to last for three days, were made to take their places in the boats, and told to row back to the island, which they should be able to regain in two days at the utmost. The crews of the captured ships were willing enough to obey the orders of their captors, for the sailors had in general but little sympathy with the doings of Parliament. Harry had lost in killed and wounded forty-two men, and the rest he divided between the four ships, giving about thirty-five men to each. He himself, with Jacob, William Long, and Mike, remained on board the Lass of Devon, officers being placed in command of the troops on board the other ships, which were ordered to sail in company with her. Twenty-four hours were spent in getting a jury-mast set in place of that which had been shot away. When this was completed the four ships hoisted their canvas and sailed together for Holland.
They met with no adventure until near the mouth of the English Channel, when one morning a fleet of eight ships was perceived. The captain of the Lass of Devon at once pronounced them to be ships of war, and their rate of sailing speedily convinced Harry that there was no chance of escape. Against such odds resistance was useless, and the other ships were signaled to lower their topsails in answer to the gun which the leading ship of the squadron fired. Anticipating a return to captivity, if not instant death, all on board watched the approaching men-of-war. Presently these, when close at hand, brought up into the wind, and a boat was lowered. It rowed rapidly to the Lass of Devon, which lay somewhat the nearest to them. Harry stood on the quarter-deck ready to surrender his sword. The boat came alongside, an officer leaped on deck and advanced toward him.
Harry could scarce believe his eyes; this gallant, in the gay dress of a cavalier officer, could be no follower of Cromwell. The officer paused and gazed in astonishment at Harry. The recognition was mutual, and the words "Furness" and "Elphinstone" broke from their lips.
"Why, Elphinstone, what squadron is that?"
"Prince Rupert's, to be sure," the officer said.
"What! did you take us for the Roundhead fleet?"
Harry made no reply, but taking off his hat, shouted to his men, "It is the Royalist fleet. Three cheers for Prince Rupert."
A cheer of joy burst from the men, caught up and re-echoed by the crews of the other ships. Harry led the officer into his cabin, and rapidly explained to him the circumstances which had taken place; ten minutes later, entering a boat, he rowed off to the flagship.
"Why! Harry Furness!" exclaimed Prince Rupert, "whither do you spring from? I heard of you last as being sent to slave in the Bermudas, and methought, old friend, that you would stand the heat better than most, since you had served such a sharp apprenticeship with me in that oven you wot of. And now tell me how is it that you have got free, and that I find you sailing here with four ships?"
Harry related his adventure. When he had finished Prince Rupert said: "I envy you, Furness, in that you have three faithful friends. One is as much as most men could even hope for, whereas you have three, who each seem willing to go through fire and water for you. They do remind me of the wonderful servants of whom my old nurse used to tell me as a child. They were given by a fairy to some fortunate prince, and whenever he got into sore straits were ready to do the most impossible things to free him from them. Now you must take up your quarters here until we reach Holland, whither I am on the point of sailing. We have picked up several fat prizes, which I have sent to Italy to sell, to pay the wages of my men, for his gracious majesty's exchequer is of the emptiest. But I hear that Blake is about to put to sea with the ships of the Parliament, and I care not to risk my fleet, for they will be needed to escort his majesty to Scotland ere long."
"Are the Scots then again inclined to his majesty's cause? Were I King Charles, I would not trust myself to them," Harry said. "They sold his father, and would sell him--at least Argyll and the knaves with him would do so."
"I like not these cold, calculating men of the north, myself," Prince Rupert said, "and trust them as little. Nor would my cousin venture himself again among them, if he took my advice. His majesty, however, is no more given to the taking of advice than was his father before him, unless it be of Buckingham and Wilmot, and other dissolute young lords, whose counsel and company are alike evil for him."
The same afternoon the fleet sailed for Holland, the four merchantmen accompanying it. Upon their arrival there Harry sold the three ships which he had taken, together with such cargo as was found in their holds. He sold also the cargo of the Lass of Devon, leaving the ship itself, as he had promised, to the captain, its owner, and making him and the sailors a handsome present for the way they stood by him and worked the ship during the action. The rest of the proceeds he divided between the officers and men who had sailed with him, and finding that these were ready still to share his fortunes, he formed them into a regiment for the service of the king, enlisting another hundred Royalists, whom he found there well-nigh starving, in his ranks.
It was at the end of April, 1650, that Harry reached Hamburg, and a month later came the news of the defeat and death of the Earl of Montrose. He had two months before sailed from Hamburg to the Orkneys, where he had landed with a thousand men. Crossing to the mainland he had marched down into Sunderland. There he had met a body of cavalry under Colonel Strachan, in a pass in the parish of Kincardine, now called Craigchonichan, or the Rock of Lamentation. The recruits he had raised in Orkney and the north fled at once. The Scotch and Germans he had brought with him fought bravely, but without effect, and were utterly defeated, scattering in all directions. Montrose wandered for many days in disguise, but was at last captured, and was brought to Edinburgh with every indignity. He was condemned to death by the Covenanters, and executed. So nobly did he bear himself at his death that the very indignities with which Argyll and his minions loaded him, in order to make him an object of derision to the people, failed in their object, and even those who hated him most were yet struck with pity and admiration at his noble aspect and bearing. Argyll stood at a balcony to see him pass, and Montrose foretold a similar fate for this double-dyed traitor, a prediction which was afterward fulfilled. Harry deeply regretted the loss of this gallant and chivalrous gentleman.
| {
"id": "11565"
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20 | WITH THE SCOTCH ARMY. | While trying and executing Montrose for loyalty to the king, the Scots were themselves negotiating with Charles, commissioners having come over to Breda, where he was living, for the purpose. They insisted upon his swearing to be faithful to the Covenant, to his submitting himself to the advice of the Parliament and Church, and to his promising never to permit the exercise of the Catholic religion in any part of his dominions. Charles agreed to everything demanded of him, having all the time no intention whatever of keeping his promises. While he was swearing to observe everything the Scots asked of him, he was writing to Ormonde to tell him that he was to mind nothing he heard as to his agreement with the Scots, for that he would do all the Irish required. Charles, indeed, although but a young man of twenty, was as full of duplicity and faithlessness as his father, without possessing any of the virtues of that unfortunate king, and the older and wiser men among his followers were alienated by his dissolute conduct, and by the manner in which he gave himself up to the reckless counsels of men like Buckingham and Wilmot.
Harry heard with deep regret the many stories current of the evil life and ways of the young king. Had it not been for the deadly hatred which he felt to Cromwell and the Puritans for the murder of Sir Arthur Ashton, and the rest of the garrison and people of Drogheda, in cold blood, he would have retired altogether from the strife, and would have entered one of the continental armies, in which many Royalist refugees had already taken service. He determined, however, that he would join in this one expedition, and that if it failed he would take no further part in civil wars in England, but wait for the time, however distant, when, as he doubted not, the people of England would tire of the hard rule of the men of the army and conventicle, and would, with open arms, welcome the return of their sovereign.
Early in June the king sailed for Scotland, accompanied by the regiment which Harry had raised, and a few hundred other troops. He landed there on the 16th. The English Parliament at once appointed Cromwell captain-general and commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and to be raised within the commonwealth of England. A few days later he left London, and on the 23d of June entered Scotland with sixteen thousand men. King Charles, to whom Harry had been presented by Prince Rupert as one of his father's most gallant and faithful soldiers, received him at first with great cordiality. As soon as he found, however, that this young colonel was in no way inclined to join in his dissipations, that his face was stern and set when light talk or sneers against religion were uttered by the king's companions, Charles grew cold to him, and Harry was glad to be relieved from all personal attendance upon him, and to devote himself solely to his military duties. Upon landing in Scotland, Harry, with his regiment, was encamped in the valley between Edinburgh Castle and the high hill called Arthur's Seat. A few days after his arrival he, with Jacob, who was now raised to the rank of major, and William Long, who was one of his lieutenants, entered the palace of Holyrood, where the king's court was held. Here were gathered a motley assembly. A few English Cavaliers, many loyal Scotch nobles and gentlemen, and a large number of somber men of the Covenant. Next to Charles stood a tall man, whom Harry instantly recognized. Argyll, for it was he, stared fixedly at the young colonel, who returned his look with one as cold and haughty.
"This is Colonel Furness, my lord earl," the young king said. "One of my father's bravest and most devoted followers."
"I seem to have met the gentleman before," the earl said.
"You have," Harry replied coldly. "At that time the Earl of Argyll threatened to torture me into betraying the secrets of his majesty, and would, I doubt not, have carried his threat into effect had I not escaped from his hands. The times have changed, and the Earl of Argyll now stands beside his king, but I, sir, have not forgotten the past so easily." So saying, with a deep bow to the king, Harry passed on.
"Harry," whispered Donald Leslie, a young Scotch officer who had joined the ranks of his regiment as captain at Hamburg, "hitherto I have thought you the wisest and most discreet of men. I cannot say as much now. It would have been safer to walk into a den of lions than to insult the old red fox. He was never known to forgive, and those who offend him have a short life. Beware, colonel, for henceforth you carry your life in your hand."
"My sword is as sharp as his," Harry laughed, as they issued into the open air.
"I doubt it not," Leslie said, "but it is with daggers rather than swords that Argyll fights, and with secret plottings more than either. Edinburgh swarms with Campbells, any one of whom would think no more of running you through at his lord's command than he would of killing a rat. Mark my words, before a week is out you will be engaged in some broil or other."
Jacob and William Long heard with great disquietude the remarks of the young Scotch officer, which they knew sufficient of Argyll to be aware were perfectly true. They resolved that they would maintain a careful watch over their friend, and that night they charged Mike, who was now a tall, active young fellow of seventeen, to keep the strictest watch as he followed his master in the streets, and to have pistol and sword always in readiness.
Two days later Harry had the first evidence of the truth of Leslie's prediction. He was walking up the High Street, accompanied by Jacob, while Leslie and two or three of his officers followed a short distance behind, when three or four Scotch nobles were seen approaching. One of these, Colonel Campbell, of Arrain, a tall and powerful figure, in passing jostled roughly against Harry.
"S'death, sir!" he exclaimed. "Do you think that you are in England, that you can take up the whole of the road?"
"I'm as much entitled to the road as yourself," Harry said hotly; "you purposely jostled me."
"Well, sir, and what if I did?" Colonel Campbell replied. "If you don't like it you have your remedy," and he touched his sword significantly.
"I will meet you, sir," Harry said, "in an hour's time at the foot of the Castlehill."
The colonel nodded, and accompanied by his kinsmen strode on.
"Jacob, you and Leslie will act with me?" Harry asked.
"Willingly enough," Leslie replied. "But it is a bad business. Campbell has the name of being one of the best swordsmen in the Scottish army. Of course he has been set on to attack you."
"I have been fighting," Harry said, "for the last ten years, and was not a bad swordsman when I began. Unless I mistake, I am as powerful a man as Colonel Campbell, and I fear not him or any man."
At the time appointed Harry, accompanied by his seconds, was upon the ground, where five minutes later they were joined by Colonel Campbell, with two of his kinsmen. While the principals divested themselves of their cloaks and doublets, the seconds compared their swords. They were of entirely different fashion, Harry's being long and straight with sharp edges, while Colonel Campbell's was a basket-hilted sword, also straight and double edged, and even larger and much heavier than Harry's; each had brought one of similar make and size to his own. Some conversation took place as to the weapons which should be used.
"I cannot fight with a plaything like that," Colonel Campbell said roughly.
"And I object equally," Harry puts in calmly, "to wield a heavier weapon than that to which I am accustomed. But I am quite content to fight with my own against that of Colonel Campbell."
The seconds at first on both sides objected to this, arguing that the weight and length of Campbell's weapon would give him an unfair advantage. Harry, however, was firm.
"A man fights better," he said, "with the sword to which he is used. Mine is of tried temper, and I have no fear of its breaking." Harry had good reason for faith in his weapon. It was a long, straight blade of Toledo steel, which he had purchased for a considerable sum from a Spanish Jew in Hamburg. Colonel Campbell put an end to the argument by roughly saying that he wanted no more talk, and that if Colonel Furness meant fighting he had better take up his ground. This had already been marked out, and Harry immediately stood on the defensive.
In a moment the swords met. Colonel Campbell at once attacked furiously, trying to beat down Harry's guard by sheer strength and the weight of his weapon. The Englishman, however, was to the full as powerful a man, and his muscles from long usage were like cords of steel. His blade met the sweeping blows of the Scotchman firmly and steadily, while his point over and over again menaced the breast of his adversary, who several times only saved himself by springing back beyond it. Harry's seconds saw from the first that the issue was not doubtful. In a contest between the edge and the point, the latter always wins if strength and skill be equal, and in this case, while in point of strength the combatants were fairly matched, Harry was more skilled in the use of his weapon, whose lightness, combined with its strength, added to his advantage. The fight lasted but five minutes. Twice Harry's sword drew blood, and at the third thrust he ran his adversary through under the shoulder. The latter dropped his sword, with a curse.
"I have spared your life, Colonel Campbell," Harry said. "It was at my mercy a dozen times, but I wished not to kill you. You forced this quarrel upon me at the bidding of another, and against you I had no animosity. Farewell, sir. I trust that ere the day of battle you will be able to use your sword again in the service of the king."
So saying, Harry resumed his doublet and cloak, and, accompanied by his seconds, returned to his camp, leaving Campbell, furious with pain and disappointment, to be conveyed home by his friends.
"So far, so good, Harry," Captain Leslie said. "The attempt will, you will find, be a more serious one. Argyll will not try fair means again. But beware how you go out at night."
The duel made a good deal of talk, and Argyll attempted to induce the king to take the matter up, and to punish Harry for his share in it. But the young king, although obliged to listen every day to the long sermons and admonitions of the Covenanters, was heartily sick of them already and answered Argyll lightly that, so far as he had heard of the circumstances, Colonel Campbell was wholly to blame. "And, indeed," added the king, "from what I have heard, the conduct of your kinsman was so wantonly insulting that men say he must have been provoked thereto by others, as the two officers appear to have been strangers until the moment when their quarrel arose."
The earl grew paler than usual, and pressed his thin lips tightly together.
"I know of no reason," he said, "why Colonel Campbell should have engaged wantonly in a quarrel with this English officer."
"No!" Charles said innocently. "And if you do not, my lord, I know of no one that does. Colonel Furness is an officer who is somewhat staid and severe for his years, and who, in sooth, stands somewhat aloof from me, and cares not for the merry jests of Buckingham; but he is a gallant soldier. He has risked his life over and over again in the cause of my sainted father, and tried his utmost to save him, both at Carisbrook and Whitehall. Any one who plots against him is no friend of mine." The young king spoke with a dignity and sternness which were not common to him, and Argyll, biting his lips, felt a deadlier enmity than ever toward the man who had brought this reproof upon his shoulders.
The following day Harry received orders from General Leslie, who commanded the royal forces, to march down toward the border, accompanied by two regiments of horse. He was to devastate the country and to fall back gradually before Cromwell's advance, the cavalry harassing him closely, but avoiding any serious conflict with the Roundhead horse. The whole party were under the command of Colonel Macleod.
"I am heartily glad to be on the move, Jacob," Harry said, on the evening before starting. "It is not pleasant to know that one is in constant danger of being attacked whenever one goes abroad. Once away from Edinburgh one may hope to be beyond the power of Argyll."
"I would not be too sure of that," Donald Leslie said. "A hound on the track of a deer is not more sure or untiring than is Argyll when he hunts down a foe. Be warned by me, and never relax a precaution so long as you are on Scottish ground. There are men who whisper that even now, when he stands by the side of the king, Argyll is in communication with Cromwell. Trust me, if he can do you an ill turn, he will."
Upon the following morning the detachment marched, with flags flying and drums beating, and the king himself rode down to see them depart. Argyll was with him, and the king, as if in bravado of the formidable earl, waved his hand to Harry, and said: "Good-by, my grave colonel. Take care of yourself, and do not spare my enemies as you spared my friend."
Harry doffed his plumed hat, and rode on at the head of his regiment. The force marched rapidly, for it was known that Cromwell was within a few days of Berwick. So fast did they travel that in three days they were near the border. Then they began the work which they had been ordered to carry out. Every head of cattle was driven up the country, and the inhabitants were ordered to load as much of their stores of grain in wagons as these would hold, and to destroy the rest. The force under Colonel Macleod saw that these orders were carried out, and when, on the 14th of July, Cromwell crossed the Tweed, he found the whole country bare of all provision for his troops. In vain his cavalry made forays to a distance from the coast. Harry's foot opposed them at every defensible point, while the cavalry hung upon their skirts. In vain the Roundheads tried to charge by them. The Scotch cavalry, in obedience to orders, avoided a contest, and day after day Cromwell's troopers had to return empty handed, losing many of their men by the fire of Harry's infantry. Thus the army of Cromwell was obliged to advance slowly upon the line of coast, drawing their supplies wholly from the fleet which accompanied it.
One evening Colonel Macleod rode up to the cottage where Harry was quartered for the night.
"I am going to beat up Oliver's camp to-night," he said. "Do you cover the retreat with your men at the ford of the river. If I can get for five minutes in his camp I will read the Roundheads a lesson, and maybe spike some of his cannon. If I could catch Cromwell himself it would be as good as a great victory."
After nightfall the force approached the enemy's camp; at the ford the infantry halted, the cavalry crossing and continuing their way to the camp, about a mile distant. An hour passed without any sound being heard. At length a sound of distant shouts, mingled with the reports of firearms, fell upon the ear.
"Macleod is among them now," Donald Leslie exclaimed. "I would I wore with him."
"You will have your turn presently," Harry replied. "A thousand horse may do a good deal of damage in a sudden attack, but they must fall back as soon as the Roundheads rally."
For five or six minutes the distant tumult continued. Then it ceased almost as suddenly as it had begun. A minute or two later there was a deep, muffled sound.
"Here come the horse," Jacob said.
The infantry had already been placed along the bank of the river on each side of the ford, leaving the way clear in the center for the passage of the cavalry. It was not long before they arrived on the opposite bank, and dashed at full speed across the river. Colonel Macleod rode at their rear.
"The Ironsides are just behind," he said to Harry. "Let your men shoot sharp and straight as they try to cross. We will charge them as they reach the bank."
A minute later, and the close files of the Roundhead cavalry could be seen approaching, the moonlight glinting on steel cap, breastpiece, and sword.
"Steady, lads!" Harry shouted. "Do not fire a shot till they enter the river. Then keep up a steady fire on the head of the column."
The Roundheads halted when they reached the river, and formed rapidly into a column, twelve abreast, for the ford was no wider. As they entered the stream a heavy musketry fire opened suddenly upon them. Men and horses went down, floating away in the river. In spite of their losses the cavalry pressed on, and though numbers fell, gained the opposite bank. Then arose the Royalist cry "King and Covenant!" and the Scottish horse swept down. The head of the column was shattered by the charge, but the Ironsides still pressed on, and breaking the center of the Scottish horse, poured across the river.
Harry had already given his orders to Jacob, who commanded the left wing of the infantry, and the regiment, drawing up on both flanks of the column of Ironsides, poured so heavy a fire upon them, while the cavalry of Macleod again charged them in front, that the column was broken, and still fighting sturdily, fell back again across the river. The moment they did so a heavy fire of musketry opened from the further bank.
"Their infantry are up, Colonel Furness," Macleod said. "Draw off your men in good order. I will cover the retreat. We have done enough for to-night."
Getting his regiment together, Harry ordered them to retire at the double, keeping their formation as they went. The Roundhead cavalry again crossed the river, and several times charged the Scotch horse. Twice they succeeded in breaking through, but Harry, facing his men round, received them pike in hand, the musketeers in rear keeping up so hot a fire over the shoulders of the pikemen that the Ironsides drew rein before reaching them, and presently fell back, leaving the party to retire without further pursuit.
"I as nearly as possible caught Cromwell," Colonel Macleod said, riding up to Harry. "We got confused among the tents and ropes, or should have had him. We entered his tent, but the bird had flown. We cut down some scores of his infantry, and spiked four guns, I have not lost twenty men, and his cavalry must have lost at least a hundred from your fire, besides the damage I did at their camp."
Obtaining a stock of supplies sufficient for some days from the ships at Dunbar, Cromwell advanced to Musselburgh, within striking distance of Edinburgh. Leslie had strongly posted his army in intrenched lines extending from Edinburgh to Leith, a distance of two miles. Colonel Macleod with his detachment rejoined the army on the same day that Cromwell reached Musselburgh. Upon the day after the arrival of the English there was a sharp cavalry fight, and Cromwell would fain have tempted the Scotch army to engage beyond their lines. But Leslie was not to be drawn. He knew that if he could maintain himself in his intrenchments the English must fall back, as they had the sea behind them and on their right, Edinburgh in front of them, and a devastated country on their left. At the urgent request of Cromwell the Parliament strained every nerve to send up provisions by ships, and so enabled him to remain before Edinburgh for a month.
A few days after his arrival Harry received orders to take a hundred and fifty men of his regiment, and to post himself at Kirkglen, which blocked a road by which it was thought Cromwell might send foraging parties westward. Harry asked that a detachment of cavalry might accompany him, but the request was refused. Kirkglen stood fifteen miles south of Edinburgh, and somewhat to its west. Harry left Jacob to command the main body of the regiment, and took with him the companies of Donald Leslie and Hugh Grahame, in the latter of which William Long was lieutenant. They sallied out from the western side of the camp at daybreak.
"I like not this expedition, Colonel Furness," Donald Leslie said. "The refusal to send cavalry with us is strange. Methinks I see the finger of that crafty fox Argyll in the pie. His faithfulness to the cause is more and more doubted, though none dare wag a tongue against him, and if it be true that he is in communication with Cromwell, we shall have the Roundheads, horse and foot, down upon us."
"There is a castle there, is there not," Harry asked, "which we might occupy?"
"Assuredly there is," Leslie replied. "It is the hold of Alan Campbell, a cousin of the man you pinked. It is that which adds to my suspicion. You will see, unless I am greatly mistaken, that he will not admit us."
Such, indeed, proved to be the case. Upon their arrival at Kirkglen, Leslie went in Harry's name to demand admittance to the castle for the royal troops, but Campbell replied that he had received no orders to that effect, and that it would greatly incommode him to quarter so large a number of men there. He said, however, that he would willingly entertain Colonel Furness and his officers. Leslie brought back the message, strongly urging Harry on no account to enter the castle and put himself in the hands of the Campbells. Harry said that even had he no cause to doubt the welcome he might receive at the castle, he should in no case separate himself from his men, when he might be at any moment attacked.
"It is a rough piece of country between this and Cromwell's post," Leslie said, "and he would have difficulty in finding his way hither. There is more than one broad morass to be crossed, and without a guide he would scarce attempt it. It is for this reason that he is so unlikely to send out foraging parties in this direction. It was this reflection which caused me to wonder why we should be ordered hither."
"Mike," Harry said, "you have heard what Captain Leslie says. Do you keep watch to-night near the castle gate, and let me know whether any leave it; and in which direction they go. I will place a man behind to watch the postern. If treachery is meditated, Campbell will send news of our coming to Cromwell."
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} |
21 | THE PATH ACROSS THE MORASS. | Mike, when night fell, moved away toward the castle, which lay about a quarter of a mile from the village. Approaching to within fifty yards of the gate, he sat down to watch. About eleven o'clock he heard the creak of the gate, and presently was startled by seeing two horsemen ride past him. "They must have muffled their horses' feet," he said to himself. "They are up to no good. I wish there had only been one of them." Mike slipped off his shoes and started in pursuit, keeping just far enough behind the horsemen to enable him to observe the outline of their figures. For half a mile they proceeded quietly. Then they stopped, dismounted, removed the cloths from their horses' feet, and remounting rode forward at a gallop. Mike's old exercise as a runner now rendered him good service. He could already tell, by the direction which the horsemen were taking, that they were bearing to the east of Edinburgh, but he resolved to follow as far as possible in order to see exactly whither they went. The road, or rather track, lay across a moorland country. The ground was often deep and quaggy, and the horsemen several times checked their speed, and went at a slow walk, one advancing on foot along the track to guide the way. These halts allowed breathing time for Mike, who found it hard work to keep near them when going at full speed. At last, after riding for an hour, the horsemen halted at a solitary house on the moorland, Here several horses, held by troopers, were standing. Mike crept round to the back of the house, and looked in at the window. He saw two English officers sitting by a fire, while a light burned on a table. Mike at once recognized in one of them the dreaded General Cromwell, whom he had seen at Drogheda.
"What a fool I was," he muttered to himself, "to have come without my pistol. I would have shot him as he sits, and so wiped out Drogheda."
At the moment the door opened, and a trooper in Scotch uniform entered. "I have brought this letter," he said, "from Alan Campbell."
The general took the letter and opened it. "Campbell promises," he said to the other officer, "to open fire upon the detachment in the village with the guns of the castle as soon as we attack. One of the men who has brought this will remain here and guide our troops across the morass. He suggests that two hundred foot and as many horse should be here at eight to-morrow evening. All he stipulates for is that Colonel Furness, the Royalist who commands the enemy's detachment, shall be given over to him, he having, it seems, some enmity with Argyll. Furness? ah, that is the officer whom I sent to the Bermudas from Drogheda. We had advices of his having got away and captured a ship with other prisoners on board. A bold fellow, and a good officer, but all the more dangerous. Let Campbell do with him as he likes."
The other officer drew out an inkhorn and wrote, at Cromwell's dictation, his adherence to the terms offered by Alan Campbell. Cromwell signed the paper, and handed it to the messenger. Then the English general and his escort mounted and rode off. Campbell's retainers sat for half an hour drinking together. Then they came to the door. One mounted, and saying to the other, "I would rather have twenty-four hours' sleep such as you have before you, than have to ride back to Kirkglen to-night; the mist is setting in thickly," rode off into the darkness.
Mike kept close to him, until at last the man dismounted to follow the track where the morass was most dangerous. In an instant Mike sprang upon him and buried his dagger in his body. Without a cry the trooper fell. Mike felt in his doublet for Cromwell's letter. Placing this in his breast, he went a few paces from the path where he found that he sunk to his knees, the water being some inches deep over the bog. Then he returned, lifted the body of the trooper, carried it as far into the bog as he dared venture, and then dropped it. He placed his foot on the iron breastpiece, and pressed until the body sank in the soft ooze, and the water completely covered it. Then he went back to the horse, and taking the reins, followed the track until completely clear of the moorland country, where, mounting, he rode back to Kirkglen, and presented himself to Harry. The latter had, hours before, gone to bed, having posted strong guards around the village. He struck a light and listened to Mike's relation of what he had done, and ended by the production of the document with Cromwell's signature.
"Another debt to the Earl of Argyll," Harry said grimly. "However, although this proves the treachery of his kinsman, it does not convict Argyll himself, although the evidence is strong enough to hang any other man. Now, Leslie, what do you advise? Shall we send and seize the man left at the hut?"
"It is a doubtful question," Leslie answered, after a pause. "When Campbell finds that his messenger does not return before morning, he will like enough send others off to learn the reason why. If they find him gone, Campbell may suspect that his plan has failed and may send warning to Cromwell."
"At any rate," Harry continued, "we need not decide before morning. But at daybreak, Leslie, plant a party of men on the road and stop any horseman riding out. Let the sergeant in charge say only that he has my orders that none are to pass eastward. It would be a natural precaution to take, and when the news comes back to the castle, Campbell will not necessarily know that his scheme has been detected."
The next morning Leslie volunteered to go out with a couple of men and capture the guide, and arraying himself in his clothes, to take his place, and lead the Roundhead troops astray.
"Were the country other than it is," Harry said, "I would accept your offer, my brave Leslie, even though it might entail your death, for it would be difficult for you to slip away. But over such ground there is no need of this. Let the guide lead the Roundhead troops along the path. We will reconnoiter the morass to-day, and when night falls will so post our men as to open a fire on either flank of him as he comes across the track. Not more than four footmen can march abreast, according to what Mike says, and we shall surprise him, instead of he surprising us."
An hour later two horsemen rode out from the castle, but upon reaching the guard Leslie had placed were turned back. They returned to the castle, and a short time afterward a trooper rode down into the village with a note from Alan Campbell, demanding haughtily by what warrant Colonel Furness ventured to interfere with the free passage of his retainers. Harry replied that he had, as a military precaution, stationed guards on the various roads leading toward the enemy's quarter, and that they were ordered to turn back all, whomsoever they might be, who might seek to pass.
Alan Campbell returned a furious answer, that he should sally out with his garrison, and ride where he listed. Harry replied by marching fifty men up to the road leading to the castle, and by sending a message to Alan Campbell that, although he should regret to be obliged to treat him as an enemy, yet that assuredly if he strove by force to break the military rules he had laid down, he should be compelled to fire upon him. Leaving the detachment under charge of Lieutenant Long, and the main body in the village under that of Hugh Grahame, Harry, accompanied by Donald Leslie and Mike, rode off to reconnoiter the morass. They found that it was particularly bad at two points, while between these the ground was firm for a distance of twenty yards on each side of the track. Beyond the swamp was very deep for thirty or forty yards on both sides, and then it was again somewhat firmer.
Harry decided to post twenty-five men behind these quagmires. Their orders would be to remain perfectly quiet until the column, passing the first morass, should have entered the second; then, when Harry, with the main body, opened fire upon them there, they were to commence upon the flanks of the column.
Returning to the camp, Harry sent forty men with shovels, obtained in the village, to dig a trench, twelve feet wide, and as deep as they could get for the water, across the track, at the near side of the morass.
At nightfall, leaving twenty-five men under William Long in front of the castle, with orders to let none issue forth, and to shoot down any who might make the attempt, Harry marched out with the rest of his command. Crossing the ditch which had been dug, he led fifty forward, and posted them, as he had planned with Leslie; with twenty-five, he took up his own station behind the breastwork formed by the earth thrown out from the trench. The remaining fifty he bade advance as far as they safely could into the swamp on either side. Two hours later a dull sound was heard, the occasional clink of arms, and the muffled tread of many feet on the soft ground. The Roundhead infantry, two hundred strong, led the way, followed by their horse, the guide walking with the officer at the head of the column. When it approached within twenty yards of the ditch Harry gave the word, and a flash of fire streamed from the top of the earthwork. At the same moment those on either side opened fire into the flanks of the column, while the fifty men beyond poured their fire into the cavalry in the rear of the column.
For a moment all was confusion. The Roundheads had anticipated no attack, and were taken wholly by surprise. The guide had fallen at the first discharge and all were ignorant of the ground on which they found themselves. They were, however, trained to conflict. Those on the flank of the column endeavored to penetrate the morass, but they immediately sank to the middle, and had much ado to regain the solid track. The head of the column, pouring a volley into their invisible foes, leveled their pikes, and rushed to the assault. A few steps, and they fell into a deep hole, breast high with water, and on whose slippery bottom their feet could scarce find standing. In vain they struggled forward. From front and flank the fire of their enemy smote them. Those who reached the opposite side of the trench were run through with pikes as they strove to climb from it.
For ten minutes the desperate struggle continued, and then, finding the impossibility of storming such a position in the face of foes of whose strength they were ignorant, the Roundhead infantry turned, and in good order marched back, leaving half their number dead behind them. The cavalry in the rear had fared but little better. Finding the ground on either side was firm when the fire opened on their flanks, they faced both ways, and charged. But ere the horses had gone twenty strides they were struggling to their girths in the morass. Their foes kept up a steady fire, at forty yards' distance, into the struggling mass, and before they could extricate themselves and regain the pathway, many leaving their horses behind, a third of their number had fallen. Joined by the beaten infantry, they retired across the track, and made their way back toward their camp.
Leaving a strong guard at the morass to resist further attempts, Harry returned with his force to the village having inflicted a loss of a hundred and fifty upon enemy, while he himself had lost but eight men. He intrenched the position strongly, and remained there unmolested, until a week later he received orders to march back to Edinburgh. The following day he was summoned before King Charles. He found there General Leslie, the Earl of Argyll, Alan Campbell, and several of the leaders of the Covenant.
"What is this I hear of you, Colonel Furness?" the king said. "General Leslie has reported to me that you have inflicted a very heavy defeat upon a rebel force which marched to surprise you. This is good service, and for it I render you my hearty thanks. But, sir, the Earl of Argyll complains to me that you have beleaguered his kinsman, Alan Campbell, in his hold at Kirkglen, and treated him as a prisoner, suffering none to go out or in during your stay there."
"This, sire, is the warranty for my conduct," Harry said, producing the document signed by Cromwell. "This was taken by one of my men from a trooper who had borne a dispatch from Alan Campbell to the enemy. My man watched the interview between him and Cromwell himself, heard the terms of the dispatch, and saw Cromwell write and give this letter to the trooper, whom he afterward slew, and brought me the letter. The other trooper, who acted as guide to the enemy, fell in the attack."
The king took the letter and read it. "My lord," he said, "this is a matter which gravely touches your honor. This is a letter of General Cromwell's in answer to a traitorous communication of your kinsman here. He has offered to betray Colonel Furness and the troops under him to Cromwell, and has sent a guide for the English troops. He stipulates only that Colonel Furness shall be handed over to him to do as he likes with. As it was manifest to me here some time since that you and Colonel Furness are not friends, this touches you nearly."
"I know nothing of it," the earl said. "My kinsman will tell you."
"I do not need his assurances," King Charles said coldly. "He, at least, is proved to be a traitor, and methinks, my lord earl, that the preachers who are so fond of holding forth to me upon the wickedness of my ways might with advantage bestow some of their spare time in conversing with you upon the beauty and godliness of straightforwardness. General Leslie, you will arrest at once, on his leaving our presence, Colonel Alan Campbell, and will cause a court of inquiry to sift this matter to the bottom. And hark you, my lord of Argyll, see you that no more of your kinsmen practice upon the life of my faithful Colonel Furness. This is the third time that he has been in jeopardy at your hands. I am easy, my lord earl, too easy, mayhap, but let no man presume too far upon it. My power is but limited here, but remember the old saying, 'Wise men do not pull the tails of lions' whelps.' The day may come when Charles II. will be a king in power as well as in name. Beware that you presume not too far upon his endurance now." So saying, the king turned from Argyll, and bidding Harry follow him, and tell him the story of the defeat of the English troops, left the earl standing alone, the picture of rage and mortification.
"You had best beware, Master Furness," the king said. "He needs a long spoon they say, who sups with the deil. The Earl of Argyll is the real king of Scotland at present, and it is ill quarreling with him. You have got the best of it in the first three rubbers, but be sure that Argyll will play on till the cards favor him. And if you are once in his power, I would not give a baubee for your life. The proud earl treats me as a master would teach a froward pupil, but I tell you, Master Furness, and I know you are discreet and can be trusted, that as surely as the earl brought Montrose to the block, so surely shall Argyll's head roll on the scaffold, if Charles II. is ever King of England. But I fear for you, Master Furness. I can help you here not at all, and the lecture which, on your behalf, I administered to the earl--and in faith I wonder now at my own courage--will not increase his love for you. You will never be safe as long as you remain in Scotland. What do you say? Will you south and join one or other of the Royalist bodies who are in arms there?"
"Not so, your majesty. With your permission, I will play the game out to the end, although I know that my adversary holds the strongest cards. But even did I wish to leave, it would be as hazardous to do so as to stay here. So long as I am with my regiment I am in safety. I could not gain England by sea, for the Parliament ships bar the way, and did I leave my regiment and go south with only a small party, my chance of crossing the border alive would be but small. No, your majesty, I have the honor to command a king's regiment, and whether against Cromwell in the field, or against Argyll's plots and daggers, I shall do my duty to the end."
When, upon his return to the camp, Harry told his friends the purport of the interview between himself and Argyll, of Alan Campbell being put under arrest and the earl openly reproved by the king, Donald Leslie raised his hands in despair.
"If you get through this, Furness," he said, "I shall for the rest of my life be convinced that you have a charmed existence, and that your good genius is more powerful than the evil one of Argyll. The gossips say that he is in alliance with the evil one himself, and I can well believe them. But I beg you, in all seriousness, to confine yourself to the camp. So long as you are here you are safe. But once beyond its limits your life will not be worth a straw."
Jacob added his entreaties to those of Leslie, and Harry promised that until the decisive battle was over he would keep among his men, unless compelled by duty to appear at court.
Four days afterward a soldier entered Harry's tent, and handed him a missive. It was as follows: "Upon receipt of this, Colonel Furness will proceed to Leith and will board the vessel, the Royalist, which has just arrived from Holland. There he will inspect the newly arrived recruits, who will be attached to his regiment. He will examine the store of arms brought by her, and will report on their state and condition. --David Leslie, commanding his majesty's armies."
The duty was one of mere routine. Harry showed the note to Jacob, and said, "You may as well come with me, Jacob. Your drilling is over for the day, and you can aid me looking through the stores. Mike," he said, "we shall be back to supper. We are only going down to the port." The two officers buckled on their swords, and at once started on foot for the port, which was but half a mile distant. Mike looked anxiously after his master. Since the day when danger had first threatened him he had scarce let him out of his sight, following close to his heels like a faithful dog. His present business seemed assuredly to forbode no danger. Nevertheless, the lad felt restless and anxious when he saw his master depart. A few minutes later he went to William Long's tent. "Master Long," he said, "will you see that my master's servant gets supper in readiness at the usual hour. He has gone down to the port to inspect some recruits just arrived from Holland, by order of General Leslie, and said he would return by supper. I know that it is foolish, but since the affair with Alan Campbell I am never easy when he is not near. In this case, I do not see that there can possibly be any lurking danger. Argyll could not know of his proceeding to the port, nor would he venture to attack him there where the streets swarm with our soldiers. Nevertheless, I would fain go down and assure myself that all is well."
William Long at once promised to look after the supper, and Mike hurried away after Harry and his companion. These had, however, too far a start to be overtaken, and when he reached the wharf he saw a boat rowed by two men, and having two sitters in the stern. It was already some distance from shore, and appeared to be proceeding toward a vessel which lay at anchor several hundred yards further out from the shore than the others.
"Can you tell me," he asked a sailor, "whether that ship lying there is the Royalist?"
"That is the name she goes by to-day," the sailor said, "for as I rowed past her this morning on my way from fishing, I saw the name newly painted on her stern. They have put it on her boat too, which you now see rowing toward her, and which has been lying by the pier all day, in readiness to take out any one who might wish to go off to her."
"But have they changed her name, then?" Mike asked. "What have they been doing that for?"
"She has been called the Covenant for the last two years," the sailor said. "But I suppose Johnny Campbell, her master, thought the other more suited to the times."
The name of the captain at once aroused Mike's uneasiness to the fullest.
"Tell me," he said, "good fellow, did that ship arrive this morning from Holland?"
"From Holland!" repeated the sailor. "No. She came down the coast from the north three days ago, with beasts for the army."
Mike stood for a moment thunderstruck. Then, without a word to the sailor, he turned and ran back at full speed through the town up to the camp. At a headlong pace he made his way through the camp until he stopped at the tent of General Leslie. He was about to rush in without ceremony when the sentinel stopped his way.
"Please let me pass," he panted. "I would see the general on a matter of the utmost importance."
The sentries laughed.
"You don't suppose," one of them said, "that the general is to be disturbed by every barefooted boy who wants to speak to him. If you have aught to say, you must speak first to the lieutenant of the guard."
"Every moment is of importance," Mike urged. "It is a matter of life and death. I tell you I must see the general." Then at the top of his voice he began to shout, "Sir David Leslie! Sir David Leslie!"
"Silence there, young varmint, or I will wring thy neck for thee!" exclaimed the soldier, greatly scandalized, seizing Mike and shaking him violently. But the boy continued to shout out at the top of his voice, "Sir David Leslie! Sir David Leslie!"
| {
"id": "11565"
} |
22 | KIDNAPED. | Unable to silence Mike's shouts, the scandalized guards began dragging him roughly from the spot, cuffing him as they went. But the door of the tent opened, and General Leslie appeared.
"What means all this unseemly uproar?" he asked.
"This malapert boy, general, wished to force his way into your tent, and when we stopped him, and told him that he must apply to the lieutenant of the guard if he had aught of importance which he wished to communicate to you, he began to shout like one possessed."
"Loose him," the general said. "Now, varlet, what mean you by this uproar?"
"Forgive me, sir," Mike pleaded, "but I come on an errand which concerns the life of my master, Colonel Furness."
"Come within," the general said briefly, for by this time a crowd had gathered round the tent. "Now," he went on, "what is it you would tell me?"
"I would ask you, sir, whether an hour since you sent an order to my master that he should forthwith go on board the ship Royalist to inspect recruits and stores of arms just arrived from Holland?"
The general looked at him in astonishment.
"I sent no such order," he said. "No ship has arrived from Holland of that or any other name. What story is this that you have got hold of?"
"My master received such an order, sir, for I heard him read it aloud, and he started at once with his major to carry out the order. Knowing, sir, how great, as you are doubtless aware, is the enmity which the Earl of Argyll bears to my master, I followed him to the port, and there learned that the ship called the Royalist had not come from Holland, but is a coaster from the north. I found, moreover, that she was but yesterday named the Royalist, and that she was before known as the Covenant, and that she is commanded by a Campbell. Then it seemed to me that some plot had been laid to kidnap my master, and I ran straight to you to ask you whether you had really ordered him to go on board this ship."
"This must be seen to at once," the general said; for having been present at the scene when Harry produced Cromwell's letter, he knew how deadly was the hatred of the earl for the young colonel. "Without there!" he cried. A soldier entered. "Send the lieutenant of the guard here at once." The soldier disappeared, and the general sat down at his table and hastily wrote an order. "Lieutenant," he said, when the officer entered, "give this letter to Captain Farquharson, and tell him to take his twenty men, and to go on the instant down to the port. There he is to take boat and row out to the ship called the Royalist. He is to arrest the captain and crew, and if he see not there Colonel Furness, let him search the ship from top to bottom. If he find no signs of him, let him bring the captain and six of his men ashore at once."
As soon as he heard the order given Mike, saluting the general, hurried from the tent, and ran at full speed to the camp of Harry's regiment. There he related to Donald Leslie and William Long the suspicious circumstances which had occurred, and the steps which the general had ordered to be taken.
"This is bad news, indeed," Captain Leslie exclaimed; "and I fear that the colonel has fallen into the hands of Argyll's minions. If it be so Farquharson is scarce likely to find the Royalist at anchor when he arrives at the port. Come, Long, let us be stirring. I will hand over the command of the regiment to Grahame till we return. While I am speaking to him pick me out ten trusty men."
He hurried off, and in five minutes was hastening toward the port, with William Long, Mike, and ten men. Such was the speed they made that they reached the quay just at the same time with Captain Farquharson and his men.
Mike gave a cry of despair. The Royalist had disappeared. He ran up to a sailor who was still sitting on an upturned basket, smoking as he had left him before.
"Where is the Royalist?" he exclaimed.
"Halloo! young fellow, are you back again? I thought you had gone off with a bee in your bonnet, so suddenly and quickly did you run. The Royalist? ay, she hoisted her sails two minutes after her boat reached her. I was watching her closely, for I wondered whether she had aught to do with your sudden flight. Methinks that something strange has happened on board, for I saw what seemed to be a scuffle, and certainly the sun shone on the gleam of swords. Then, too, instead of heaving her anchor, she slipped the cable, and a Scotch captain must be in a hurry indeed when he does that."
"Where is she now?" Mike asked.
"Over there, full four miles away, making across the Forth for the northern point of land."
"Is she a fast ship?" Captain Leslie, who had come up, inquired.
"She has the name of being the fastest sailer in these parts."
"There is nothing here would catch her?" Donald Leslie asked. "Would a rowboat have a chance of overtaking her?"
"Not this evening," the sailor said, looking at the sky. "The wind is rising now, and it will blow a gale before morning."
"Tell me, my man," Leslie asked, "and here is a gold piece for your pains, where you think she is likely to put in?"
"That will all depend," the sailor replied, "upon what errand she is bound. I must know that before I can answer you."
Leslie looked at William Long. The latter said: "It were best to tell this honest fellow the facts of the case. Look you, my 'man, the two king's officers who have gone on board are ill friends with the Campbells, and we doubt not that these have kidnaped and carried them off."
"The Campbells are an ill crew to deal with," the sailor said, "and I do not love them myself. If it be as you say, they might be landed either at Anstruther, near which is a hold belonging to Andrew Campbell of Glencoulie, or at St. Andrews, or at Leuchars, a little bay north of that town, whence they might take them to Kilbeg Castle, also held by a Campbell. It is a lonely place ten miles inland, and their friends would be little likely to look for them there. Besides, the Royalist might land them and sail away without any being the wiser, while at the other ports her coming would be surely noticed."
"Think you that we can obtain horses on the other side?"
"You might obtain four or five," the sailor said, "of Tony Galbraith, who keeps the inn there, and who lets horses on hire to those traveling north."
"If a storm comes on," Leslie asked, "which way is it likely to blow, and will the Royalist be like to make the bay you name?
"Ah! that is more than I can tell," the sailor replied. "Methinks 'twill blow from the west. In that case, she might be able to make her way along the shore; she might run into port for shelter; she might be blown out to sea."
"At any rate," Leslie said, "our first step is to cross. Get us a stout sailing boat. Be not sparing of promises."
The man at once went off to a group of sailors, but these at first shook their heads, and looked toward the sky. Its aspect was threatening. The wind was getting up fast, and masses of scud flew rapidly across it. Leslie went up to the group.
"Come, lads," he said, "five pounds if you put us across."
The offer was too tempting to be rejected, and the men hurried down and began to prepare a large sailing boat. Leslie and Lieutenant Long had a hasty consultation, and agreed that, seeing the difficulty there would be in obtaining horses, it was useless to take more than ten men in all. Accordingly, as soon as the boat was in readiness, the two officers, Mike, and seven soldiers took their places in her. The sails were closely reefed, and she at once put out into the Firth. Every minute the wind rose, until, by the time they were half across, it was blowing a gale. The boat was a stout one, but the waves broke freely over her, and four of the soldiers were kept at work baling to throw out the water she took over her bows. Once or twice they thought that she would capsize, so furious were the gusts, but the boatmen were quick and skillful. The sheets were let go and the sails lowered until the force of the squall abated, and at last, after a passage which seemed rapid even to those on board, anxious as they were, she entered the little port.
Hurrying to the inn, they found that six horses were obtainable. These they hired at once. The host said that he could send to some farms, not far distant, and hire four more, but that an hour or so would elapse ere they came. Leslie and William Long had already decided that the prisoners would most probably be taken to Kilbeg Castle, as being more secluded than the others. They now agreed that they themselves with Mike and three soldiers should start at once, to intercept them if possible between the sea and the castle. When the other horses arrived two of the soldiers were to ride with all speed to Anstruther, and two to St. Andrews, and were there to keep sharp watch to see if the Royalist arrived there, and landed aught in the way either of men or goods.
The point to which they were bound lay fully forty miles away. They determined to ride as far as the horses would carry them, and then, if able to obtain no more, to walk forward. Night was already setting in, and a driving rain flew before the gale.
"We shall never be able to keep the road," Leslie said, "Landlord, have you one here who could serve as guide? He must be quick-footed and sure. Our business is urgent, and we are ready to pay well."
A guide was speedily found, a lad on a shaggy pony, who had the day before come down from the north with cattle. While the horses were being prepared the party had taken a hasty supper, and Leslie had seen that each of the soldiers had a tankard of hot spiced wine. So quickly had the arrangements been made that in half an hour after their arrival at the port the party started from the inn. The ride was indeed a rough one. The country was heavy and wild. The rain drenched them to the skin in spite of their thick cloaks, and the wind blew at times with such violence that the horses were fain to stop and stand huddled together facing it to keep their feet. Hour after hour they rode, never getting beyond a walk, so rough was the road; often obliged to pause altogether from the force of the gale. Twice they stopped at inns at quiet villages, knocked up the sleeping hosts, and obtained hot wine for themselves and hot gruel for their horses. Their pace grew slower as the animals became thoroughly knocked up, and at last could not be urged beyond a walk.
At the next village they stopped, and as they found that there was no possibility of obtaining fresh horses, they determined to push forward on foot. It was now four o'clock in the morning, and they had ridden over forty miles. Another guide was obtained, and they set forward. Although they had hurried to the utmost, it was ten o'clock in the morning before they came down upon a valley with a narrow stream which their guide told them fell into the sea, near Leuchars. They were, he said, now within two miles of the castle, the track from which to the sea ran down the valley. The wind was still blowing a gale, but the clouds had broken, and at times the sun streamed out brightly.
"Thank Heaven we are here at last," Donald Leslie said, "for a harder night I have never spent. I think we must be in time."
"I think so," William Long said. "Supposing the Royalist made the bay safely, she would have been there by midnight, but the sea would have been so high that I doubt if they would have launched a boat till morning. It was light by five, but they might wait for the gale to abate a little, and after landing they have eight miles to come. Of course, they might have passed here an hour ago, but a incline to think that they would not land till later, as with this wind blowing off shore, it would be no easy matter to row a boat in its teeth."
The guide saying that there was a cottage a mile further up the valley, he was sent there with instructions to ask whether any one had been seen to pass that morning. After being half an hour absent he returned, saying that there was only an old woman at the hut, and that she had told him she was sure no one had passed there since daybreak. They now followed the stream down the valley until they came to a small wood. Here they lay down to rest, one being placed upon the lookout. Two hours later the sentry awoke them with the news that a party of men were coming up the valley. All were at once upon the alert.
"Thank Heaven," Leslie said, "we have struck the right place. There seem to be ten or twelve of them, of whom two, no doubt, are the prisoners. We shall have no difficulty in overcoming them by a sudden surprise. Capture or kill every man if possible, or we shall have hot work in getting back to Edinburgh."
When the party came nearer it could be seen that it consisted of eight armed men, in the center of whom the two Royalist officers were walking. Their arms were bound to their sides. Leslie arranged that he with Mike and one of the soldiers would at once spring to their aid, as likely enough, directly the attack began, the captors might endeavor to slay their prisoners, to prevent them from being rescued. Mike was instructed to strike no blow, but to devote himself at once to cutting their cords, and placing weapons in their hands.
The surprise was complete. The sailors forming the majority of the party, with two trusty retainers of the earl, who had special charge of the affair, were proceeding carelessly along, having no thought of interruption. So far their plans had succeeded perfectly. The moment the two officers had reached the quay they were addressed by the men sent on shore with the Royalist's boat. Unsuspicious of danger they took their place in it, and therefore missed the opportunity, which they would have had if they had entered any of the other boats, of learning the true character of the Royalist. They had been attacked the instant they gained the deck of the vessel. Harry, who was first, had been knocked down before he had time to put his hand to his sword. Jacob had fought valiantly for a short time, but he too had been knocked senseless by a blow with a capstan bar. They had then been roughly tumbled below, where no further attention had been paid to them. The Royalist had been blown many miles out to sea, and did not make her anchorage until ten o'clock in the morning. Then the hatches were removed, and the prisoners brought on deck.
The inlet was a small one, and contained, only a little fishing village; the prisoners saw the Royalist sail off again, directly they had been placed in the boat. They had from the first moment when they regained consciousness entertained no doubts whatever into whose hands they had fallen, and they felt their position to be desperate. The plan, indeed, had been skillfully laid, and had it not been for Harry reading the order aloud in Mike's presence, there would have been no clew to their disappearance. During the night the young men were too overpowered with the violence of the storm, and the closeness of the atmosphere in the hold, in which they had been thrown, to converse. But as the motion moderated in the morning they had talked over their chances, and pronounced them to be small indeed. Harry, indeed, remembered that Mike had been present when he asked Jacob to accompany him on board ship, but he thought that no uneasiness would be felt until late that night, as it might well be thought that their duties had detained them, and that they had supped on board. The storm might further account for their non-appearance till morning. Then they imagined that inquiry would be made, and that it would be found that the Royalist had sailed. Their captors would then have a start of twenty-four hours, and in such troubled times it was scarce likely that anything would be done. Nor indeed did they see how they could be followed, as the destination of the ship would be entirely unknown. The very fact that they had not been thrown overboard when fairly out at sea was in itself a proof that their captors entertained no fear of pursuit; had they done so, they would have dispatched them at once. The captives felt sure that it was intended to land them, in order that Argyll himself might have the pleasure of taunting them before putting them to death. Against Jacob, indeed, he could have no personal feeling, and it was by accident only that he was a sharer in Harry's fate. But as a witness of what had taken place, his life would assuredly be taken, as well as that of his companion. As they walked along they gathered from the talk of their guards the distance which they had to go, and the place of their destination. They had never heard of Kilbeg Castle, but as they had no enemies save Argyll, they knew that it must belong to one of his clan. They spoke but little on the way. Harry was wondering how the news of his disappearance would be received in the camp, and thinking of the dismay which it would occasion in the minds of Mike and William Long, when suddenly he heard a shout, and on the instant a fierce fight was raging around him.
Although taken completely by surprise, the sailors fought steadily. But two were cut down before they could draw a sword, and the others, outmatched, were driven backward. The leader of the party shouted again and again, "Kill the prisoners," but he and each of his men were too hotly engaged with the adversaries who pressed them, to do more than defend their own lives. In a minute the fray was rendered still more unequal by Harry and Jacob joining in it, and in less than three minutes from its commencement seven of the guards lay dead or dying upon the ground. The other, an active young fellow, had taken to flight early in the fight, and was already beyond reach.
The contest over, there was a delighted greeting between the rescued prisoners and their friends.
"Come," Leslie said, "we have not a moment to lose. That fellow who has escaped will take the news to Kilbeg, and we shall be having its garrison at our heels. He has but three miles to run, and they will beat to horse in a few minutes after he gets there. We must strike across the hills, and had best make a great circuit by Stirling. If we avoid the roads and towns they may not pick up our track."
Their guide fortunately knew the country well, and leaving the path by which they had traveled, the party started on their return. All day they tramped across the moorlands, avoiding all villages and scattered farmhouses. They had, they knew, three-quarters of an hour's start, and as their pursuers would be alike ignorant whence they came or whither they were going, the chances of their hitting the right route were small.
Making a circuit round Kinross and Alloa, where the Campbells might have ridden in pursuit, and sleeping in a wood, they arrived next day at Stirling. Here was great excitement, for Cromwell's army, marching south of Edinburgh, had approached the town. They remained, however, a few hours only, collecting what previsions they could, and then falling back again to their former camp at Musselburgh. The following day Harry and his party marched to Edinburgh. That night Harry reported to Sir David Leslie what had befallen him and the next morning he accompanied the general to Holyrood, and laid a complaint before the king.
His majesty was most indignant at the attempt which had been made upon his follower, but he said to General Leslie, "I doubt not, Sir David, that your thoughts and mine go toward the same person. But we have no evidence that he had an absolute hand in it, although the fact that this ship was commanded by a Campbell, and that the hold of Kilbeg belongs to one of his kinsmen, point to his complicity in the affair. Still, that is no proof. Already the earl is no friend of mine. When the day comes I will have a bitter reckoning with him, but in the present state of my fortunes, methinks that 'twere best in this, as in other matters, to hold my tongue for the time. I cannot afford to make him an open enemy now."
General Leslie agreed with the king. Cromwell's army was in a sore strait, and would, they hoped, be shortly driven either to surrender or to fight under disadvantageous circumstances. But the open defection of Argyll at the present moment, followed as it would be by that of the whole fanatical party, would entirely alter the position of affairs, and Harry begged his majesty to take no more notice of the matter, and so returned to the camp.
| {
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23 | THE BATTLE OF WORCESTER. | The next morning the Scotch army moved after that of Cromwell, which had fallen back to Dunbar, and took post on the Doon hill facing him there. Cromwell's army occupied a peninsula, having on their face a brook running along a deep, narrow little valley. The Scotch position on the hill was an exceedingly strong one, and had they remained there Cromwell's army must have been driven to surrender. Cromwell himself wrote on that night, "The enemy hath blocked up our way at the pass at Copperspath, through which we cannot pass without almost a miracle. He lieth so upon the hills that we knoweth not how to come that way without much difficulty, and our lying here daily consumeth our men, who fall sick beyond imagination."
The Scotch had, in fact, the game in their hands, had they but waited on the ground they had taken up. The English had, however, an ally in their camp. The Earl of Argyll strongly urged that an attack should be made upon the English, and he was supported by the preachers and fanatics, who exclaimed that the Lord had delivered their enemies into their hands. General Leslie, however, stood firm. The preachers scattered in the camp and exhorted the soldiers to go down and smite the enemy. So great an enthusiasm did they excite by their promises of victory that in the afternoon the soldiers, without orders from their general, moved down the hill toward the enemy. The more regular body of the troops stood firm, but Leslie, seeing that the preachers had got the mastery, and that his orders were no longer obeyed, ordered these also to move forward, in hopes that the enthusiasm which had been excited would yet suffice to win the victory.
Cromwell saw the fatal mistake which had been committed, and in the night moved round his troops to his left, and these at daybreak fell upon the Scottish right. The night had been wet, and the Scottish army were unprovided with tents. Many of their matchlocks had been rendered useless. At daybreak on the morning of the 3d of September the English, led by General Lambert, fell upon them. The Scotch for a time stood their ground firmly; but the irregular troops, who had by their folly led the army into this plight, gave way before the English pikemen. The preachers, who were in vast numbers, set the example of flight. Many of the regiments of infantry fought most fiercely, but the battle was already lost. The Scotch cavalry were broken by the charge of the Ironsides, and in less than an hour from the commencement of the fighting the rout was complete. Three thousand Scotch were killed, and ten thousand taken prisoners.
Harry's regiment was but slightly engaged. It had been one of the last to march down the hill on the evening before, and Harry and Jacob foresaw the disaster which would happen. "If I were the king," Harry said, "I would order every one of these preachers out of camp, and would hang those who disobeyed. Then I would march the army on to the hill again. If they wait there the English must attack us with grievous disadvantage, or such as cannot get on board their ships must surrender. Charles would really be king then, and could disregard the wrath of the men of the conventicles. Cromwell will attack us to-morrow, and will defeat us; his trained troops are more than a match for these Scotchmen, who think more of their preachers than of their officers, and whose discipline is of the slackest."
"I agree with you entirely," Jacob said. "But in the present mood of the army, I believe that half of them would march away if the general dismissed the preachers."
The next day, when the fight began, Harry moved forward his regiment to the support of the Scottish right, but before he came fairly into the fray this had already given away, and Harry, seeing that the day was lost, halted his men, and fell back in good order. Again and again the Ironsides charged them. The leveled pikes and heavy musketry fire each time beat them off, and they marched from the field almost the only body which kept its formation. Five thousand of the country people among the prisoners Cromwell allowed to depart to their homes. The remainder he sent to Newcastle, where great numbers of them were starved to death by the cruelty of the governor, Sir Arthur Hazelrig. The remainder were sent as slaves to New England.
Leslie, with the wreck of his army, fell back to Stirling, while Charles, with the Scotch authorities, went to Perth. Here the young king, exasperated beyond endurance at the tyranny of Argyll and the fanatics, escaped from them, and with two or three friends rode fifty miles north. He was overtaken and brought back to Perth, but the anger of the army was so hot at his treatment that the fanatics were henceforth obliged to put a curb upon themselves, and a strong king's party, as opposed to that of the Covenant, henceforth guided his counsels.
The winter passed quietly. The English troops were unable to stand the inclemency of the climate, and contented themselves with capturing Edinburgh Castle, and other strongholds south of the Forth. Cromwell was compelled by ill health to return for some months to England. Leslie's army was strongly intrenched round Stirling. In June Cromwell again took the field, and moved against Perth, which he captured on the 31st of July. Charles, who had joined his army at Stirling, broke up his camp and marched toward England, the road being open to him owing to Cromwell and his army being further north at Perth.
During the time which had elapsed since the battle of Dunbar no events had happened in Harry's life. Remaining quietly in camp, where the troops, who had been disgusted by the conduct of the fanatics at Dunbar, were now ill disposed toward Argyll and his party, he had little fear of the machinations of the earl, who was with the king at Perth.
Argyll refused to join in the southern march, and the army with which Leslie entered England numbered only eleven thousand men. As soon as he crossed the border, Charles was proclaimed king, and proclamations were issued calling on all loyal subjects to join him.
The people were, however, weary of civil war. The Royalists had already suffered so heavily that they held back now, and the hatred excited, alike by the devastations of the Scotch army on its former visit to England, and by the treachery with which they had then sold the king, deterred men from joining them. A few hundred, indeed, came to his standard; but upon the other hand, Lambert and Harrison, with a strong force, were marching against him, and Cromwell, having left six thousand men in Scotland, under Monk, was pressing hotly behind with the victors of Dunbar. On the 22d of August Charles reached Worcester. On the 28th Cromwell was close to the town with thirty thousand men.
"This is the end of it all, Jacob," Harry said that night. "They outnumber us by three to one, and even if equal, they would assuredly beat us, for the Scotch are dispirited at finding themselves so far from home, in a hostile country. Things look desperate. If all is lost to-morrow, do you and William Long and Mike keep close to me. Get a horse for Mike to-night. You and Long are already mounted. If all is lost we must try and make our way to the seacoast, and take boat for France or Holland. But first of all we must see to the safety of the king. It is clear that at present England is not ready to return to the former state of things. We must hope that some day she will weary of the Roundhead rule, and if the king can reach the Continent he must remain there till England calls him. At present she only wants peace. It is just nine years now since King Charles' father set up his standard at Nottingham. Nine years of wars and troubles! No wonder men are aweary of it. It is all very well for us, Jacob, who have no wives, neither families nor occupations, and are without property to lose, but I wonder not that men who have these things are chary of risking them in a cause which seems destined to failure."
Upon the 3d of September, 1651, the anniversary of the battle of Dunbar, Cromwell advanced to the attack. Harry's regiment was placed among some hedges around the city, and upon them the brunt of the fight first fell. In spite of the immense numbers brought against them they defended themselves with desperate bravery. Some of the Scottish troops came up, and for a time Cromwell's footmen could make but little way. At other parts, however, the resistance was more feeble, and the Scotch fell rapidly into confusion. Contesting every foot of the way, Harry's regiment was driven back into the town, where a terrible confusion reigned. Still keeping his men together, he marched to the marketplace. Here he found the king with a considerable body of horse. The greater part, however, of the horse had fled through the town without drawing rein, while the foot were throwing away their arms and flying in all directions.
"If all my troops had fought like your regiment, Colonel Furness, we should have won the day," the king said. "As it is now, it is a hopeless rout. It is useless for your brave fellows to throw away their lives further. They will only be cut down vainly, seeing that the rest of my army are disbanded. Thank them from me for their services, and bid them seek their homes as best they may and wait for better times. They are English, and will meet with better treatment from the country people than will the Scotch. Then do you join me. I am going to head my horsemen here in a charge against the Roundhead cavalry, and so give more time for the army to get away."
Harry rode up to his troops, now reduced to half their former strength. Leslie and Grahame had both been killed, and William Long was sorely wounded. He gave the men the message from the king, and the brave fellows gave a cheer for King Charles, the last he was to hear for ten years. Then they marched away in orderly array, with their arms, intending to beat off all who might attack them before nightfall, and then to break up and scatter, each for himself. William Long had friends near Gloucester, and as his wound would prevent him from traveling rapidly with Harry, he took farewell of him, and rode away with the regiment. Harry, with Jacob and Mike, rejoined the king, and they rode toward the gate by which the Roundhead troops were already entering the town. The horsemen, however, had but little stomach for the fight, and as the king advanced, in twos and threes they turned their horses' heads and rode off.
Harry was riding close to the king, and looking round said at length, "It is useless, your majesty. There are not a dozen men with us."
The king looked round and checked his horse. Besides his personal friends, Buckingham, Wilmot, and one or two other nobles, scarce a man remained. The king shrugged his shoulders. "Well, gentlemen, as we cannot fight, we must needs run." Then the party turned their horses and galloped out on the other side of Worcester. The country was covered with fugitives. They soon came upon a considerable body of horse, who at once attached themselves to the party. "These, gentlemen," the king said, "would not fight when I wanted them to, and now that I would fain be alone, they follow me."
At last, when darkness came on, the king, with his personal friends and some sixty others, slipped away down a by-road, and after riding for some hours came to a house called the White Ladies. Here for a few hours they rested. Then a council was held. They had news that on a heath near were some three thousand Scotch cavalry. The king's friends urged him to join these and endeavor to make his way back into Scotland, but Charles had already had more than enough of that country, and he was sure that Argyll and his party would not hesitate to deliver him up to the Parliament, as they had done his father before him. He therefore determined to disguise himself, and endeavor to escape on foot, taking with him only a guide. The rest of the party agreed to join the Scotch horse, and endeavor to reach the border. After a consultation with Jacob, Harry determined to follow the example of the king, and to try and make his way in disguise to a seaport. He did not believe that the Scotch cavalry would be able to regain their country, nor even if they did would his position be improved were he with them. With the destruction of the Royalist army, Argyll would again become supreme, and Harry doubted not that he would satisfy his old grudge against him. He was right in his anticipations. The Scots were a day or two later routed by the English horse, and comparatively few of them ever regained their country. Out of the eleven thousand men who fought at Worcester, seven thousand were taken prisoners, including the greater part of the Scottish contingent. The English, attracting less hostility and attention from the country people, for the most part reached their homes in safety.
As soon as the king had ridden off, Harry with Jacob and Mike, started in another direction. Stopping at a farmhouse, they purchased from the master three suits of clothes. Harry's was one of the farmer's own, the man being nearly his own size. For Jacob, who was much shorter, a dress, cloak and bonnet of the farmer's wife was procured, and for Mike the clothes of one of the farmer's sons. One of the horses was left here, and a pillion obtained for the other. Putting on these disguises, Harry mounted his horse, with Jacob seated behind him on a pillion, while Mike rode by his side. They started amid the good wishes of the farmer and his family, who were favorable to the Royalist cause. Harry had cut off his ringlets, and looked the character of a young farmer of twenty-four or twenty-five years old well enough, while Jacob had the appearance of a suitable wife for him. Mike was to pass as his brother.
In the course of the first day's journey they met several parties of Roundhead horse, who plied them with questions as to whether they had seen any parties of fugitives. Making a detour, they rode toward Gloucester, not intending to enter that town, where there was a Parliamentary garrison, but to cross the river higher up. They stopped for the night at a wayside inn, where they heard much talk concerning the battle, and learned that all the fords were guarded to prevent fugitives crossing into Wales, and that none might pass who could not give a good account of themselves. They heard, too, that on the evening before a proclamation had been made at Gloucester and other towns offering a reward of a thousand pounds for the capture of Charles, and threatening all with the penalties of treason who should venture to aid or shelter him; a systematic watch was being set on all the roads.
They determined to ride again next morning toward Worcester, and to remain in that neighborhood for some days, judging that less inquiry would be made there than elsewhere. This they did, but journeyed very slowly, and slept a mile or two from Worcester.
Before reaching their halting-place they took off a shoe from Mike's horse, and with a nail wounded the frog of the foot, so that the animal walked lame. Under this pretense they stopped three days, feigning great annoyance at the delay. They found now that orders had been issued that none should journey on the roads save those who had passes, and these had to be shown before entering any of the large towns. They therefore resolved to leave their horses, and to proceed on foot, as they could then travel by byways and across the country. There was some debate as to the best guise in which to travel, but it was presently determined to go as Egyptians, as the gypsies were then called. Harry walked into Worcester, and there, at the shop of a dealer in old clothes, procured such garments as were needed, and at an apothecary's purchased some dyes for staining the skin.
The next day, telling the landlord that they should leave the lame horse with him until their return, they started as before, Mike walking instead of riding. They presently left the main road, and finding a convenient place in a wood, changed their attire. Harry and Mike were dressed in ragged clothes, with bright handkerchiefs round their necks, and others round their heads. Jacob still retained his attire as a woman, with a tattered shawl round his shoulders, and a red handkerchief over his head. All darkened their faces and hands. They took the saddle from the horse, and placed the bundles, containing the clothes they had taken off, on his back. Mike took the bridle, Harry and Jacob walked beside, and so they continued for some miles along the lonely roads, until they came to a farmhouse. Here they stopped. The farmer came out, and roughly demanded what they wanted. Harry replied that he wanted to sell their horse, and would take a small sum for it.
"I doubt me," the farmer said, looking at it, "that that horse was not honestly come by. It suits not your condition. It may well be," he said, "the horse of some officer who was slain at Worcester, and which you have found roaming in the country."
"It matters not," Harry said, "where I got it; it is mine now, and may be yours if you like it, cheap. As you say, its looks agree not with mine, and I desire not to be asked questions. If you will give me that donkey I see there, and three pounds, you shall have him."
The offer was a tempting one, but the farmer beat them down a pound before he agreed to it. Then shifting their bundles to the donkey, they continued their way. At the next village they purchased a cooking-pot and some old stuff for a tent. Cutting some sticks, they encamped that night on some wild land hard by, having purchased provisions for their supper. Very slowly they traveled south, attracting no attention as they passed. They avoided all large towns, and purchased such things as they needed at villages, always camping out on commons and waste places. They could hear no news of the king at any of their halting-places. That he had not been taken was certain; also, that he had not reached France, or the news of his coming there would have been known. It was generally supposed that he was in hiding somewhere in the south, hoping to find an opportunity to take ship to France. Everywhere they heard of the active search which was being made for him, and how the houses of all suspected to be favorable to him were being searched.
Traveling only a few miles a day, and frequently halting for two or three days together, the party crossed the Thames above Reading, and journeyed west into Wiltshire. So they went on until they reached the port of Charmouth, near Lime Regis. Here, as in all the seaport towns, were many soldiers of the Parliament. They did not enter the town, but encamped a short distance outside, Harry alone going in to gather the news. He found that numerous rumors concerning the king were afloat. It was asserted that he had been seen near Bristol, and failing to embark there, was supposed to be making his way east along the coast, in hopes of finding a ship. The troops were loud in their expressions of confidence that in a few days, if not in a few hours, he would be in their hands, and that he would be brought to the scaffold, as his father had been.
Uneasy at the news, Harry wandered about the town, and at nightfall entered a small public house near the port. Calling for some liquor, he sat down, and listened to the talk of the sailors. Presently these left, and soon after they did so three other men entered. One was dressed as a farmer, the other two as serving-men. Harry thought that he noticed a glance of recognition pass between the farmer and the landlord, and as the latter placed some liquor and a candle on the table before the newcomers, Harry recognized in the farmer Colonel Wyndham, a Royalist with whom he was well acquainted. He now looked more closely at the two serving-men, and recognized in them the king and Lord Wilmot.
He sauntered across the room as if to get a light for his pipe, and said, in low tones: "Colonel Wyndham, I am Harry Furness. Is there any way I can serve his majesty?"
"Ah! Colonel Furness, I am glad to see you," the king said heartily; "though if you are hunted as shrewdly as I am, your state is a perilous one."
"The landlord is to be trusted," Colonel Wyndham said. "We had best call him in. He said nothing before you, deeming you a stranger."
The landlord was called in, and told Harry was a friend, whereupon he barred the door and closed the shutters, as if for the night. Then turning to Colonel Wyndham, whom alone he knew, he said: "I am sorry to say that my news is bad, sir. An hour since I went round to the man who had engaged to take you across to St. Malo, but his wife has got an inkling of his intentions. She has locked him into his room, and swears that if he attempts to come forth she will give the alarm to the Parliament troops; for that she will not have herself and her children sacrificed by meddlings of his in the affairs of state."
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24 | ACROSS THE SEA. | The announcement of the innkeeper struck consternation into the party.
"This is bad news indeed," Colonel Wyndham said; "what does your majesty advise now?"
"I know not, my good Wyndham," King Charles replied. "Methinks 'twere better that I should give myself up at once. Fate seems against us, and I'm only bringing danger on all my friends."
"Your friends are ready to risk the danger," Colonel Wyndham said; "and I doubt not that we shall finally place your majesty in safety. I think we had best try Bridport. Unfortunately, the Roundheads are so sure of your being on the coast that it is well-nigh impossible to procure a ship, so strict is the search of all who leave port. If we could but put them off your scent, and lead them to believe that you have given it up in despair here, and are trying again to reach Scotland, it might throw them off their guard, and make it more easy for us to find a ship."
"I might do that," Harry said. "I have with me my comrade Jacob, who is about the king's height and stature. I will travel north again, and will in some way excite suspicion that he is the king. The news that your majesty has been seen traveling there will throw them off your track here."
"But you may be caught yourself," the king said. "The Earl of Derby and other officers have been executed. There would be small chance for you were you to fall into their hands."
"I trust that I shall escape, sire. My friend Jacob is as cunning as a fox, and will, I warrant me, throw dust in their eyes. And how has it fared with your majesty since I left you at White Ladies?"
"Faith," Charles replied, laughing, "I have been like a rat with the dogs after him. The next night after leaving you I was in danger from a rascally miller, who raised an alarm because we refused to stay at his bidding. Then we made for Moseley, where I hoped to cross the Severn. The Roundheads had set a guard there, and Richard Penderell went to the house of Mr. Woolfe, a loyal gentleman, and asked him for shelter for an officer from Worcester. Mr. Woolfe said he would risk his neck for none save the king himself. Then Richard told him who I was, and brought me in. Mr. Woolfe hid me in the barn and gave me provisions. The neighborhood was dangerous, for the search was hot thereabout, and I determined to double back again to White Ladies, that I might hear what had become of Wilmot. Richard Penderell guided me to Boscabell, a farmhouse kept by his brother William. Here I found Major Careless in hiding. The search was hot, and we thought of hiding in a wood near, but William advised that as this might be searched we should take refuge in an oak lying apart in the middle of the plain."
"This had been lopped three or four years before and had grown again very thick and bushy, so that it could not be seen through. So, early in the morning, Careless and I, taking provisions for the day, climbed up it and hid there, and it was well we did so, for in the day the Roundheads came and searched the wood from end to end, as also the house. But they did not think of the tree. The next two days I lay at Boscabell, and learned on the second day that Wilmot was hiding at the house of Mr. Whitgrave, a Catholic gentleman at Moseley, where he begged me to join him. That night I rode thither. The six Penderells, for there were that number of brothers, rode with me as a bodyguard. I was well received by Mr. Whitgrave, who furnished me with fresh linen, to my great comfort, for that which I had on was coarse, and galled my flesh grievously, and my feet were so sore I could scarce walk. But the Roundheads were all about, and the search hot, and it was determined that I should leave. This time I was dressed as a decent serving man, and Colonel Lane's daughter agreed to go with me. I was to pass as her serving man, taking her to Bristol. A cousin rode with us in company. Colonel Lane procured us a pass, and we met with no adventure for three days. A smith who shod my horse, which had cast a shoe, did say that that rogue Charles Stuart had not been taken yet, and that he thought he ought to be hanged. I thought so too, so we had no argument. At Bristol we could find no ship in which I could embark, and after some time I went with Miss Lane and her cousin to my good friend Colonel Wyndham, at Trent House. After much trouble he had engaged a ship to take me hence, and now this rascal refuses to go, or rather his wife refuses for him. And now, my friend, we will at once make for Bridport, since Colonel Wyndham hopes to find a ship there. I trust we may meet ere long in France. None of my friends have served me and my father more faithfully than you. It would seem but a mockery now to take knighthood at the hands of Charles Stuart, but it will not harm thee."
Taking a sword from Colonel Wyndham, the king dubbed Harry knight. Then giving his hand to the landlord to kiss, Charles, accompanied by his two companions, left the inn.
A few minutes later Harry started and joined his friends. Jacob agreed at once to the proposal to throw the Roundheads off King Charles' track. The next day they started north, and traveled through Wiltshire up into Gloucestershire, still keeping their disguises as gypsies. There they left their donkey with a peasant, telling him they would return in a fortnight's time and claim it. In a wood near they again changed their disguise, hid their gypsy dresses, and started north on foot. In the evening they stopped at Fairford, and took up their abode at a small inn, where they asked for a private room. They soon ascertained that the landlord was a follower of the Parliament. Going toward the room into which they were shown, Jacob stumbled, and swore in a man's voice, which caused the servant maid who was conducting them to start and look suspiciously at him. Supper was brought, but Harry noticed that the landlord, who himself brought it in, glanced several times at Jacob. They were eating their supper when they heard his footstep again coming along the passage. Harry dropped on one knee, and was in the act of handing the jug in that attitude to Jacob, when the landlord entered. Harry rose hastily, as if in confusion, and the landlord, setting down on the table a dish which he had brought, again retired.
"Throw up the window, Jacob, and listen," Harry said. "We must not be caught like rats in a trap."
The window opened into a garden, and Jacob, listening, could hear footsteps as of men running in the streets.
"That is enough, then," Harry said. "The alarm is given. Now let us be off." They leaped from the window, and they were soon making their way across the country. They had not been gone a hundred yards before they heard a great shouting, and knew that their departure had been discovered. They had not walked far that day and now pressed forward north. They had filled their pockets with the remains of their supper, and after walking all night, left the road, and climbing into a haystack at a short distance, ate their breakfast and were soon fast asleep.
It was late in the afternoon before they awoke. Then they walked on until, after darkness fell, they entered a small village. Here they went into a shop to buy bread. The woman looked at them earnestly.
"I do not know whether it concerns you," she said, "but I will warn you that this morning a mounted man from Fairford came by warning all to seize a tall countryman with a young fellow and a woman with him, for that she was no other than King Charles."
"Thanks, my good woman," Jacob said. "Thanks for your warning. I do not say that I am he you name, but whether or no, the king shall hear some day of your good-will."
Traveling on again, they made thirty miles that night, and again slept in a wood. The next evening, when they entered a village to buy food, the man in the shop, after looking at them, suddenly seized Jacob, and shouted loudly for help. Harry stretched him on the ground with a heavy blow of the stout cudgel he carried. The man's shouts, however, had called up some of his neighbors, and these ran up as they issued from the shop, and tried to seize them. The friends, however, struck out lustily with their sticks, Jacob carrying one concealed beneath his dress. In two or three minutes they had fought their way clear, and ran at full speed through the village, pursued by a shouting crowd of rustics.
"Now," Harry said, "we can return for our gypsy dresses, and then make for the east coast. We have put the king's enemies off the scent. I trust that when we may get across the water we may hear that he is in safety."
They made a long detour, traveling only at night, Harry entering alone after dusk the villages where it was necessary to buy food. When they regained the wood where they had left their disguises they dressed themselves again as gypsies, called for the donkey, and then journeyed across England by easy stages to Colchester, where they succeeded in taking passage in a lugger bound for Hamburg. They arrived there in safety, and found to their great joy the news had arrived that the king had landed in France.
He had, they afterward found, failed to obtain a ship at Bridport, where when he arrived he here found a large number of soldiers about to cross to Jersey. He returned to Trent House, and a ship at Southampton was then engaged. But this was afterward taken up for the carriage of troops. A week later a ship lying at Shoreham was hired to carry a nobleman and his servant to France, and King Charles, with his friends, made his way thither in safety. The captain of the ship at once recognized the king, but remained true to his promise, and landed him at Fécamp in Normandy.
Six weeks had elapsed since the battle of Worcester, and during that time the king's hiding-places had been known to no less than forty-five persons, all of whom proved faithful to the trust, and it was owing to their prudence and caution as well as to their loyalty that the king escaped, in spite of the reward offered and the hot search kept up everywhere for him.
Harry had now to settle upon his plans for the future. There was no hope whatever of an early restoration. He had no thought of hanging about the king whose ways and dissolute associates revolted him. It was open to him to take service, as so many of his companions had done, in one or other of the Continental armies, but Harry had had more than enough of fighting. He determined then to cross the ocean to the plantations of Virginia, where many loyal gentlemen had established themselves. The moneys which Colonel Furness had during the last four years regularly sent across to a banker at the Hague, for his use, were lying untouched, and these constituted a sum amply sufficient for establishing himself there. Before starting, however, he determined that if possible he would take a wife with him. In all his wanderings he had never seen any one he liked so much as his old playmate, Lucy Rippinghall. It was nearly four years since he had seen her, and she must now be twenty-one. Herbert, he knew by his father's letters, had left the army at the end of the first civil war, and was carrying on his father's business, the wool-stapler having been killed at Marston Moor. Harry wrote to the colonel, telling him of his intention to go to Virginia and settle there until either Cromwell's death, and the dying out of old animosities, or the restoration of the king permitted him to return to England, and also that he was writing to ask Lucy Rippinghall to accompany him as his wife. He told his father that he was well aware that he would not have regarded such a match as suitable had he been living at home with him at Furness Hall, but that any inequality of birth would matter no whit in the plantations of Virginia, and that such a match would greatly promote his happiness there. By the same mail he wrote to Herbert Rippinghall.
"My DEAR HERBERT: The bonds of affection which held us together when boys are in no way slackened in their hold upon me, and you showed, when we last met, that you loved me in no way less than of old. I purpose sailing to Virginia with such store of money as would purchase a plantation there, and there I mean to settle down until such times as these divisions in England may be all passed. But I would fain not go alone. As a boy I loved your sister Lucy, and I have seen none to take the place of her image in my heart. She is, I know, still unmarried, but I know not whether she has any regard for me. I do beseech you to sound her, and if she be willing to give her to me. I hear that you are well married, and can therefore the better spare her. If she be willing to take me, I will be a good husband to her, and trust some day or other to bring her back to be lady of Furness Hall. Although I know that she will care little for such things, I may say that she would be Lady Lucy, since the king has been pleased to make me Sir Harry Furness. Should the dear girl be willing, will you, since I cannot come to you, bring her hither to me. I have written to my father, and have told him what I purpose to do. Trusting that this will find you as well disposed toward me as ever, I remain, your affectionate friend, HARRY FURNESS."
This letter, together with that to his father, Harry gave to Mike. The post in those days was extremely irregular, and none confided letters of importance to it which could possibly be sent by hand. Such a communication as that to Herbert Rippinghall was not one which Harry cared to trust to the post. Mike had never been at Abingdon, and would therefore be unknown there. Nor, indeed, unless they were taken prisoners in battle or in the first hot pursuit, were any of lower degree meddled with after their return to their homes. There was therefore no fear whatever of molestation. At this time Jacob was far from well. The fatigues which he had undergone since the king broke up his camp at Stirling had been immense. Prolonged marches, great anxiety, sleeping on wet ground, being frequently soaked to the skin by heavy rains, all these things had told upon him, and now that the necessity for exertion was over, a sort of low fever seized him, and he was forced to take to his bed. The leech whom Harry called in told him that Jacob needed rest and care more than medicine. He gave him, however, cooling drinks, and said that when the fever passed he would need strengthening food and medicine.
Hamburg was at that time the resort of many desperate men from England. After Worcester, as after the crushing out of the first civil war, those too deeply committed to return to their homes sought refuge here. But though all professed to be Cavaliers, who were suffering only from their loyalty to the crown, a great many of them were men who had no just claim to so honorable a position. There were many who took advantage of the times in England to satisfy private enmities or to gratify evil passions. Although the courts of law sat during the whole of the civil war, and the judges made their circuits, there was necessarily far more crime than in ordinary times. Thus many of those who betook themselves to Hamburg and other seaports on the continent had made England too hot for them by crimes of violence and dishonesty.
The evening after Mike sailed Harry, who had been sitting during the afternoon chatting by Jacob's bedside, went out to take the air. He strolled along the wharves, near which were the drinking-houses, whence came sounds of singing, dancing, and revelry, mingled occasionally with shouts and the clash of steel, as quarrels arose among the sailors and others frequenting them. Never having seen one of these places, Harry strolled into one which appeared of a somewhat better class than the rest. At one end was a sort of raised platform, upon which were two men, with fiddles, who, from time to time, played lively airs, to which those at the tables kept time by stamping their feet. Sometimes men or women came on to the platform and sang. The occupants of the body of the hall were mostly sailors, but among whom were a considerable number of men, who seemed by their garb to be broken-down soldiers and adventurers.
Harry took his seat by the door, called for a glass of wine and drank it, and, having soon seen enough of the nature of the entertainment, was about to leave, when his attention was attracted by a young girl who took her place on the platform. She was evidently a gypsy, for at this time these people were the minstrels of Europe. It would have been considered shameful for any other woman to sing publicly. Two or three of these women had already sung, and Harry had been disgusted with their hard voices and bold looks. But he saw that the one who now took her place on the platform was of a different nature. She advanced nervously, and as if quite strange to such a scene, and touched her guitar with trembling fingers. Then she began to sing a Spanish romance in a sweet, pure voice. There was a good deal of applause when it finished, for even the rough sailors could appreciate the softness and beauty of the melody. Then a half-drunken man shouted, "Give us something lively. Sing 'May the Devil fly off with Old Noll.'"
The proposal was received with a shout of approval by many, but some of the sailors cried out, "No, no. No politics. We won't hear Cromwell insulted."
This only led to louder and more angry shouts on the part of the others, and in all parts of the room men rose to their feet, gesticulating and shouting. The girl, who evidently did not understand a word that was said, stood looking with affright at the tumult which had so suddenly risen. In a minute swords were drawn. The foreign sailors, in ignorance of the cause of dispute, drew their knives, and stood by the side of those from the English ships, while the foreign soldiers seemed ready to make common cause with the English who had commenced the disturbance. Two or three of the latter leaped upon the platform to insist upon their wishes being carried out. The girl, with a little scream, retreated into a corner. Harry, indignant at the conduct to his countrymen, had drawn his sword, and made his way quietly toward the end of the hall, and he now sprang upon the platform.
"Stand back," he shouted angrily. "I'll spit the first man who advances a step."
"And who are you, sir, who ventures to thrust yourself into a quarrel, and to interfere with English gentlemen?"
"English gentlemen," Harry said bitterly. "God help England if you are specimens of her gentlemen."
"S'death!" exclaimed one. "Run the scoundrel through, Ralph."
In a moment Harry slashed open the cheek of one, and ran the other through the arm. By this time the fray had become general in the hall. Benches were broken up, swords and knives were used freely. Just as the matter began to grow serious there was a cry of "The watch!" and a strong armed guard entered the hall.
There was an instant cessation of hostilities, and then both parties uniting, rushed upon the watch, and by sheer weight bore them back out of the place. Harry looked round, and saw that the girl had fled by a door at the back of the platform. Seeing that a fight was going on round the door, and desiring to escape from the broil, he went out by the door she had taken, followed a passage for some distance, went down a dimly-lighted stair, and issued through a door into the air. He found himself in a foul and narrow lane. It was entirely unlighted, and Harry made his way with difficulty along, stumbling into holes in the pavement, and over heaps of rubbish of all kinds.
"I have got into a nice quarter of the town," he muttered to himself. "I have heard there are places in Hamburg, the resort of thieves and scoundrels of the worst kind, and where even the watch dare not penetrate, Methinks that this must be one them."
He groped his way along till he came to the end of the lane. Here a dim light was burning. Three or four other lanes, in appearance as forbidding as that up which he had come, met at this spot. Several men were standing about. Harry paused for a moment, wondering whether he had better take the first turning at random, or invite attention by asking his way. He determined that the former was the least dangerous alternative, and turned down the lane to his right. He had not gone ten steps when a woman came up to him from behind.
"Are you not the gentleman who drew a sword to save me from insult?" she asked in French.
Harry understood enough of the language to make out what she said.
"Yes," he said, "if you are the singer."
"Good heavens! sir, what misfortune has brought you here? I recognized your face in the light. Your life, sir, is in the greatest danger. There are men here who would murder you for the sake of a gold piece, and that jewel which fastens your plume must have caught their eyes. Follow me, sir, quickly."
| {
"id": "11565"
} |
25 | A PLOT OVERHEARD. | As the gypsy ended her warning she sprang forward, saying, "Follow me, for your life, sir." Harry did not hesitate. He heard several footsteps coming down the lane, and drawing his sword he followed his guide at a run. As he did so there was a shout among the men behind him and these set off in hot pursuit. Harry kept close to the girl, who turned down another lane even more narrow than that they were leaving. A few paces further she stopped, opened a door and entered. Harry followed her in and she closed the door behind her.
"Hush!" she whispered. "There are men here as bad as those without. Take off your shoes."
Harry did as directed. He was in pitch darkness. Taking him by the hand, the girl led him forward for some distance.
"There is a staircase here," she whispered.
Still holding his hand, she began to mount the stairs. As they passed each landing Harry heard the voices of men in the rooms on either side. At last they arrived at the top of the house. Here she opened a door, and led Harry into a room.
"Are you here, mother?" she asked.
There was no answer. The girl uttered an exclamation of thankfulness; then, after groping about, she found a tinder-box, and struck a light.
"You are safe here for the present. This is my room, where I live with my mother. At least," she sighed, "she calls herself my mother, and is the only one I have known."
"Is it possible," Harry asked in surprise, "that one like yourself can live in such an abode as this?"
"I am safe here," she answered. "There are five men of my tribe in the next room, and fierce and brutal as are the men of these courts, none of them would care to quarrel with the gypsies. But now I have got you here, how am I to get you away?"
"If the gypsies are so feared, I might go out with them," Harry said.
"Alas!" the girl answered, "they are as had as the others. And even if they were disposed to aid you for the kindness you have shown me, I doubt if they could do so. Assuredly they would not run the risk of thwarting the cutthroats here for the sake of saving you."
"Could you go and tell the watch?" Harry asked.
"The watch never comes here," the girl replied, shaking her head. "Were they to venture up these lanes it would be like entering a hive of bees. This is an Alsatia--a safe refuge for assassins and robbers."
"I have got myself into a nice mess," Harry said. "It seems to me I had better sally out and take my chance."
"Look," the girl said, going to the window and opening it.
Peering out, Harry saw below a number of men with swords and knives drawn. One or two had torches, and they were examining every doorway and court. Outside the window ran a parapet.
"They will search like hounds," the girl continued. "They must know that you have not gone far. If they come here you must take to the parapet, and go some distance along. Now, I must try and find some disguise for you."
At this moment the door opened, and an old woman entered. She uttered an exclamation of astonishment at seeing Harry, and turning angrily to the girl, spoke to her in the gypsy dialect. For two or three minutes the conversation continued in that language; then the old woman turned to Harry, and said in English: "My daughter tells me that you have got into a broil on her behalf. There are few gentlemen who draw sword for a gypsy. I will do my best to aid you, but it will be difficult to get a gallant like yourself out of this place."
Her eye fell covetously upon the jewel in Harry's hat. He noticed the glance.
"Thanks, dame," he said; "I will gladly repay your services. Will you accept this token?" And removing the jewel from the hat, he offered it to her.
The girl uttered an angry exclamation as the old woman seized it, and after examining it by the candle light, placed it in a small iron coffer. Harry felt he had done wisely, for the old woman's face bore a much warmer expression of good-will than had before characterized it.
"You cannot leave now," she said. "I heard as I came along that a well-dressed gallant had been seen in the lanes, and every one's mouth is on water. They said that they thought he had some woman with him, but I did not dream it was Zita. You cannot leave to-night; to-morrow I will get you some clothes of my son's, and in these you should be able to escape without detection."
Very slowly the hours passed. The women at times talked together in Romaic, while Harry, who had possession of the only chair in the room, several times nodded off to sleep. In the morning there was a movement heard in the next room, and the old woman went in there.
"Surely that woman cannot be your mother?" Harry said to the girl.
"She is not," she answered. "I believe that I was stolen as a child; indeed, they have owned as much. But what can I do? I am one of them. What can a gypsy do? We are good for nothing but to sing and to steal."
"If I get free from this scrape," Harry said, "you may be sure that shall not be ungrateful, and if you long to leave this life, I can secure you a quiet home in England with my father."
The girl clasped her hands in delight.
"Oh, that would be too good!" she exclaimed. "Too good; but I fear it can never be."
She put her fingers to her lips, as the door again opened. The old woman entered, carrying some clothes.
"Here," she said; "they have gone out; put these on, Zita and I will go out and see if the coast is clear."
Harry, smiling to himself at the singularity of his having twice to disguise himself as a gypsy, rapidly changed his clothes. Presently the old woman returned.
"Quick," she exclaimed; "I hear that the news of the riot in the drinking-house has got about this morning, and it is known that an Englishman, something like the one seen in the lanes, took Zita's part, and there are suspicions that it was she who acted as his guide. They have been roughly questioning us. I told her to go on to avoid suspicion, while I ran back. You cannot stir out now, and I heard a talk of searching our rooms. Come, then, we may find a room unoccupied below; you must take refuge there for the present."
Harry still retained his sword, incongruous as it was with his attire, but he had determined to hide it under his clothes, so that, if detected, he might be able at least to sell his life. Taking it in his hand, he followed the old woman downstairs. She listened at each door, and continued downward until she reached the first floor.
"I can hear no one here," she said, listening at a door. "Go up a few steps; I will knock. If any one is there I can make some excuse."
She knocked, but there was no answer. Then she drew from her pocket a piece of bent wire, and inserted it in the keyhole.
"We gypsies can enter where we will," she said, beckoning Harry to enter as the door opened. "Wait quiet here till I come for you. The road will be clear then." So saying, she closed the door behind him, and again shot the bolt.
Harry felt extremely uncomfortable. Should the owner of the room return, he would be taken for a thief, although, as he thought, looking round the room, there was little enough to steal. It was a large room, with several truckle beds standing against the walls. In the center was a table, upon which were some mugs, horns, and empty bottles, with some dirty cards scattered about. The place smelled strongly of tobacco, and benches lying on the ground showed that the party of the night before had ended in a broil, further evidence to which was given by stains of blood on one of the beds, and by a rag saturated with blood, which lay beside it. At one side of the room was a door, giving communication into the next apartment. Scarcely had Harry entered when he heard voices there, and was surprised to find that the speakers were English.
"I tell you I'm sick of this," one of the speakers said. "I might be as well hanged at home as starved here."
"You might enlist," another voice said, in sneering tones. "Gallant soldiers are welcome in the Low Countries."
"You'd best keep your sneering tongue between your lips," the other said angrily. "If I don't care for fighting in the field, I can use a knife at a pinch, as you know full well. You will carry your gibes too far with me some day. No," he went on more calmly, after a pause, "I shall go back to England next week, after Marmaduke Harris and his gang have finished Oliver. The country will be turned so topsy-turvy that there will be no nice inquiry into bygones, and at any rate I can keep out of London."
"Yes, it will be wise to do that," the other said, since that little affair when the mercer and his wife in Cheap were found with their throats cut, and you--" "Fire and furies! John Marlow, do you want three inches of steel in your ribs?"
"By no means!" the other answered. "You have become marvelously straightlaced all at once. As you know, I have been concerned in as many affairs as you have. Aha! I have had a merry time of it!"
"And may again," the other said. "Noll once dead, there will be good times for us again. It is a pity that you and I were too well known to have a hand in the job. Dost think there is any chance of a failure?"
"None," the other replied. "It is in good hands. Black Harry has bribed a cook wench, who will open the back door. They say he was to return to London this week, and if so Sunday is fixed for the affair. Five days yet, and say another week for the news to get here. In a fortnight we will be on our way to England. There, I am thirsty, and we left the bottle in the next room. We had a late night of it with the boys there."
During this conversation, to which Harry listened breathlessly, he had heard the tramp of feet going upstairs, and just as they finished speaking these had descended again. A moment later the door between the two rooms opened, and a man in the faded finery of a Royalist gentleman entered.
"Fires and furies!" he exclaimed. "Whom have we here? Marlow, here is an eavesdropper or a thief. We will slit his weasand. Aha!" he said, gazing fixedly at Harry, "you are Colonel Furness. I know you. You had me flogged the day before Worcester, for helping myself to an old woman's purse. It is my turn now."
Joined by his fellow ruffian he fell upon Harry, but they were no match for the Royalist colonel. After a few rapid thrusts and parries he ran his first assailant through the body and cut down the man called Marlow, with a sweeping blow which nearly cleft his head asunder.
Scarcely was the conflict ended when the door opened, and the old gypsy entered. She started at seeing the bodies of the two ruffians.
"I have been attacked," Harry said briefly, "and have defended myself."
"It is no business of mine," the old woman remarked. "When I have guided you out I will come back again. It's strange if there's not something worth picking up. Now, pull your hat well over your eyes and follow me."
Closing and locking the door again, she led the way downstairs.
"Do not walk so straight and stiff," she said. "Slouch your shoulders, and stoop your head. Now."
Harry sallied out into the lane, keeping by the side of his guide, with his head bent forward, and his eyes on the ground, walking, as far as he could, with a listless gait. The old woman continued to chatter to him in Romaic. There were many people about in the lane, but none paid any heed to them. Harry did not look up, but turned with his guide down several lanes, until they at length emerged on the quays. Saying she would call next day at his hotel for the reward he had promised her, she left him, and Harry, with his head full of the plot against Cromwell's life, crossed at once to the vessels by the quay.
"Is any ship sailing for the Thames to-day?" he asked.
"Yes," the sailor said. "The Mary Anne is just hoisting her anchor now, out there in midstream. You will be but just in time, for the anchor's under her foot."
Harry sprang into a boat and told the waterman to row to the ship. The latter stared in astonishment at the authoritative manner in which this gypsy addressed him, but Harry thrust his hand into his pocket, and showed him some silver.
"Quick, man," he said, "for she is moving. You will have double fare to put me on board."
The man pulled vigorously, and they were soon alongside the brig. "Halloo! what now?" the captain said, looking over the side.
"I want a passage to England, and will pay you your own price."
"You haven't been killing any one, have you?" the captain asked. "I don't want to have trouble when I come back here, for carrying off malefactors."
"No, indeed," Harry said, as he lightly leaped on the deck. "I am Sir Harry Furness, though I may not look it, and am bound to England on urgent business. It is all right, my good fellow, and here is earnest money for my passage," and he placed two pieces of gold in the captain's hand.
"That will do," the captain said. "I will take you."
Harry went to the side.
"Here, my man, is your money, and a crown piece beside. Go to the Hotel des Etoiles and ask for the English officer who is there lying sick. Tell him Colonel Furness has been forced to leave for England at a moment's notice, but will be back by the first ship."
The man nodded, and rowed back to shore as the Mary Anne, with her sails hoisted, ran down the river.
Never did a voyage appear longer to an anxious passenger than did that of the Mary Anne to England. The winds were light and baffling, and at times the Mary Anne scarce moved through the water. Harry had no love for Cromwell. Upon the contrary, he regarded him as the deadliest enemy of the king, and moreover personally hated him for the cruel massacre of Drogheda. In battle he would have gladly slain him, but he was determined to save him from assassination. He felt the man to be a great Englishman, and knew that it was greatly due to his counsels that so little English blood had been shed upon the scaffold. Most of all, he thought that his assassination would injure the royal cause. The time was not yet ripe for a restoration. England had shown but lately that there existed no enthusiasm for the royal cause. At Cromwell's death the chief power would fall into the hands of fanatics more dangerous and more violent than he. His murder would be used as a weapon for a wholesale persecution of the Royalists throughout the land, and would create such a prejudice against them that the inevitable reaction in favor of royalty would be retarded for years. Full of these thoughts, Harry fretted and fumed over the slow progress of the Mary Anne. Late on Saturday night she entered the mouth of the Thames, and anchored until the tide turned. Before daybreak she was on her way, and bore up on the tide as far as Gravesend, when she had again to anchor. Harry obtained a boat and was rowed to shore. In his present appearance, he did not like to go to one of the principal inns for a horse, but entering a small one on the outskirts of the place, asked the landlord if he could procure him a horse.
"I am not what I seem," he said, in answer to his host's look of surprise. "But I have urgent need to get to London this evening. I will pay well for the horse, and will leave this ring with you as a guarantee for his safe return."
"I have not a horse myself," the landlord said, with more respect than he had at first shown; "but I might get one from my neighbor Harry Fletcher, the butcher. Are you willing to pay a guinea for his use? Fletcher will drive you himself."
Harry agreed to the sum, and a quarter of an hour later the man, with a light horse and cart, came to the door.
"You are a strange-looking carle," he said, "to be riding on a Sunday in haste; I scarce like being seen with thee."
"I have landed but an hour ago," Harry said, "and can buy no clothes to-day; but if you or mine host here, who is nearer my size, have a decent suit which you can sell me, I will pay you double the sum it cost."
The landlord at once agreed to the terms, and five minutes later Harry, clad in the sober garb of a decent tradesman, mounted the cart. The horse was not a fast one, and the roads were bad. It was nigh six o'clock before they reached London. Paying Fletcher the sum agreed upon, Harry walked rapidly westward. Cromwell was abiding in a house in Pall Mall. Upon Harry arriving there he was asked his business.
"The general is ill," the servant said, "and can see no one."
"I must see him," Harry urged. "It is a matter of the extremest importance."
"See him you cannot," the man repeated, "and it were waste of words to talk further on the matter. Dost think that, even were he well, the general, with all the affairs of the Commonwealth on his shoulders, has time to see every gossiping citizen who would have speech with him?"
Harry slipped a gold piece into the man's hand.
"It is useless," the man said. "The general is, as I truly told thee, ill."
Harry stood in despair, "Could you gain me speech with the general's wife?"
"Ay," the man said. "I might do that. What name shall say?"
"She would not know my name. Merely say that one wishes to speak to her on a matter nearly touching the safety of the general."
"Hadst thou said that at once," the man grumbled, "I might have admitted you before. There are many rumors of plots on the part of the malignants against the life of the general. I will take your message to Madam Cromwell, and she can deal with it as she will."
The man was absent for a few minutes. Then he returned with an officer.
"Can you tell me," the latter asked, "what you have to reveal?"
"No," Harry replied, "I must speak with the general himself."
"Beware," the officer said sternly, "that you trifle not. The general is sick, and has many things on his mind; 'twill be ill for you if you disturb him without cause."
"The cause is sufficient," Harry said. "I would see him in person."
Without a word the officer turned and led the way to a room upstairs, where Cromwell was sitting at a table, His wife was near him. A Bible lay open before him. Cromwell looked steadily at Harry.
"I hear that you have a matter of importance to tell me, young man, and one touching my safety. I know that there are many who thirst for my blood. But I am in the hands of the Lord, who has so far watched over His servant. If there be truth in what you have to tell you will be rewarded."
"I seek for no reward," Harry said. "I have gained knowledge of a plot against your life. Do you wish that I should speak in the presence of this officer?"
"Assuredly," the general said.
"Briefly, then, I have arrived from Hamburg but now to give you warning of a matter which came to my ears. I overheard, how it matters not, a conversation between two rascals who gave themselves out as Royalists, but who were indeed rather escaped criminals, to the effect that men had gone over thence to England with the intention of killing you. The plot was to come off to-night, Whether there be any change in the arrangements or no I cannot say, but the matter was, as they said, fixed for to-night. One of the women servants has been bribed to open the back entrance and to admit them there, More than this I know not."
"You speak, sir, as one beyond your station," Cromwell said; "and methinks I know both your face and figure, which are not easily forgotten when once seen."
"It matters not who I am," Harry replied, "so that the news I bring be true. I am no friend of yours, but a servant of King Charles. Though I would withstand you to the death in the field, I would not that a life like yours should be cut short by assassination; or that the royal cause should be sullied by such a deed, the dishonor of which, though planned and carried out by a small band of desperate partisans, would yet, in the eyes of the world, fall upon all who followed King Charles."
"You are bold, sir," Cromwell said. "But I wonder not, for I know you now. We have met, so far as I know, but once before. That was after Drogheda, where you defended the church, and where I spared your life at the intercession of my chaplain. I heard of you afterward as having, by a desperate enterprise, escaped, and afterward captured a ship with prisoners; and as having inflicted heavy loss and damage upon the soldiers of Parliament. You fought at Dunbar and Worcester, and, if I mistake not, incurred the enmity of the Earl of Argyll."
"I am Sir Harry Furness," Harry said calmly; "his majesty having been pleased to bestow upon me the honor of knighthood. Nor are you mistaken touching the other matters, since you yourself agreed at the lonely house on the moor to hand me over to Colonel Campbell, as his price for betraying the post I commanded. That matter, as you may remember, turned out otherwise than had been expected. I am not ashamed of my name, nor have I any fear of its being known to you. I have come over to do you service, and fear not harm at your hands when on such business."
"Why then did you not tell me at once?" Cromwell asked.
"Simply because I seek no favor at your hands. I would not that you should think that Harry Furness sought to reconcile himself with the Commons, by giving notice of a plot against your life. I am intending to start for Virginia and settle there, and would not stoop to sue for amnesty, though I should never see Furness Hall or England again."
Harry spoke in a tone of haughty frankness, which carried conviction with it.
"I doubt you not," Cromwell said. "You have been a bitter foe to the Commons, Colonel Furness, but it is not of men like you that we need be afraid. You meet us fairly in the field, and fight us loyally and honorably. It is the tricksters, the double-dealers, and the traitors, the men who profess to be on our side but who burrow in the dark against us, who trouble our peace. In this matter I am greatly beholden to you. Now that you have given us warning of the plot, it will be met if attempted. But should these men's hearts fail them, or for any other cause the attempt be laid aside, I shall be none the less indebted to you. I trust, Colonel Furness, that you will not go to the plantations. England needs honest men here. There is a great work yet to be done before happiness and quiet are restored; and we need all wise and good men in the counsels of the state. Be assured that you are free to return and dwell with the Cavalier, your father, at your pleasure. He drew aside from the strife when he saw that the cause he fought for was hopeless, and none have interfered with him. Charles will, methinks, fight no more in England. His cause is lost, and wise men will adapt themselves to the circumstances. Let me know where you lodge to-night. You will hear further from me to-morrow."
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26 | REST AT LAST. | Harry slept at an inn in Westminster, and the next morning on going down to his breakfast, he found people much excited, a rumor having gone about that an attack had been made upon Cromwell's house during the night, and that several had been killed, but no harm done to the general. An hour afterward a messenger brought word that General Cromwell wished to see Colonel Furness. After his breakfast Harry had at once gone out and purchased clothes suitable to a country gentleman; in these he proceeded to the general, and was at once shown up to his room.
"Your news was trustworthy, Colonel Furness, and Oliver Cromwell owes his life to you. Soon after midnight one of the serving wenches opened the back door, and eight men entered. Had no watch been set, they would doubtless have reached my room unobserved, by the staircase which leads from that part of the house. As it was, I had a guard in waiting, and when the men were fairly inside they fell upon them. The soldiers were too quick with them, being hot at the plot which was intended against my life, and all were killed, together with the wench who admitted them, who was stabbed by one of the men at the first alarm, thinking doubtless she had betrayed them. I hear that none of them have the air of gentlemen, but are clearly broken men and vagabonds. The haste of my soldiers has prevented me from getting any clew as to those who set them on, but I am sure that no English gentleman, even although devoted to the cause of Charles Stuart, would so plot against my life. And now, sir, I thank you heartily for the great service you have rendered me. My life is, I think, precious to England, where I hope to do some good work before I die. I say only in return that henceforth you may come and go as you list; and I hope yet that you will sit by me in Parliament, and aid me to set things in England in order. Do not take this, sir, as in any way a recompense for saving my life. The war is over; a few of those who had troubled, and would always trouble the peace of England, have been executed. Against the rest we bear no malice. They are free to return to their homes and occupations as they list, and so long as they obey the laws, and abstain from fresh troubles and plots, none will molest them. But, sir, in order that no molestation or vexation may occur to you, here is a free pass, signed by General Fairfax and two of the commissioners, saying that you are at liberty to go or come and to stay where you please, without hindrance or molestation from any."
Harry took the document, bowed, and withdrew.
"It is a thousand pities," he said to himself, "that his majesty the king has not somewhat of this man's quality. This is a strong man, and a true. He may have his faults--ay, he has them--he is ambitions, he is far more fanatical for his religion than was Charles I. for his. He is far more absolute, far more domineering than was King Charles. Were he made king to-morrow, as I hear he is like enough to be, he would trample upon the Parliament and despise its will infinitely more than any English king would ever have dared to do. But for all that he is a great man, honest, sincere, and, above all, to be trusted. Who can say that for the Stuarts?"
Upon the day of his arrival Harry had written to Jacob telling him the cause of his sudden departure, and promising to return by the first ship, He hesitated now whether he should sail at once, or go down to see his father, but he determined that it would be best, at any rate in the first place, to return to Hamburg and look after his companion, and then to come over to see his father, before carrying out his intention of proceeding to Virginia. A ship would, he found, be sailing in three days, and he wrote to his father telling him that he had been in London for a day or two, but was forced by the illness of Jacob to return at once; but that upon his friend's recovery he would come back to Abingdon for a short time before leaving. He arrived at Hamburg without adventure. On reaching the hotel he was informed that Jacob was delirious, and that his life was despaired of. The rascally boatman could not have given the message with which he had been charged, since Jacob, upon the day after he was first missed, had risen from his bed, and insisted on going in search of him. He had, after many inquiries, learned that one answering to his description had taken part in a fray in a drinking-house--interfering to protect a Bohemian singer from insult. Beyond this nothing could be heard of him. He had not been seen in the fray in the street, when several of the rioters had been captured and carried off by the watch, and some supposed that he might have left the place at the back, in which case it was feared that he might have been fallen upon and assassinated by the ruffians in the low quarter lying behind the drinking hall. Jacob had worked himself into a state of high fever by his anxiety, and upon returning to the hotel had become so violent that they were forced to restrain him. He had been bled and blistered, but had remained for a fortnight in a state of violent fever and delirium. This had now somewhat abated, but he was in such a weak state that the doctors feared the worst.
The return of Harry did more for him than all the doctors of Hamburg. He seemed at once to recognize his voice, and the pressure of his hand soothed and calmed him. He presently fell into a deep sleep, in which he lay for twelve hours, and on opening his eyes at once recognized his friend. His recovery now was rapid, and in a week he was able to sit up.
One morning the servant told Harry that a gentleman wished to speak to him, and a moment after his father entered. With a cry of delight father and son flew into each other's arms. It was four years since they had met, and both were altered much. The colonel had aged greatly, while Harry had grown into a broad and powerful man.
"My dear father, this is an unexpected pleasure indeed," Harry said, when the first burst of delight was over. "Did you not get my letter from London, saying that I hoped shortly to be with you?"
"From London!" the colonel exclaimed, astonished. "No, indeed; I have received no letter save that which your boy brought me. We started a week later for Southampton, where we were detained nigh ten days for a ship."
"And who is the _we_, father?" Harry asked anxiously.
"Ah," the old man said, "now you are in a hurry to know. Who should it be but Master Rippinghall and a certain young lady?"
"Oh, father, has Lucy really come?"
"Assuredly she has," Colonel Furness said, "and is now waiting in a private room below with her brother, for Sir Harry. I have not congratulated you yet, my boy, on your new dignity."
"And you really consent to my marriage, sir?"
"I don't see that I could help it," the colonel said, "since you had set your mind on it, especially as when I came to inquire I found the young lady was willing to go to Virginia. But we must talk of that anon. Yes, Harry, you have my full consent. The young lady is not quite of the rank of life I should have chosen for you; but ranks and classes are all topsy-turvy in England at present, and when we are ruled over by a brewer, it would be nice indeed to refuse to take a wool-stapler's sister for wife. But seriously, Harry, I am well contented. I knew little of the young lady except by common report, which spoke of her as the sweetest and kindest damsel in Abingdon. But now I have seen her, I wonder not at your choice. During the fortnight we have been together I have watched her closely, and I find in her a rare combination of gentleness and firmness. You have won her heart, Harry, though how she can have kept thee in mind all this time is more than I can tell. Her brother tells me that he placed no pressure upon her either for or against, though he desired much for your sake, and from the love he bore you, that she should accept of your suit. Now you had better go down, and learn from her own lips how it stands with her."
It need not to describe the meeting between Harry and his old friends. Herbert was warm and cordial as of old. Lucy was but little changed since Harry had seen her four years before, save that she was more fair and womanly.
"Your letter gave me," Herbert said, "a mixed feeling of pleasure and pain. I knew that my little sister has always looked upon you as a hero of romance, and though I knew not that as a woman her heart still turned to you, yet she refused so sharply and shrewishly all the suitors who came to her, that I suspected that her thoughts of you were more than a mere child's fancy. When your letter came I laid no pressure upon her, just as in other cases I have held aloof, and indeed have gained some ill-will at the hands of old friends because I would not, as her brother, and the head of the family, lay stress upon her. I read your letter to her, and she at first said she was ready to obey my wishes in the matter, and to go with you to Virginia if I bade her. I said that in such a matter it was her will and not mine which I wished to consult, and thus pressed into a corner, she owned that she would gladly go with you."
"Harry," the girl said, "for my tongue is not as yet used to your new title, under other circumstances I should have needed to be wooed and won like other girls. But seeing how strangely you are placed, and that you were about to start across the sea, to be absent perhaps for many years, I felt that it would not be worthy either of me or you were I to affect a maiden coyness and so to throw difficulties in your way. I feel the honor of the offer you have made me. That you should for so many years have been absent and seen the grand ladies of the court, and have yet thought of your little playfellow, shows that your heart is as true and good as I of old thought it to be, and I need feel no shame in acknowledging that I have ever thought of you with affection."
For the next few days there was much argument over the project of going to Virginia. Herbert, when he heard what had happened in London, joined his entreaties to those of Sir Henry, asserting that he had only consented to Lucy's going to so outlandish a place in the belief that there was no help for it, and that he did not think it fair for Harry to take her to such a life when he could stay comfortably at home. Sir Henry did not say much, but Harry could see how ardently he longed for him to remain. As for Lucy, she stood neutral, saying that assuredly she did not wish to go to Virginia, but that, upon the other hand, she should feel that her consent had been obtained under false pretenses, and that she had been defrauded of the enjoyment of a proper and regular courtship, did it prove that Harry might have come home and sought her hand in regular form. Harry's reluctance to remain arose principally from the fact that he had gained permission to do so by an act of personal service which he had done the king's great enemy. Had he been included in a general amnesty he would gladly have accepted it. However, his resolution gave way under the arguments of Herbert, who urged upon him that he had no right, on a mere point of punctilio, to leave his father in his old age, and to take Lucy from her country and friends to a life of hardship in the plantations of Virginia. At last he yielded. Then a difficulty arose with Lucy, who would fain have returned to Abingdon with her brother, and urged she should there have time given her to be married in regular fashion. This Harry would by no means consent to, and as both Sir Henry and Herbert saw no occasion for the delay, they were married a fortnight later at the Protestant church at Hamburg, Jacob, who was by this time perfectly restored to health, acting as his best man.
One of the first steps which Harry took after his return to Hamburg was to inquire about the gypsy maid who had done him such service. She was still singing at the drinking-house. Harry went down there in the daytime and gave one of the drawers a crown to tell her quietly that the Englishman she knew would fain see her, and would wait for her at a spot he named on the walk by the river bank, between ten and twelve the next day. Here, accompanied by Lucy, who, having heard of the service which the girl had rendered him, fully entered into his anxiety to befriend her, he awaited her the next day. She came punctual to the appointment, but in great fear that the old gypsy would discover her absence. Upon Harry telling her that Lucy, who was about to become his wife, would willingly take her to England and receive her as a companion until such time as some opportunity for furthering her way in life might appear, Zita accepted the proposal with tears of joy. She abhorred the life she was forced to lead, and it was only after many beatings and much ill-usage from the gypsies that she consented to it, and it made her life the harder, inasmuch as she knew that she had not been born to such a fate, but had been stolen as a child.
"What could have been their motive in carrying you away?" Lucy asked.
"I believe," the girl said, "from what they have told me, that I was taken in revenge. My father had charged one of the gypsies with theft, and the man having been hung, the others, to avenge themselves, carried me off."
"But why did you not, when you grew old enough, tell your story to the magistrates, and appeal to them for assistance?"
"Alas!" the girl said, "what proofs have I for my tale? Moreover, even were I believed, and taken from the gypsies, what was there for me to do, save to beg in the streets for charity?"
They now arranged with her the manner of her flight. She was afraid to meet them again lest her footsteps should be traced, for she was sure that the gypsies would carry her away to some other town if they had the least suspicion that she had made friends with any capable of taking her part, as the whole party lived in idleness upon the money she gained by singing. It was arranged, therefore, that the night before they were to depart Harry should appear in the singing hall, and should take his place near the door. She should let him know that she perceived him by passing her hand twice across her forehead. When the performance was over she should, instead of leaving as usual by the back way, slip down the steps, and mingle with those leaving the hall. Outside the door she would find Harry, who would take her to the hotel, where dresses would be provided for her. There she should stop the night, and go on board ship with them in the morning.
These arrangements were all carried out, and four days after the wedding of Harry and Lucy the party, with Zita, sailed for England. Had the tenantry on the Furness estate known of the home-coming of their young master and his bride, they would have given him a grand reception; but Harry and his father both agreed that this had better not be, for that it was as well to call no public attention to his return, even though he had received Cromwell's permission.
After all his adventures, Sir Harry Furness dwelt quietly and happily with his father. In the following years the English fleet fought many hard battles with the Dutch, and the Parliament, in order to obtain money, confiscated the property of most of those Cavaliers who had now returned under the Act of Amnesty. Steps were taken against Sir Henry Furness, but as he had taken no part in the troubles after the close of the first civil war, Cromwell, on receiving an application from him, peremptorily quashed the proceedings.
On April 20, 1653, Cromwell went down to the House with a body of troops, and expelled the Parliament, who were in the act of passing a bill for their own dissolution, and a new representation. He thus proved himself as tyrannous and despotic as any sovereign could have been. A new Parliament was summoned, but instead of its members being elected in accordance with the customs of England, they were selected and nominated by Cromwell himself. The history of England contains no instance of such a defiance of the constitutional rights of the people. But although he had grasped power arbitrarily and by force, Cromwell used it well and wisely, and many wise laws and great social reforms were passed by the Parliament under his orders. Still the fanatical party were in the majority in this body, and as Cromwell saw that these persons would push matters further than he wished, he made an arrangement with the minority, who resigned their seats, thereby leaving an insufficient number in the House to transact business. Cromwell accepted their resignation, and the Parliament then ceased to exist.
Four days later, on the 16th of December, Cromwell assumed the state and title of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. For the next five years he governed England wisely and well. The Parliament was assembled, but as its proceedings were not in accordance with his wishes, he dissolved it, and for the most part governed England by his own absolute will. That it was a strong will and a wise cannot be questioned, but that a rising, which originally began because the king would not yield to the absolute will of Parliament, should have ended in a despotism, in which the chief of the king's opponents should have ruled altogether without Parliaments, is strange indeed. It is singular to find that those who make most talk about the liberties of Englishmen should regard as their hero and champion the man who trod all the constitutional rights of Englishmen under foot. But if a despot, Cromwell was a wise and firm one, and his rule was greatly for the good of the country. Above all, he brought the name of England into the highest honor abroad, and made it respected throughout Europe. Would that among all Englishmen of the present day there existed the same feeling of patriotism, the same desire for the honor and credit of their country, as dwelt in the breast of Oliver Cromwell.
On August 30, 1658, Cromwell died, and his son Richard succeeded him. The Parliament and the army soon fell out, and the army, coming down in force, dissolved Parliament, and Richard Cromwell ceased at once to have any power. The army called together forty-two of the old members of the Long Parliament, of extreme republican views, but these had no sooner met than they broke into divisions, and England was wholly without a government. So matters went on for some time, until General Monk, with the army of the north, came up to London. He had for weeks been in communication with the king. For a time he was uncertain of the course he should take, but after awhile he found that the feeling of London was wholly averse to the Parliament, and so resolved to take the lead in a restoration. A Parliament was summoned, and upon the day after its assembling Monk presented to them a document from King Charles, promising to observe the constitution, granting full liberty of conscience, and an amnesty for past offenses. Parliament at once declared in favor of the ancient laws of the kingdom, the government to be by King, Lords and Commons; and on May 8, 1660, Charles II. was proclaimed king, and on the 30th entered London in triumph.
Sir Harry Furness sat in the Parliament which recalled the king, and in many subsequent ones. His father came to London to see the royal entry, and both were most kindly received by the king, who expressed a warm hope that he should often see them at court. This, however, was not to be. The court of King Charles offered no attractions to pure-minded and honorable men. Sir Henry came no more to London, but lived quietly and happily to the end of a long life at Furness Hall, rejoicing much over the happiness of his son, and in the society of his daughter-in-law and her children. Herbert Rippinghall sat in Parliament for Abingdon. Except when obliged by his duties as a member to be in London, Sir Harry Furness lived quietly at Furness Hall, taking much interest in country matters. Twenty-eight years later James II fled from England, and William of Orange mounted the throne. At this time Sir Harry Furness was sixty-one, and he lived many years to see the freedom and rights for which Englishmen had so hotly struggled and fought now enjoyed by them in all their fullness.
A few words as to the other personages of this story. Jacob, three years after Harry's return to England, married the Spanish girl Zita, and settled down in a pretty house called the Dower House, on the Furness property, which, together with a large farm attached to it, Sir Henry Furness settled upon him, as a token of his affection and gratitude to him for the faithful services he had rendered to his son.
William Long was made bailiff of the estate, and Mike remained the attached and faithful body-servant of Sir Harry, until he, ten years later, married the daughter and heiress of a tradesman in Abingdon, and became a leading citizen of that town.
Although Harry was not of a revengeful disposition, he rejoiced exceedingly when he heard, two or three months after the king's restoration, of the execution of that doubly-dyed traitor, the Earl of Argyll.
THE END.
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1 | None | "'Twas a commodity lay fretting by you; 'Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas."
_Taming of the Shrew. _ There is nothing in which American Liberty, not always as much restrained as it might be, has manifested a more decided tendency to run riot, than in the use of names. As for Christian names, the Heathen Mythology, the Bible, Ancient History, and all the classics, have long since been exhausted, and the organ of invention has been at work with an exuberance of imagination that is really wonderful for such a matter-of-fact people. Whence all the strange sounds have been derived which have thus been pressed into the service of this human nomenclature, it would puzzle the most ingenious philologist to say. The days of the Kates, and Dollys, and Pattys, and Bettys, have passed away, and in their stead we hear of Lowinys, and Orchistrys, Philenys, Alminys, Cytherys, Sarahlettys, Amindys, Marindys, &c. &c. &c. All these last appellations terminate properly with an a, but this unfortunate vowel, when a final letter, being popularly pronounced like y, we have adapted our spelling to the sound, which produces a complete bathos to all these flights in taste.
The hero of this narrative was born fully sixty years since, and happily before the rage for modern appellations, though he just escaped being named after another system which we cannot say we altogether admire; that of using a family, for a christian name. This business of names is a sort of science in itself and we do believe that it is less understood and less attended to in this country than in almost all others. When a Spaniard writes his name as Juan de Castro y[1] Muños, we know that his father belonged to the family of Castro and his mother to that of Muños. The French, and Italian, and Russian woman, &c., writes on her card Madame this or that, _born_ so and so; all which tells the whole history of her individuality Many French women, in signing their names, prefix those of their own family to those of their husbands, a sensible and simple usage that we are glad to see is beginning to obtain among ourselves. The records on tomb-stones, too, might be made much more clear and useful than they now are, by stating distinctly who the party was, on both sides of the house, or by father and mother; and each married woman ought to be commemorated in some such fashion as this: "Here lies Jane Smith, wife of John Jones," &c., or, "Jane, daughter of Thomas Smith and wife of John Jones." We believe that, in some countries, a woman's name is not properly considered to be changed by marriage, but she becomes a Mrs. only in connection with the name of her husband. Thus Jane Smith becomes Mrs. _John_ Jones, but not Mrs. Jane Jones. It is on this idea we suppose that our ancestors the English--every Englishman, as a matter of course, being every American's ancestor--thus it is, we suppose, therefore, that our ancestors, who pay so much more attention to such matters than we do ourselves, in their table of courtesy, call the wife of Lord John Russell, Lady _John_, and not Lady--whatever her Christian name may happen to be. We suppose, moreover, it is on this principle that Mrs. General This, Mrs. Dr. That, and Mrs. Senator T'other, are as inaccurate as they are notoriously vulgar.
[Footnote 1: Some few of our readers may require to be told that, in Spanish, y, pronounced as e, is the simple conjunction "and;" thus this name is de Castro _and_ Muños.]
Mark Woolston came from a part of this great republic where the names are still as simple, unpretending, and as good Saxon English, as in the county of Kent itself. He was born in the little town of Bristol, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. This is a portion of the country that, Heaven be praised! still retains some of the good old-fashioned directness and simplicity. Bucks is full of Jacks, and Bens, and Dicks, and we question if there is such a creature, of native growth, in all that region, as an Ithusy, or a Seneky, or a Dianthy, or an Antonizetty, or a Deidamy. [2] The Woolstons, in particular, were a plain family, and very unpretending in their external appearance, but of solid and highly respectable habits around the domestic hearth. Knowing perfectly how to spell, they never dreamed anyone would suspect them of ignorance. They called themselves as their forefathers were called, that is to say, Wooster, or just as Worcester is pronounced; though a Yankee schoolmaster tried for a whole summer to persuade our hero, when a child, that he ought to be styled Wool-ston. This had no effect on Mark, who went on talking of his uncles and aunts, "Josy Wooster," and "Tommy Wooster," and "Peggy Wooster," precisely as if a New England academy did not exist on earth; or as if Webster had not actually put Johnson under his feet!
[Footnote 2: Absurd and forced as these strange appellations may appear, they are all genuine. The writer has collected a long list of such names from real life, which he may one day publish--Orchistra, Philena, and Almina are among them. To all the names ending in a, it must be remembered that the sound of a final y is given.]
The father of Mark Woolston (or Wooster) was a physician, and, for the country and age, was a well-educated and skilful man. Mark was born in 1777, just seventy years since, and only ten days before the surrender of Burgoyne. A good deal of attention was paid to his instruction, and fortunately for himself, his servitude under the eastern pedagogue was of very short duration, and Mark continued to speak the English language as his fathers had spoken it before him. The difference on the score of language, between Pennsylvania and New Jersey and Maryland, always keeping in the counties that were not settled by Germans or Irish, and the New England states, and _through_ them, New York, is really so obvious as to deserve a passing word. In the states first named, taverns, for instance, are still called the Dun Cow, the Indian Queen, or the Anchor: whereas such a thing would be hard to find, at this day, among the six millions of people who dwell in the latter. We question if there be such a thing as a coffee-house in all Philadelphia, though we admit it with grief, the respectable town of Brotherly Love has, in some respects, become infected with the spirit of innovation. Thus it is that good old "State House _Yard_" has been changed into "Independence Square." This certainly is not as bad as the _tour de force_ of the aldermen of Manhattan when they altered "Bear Market" into "_Washington_ Market!" for it is not a prostitution of the name of a great man, in the first place, and there is a direct historical allusion in the new name that everybody can understand. Still, it is to be regretted; and we hope this will be the last thing of the sort that will ever occur, though we confers our confidence in Philadelphian stability and consistency is a good deal lessened, since we have learned, by means of a late law-suit, that there are fifty or sixty aldermen in the place; a number of those worthies that is quite sufficient to upset the proprieties, in Athens itself!
Dr. Woolston had a competitor in another physician, who lived within a mile of him, and whose name was Yardley. Dr. Yardley was a very respectable person, had about the same degree of talents and knowledge as his neighbour and rival, but was much the richest man of the two. Dr. Yardley, however, had but one child, a daughter, whereas Dr. Woolston, with much less of means, had sons and daughters. Mark was the oldest of the family, and it was probably owing to this circumstance that he was so well educated, since the expense was not yet to be shared with that of keeping his brothers and sisters at schools of the same character.
In 1777 an American college was little better than a high school. It could not be called, in strictness, a grammar school, inasmuch as all the sciences were glanced at, if not studied; but, as respects the classics, more than a grammar school it was not, nor that of a very high order. It was a consequence of the light nature of the studies, that mere boys graduated in those institutions. Such was the case with Mark Woolston, who would have taken his degree as a Bachelor of Arts, at Nassau Hall, Princeton, had not an event occurred, in his sixteenth year, which produced an entire change in his plan of life, and nipped his academical honours in the bud.
Although it is unusual for square-rigged vessels of any size to ascend the Delaware higher than Philadelphia, the river is, in truth, navigable for such craft almost to Trenton Bridge. In the year 1793, when Mark Woolston was just sixteen, a full-rigged ship actually came up, and lay at the end of the wharf in Burlington, the little town nearly opposite to Bristol, where she attracted a great deal of the attention of all the youths of the vicinity. Mark was at home, in a vacation, and he passed half his time in and about that ship, crossing the river in a skiff of which he was the owner, in order to do so. From that hour young Mark affected the sea, and all the tears of his mother and eldest sister, the latter a pretty girl only two years his junior, and the more sober advice of his father, could not induce him to change his mind. A six weeks' vacation was passed in the discussion of this subject, when the Doctor yielded to his son's importunities, probably foreseeing he should have his hands full to educate his other children, and not unwilling to put this child, as early as possible, in the way of supporting himself.
The commerce of America, in 1793, was already flourishing, and Philadelphia was then much the most important place in the country. Its East India trade, in particular, was very large and growing, and Dr. Woolston knew that fortunes were rapidly made by many engaged in it. After, turning the thing well over in his mind, he determined to consult Mark's inclinations, and to make a sailor of him. He had a cousin married to the sister of an East India, or rather of a Canton ship-master, and to this person the father applied for advice and assistance. Captain Crutchely very willingly consented to receive Mark in his own vessel, the Rancocus, and promised "to make a man and an officer of him."
The very day Mark first saw the ocean he was sixteen years old. He had got his height, five feet eleven, and was strong for his years, and active. In fact, it would not have been easy to find a lad every way so well adapted to his new calling, as young Mark Woolston. The three years of his college life, if they had not made him a Newton, or a Bacon, had done him no harm, filling his mind with the germs of ideas that were destined afterwards to become extremely useful to him. The young man was already, indeed, a sort of factotum, being clever and handy at so many things and in so many different ways, as early to attract the attention of the officers. Long before the vessel reached the capes, he was at home in her, from her truck to her keelson, and Captain Crutchely remarked to his chief mate, the day they got to sea, that "young Mark Woolston was likely to turn up a trump."
As for Mark himself, he did not lose sight of the land, for the first time in his life, altogether without regrets. He had a good deal of feeling in connection with his parents, and his brothers and sisters; but, as it is our aim to conceal nothing which ought to be revealed, we must add there was still another who filled his thoughts more than all the rest united. This person was Bridget Yardley, the only child of his father's most formidable professional competitor.
The two physicians were obliged to keep up a sickly intercourse, not intending a pun. They were too often called in to consult together, to maintain an open war. While the heads of their respective families occasionally met, therefore, at the bed-side of their patients, the families themselves had no direct communications. It is true, that Mrs. Woolston and Mrs. Yardley were occasionally to be seen seated at the same tea-table, taking their hyson in company, for the recent trade with China had expelled the bohea from most of the better parlours of the country; nevertheless, these good ladies could not get to be cordial with each other. They themselves had a difference on religious points, that was almost as bitter as the differences of opinions between their husbands on the subject of alternatives. In that distant day, homoeopathy, and allopathy, and hydropathy, and all the opathies, were nearly unknown; but men could wrangle and abuse each other on medical points, just as well and as bitterly then, as they do now. Religion, too, quite as often failed to bear its proper fruits, in 1793, as it proves barren in these, our own times. On this subject of religion, we have one word to say, and that is, simply, that it never was a meet matter for self-gratulation and boasting. Here we have the Americo-Anglican church, just as it has finished a blast of trumpets, through the medium of numberless periodicals and a thousand letters from its confiding if not confident clergy, in honour of its quiet, and harmony, and superior polity, suspended on the very brink of the precipice of separation, if not of schism, and all because it has pleased certain ultra-sublimated divines in the other hemisphere, to write a parcel of tracts that nobody understands, themselves included. How many even of the ministers of the altar fall, at the very moment they are beginning to fancy themselves saints, and are ready to thank God they are "not like the publicans!"
Both. Mrs. Woolston and Mrs. Yardley were what is called 'pious;' that is, each said her prayers, each went to her particular church, and very _particular_ churches they were; each fancied she had a sufficiency of saving faith, but neither was charitable enough to think, in a very friendly temper, of the other. This difference of religious opinion, added to the rival reputations of their husbands, made these ladies anything but good neighbours, and, as has been intimated, years had passed since either had entered the door of the other.
Very different was the feeling of the children. Anne Woolston, the oldest sister of Mark, and Bridget Yardley, were nearly of an age, and they were not only school-mates, but fast friends. To give their mothers their due, they did not lessen this intimacy by hints, or intimations of any sort, but let the girls obey their own tastes, as if satisfied it was quite sufficient for "professors of religion" to hate in their own persons, without entailing the feeling on posterity. Anne and Bridget consequently became warm friends, the two sweet, pretty young things both believing, in the simplicity of their hearts, that the very circumstance which in truth caused the alienation, not to say the hostility of the elder members of their respective families, viz. professional identity, was an additional reason why _they_ should love each other so much the more. The girls were about two and three years the juniors of Mark, but well grown for their time of life, and frank and affectionate as innocence and warm hearts could make them. Each was more than pretty, though it was in styles so very different, as scarcely to produce any of that other sort of rivalry, which is so apt to occur even in the gentler sex. Anne had bloom, and features, and fine teeth, and, a charm that is so very common in America, a good mouth; but Bridget had all these added to expression. Nothing could be more soft, gentle and feminine, than Bridget Yardley's countenance, in its ordinary state of rest; or more spirited, laughing, buoyant or pitying than it became, as the different passions or feelings were excited in her young bosom. As Mark was often sent to see his sister home, in her frequent visits to the madam's house, where the two girls held most of their intercourse, he was naturally enough admitted into their association. The connection commenced by Mark's agreeing to be Bridget's brother, as well as Anne's. This was generous, at least; for Bridget was an only child, and it was no more than right to repair the wrongs of fortune in this particular. The charming young thing declared that she would "rather have Mark Woolston for her brother than any other boy in Bristol; and that it was delightful to have the same person for a brother as Anne!" Notwithstanding this flight in the romantic, Bridget Yardley was as natural as it was possible for a female in a reasonably civilized condition of society to be. There was a vast deal of excellent, feminine self-devotion in her temperament, but not a particle of the exaggerated, in either sentiment or fueling. True as steel in all her impulses and opinions, in adopting Mark for a brother she merely yielded to a strong natural sympathy, without understanding its tendency or its origin. She would talk by the hour, with Anne, touching _their_ brother, and what they must make him do, and where he must go with them, and in what they could oblige him most. The real sister was less active than her friend, in mind and body, and she listened to all these schemes and notions with a quiet submission that was not entirely free from wonder.
The result of all this intercourse was to awaken a feeling between Mark and Bridget, that was far more profound than might have been thought in breasts so young, and which coloured their future lives. Mark first became conscious of the strength of this feeling when he lost sight of the Capes, and fancied the dear little. Bucks county girl he had left behind him, talking with his sister of his own absence and risks. But Mark had too much of the true spirit of a sailor in him, to pine, or neglect his duty; and, long ere the ship had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, he had become an active and handy lad aloft. When the ship reached the China seas, he actually took his trick at the helm.
As was usual in that day, the voyage of the Rancocus lasted about a twelvemonth. If John Chinaman were only one-half as active as Jonathan Restless, it might be disposed of in about one-fourth less time; but teas are not transported along the canals of the Celestial Empire with anything like the rapidity with which wheat was sent to market over the rough roads of the Great Republic, in the age of which we are writing.
When Mark Woolston re-appeared in Bristol, after the arrival of the Rancocus below had been known there about twenty-four hours, he was the envy of all the lads in the place, and the admiration of most of the girls. There he was, a tall, straight, active, well-made, well-grown and decidedly handsome lad of seventeen, who had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, seen foreign parts, and had a real India handkerchief hanging out of each pocket of a blue round-about of superfine cloth, besides one around his half-open well-formed throat, that was carelessly tied in a true sailor knot! The questions he had to answer, and _did_ answer, about whales, Chinese feet, and "mountain waves!" Although Bristol lies on a navigable river, up and down which frigates had actually been seen to pass in the revolution, it was but little that its people knew of the ocean. Most of the worthy inhabitants of the place actually fancied that the waves of the sea were as high as mountains, though their notions of the last were not very precise, there being no elevations in that part of the country fit even for a windmill.
But Mark cared little for these interrogatories. He was happy; happy enough, at being the object of so much attention; happier still in the bosom of a family of which he had always been the favourite and was now the pride; and happiest of all when he half ravished a kiss from the blushing cheek of Bridget Yardley. Twelve months had done a great deal for each of the young couple. If they had not quite made a man of Mark, they had made him manly, and his _soi-disant_ sister wondered that any one could be so much improved by a sea-faring life. As for Bridget, herself, she was just bursting into young womanhood, resembling the bud as its leaves of green are opening to permit those of the deepest rose-coloured tint to be seen, before they expand into the full-blown flower. Mark was more than delighted, he was fascinated; and young as they were, the month he passed at home sufficed to enable him to tell his passion, and to obtain a half-ready, half-timid acceptance of the offer of his hand. All this time, the parents of these very youthful lovers were as profoundly ignorant of what was going on, as their children were unobservant of the height to which professional competition had carried hostilities between their respective parents. Doctors Woolston and Yardley no longer met even in consultations; or, if they did meet in the house of some patient whose patronage was of too much value to be slighted, it was only to dispute, and sometimes absolutely to quarrel.
At the end of one short month, however, Mark was once more summoned to his post on board the Rancocus, temporarily putting an end to his delightful interviews with Bridget. The lovers had made Anne their confidant, and she, well-meaning girl, seeing no sufficient reason why the son of one respectable physician should not be a suitable match for the daughter of another respectable physician, encouraged them in their vows of constancy, and pledges to become man and wife at a future, but an early day. To some persons all this may seem exceedingly improper, as well as extremely precocious; but the truth compels us to say, that its impropriety was by no means as obvious as its precocity. The latter it certainly was, though Mark had shot up early, and was a man at a time of life when lads, in less genial climates, scarcely get tails to their coats; but its impropriety must evidently be measured by the habits of the state of society in which the parties were brought up, and by the duties that had been inculcated. In America, then, as now, but little heed was taken by parents, more especially in what may be called the middle classes, concerning the connections thus formed by their children. So Long as the parties were moral, bore good characters, had nothing particular against them, and were of something near the same social station, little else was asked for; or, if more were actually required, it was usually when it was too late, and after the young people had got themselves too deeply in love to allow ordinary prudential reasons to have their due force.
Mark went to sea this time, dragging after him a "lengthening chain," but, nevertheless, filled with hope. His years forbade much despondency, and, while he remained as constant as if he had been a next-door neighbour, he was buoyant, and the life of the whole crew, after the first week out. This voyage was not direct to Canton, like the first; but the ship took a cargo of sugar to Amsterdam, and thence went to London, where she got a freight for Cadiz. The war of the French Revolution was now blazing in all the heat of its first fires, and American bottoms were obtaining a large portion of the carrying trade of the world. Captain Crutchely had orders to keep the ship in Europe, making the most of her, until a certain sum in Spanish dollars could be collected, when he was to fill up with provisions and water, and again make the best of his way to Canton. In obeying these instructions, he went from port to port; and, as a sort of consequence of having Quaker owners, turning his peaceful character to great profit, thus giving Mark many opportunities of seeing as much of what is called the world, as can be found in sea-ports. Great, indeed, is the difference between places that are merely the marts of commerce, and those that are really political capitals of large countries! No one can be aware of, or can fully appreciate the many points of difference that, in reality, exist between such places, who has not seen each, and that sufficiently near to be familiar with both. Some places, of which London is the most remarkable example, enjoy both characters; and, when this occurs, the town gels to possess a tone that is even less provincial and narrow, if possible, than that which is to be found in a place that merely rejoices in a court. This it is which renders Naples, insignificant as its commerce comparatively is, superior to Vienna, and Genoa to Florence. While it would be folly to pretend that Mark, in his situation, obtained the most accurate notions imaginable of all he saw and heard, in his visits to Amsterdam, London, Cadiz, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Leghorn, Gibraltar, and two or three other ports that might be mentioned and to which he went, he did glean a good deal, some of which was useful to him in after-life. He lost no small portion of the provincial rust of home, moreover, and began to understand the vast difference between "seeing the world" and "going to meeting and going to mill." [3] In addition to these advantages, Mark was transferred from the forecastle to the cabin before the ship sailed for Canton. The practice of near two years had made him a very tolerable sailor, and his previous education made the study of navigation easy to him. In that day there was a scarcity of officers in America, and a young man of Mark's advantages, physical and moral, was certain to get on rapidly, provided he only behaved well. It is not at all surprising, therefore, that our young sailor got to be the second-mate of the Raucocus before he had quite completed his eighteenth year.
[Footnote 3: This last phrase has often caused the writer to smile, when he has heard a countryman say, with a satisfied air, as is so often the case in this good republic, that "such or such a thing here is good enough for _me_;" meaning that he questions if there be anything of the sort that is better anywhere else. It was uttered many years since, by a shrewd Quaker, in West-Chester, who was contending with a neighbour on a subject that the other endeavoured to defend by alluding to the extent of his own observation. "Oh, yes, Josy," answered the Friend, "thee's been to meeting and thee's been to mill, and thee knows all about it!" America is full of travellers who have been to meeting and who have been to mill. This it is which makes it unnecessarily provincial.]
The voyage from London to Canton, and thence home to Philadelphia, consumed about ten months. The Rancocus was a fast vessel, but she could not impart her speed to the Chinamen. It followed that Mark wanted but a few weeks of being nineteen years old the day his ship passed Cape May, and, what was more, he had the promise of Captain Crutchely, of sailing with him, as his first officer, in the next voyage. With that promise in his mind, Mark hastened up the river to Bristol, as soon as he was clear of the vessel.
Bridget Yardley had now fairly budded, to pursue the figure with which we commenced the description of this blooming flower, and, if not actually expanded into perfect womanhood, was so near it as to show beyond all question that the promises of her childhood were to be very amply redeemed. Mark found her in black, however; or, in mourning for her mother. An only child, this serious loss had thrown her more than ever in the way of Anne, the parents on both sides winking at an association that could do no harm, and which might prove so useful. It was very different, however, with the young sailor. He had not been a fortnight at home, and getting to be intimate with the roof-tree of Doctor Yardley, before that person saw fit to pick a quarrel with him, and to forbid him his house. As the dispute was wholly gratuitous on the part of the Doctor, Mark behaving with perfect propriety on the occasion, it may be well to explain its real cause. The fact was, that Bridget was an heiress; if not on a very large scale, still an heiress, and, what was more, unalterably so in right of her mother; and the thought that a son of his competitor, Doctor Woolston, should profit by this fact, was utterly insupportable to him. Accordingly he quarrelled with Mark, the instant he was apprised of the character of his attentions, and forbade him the house, To do Mark justice, he knew nothing of Bridget's worldly possessions. That she was beautiful, and warm-hearted, and frank, and sweet-tempered, and feminine, and affectionate, he both saw and felt; but beyond this he neither saw anything, nor cared about seeing anything. The young sailor was as profoundly ignorant that Bridget was the actual owner of certain three per cents, that brought twelve hundred a year, as if she did not own a 'copper,' as it was the fashion of that period to say,'_cents_' being then very little, if at all, used. Nor did he know anything of the farm she had inherited from her mother, or of the store in town, that brought three hundred and fifty more in rent. It is true that some allusions were made to these matters by Doctor Yardley, in his angry comments on the Woolston family generally, Anne always excepted, and in whose flavour he made a salvo, even in the height of his denunciations. Still. Mark thought so much of that which was really estimable and admirable in Bridget, and so little of anything mercenary, that even after these revelations he could not comprehend the causes of Doctor Yardley's harsh treatment of him. During the whole scene, which was purposely enacted in the presence of his wondering and trembling daughter, Mark behaved perfectly well. He had a respect for the Doctor's years, as well as for Bridget's father, and would not retort. After waiting as long as he conceived waiting could be of any use, he seized his hat, and left the room with an air of resentment that Bridget construed into the expression of an intention never to speak to any of them again. But Mark Woolston was governed by no such design, as the sequel will show.
| {
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2 | None | "She's not fourteen." "I'll lay fourteen of my teeth, And yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four,-- She is not fourteen." -- _Romeo and Juliet. _ Divine wisdom has commanded us to "Honour your father and your mother." Observant travellers affirm that less respect is paid to parents in America, than is usual in Christian nations--we say _Christian_ nations; for many of the heathen, the Chinese for instance, worship them, though probably with an allegorical connection that we do not understand. That the parental tie is more loose in this country than in most others we believe, and there is a reason to be found for it in the migratory habits of the people, and in the general looseness in all the ties that connect men with the past. The laws on the subject of matrimony, moreover, are so very lax, intercourse is so simple and has so many facilities, and the young of the two sexes are left so much to themselves, that it is no wonder children form that connection so often without reflection and contrary to the wishes of their friends. Still, the law of God is there, and we are among those who believe that a neglect of its mandates is very apt to bring its punishment, even in this world, and we are inclined to think that much of that which Mark and Bridget subsequently suffered, was in consequence of acting directly in the face of the wishes and injunctions of their parents.
The scene which had taken place under the roof of Doctor Yardley was soon known under that of Doctor Woolston. Although the last individual was fully aware that Bridget was what was then esteemed rich, at Bristol, he cared not for her money. The girl he liked well enough, and in secret even admired her as much as he could find it in his heart to admire anything of Doctor Yardley's; but the indignity was one he was by no means inclined to overlook, and, in his turn, he forbade all intercourse between the girls. These two bitter pills, thus administered by the village doctors to their respective patients, made the young people very miserable. Bridget loved Anne almost as much as she loved Mark, and she began to pine and alter in her appearance, in a way to alarm her father. In order to divert her mind, he sent her to town, to the care of an aunt, altogether forgetting that Mark's ship lay at the wharves of Philadelphia, and that he could not have sent his daughter to any place, out of Bristol, where the young man would be so likely to find her. This danger the good doctor entirely overlooked, or, if he thought of it at all, he must have fancied that his sister would keep a sharp eye on the movements of the young sailor, and forbid him _her_ house, too.
Everything turned out as the Doctor ought to have expected. When Mark joined his ship, of which he was now the first officer, he sought Bridget and found her. The aunt, however, administered to him the second potion of the same dose that her brother had originally dealt out, and gave him to understand that his presence in Front street was not desired. This irritated both the young people, Bridget being far less disposed to submit to her aunt than to her father, and they met clandestinely in the streets. A week or two of this intercourse brought matters to a crisis, and Bridget consented to a private marriage. The idea of again going to sea, leaving his betrothed entirely in the hands of those who disliked him for his father's sake, was intolerable to Mark, and it made him so miserable, that the tenderness of the deeply enamoured girl could not withstand his appeals. They agreed to get married, but to keep their union a secret until Mark should become of age, when it was hoped he would be in a condition, in every point of view, openly to claim his wife.
A thing of this sort, once decided on, is easily enough put in execution in America. Among Mark's college friends was one who was a few years older than himself, and who had entered the ministry. This young man was then acting as a sort of missionary among the seamen of the port, and he had fallen in the way of the young lover the very first day of his return to his ship. It was an easy matter to work on the good nature of this easy-minded man, who, on hearing of the ill treatment offered to his friend, was willing enough to perform the ceremony. Everything being previously arranged, Mark and Bridget were married, early one morning, during the time the latter was out, in company with a female friend of about her own age, to take what her aunt believed was her customary walk before breakfast. Philadelphia, in 1796, was not the town it is to-day. It then lay, almost entirely, on the shores of the Delaware, those of the Schuylkill being completely in the country. What was more, the best quarters were still near the river, and the distance between the Rancocus--meaning Mark's ship, and not the creek of that name--and the house of Bridget's aunt, was but trifling. The ceremony took place in the cabin of the vessel just named, which, now that the captain was ashore in his own house, Mark had all to himself, no second-mate having been shipped, and which was by no means an inappropriate place for the nuptials of a pair like that which our young people turned out to be, in the end.
The Rancocus, though not a large, was a very fine, Philadelphia-built ship, then the best vessels of the country. She was of a little less than four hundred tons in measurement, but she had a very neat and commodious poop-cabin. Captain Crutchely had a thrifty wife, who had contributed her full share to render her husband comfortable, and Bridget thought that the room in which she was united to Mark was one of the prettiest she had ever seen. The reader, however, is not to imagine it a cabin ornamented with marble columns, rose-wood, and the maples, as so often happens now-a-days. No such extravagance was dreamed of fifty years ago; but, as far as judicious arrangements, neat joiner's work, and appropriate furniture went, the cabin of the Rancocus was a very respectable little room. The circumstance that it was on deck, contributed largely to its appearance and comfort, sunken cabins, or those below decks, being necessarily much circumscribed in small ships, in consequence of being placed in a part of the vessel that is contracted in its dimensions under water, in order to help their sailing qualities.
The witnesses of the union of our hero and heroine were the female friend of Bridget named, the officiating clergyman, and one seaman who had sailed with the bridegroom in all his voyages, and who was now retained on board the vessel as a ship-keeper, intending to go out in her again as soon as she should be ready for sea. The name of this mariner was Betts, or Bob Betts as he was commonly called; and as he acts a conspicuous part in the events to be recorded, it may be well to say a word or two more of his history and character; Bob Betts was a Jerseyman;--or, as he would have pronounced the word himself, a Jarseyman--in the American meaning of the word, however, and not in the English. Bob was born in Cape May county, and in the _State_ of New Jersey, United States of America. At the period of which we are now writing, he must have been about five-and-thirty, and seemingly a confirmed bachelor. The windows of Bob's father's house looked out upon the Atlantic Ocean, and he snuffed sea air from the hour of his birth. At eight years of age he was placed, as cabin-boy, on board a coaster; and from that time down to the moment when he witnessed the marriage ceremony between Mark and Bridget, he had been a sailor. Throughout the whole war of the revolution Bob had served in the navy, in some vessel or other, and with great good luck, never having been made a prisoner of war. In connection with this circumstance was one of the besetting weaknesses of his character. As often happens to men of no very great breadth of views, Bob had a notion that that which he had so successfully escaped, viz. captivity, other men too might have escaped had they been equally as clever. Thus it was that he had an ill-concealed, or only half-concealed contempt for such seamen as suffered themselves, at any time or under any circumstances, to fall into the enemies' hands. On all other subjects Bob was not only rational, but a very discreet and shrewd fellow, though on that he was often harsh, and sometimes absurd. But the best men have their weakness, and this was Bob Betts's.
Captain Crutchely had picked up Bob, just after the peace of 1783, and had kept him with him ever since. It was to Bob that he had committed the instruction of Mark, when the latter first joined the ship, and from Bob the youth had got his earliest notions of seamanship. In his calling Bob was full of resources, and, as often happens with the American sailor, he was even handy at a great many other things, and particularly so with whatever related to practical mechanics. Then he was of vast physical force, standing six feet two, in his stockings, and was round-built and solid. Bob had one sterling quality--he was as fast a friend as ever existed. In this respect he was a model of fidelity, never seeing a fault in those he loved, or a good quality in those he disliked. His attachment to Mark was signal, and he looked on the promotion of the young man much as he would have regarded preferment that befel himself. In the last voyage he had told the people in the forecastle "That young Mark Woolston would make a thorough sea-dog in time, and now he had got to be _Mr._ Woolston, he expected great things of him. The happiest day of my life will be that on which I can ship in a craft commanded by _Captain_ Mark Woolston. I teached him, myself, how to break the first sea-biscuit he ever tasted, and next day he could do it as well as any on us! You see how handy and quick he is about a vessel's decks, shipmates; a ra'al rouser at a weather earin'--well, when he first come aboard here, and that was little more than two years ago, the smell of tar would almost make him swound away." The latter assertion was one of Bob's embellishments, for Mark was never either lackadaisical or very delicate. The young man cordially returned Bob's regard, and the two were sincere friends without any phrases on the subject.
Bob Betts was the only male witness of the marriage between Mark Woolston and Bridget Yardley, with the exception of the officiating clergyman; as Mary Bromley was the only female. Duplicate certificates, however, were given to the young couple, Mark placing his in his writing-desk, and Bridget hers in the bosom of her dress. Five minutes after the ceremony was ended, the whole party separated, the girls returning to their respective residences, and the clergyman going his way, leaving the mate and the ship-keeper together on the vessel's deck. The latter did not speak, so long as he saw the bridegroom's eyes fastened on the light form of the bride, as the latter went swiftly up the retired wharf where the ship was lying, on her way to Front street, accompanied by her young friend. But, no sooner had Bridget turned a corner, and Bob saw that the attraction was no longer in view, than he thought it becoming to put in a word.
"A trim-built and light-sailing craft, Mr. Woolston," he said, turning over the quid in his mouth; "one of these days she'll make a noble vessel to command."
"She is my captain, and ever will be, Bob," returned Mark. "But you'll be silent concerning what has passed."
"Ay, ay, sir. It is not my business to keep a log for all the women in the country to chatter about, like so many monkeys that have found a bag of nuts. But what was the meaning of the parson's saying, 'with all my worldly goods I thee endow'--does that make you any richer, or any poorer, sir?"
"Neither," answered Mark, smiling. "It leaves me just where I was, Bob, and where I am likely to be for some time to come, I fear."
"And has the young woman nothing herself, sir? Sometimes a body picks up a comfortable chest-full with these sort of things, as they tell me, sir."
"I believe Bridget is as poor as I am myself, Bob, and that is saying all that can be said on such a point. However, I've secured her now, and two years hence I'll claim her, if she has not a second gown to wear. I dare say the old man will be for turning her adrift with as little as possible."
All this was a proof of Mark's entire disinterestedness. He did not know that his young bride had quite thirty thousand dollars in reversion, or in one sense in possession, although she could derive no benefit from it until she was of age, or married, and past her eighteenth year. This fact her husband did not learn for several days after his marriage, when his bride communicated it to him, with a proposal that he should quit the sea and remain with her for life. Mark was very much in love, but this scheme scarce afforded him the satisfaction that one might have expected. He was attached to his profession, and scarce relished the thought of being dependent altogether on his wife for the means of subsistence. The struggle between love and pride was great, but Mark, at length, yielded to Bridget's blandishments, tenderness and tears. They could only meet at the house of Mary Bromley, the bride's-maid, but then the interviews between them were as frequent as Mark's duty would allow. The result was that Bridget prevailed, and the young husband went up to Bristol and candidly related all that had passed, thus revealing, in less than a week, a secret which it was intended should remain hid for at least two years.
Doctor Woolston was sorely displeased, at first; but the event had that about it which would be apt to console a parent. Bridget was not only young, and affectionate, and beautiful, and truthful; but, according to the standard of Bristol, she was rich. There was consolation in all this, notwithstanding professional rivalry and personal dislikes. We are not quite certain that he did not feel a slight gratification at the thought of his son's enjoying the fortune which his rival had received from his wife, and which, but for the will of the grandfather, would have been enjoyed by that rival himself. Nevertheless, the good Doctor did his duty in the premises. He communicated the news of the marriage to Doctor Yardley in a very civilly-worded note, which left a fair opening for a settlement of all difficulties, had the latter been so pleased. The latter did not so please, however, but exploded in a terrible burst of passion, which almost carried him off in a fit of apoplexy.
Escaping all physical dangers, in the end, Doctor Yardley went immediately to Philadelphia, and brought his daughter home. Both Mark and Bridget now felt that they had offended against one of the simplest commands of God. They had _not_ honoured their father and their mother, and even thus early came the consciousness of their offence. It was in Mark's power, however, to go and claim his wife, and remove her to his father's house, notwithstanding his minority and that of Bridget. In this last respect, the law offered no obstacle; but the discretion of Doctor Woolston did. This gentleman, through the agency of a common friend, had an interview with his competitor, and they talked the matter over in a tolerably composed and reasonable temper. Both the parents, as medical men, agreed that it would be better that the young couple should not live together for two or three years, the very tender age of Bridget, in particular, rendering this humane, as well as discreet. Nothing was said of the fortune, which mollified Doctor Yardley a good deal, since he would be left to manage it, or at least to receive the income so long as no legal claimant interfered with his control. Elderly gentlemen submit very easily to this sort of influence. Then, Doctor Woolston was exceedingly polite, and spoke to his rival of a difficult case in his own practice, as if indirectly to ask an opinion of his competitor. All this contributed to render the interview more amicable than had been hoped, and the parties separated, if not friends, at least with an understanding on the subject of future proceedings.
It was decided that Mark should continue in the Rancocus for another voyage. It was known the ship was to proceed to some of the islands of the Pacific, in quest of a cargo of sandal-wood and bêche-le-mar, for the Chinese market, and that her next absence from home would be longer, even, than her last. By the time the vessel returned, Mark would be of age, and fit to command a ship himself, should it be thought expedient for him to continue in his profession. During the period the vessel still remained in port, Mark was to pay occasional visits to his wife, though not to live with her; but the young couple might correspond by letter, as often as they pleased. Such was an outline of the treaty made between the high contracting parties.
In making these arrangements, Doctor Yardley was partly influenced by a real paternal interest in the welfare of his daughter, who he thought altogether too young to enter on the duties and cares of the married life. Below the surface, however, existed an indefinite hope that something might yet occur to prevent the consummation of this most unfortunate union, as he deemed the marriage to be, and thus enable him to get rid of the hateful connection altogether. How this was to happen, the worthy doctor certainly did not know. This was because he lived in 1796, instead of in 1847. Now-a-days, nothing is easier than to separate a man from his wife, unless it be to obtain civic honours for a murderer. Doctor Yardley, at the present moment, would have coolly gone to work to get up a lamentable tale about his daughter's fortune, and youth, and her not knowing her own mind when she married, and a ship's cabin, and a few other embellishments of that sort, when the worthy and benevolent statesmen who compose the different legislatures of this vast Union would have been ready to break their necks, in order to pass a bill of divorce. Had there been a child or two, it would have made no great difference, for means would have been devised to give the custody of them to the mother. This would have been done, quite likely, for the first five years of the lives of the dear little things, because the children would naturally require a mother's care; and afterwards, because the precocious darlings, at the mature age of seven, would declare, in open court, that they really loved 'ma' more than they did 'pa'! To write a little plainly on a very important subject, we are of opinion that a new name ought to be adopted for the form of government which is so fast creeping into this country. New things require new names; and, were Solomon now living, we will venture to predict two things of him, viz. he would change his mind on the subject of novelties, and he would never go to congress. As for the new name, we would respectfully suggest that of Gossipian, in lieu of that of Republican, gossip fast becoming the lever that moves everything in the land. The newspapers, true to their instincts of consulting the ruling tastes, deal much more in gossip than they deal in reason; the courts admit it as evidence; the juries receive it as fact, as well as the law; and as for the legislatures, let a piteous tale but circulate freely in the lobbies, and bearded men, like Juliet when a child, as described by her nurse, will "stint and cry, ay!" In a word, principles and proof are in much less esteem than assertions and numbers, backed with enough of which, anything may be made to appear as legal, or even constitutional.
But neither of our doctors entered into all these matters. It was enough for them that the affair of the marriage was disposed of, for a time at least, and things were permitted to drop into their ancient channels. The intercourse between Bridget and Anne was renewed, just as if nothing had happened, and Mark's letters to his virgin bride were numerous, and filled with passion. The ship was 'taking in,' and he could only leave her late on Saturday afternoons, but each Sunday he contrived to pass in Bristol. On such occasions he saw his charming wife at church, and he walked with her in the fields, along with Anne and a favoured admirer of hers, of an afternoon, returning to town in season to be at his post on the opening of the hatches, of a Monday morning.
In less than a month after the premature marriage between Mark Woolston and Bridget Yardley, the Rancocus cleared for the Pacific and Canton. The bridegroom found one day to pass in Bristol, and Doctor Yardley so far pitied his daughter's distress, as to consent that the two girls should go to town, under his own care, and see the young man off. This concession was received with the deepest gratitude, and made the young people momentarily very happy. The doctor even consented to visit the ship, which Captain Crutchely, laughing, called St. Mark's chapel, in consequence of the religious rite which had been performed on board her. Mrs. Crutchely was there, on the occasion of this visit, attending to her husband's comforts, by fitting curtains to his berth, and looking after matters in general in the cabin; and divers jokes were ventured by the honest ship-master, in making his comments on, and in giving his opinion of the handy-work of his own consort. He made Bridget blush more than once, though her enduring tenderness in behalf of Mark induced her to sit out all the captain's wit, rather than shorten a visit so precious, one moment.
The final parting was an hour of bitter sorrow. Even Mark's young heart, manly, and much disposed to do his duty as he was, was near breaking: while Bridget almost dissolved in tears. They could not but think how long that separation was to last, though they did not anticipate by what great and mysterious events it was to be prolonged. It was enough for them, that they were to live asunder two whole years; and two whole years appear like an age to those who have not yet lived their four lustrums. But the final moment must and did arrive, and the young people were compelled to tear themselves asunder, though the parting was like that of soul and body. The bride hung on the bridegroom's neck, as the tendril clings to its support, until removed by gentle violence.
Bridget did not give up her hold upon Mark so long as even his vessel remained in sight. She went with Anne, in a carriage, as low as the Point, and saw the Rancocus pass swiftly down the river, on this its fourth voyage, bearing those in her who as little dreamed of their fate, as the unconscious woods and metals, themselves, of which the ship was constructed. Mark felt his heart beat, when he saw a woman's handkerchief waving to him from the shore, and a fresh burst of tenderness nearly unmanned him, when, by the aid of the glass, he recognised the sweet countenance and fairy figure of Bridget. Ten minutes later, distance and interposing objects separated that young couple for many a weary day!
A few days at sea restored the equanimity of Mark's feelings, while the poignant grief of Bridget did not fail to receive the solace which time brings to sorrows of every degree and nature. They thought of each other often, and tenderly; but, the pain of parting over, they both began to look forward to the joys of meeting, with the buoyancy and illusions that hope is so apt to impart to the bosoms of the young and inexperienced. Little did either dream of what was to occur before their eyes were to be again gladdened with the sight of their respective forms.
Mark found in his state-room--for, in the Rancocus, the cabin was fitted with four neat little state-rooms, one for the captain, and two for the mates, with a fourth for the supercargo--many proofs of Bridget's love and care. Mrs. Crutchely, herself, though so much longer experienced, had scarcely looked after the captain's comfort with more judgment, and certainly not with greater solicitude, than this youthful bride had expended on her bridegroom's room. In that day, artists were not very numerous in America, nor is it very probable that Doctor Yardley would have permitted his daughter to take so decided a step as to sit for her miniature for Mark's possession; but she had managed to get her profile cut, and to have it framed, and the mate discovered it placed carefully among his effects, when only a week out. From this profile Mark derived the greatest consolation. It was a good one, and Bridget happened to have a face that would tell in that sort of thing, so that the husband had no difficulty in recognising the wife, in this little image. There it was, with the very pretty slight turn of the head to one side, that in Bridget was both natural and graceful. Mark spent hours in gazing at and in admiring this inanimate shadow of his bride, which never failed to recall to him all her grace, and nature, and tenderness and love, though it could not convey any direct expression of her animation and spirit.
It is said ships have no Sundays. The meaning of this is merely that a vessel must perform her work, week-days and sabbaths, day and night, in fair or foul. The Rancocus formed no exception to the rule, and on she travelled, having a road before her that it would require months ere the end of it could be found. It is not our intention to dwell on the details of this long voyage, for two reasons. One is the fact that most voyages to the southern extremity of the American continent are marked by the same incidents; and the other is, that we have much other matter to relate, that must be given with great attention to minutiae, and which we think will have much more interest with the reader.
Captain Crutchely touched at Rio for supplies, as is customary; and, after passing a week in that most delightful of all havens, went his way. The passage round the Horn was remarkable neither way. It could not be called a very boisterous one, neither was the weather unusually mild. Ships do double this cape, occasionally, under their top-gallant-sails, and we have heard of one vessel that did not furl her royals for several days, while off that formidable head-land; but these cases form the exception and not the rule. The Rancocus was under close-reefed topsails for the better part of a fortnight, in beating to the southward and westward, it blowing very fresh the whole time; and she might have been twice as long struggling with the south-westerly gales, but for the fortunate circumstance of the winds veering so far to the southward as to permit her to lay her course, when she made a great run to the westward. When the wind again hauled, as haul it was almost certain to do, Captain Crutchely believed himself in a meridian that would admit of his running with an easy bowline, on the larboard tack. No one but a sailor can understand the effect of checking the weather-braces, if it be only for a few feet, and of getting a weather-leach to stand without 'swigging out' on its bowline. It has much the same influence on the progress of a ship, that an eloquent speech has on the practice of an advocate, a great cure or a skilful operation on that of a medical man, or a lucky hit in trade on the fortunes of the young merchant. Away all go alike, if not absolutely with flowing sheets, easily, swiftly, and with less of labour than was their wont. Thus did it now prove with the good ship Rancocus. Instead of struggling hard with the seas to get three knots ahead, she now made her six, and kept all, or nearly all, she made. When she saw the land again, it was found there was very little to spare, but that little sufficed. The vessel passed to windward of everything, and went on her way rejoicing, like any other that had been successful in a hard and severe struggle. A fortnight later, the ship touched at Valparaiso.
The voyage of the Rancocus may now be said to have commenced in earnest. Hitherto she had done little but make her way across the endless waste of waters; but now she had the real business before her to execute. A considerable amount of freight, which had been brought on account of the Spanish government, was discharged, and the vessel filled up her water. Certain supplies of food that was deemed useful in cases of scurvy, were obtained, and after a delay of less than a fortnight, the ship once more put to sea.
In the year 1796 the Pacific Ocean was by no means as familiar to navigators as it is to-day. Cooke had made his celebrated voyages less than twenty years before, and the accounts of them were then before the world; but even Cooke left a great deal to be ascertained, more especially in the way of details. The first inventor, or discoverer of anything, usually gains a great name, though it is those who come after him that turn his labours to account. Did we know no more of America to-day than was known to Columbus, our knowledge would be very limited, and the benefits of his vast enterprise still in their infancy.
Compared with its extent, perhaps, and keeping in view its ordinary weather, the Pacific can hardly be considered a dangerous sea; but he who will cast his eyes over its chart, will at once ascertain how much more numerous are its groups, islands, rocks, shoals and reefs, than those of the Atlantic. Still, the mariners unhesitatingly steered out into its vast waters, and none with less reluctance and fewer doubts than those of America.
For nearly two months did Captain Crutchely, after quitting Valparaiso, hold his way into the depths of that mighty sea, in search of the islands he had been directed to find. Sandal-wood was his aim, a branch of commerce, by the way, which ought never to be pursued by any Christian man, or Christian nation, if what we hear of its uses in China be true. There, it is said to be burned as incense before idols, and no higher offence can be committed by any human being than to be principal, or accessory, in any manner or way, to the substitution of any created thing for the ever-living God. In after-life Mark Woolston often thought of this, when reflection succeeded to action, and when he came to muse on the causes which may have led to his being the subject of the wonderful events that occurred in connection with his own fortunes. We have now reached a part of our narrative, however, when it becomes necessary to go into details, which we shall defer to the commencement of a new chapter.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
3 | None | "God of the dark and heavy deep! The waves lie sleeping on the sands, Till the fierce trumpet of the storm Hath summon'd up their thundering bands; Then the white sails are clashed like foam, Or hurry trembling o'er the seas, Till calmed by thee, the sinking gale Serenely breathes, Depart in peace."
Peabody.
The day that preceded the night of which we are about to speak, was misty, with the wind fresh at east-south-east. The Rancocus was running off, south-west, and consequently was going with the wind free. Captain Crutchely had one failing, and it was a very bad one for a ship-master; he would drink rather too much grog, at his dinner. At all other times he might have been called a sober man; out, at dinner, he would gulp down three or four glasses of rum and water. In that day rum was much used in America, far more than brandy; and every dinner-table, that had the smallest pretension to be above that of the mere labouring man, had at least a bottle of one of these liquors on it. Wine was not commonly seen at the cabin-table; or, if seen, it was in those vessels that had recently been in the vine-growing countries, and on special occasions. Captain Crutchely was fond of the pleasures of the table in another sense. His eating was on a level with his drinking; and for pigs, and poultry, and vegetables that would keep at sea, his ship was always a little remarkable.
On the day in question, it happened to be the birthday of Mrs. Crutchely, and the captain had drunk even a little more than common. Now, when a man is in the habit of drinking rather more than is good for him, an addition of a little more than common is very apt to upset him. Such, a sober truth, was the case with the commander of the Rancocus, when he left the dinner-table, at the time to which there is particular allusion. Mark, himself, was perfectly sober. The taste of rum was unpleasant to him, nor did his young blood and buoyant spirits crave its effects. If he touched it at all, it was in very small quantities, and greatly diluted with water. He saw the present condition of his superior, therefore, with regret; and this so much the more, from the circumstance that an unpleasant report was prevailing in the ship, that white water had been seen ahead, during a clear moment, by a man who had just come from aloft. This report the mate repeated to the captain, accompanying it with a suggestion that it might be well to shorten sail, round-to, and sound. But Captain Crutchely treated the report with no respect, swearing that the men were always fancying they were going ashore on coral, and that the voyage would last for ever, did he comply with all their conceits of this nature. Unfortunately, the second-mate was an old sea-dog, who owed his present inferior condition to his being a great deal addicted to the practice in which his captain indulged only a little, and he had been sharing largely in the hospitality of the cabin that afternoon, it being his watch below. This man supported the captain in his contempt for the rumours and notions of the crew, and between them Mark found himself silenced.
Our young officer felt very uneasy at the account of the sailor who had reported white water ahead, for he was one of the best men in the ship, and altogether unlikely to say that which was not true. It being now six o'clock in the evening, and the second-mate having taken charge of the watch, Mark went up into the fore-top-gallant cross-trees himself, in order to get the best look ahead that he could before the night set in. It wanted but half an hour, or so of sunset, when the young man took his station in the cross-trees, the royal not being set. At first, he could discern nothing ahead, at a distance greater than a mile, on account of the mist; but, just as the sun went below the waters it lighted up to the westward, and Mark then plainly saw what he was perfectly satisfied must be breakers, extending for several miles directly across the vessel's track!
Such a discovery required decision, and the young man shouted out-- "Breakers ahead!"
This cry, coming from his first officer, startled even Captain Crutchely, who was recovering a little from the effect of his potations, though it was still treated with contempt by the second-mate, who had never forgiven one as young as Mark, for getting a berth that he fancied due to his own greater age and experience. He laughed openly at this second report of breakers, at a point in the ocean where the chart laid down a clear sea; but the captain knew that the charts could only tell him what was known at the time they were made, and he felt disposed to treat his first officer, young as he was, with more respect than the second-mate. All hands were called in consequence, and sail was shortened. Mark came down to assist in this duty, while Captain Crutchely himself went aloft to look out for the breakers. They passed each other in the top, the latter desiring his mate to bring the ship by the wind, on the larboard tack, or with her head to the southward, as soon as he had the sail sufficiently reduced to do so with safety.
For a few minutes after he reached the deck, Mark was fully employed in executing his orders. Sail was shortened with great rapidity, the men working with zeal and alarm, for they believed their messmate when the captain had not. Although the vessel was under top-mast studding-sails when the command to take in the canvas was given, it was not long before Mark had her under her three topsails, and these with two reefs in them, and the ship on an easy bowline, with her head to the southward. When all this was done the young man felt a good deal of relief, for the danger he had seen was ahead, and this change of course brought it nearly abeam. It is true, the breakers were still to leeward, and insomuch most dangerously situated but the wind did not blow strong enough to prevent the ship from weathering them, provided time was taken by the forelock. The Rancocus was a good, weatherly ship, nor was there sufficient sea on to make it at all difficult for her to claw off a lee shore. Desperate indeed is the situation of the vessel that has rocks or sands under her lee, with the gale blowing in her teeth, and heavy seas sending her bodily, and surely, however slowly, on the very breakers she is struggling to avoid! Captain Crutchely had not been aloft five minutes before he hailed the deck, and ordered Mark to send Bob Betts up to the cross-trees. Bob had the reputation of being the brightest look-out in the vessel, and was usually employed when land was about to be approached, or a sail was expected to be made. He went up the fore-rigging like a squirrel, and was soon at the captain's side, both looking anxiously to leeward. A few minutes after the ship had hauled by the wind, both came down, stopping in the top, however, to take one more look to leeward.
The second-mate stood waiting the further descent of the captain, with a soft of leering look of contempt on his hard, well-dyed features, which seemed to anticipate that it would soon be known that Mark's white water had lost its colour, and become blue water once more. But Captain Crutchely did not go as far as this, when he got down. He admitted that he had seen nothing that he could very decidedly say was breakers, but that, once or twice, when it lighted up a little, there had been a gleaming along the western horizon which a good deal puzzled him. It might be white water, or it might be only the last rays of the setting sun tipping the combs of the regular seas. Bob Betts, too, was as much at fault as his captain, and a sarcastic remark or two of Hillson, the second-mate, were fast bringing Mark's breakers into discredit.
"Jest look at the chart, Captain Crutchely," put in Hillson--"a regular Tower Hill chart as ever was made, and you'll see there _can_ be no white water hereabouts. If a man is to shorten sail and haul his wind, at every dead whale he falls in with, in these seas, his owners will have the balance on the wrong side of the book at the end of the v'y'ge!"
This told hard against Mark, and considerably in Hillson's favour.
"And could _you_ see nothing of breakers ahead, Bob?" demanded Mark, with an emphasis on the '_you_' which pretty plainly implied that the young man was not so much surprised that the captain had not seen them.
"Not a bit of it, Mr. Woolston," answered Bob, hitching up his trowsers, "and I'd a pretty good look ahead, too."
This made still more against Mark, and Captain Crutchely sent for the chart. Over this map he and the second-mate pondered with a sort of muzzy sagacity, when they came to the conclusion that a clear sea _must_ prevail around them, in all directions, for a distance exceeding a thousand miles. A great deal is determined in any case of a dilemma, when it is decided that this or that fact _must_ be so. Captain Crutchely would not have arrived at this positive conclusion so easily, had not his reasoning powers been so much stimulated by his repeated draughts of rum and water, that afternoon; all taken, as he said and believed, not so much out of love for the beverage itself, as out of love for Mrs. John Crutchely. Nevertheless, our captain was accustomed to take care of a ship, and he was not yet in a condition to forget all his duties, in circumstances so critical. As Mark solemnly and steadily repeated his own belief that there were breakers ahead, he so far yielded to the opinions of his youthful chief-mate as to order the deep-sea up, and to prepare to sound.
This operation of casting the deep-sea lead is not done in a moment, but, on board a merchant vessel, usually occupies from a quarter of an hour to twenty minutes. The ship must first be hove-to, and her way ought to be as near lost as possible before the cast is made. Then the getting along of the line, the stationing of the men, and the sounding and hauling in again, occupy a good many minutes. By the time it was all over, on this occasion, it was getting to be night. The misty, drizzling weather threatened to make the darkness intense, and Mark felt more and more impressed with the danger in which the ship was placed.
The cast of the lead produced no other result than the certainty that bottom was not to be found with four hundred fathoms of line out. No one, however, not even the muzzy Hillson, attached much importance to this fact, inasmuch as it was known that the coral reefs often rise like perpendicular walls, in the ocean, having no bottom to be found within a cable's-length of them. Then Mark did not believe the ship to be within three leagues of the breakers he had seen, for they had seemed, both to him and to the seaman who had first reported them, to be several leagues distant. One on an elevation like that of the top-gallant cross-trees, could see a long way, and the white water had appeared to Mark to be on the very verge of the western horizon, even as seen from his lofty look-out.
After a further consultation with his officers, during which Hillson had not spared his hits at his less experienced superior, Captain Crutchely came to a decision, which might be termed semi-prudent. There is nothing that a seaman more dislikes than to be suspected of extra-nervousness on the subject of doubtful dangers of this sort. Seen and acknowledged, he has no scruples about doing his best to avoid them; but so long as there is an uncertainty connected with their existence at all, that miserable feeling of vanity which renders us all so desirous to be more than nature ever intended us for, inclines most men to appear indifferent even while they dread. The wisest thing Captain Crutchely could have done, placed in the circumstances in which he now found himself, would have been to stand off and on, under easy canvas, until the return of light, when he might have gone ahead on his course with some confidence, and a great deal more of safety. But there would have been an air of concession to the power of an unknown danger that conflicted with his pride, in such a course, and the old and well-tried ship-master did not like to give the 'uncertain' this advantage over him. He decided therefore to stand on, with his topsails reefed, keeping bright look-outs ahead, and having his courses in the brails, ready for getting the tacks down to claw off to windward, should it prove to be necessary. With this plan Mark was compelled to comply, there being no appeal from the decrees of the autocrat of the quarter deck.
As soon as the decision of Captain Crutchely was made, the helm was put up, and the ship kept off to her course. It was true, that under double-reefed topsails, and jib, which was all the canvas set, there was not half the danger there would have been under their former sail; and, when Mark took charge of the watch, as he did soon after, or eight o'clock, he was in hopes, by means of vigilance, still to escape the danger. The darkness, which was getting to be very intense, was now the greatest and most immediate source of his apprehensions. Could he only get a glimpse of the sea a cable's-length ahead, he would have felt vast relief; but even that small favour was denied him. By the time the captain and second-mate had turned in, which each did after going below and taking a stiff glass of rum and water in his turn, it was so dark our young mate could not discern the combing of the waves a hundred yards from the ship, in any direction. This obscurity was owing to the drizzle that filled the atmosphere, as well as to the clouds that covered the canopy above that lone and wandering ship.
As for Mark, he took his station between the knight-heads, where he remained most of the watch, nearly straining the eyes out of his head, in the effort to penetrate the gloom, and listening acutely to ascertain if he might not catch some warning roar of the breakers, that he felt so intimately persuaded must be getting nearer and nearer at each instant. As midnight approached, came the thought of Hillson's taking his place, drowsy and thick-headed as he knew he must be at that hour. At length Mark actually fancied he heard the dreaded sounds; the warning, however, was not ahead, but well on his starboard beam. This he thought an ample justification for departing from his instructions, and he instantly issued an order to put the helm hard a-starboard, so as to bring the vessel up to the wind, on the contrary tack. Unfortunately, as the result proved, it now became his imperative duty to report to Captain Crutchely what he had done. For a minute or two the young man thought of keeping silence, to stand on his present course, to omit calling the second-mate, and to say nothing about what he had done, keeping the deck himself until light should return. But reflection induced him to shrink from the execution of this plan, which would have involved him in a serious misunderstanding with both his brother officers, who could not fail to hear all that had occurred in the night, and who must certainly know, each in his respective sphere, that they themselves had been slighted. With a slow step, therefore, and a heavy heart, Mark went into the cabin to make his report, and to give the second-mate the customary call.
It was not an easy matter to awaken either of those, who slept under the influence of potations as deep as the night-caps taken by Captain Crutchely and Mr. Hillson. The latter, in particular, was like a man in a state of lethargy, and Mark had half a mind to leave him, and make his condition an excuse for not having persisted in the call. But he succeeded in arousing the captain, who soon found the means to bring the second-mate to a state of semi-consciousness.
"Well, sir," cried the captain, as soon as fairly awake himself, "what now?"
"I think I heard breakers abeam, sir, and I have hauled up to the southward."
A grunt succeeded, which Mark scarce knew how to interpret. It might mean dissatisfaction, or it might mean surprise. As the captain, however, was thoroughly awake, and was making his preparations to come out on deck, he thought that he had done all that duty required, and he returned to his own post. The after-part of the ship was now the best situation for watching, and Mark went up on the poop, in order to see and hear the better. No lower sail being in the way, he could look ahead almost as well from that position as if he were forward; and as for hearing, it was much the best place of the two, in consequence of there being no wash of the sea directly beneath him, as was the case when stationed between the knight-heads. To this post he soon summoned Bob Betts, who belonged to his watch, and with whom he had ever kept up as great an intimacy as the difference in their stations would allow.
"Bob, your ears are almost as good as your eyes," said Mark; "have you heard nothing of breakers?"
"I have, Mr. Woolston, and now own I did see something that may have been white water, this afternoon, while aloft; but the captain and second-mate seemed so awarse to believing in sich a thing, out here in the open Pacific, that I got to be awarse, too."
"It was a great fault in a look-out not to let what he had seen be known," said Mark, gravely.
"I own it, sir; I own how wrong I was, and have been sorry for it ever since. But it's going right in the wind's eye, Mr. Woolston, to go ag'in captain and dickey!"
"But, you now think you have _heard_ breakers--where away?"
"Astarn first; then ahead; and, just as you called me up on the poop, sir, I fancied they sounded off here, on the weather bow."
"Are you serious, Bob?"
"As I ever was in my life, Mr. Mark. This oversight of the arternoon has made me somewhat conscientious, if I can be conscientious, and my sight and hearing are now both wide awake. It's my opinion, sir, that the ship is in the _midst_ of breakers at this instant, and that we may go on 'em at any moment!"
"The devil it is!" exclaimed Captain Crutchely, who now appeared on the poop, and who caught the last part of Bob Betts's speech. "Well, for my part, I hear nothing out of the way, and I will swear the keenest-sighted man on earth can see nothing."
These words were scarcely out of the captain's mouth, and had been backed by a senseless, mocking laugh from Hillson, who was still muzzy, and quite as much asleep as awake, when the deep and near roar of breakers was most unequivocally heard. It came from to windward, too and abeam! This was proof that the ship was actually among the breakers when Mark hauled up, and that she was now passing a danger to leeward, that she must have previously gone by, in running down on her course. The captain, without waiting to consult with his cool and clear-headed young mate, now shouted for all hands to be called, and to "stand by to ware ship." These orders came out so fast, and in so peremptory a manner, that remonstrance was out of the question, and Mark set himself at work to obey them, in good earnest. _He_ would have tacked in preference to waring, and it would have been much wiser to do so; but it was clearly expedient to get the ship on the other tack, and he lent all his present exertions to the attainment of that object. Waring is much easier done than tacking, certainly; when it does not blow too fresh, and there is not a dangerous sea on, no nautical manoeuvre can be more readily effected, though room is absolutely necessary to its success. This room was now wanting. Just as the ship had got dead before the wind, and was flying away to leeward, short as was the sail she was under, the atmosphere seemed to be suddenly filled with a strange light, the sea became white all around them, and a roar of tumbling waters arose, that resembled the sound of a small cataract. The ship was evidently in the midst of breakers, and the next moment she struck!
The intense darkness of the night added to the horrors of that awful moment. Nevertheless, the effect was to arouse all that there was of manliness and seamanship in Captain Crutchely, who from that instant appeared to be himself again. His orders were issued coolly, clearly and promptly, and they were obeyed as experienced mariners will work at an instant like that. The sails were all clewed up, and the heaviest of them were furled. Hillson was ordered to clear away an anchor, while Mark was attending to the canvas. In the mean time, the captain watched the movements of the ship. He had dropped a lead alongside, and by that he ascertained that they were still beating ahead. The thumps were not very hard, and the white water was soon left astern, none having washed on deck. All this was so much proof that the place on which they had struck must have had nearly water enough to float the vessel, a fact that the lead itself corroborated. Fifteen feet aft was all the Rancocus wanted, in her actual trim, and the lead showed a good three fathoms, at times. It was when the ship settled in the troughs of the sea that she felt the bottom. Satisfied that his vessel was likely to beat over the present difficulty, Captain Crutchely now gave all his attention to getting her anchored as near the reef and to leeward of it, as possible. The instant she went clear, a result he now expected every moment, he was determined to drop one of his bower anchors, and wait for daylight, before he took any further steps to extricate himself from the danger by which he was surrounded.
On the forecastle, the work went on badly, and thither Captain Crutchely proceeded. The second-mate scarce knew what he was about, and the captain took charge of the duty himself. At the same time he issued an order to Mark to get up tackles, and to clear away the launch, preparatory to getting that boat into the water. Hillson had bent the cable wrong, and much of the work had to be done over again. As soon as men get excited, as is apt to be the case when they find serious blunders made at critical moments, they are not always discreet. The precise manner in which Captain Crutchely met with the melancholy fate that befel him, was never known. It is certain that he jumped down on the anchor-stock, the anchor being a cock-bill, and that he ordered Mr. Hillson off of it. While thus employed, and at an instant when the cable was pronounced bent, and the men were in the act of getting inboard, the ship made a heavy roll, breakers again appeared all around her, the white foam rising nearly to the level of her rails. The captain was seen no more. There is little doubt that he was washed from the anchor stock, and carried away to leeward, in the midst of the darkness of that midnight hour.
Mark was soon apprised of the change that had occurred, and of the heavy responsibility that now rested on his young shoulders. A feeling of horror and of regret came over him, at first; but understanding the necessity of self-command, he aroused himself, at once, to his duty, and gave his orders coolly and with judgment. The first step was to endeavour to save the captain. The jolly-boat was lowered, and six men got in it, and passed ahead of the ship, with this benevolent design. Mark stood on the bowsprit, and saw them shoot past the bows of the vessel, and then, almost immediately, become lost to view in the gloomy darkness of the terrible scene. The men never reappeared, a common and an unknown fate thus sweeping away Captain Crutchely and six of his best men, and all, as it might be, in a single instant of time!
Notwithstanding these sudden and alarming losses, the work went on. Hillson seemed suddenly to become conscious of the necessity of exertion, and by giving his utmost attention to hoisting out the launch, that boat was got safely into the water. By this time the ship had beaten so far over the reef, as scarcely to touch at all, and Mark had everything ready for letting go his anchors, the instant he had reason to believe she was in water deep enough to float her. The thumps grew lighter and lighter, and the lead-line showed a considerable drift; so much so, indeed, as to require its being hauled in and cast anew every minute. Under all the circumstances, Mark expected each instant, to find himself in four fathoms' water, and he intended to let go the anchor the moment he was assured of that fact. In the mean time, he ordered the carpenter to sound the pumps. This was done, and the ship was reported with only the customary quantity of water in the well. As yet her bottom was not injured, materially at least.
While Mark stood with the lead-line in his hand, anxiously watching the drift of the vessel and the depth of water, Hillson was employed in placing provisions in the launch. There was a small amount of specie in the cabin, and this, too, was transferred to the launch; everything of that sort being done without Mark's knowledge, and by the second-mate's orders. The former was on the forecastle, waiting the proper moment to anchor; while all of the after-part of the ship was at the mercy of the second-mate, and a gang of the people, whom that officer had gathered around him.
At length Mark found, to his great delight, that there were four good fathoms of water under the ship's bows, though she still hung abaft. He ascertained this fact by means of Bob Betts, which true-hearted tar stood by him, with a lantern, by swinging which low enough, the marks were seen on the lead-line. Foot by foot the ship now surged ahead, the seas being so much reduced in size and power, by the manner in which they had been broken to windward, as not to lift the vessel more than an inch or two at a time. After waiting patiently a quarter of an hour, Mark believed that the proper time had come, and he gave the order to 'let run.' The seaman stationed at the stopper obeyed, and down went the anchor. It happened, opportunely enough, that the anchor was thus dropped, just as the keel cleared the bottom, and the cable being secured at a short range, after forging ahead far enough to tighten the hitter, the vessel tended. In swinging to her anchor, a roller came down upon her, however; one that had crossed the reef without breaking, and broke on board her. Mark afterwards believed that the rush and weight of this sea, which did no serious harm, frightened the men into the launch, where Hillson was already in person, and that the boat either struck adrift under the power of the roller, or that the painter was imprudently cast off in the confusion of the moment. He had got in as far as the windlass himself, when the sea came aboard; and, as soon as he recovered his sight after the ducking he received, he caught a dim view of the launch, driving off to leeward, on the top of a wave. Hailing was useless, and he stood gazing at the helpless boat until it became lost, like everything else that was a hundred yards from the ship, in the gloom of night. Even then Mark was by no means conscious of the extent of the calamity that had befallen him. It was only when he had visited cabin, steerage and forecastle, and called the crew over by name, that he reached the grave fact that there was no one left on board the Rancocus but Bob Betts and himself!
As Mark did not know what land was to be found to leeward, he naturally enough hoped and expected that the people in both boats might reach the shore, and be recovered in the morning; but he had little expectation of ever seeing Captain Crutchely again. The circumstances, however, afforded him little time to reflect on these things, and he gave his whole attention, for the moment, to the preservation of the ship. Fortunately, the anchor held, and, as the wind, which had never blown very heavily, sensibly began to lessen, Mark was sanguine in the belief it would continue to hold. Captain Crutchely had taken the precaution to have the cable bitted at a short range with a view to keep it, as much as possible, off the bottom; coral being known to cut the hempen cables that were altogether in use, in that day, almost as readily as axes. In consequence of this bit of foresight, the Rancocus lay at a distance of less than forty fathoms from her anchor, which Mark knew had been dropped in four fathoms' water. He now sounded abreast of the main-mast, and ascertained that the ship itself was in nine fathoms. This was cheering intelligence, and when Bob Betts heard it, he gave it as his opinion that all might yet go well with them, could they only recover the six men who had gone to leeward in the jolly-boat. The launch had carried off nine of their crew, which, previously to this night, had consisted of nineteen, all told. This suggestion relieved Mark's mind of a load of care, and he lent himself to the measures necessary to the continued safety of the vessel, with renewed animation and vigour.
The pump-well was once more sounded, and found to be nearly empty. Owing to the nature of the bottom on which they had struck, the lightness of the thumps, or the strength of the ship herself, it was clear that the vessel had thus far escaped without any material injury. For this advantage Mark was deeply grateful, and could he only recover four or five of the people, and find his way out into open water, he might hope to live again to see America, and to be re-united to his youthful and charming bride.
The weather continued to grow more and more moderate, and some time before the day returned the clouds broke away, the drizzle ceased, and a permanent change was to be expected. Mark now found new ground for apprehensions, even in these favourable circumstances. He supposed that the ship must feel the influence of the tides, so near the land, and was afraid she might tail the other way, and thus be brought again over the reef. In order to obviate this difficulty, he and Bob set to work to get another cable bent, and another anchor clear for letting go. As all our readers may not be familiar with ships, it may be well to say that vessels, as soon as they quit a coast on a long voyage, unbend their cables and send them all below, out of the way, while, at the same time, they stow their anchors, as it is called; that is to say, get them from under the cat-heads, from which they are usually suspended when ready to let go, and where they are necessarily altogether on the outside of the vessel, to positions more inboard, where they are safer from the force of the waves, and better secured. As all the anchors of the Rancocus had been thus stowed, until Captain Crutchely got the one that was down, off the gunwale, and all the cables below, Mark and Bob had labour enough before them to occupy several hours, in the job thus undertaken.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
4 | None | "Deep in the wave is a coral grove, Where the purple mullet and gold fish rove, Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blues, That never are wet with falling dew, But in bright and changeful beauty shine, Far down in the green and grassy brine."
Percival.
Our young mate, and his sole assistant, Bob Betts, had set about their work on the stream-cable and anchor, the lightest and most manageable of all the ground-tackle in the vessel. Both were strong and active, and both were expert in the use of blocks, purchases, and handspikes; but the day was seen lighting the eastern sky, and the anchor was barely off the gunwale, and ready to be stoppered in the meanwhile the ship still tended in the right direction, the wind had moderated to a mere royal-breeze, and the sea had so far gone down as nearly to leave the vessel without motion. As soon as perfectly convinced of the existence of this favourable state of things, and of its being likely to last, Mark ceased to work, in order to wait for day, telling Bob to discontinue his exertions also. It was fully time, for both of those vigorous and strong-handed men were thoroughly fatigued with the toil of that eventful morning.
The reader may easily imagine with what impatience our two mariners waited the slow return of light. Each minute seemed an hour, and it appeared to them as if the night was to last for ever. But the earth performed its usual revolution, and by degrees sufficient light was obtained to enable Mark and Bob to examine the state of things around them. In order to do this the better, each went into a top, looking abroad from those elevations on the face of the ocean, the different points of the reef, and all that was then and there to be seen. Mark went up forward, while Bob ascended into the main-top. The distance between them was so small, that there was no difficulty in conversing, which they continued to do, as was natural enough to men in their situation.
The first look that each of our mariners bestowed, after he was in his top, was to leeward, which being to the westward, was of course yet in the darkest point of the horizon. They expected to obtain a sight of at least one island, and that quite near to them, if not of a group. But no land appeared! It is true, that it was still too dark to be certain of a fact of this sort, though Mark felt quite assured that if land was finally seen, it must be of no great extent, and quite low. He called to Bob, to ascertain what _he_ thought of appearances to leeward, his reputation as a look-out being so great.
"Wait a few minutes, sir, till we get a bit more day," answered his companion. "There is a look on the water, about a league off here on the larboard quarter, that seems as if something would come out of it. But, one thing can be seen plain enough, Mr. Mark, and that's the breakers. There's a precious line on 'em, and that too one within another, as makes it wonderful how we ever got through 'em as well as we did!"
This was true enough, the light on the ocean to windward being now sufficient to enable the men to see, in that direction, to a considerable distance. It was that solemn hour in the morning when objects first grow distinct, ere they are touched with the direct rays from the sun, and when everything appears as if coming to us fresh and renovated from the hands of the Creator. The sea had so far gone down as to render the breakers much less formidable to the eye, than when it was blowing more heavily; but this very circumstance made it impossible to mistake their positions. In the actual state of the ocean, it was certain that wherever water broke, there must be rocks or shoals beneath; whereas, in a blow, the combing of an ordinary sea might be mistaken for the white water of some hidden danger. Many of the rocks, however, lay so low, that the heavy, sluggish rollers that came undulating along, scarce did more than show faint, feathery lines of white, to indicate the character of the places across which they were passing. Such was now the case with the reef over which the ship had beaten, the position of which could hardly have been ascertained, or its danger discovered, at the distance of half a mile. Others again were of a very different character, the water still tumbling about them like so many little cataracts. This variety was owing to the greater depth at which some of the rocks lay than others.
As to the number of the reefs, and the difficulty in getting through them, Bob was right enough. It often happens that there is an inner and an outer reef to the islands of the Pacific, particularly to those of coral formation; but Mark began to doubt whether there was any coral at all in the place where the Rancocus lay, in consequence of the entire want of regularity in the position of these very breakers. They were visible in all directions; not in continuous lines, but in detached parts; one lying within another, as Bob had expressed it, until the eye could not reach their outer limits. How the ship had got so completely involved within their dangerous embraces, without going to pieces on a dozen of the reefs, was to him matter of wonder; though it sometimes happens at sea, that dangers are thus safely passed in darkness and fog, that no man would be bold enough to encounter in broad daylight, and with a full consciousness of their hazards. Such then had been the sort of miracle by which the Rancocus had escaped; though it was no more easy to see how she was to be got out of her present position, than it was to see how she had got into it. Bob was the first to make a remark on this particular part of the subject.
"It will need a reg'lar branch here, Mr. Mark, to carry the old Rancocus clear of all them breakers to sea again," he cried. "Our Delaware banks is just so many fools to 'em, sir!"
"It is a most serious position for a vessel to be in, Bob," answered Mark, sighing--"nor do I see how we _are_ ever to get clear of it, even should we get back men enough to handle the ship."
"I'm quite of your mind, sir," answered Bob, taking out his tobacco-box, and helping himself to a quid. "Nor would I be at all surprised should there turn out to be a bit of land to leeward, if you and I was to Robinson Crusoe it for the rest of our days. My good mother was always most awarse to my following the seas on account of that very danger; most especially from a fear of the savages from the islands round about."
"We will look for our boats," Mark gravely replied, the image of Bridget, just at that instant, appearing before his mind with a painful distinctness.
Both now turned their eyes again to leeward, the first direct rays of the sun beginning to illumine the surface of the ocean in that quarter. Something like a misty cloud had been settled on the water, rather less than a league from the ship, in the western board, and had hitherto prevented a close examination in that part of the horizon. The power of the sun, however, almost instantly dispersed it, and then, for the first time, Bob fancied he did discover something like land. Mark, however, could not make it out, until he had gone up into the cross-trees, when he, too, got a glimpse of what, under all the circumstances, he did not doubt was either a portion of the reef that rose above the water, or was what might be termed a low, straggling island. Its distance from the ship, they estimated at rather more than two leagues.
Both Mark and Bob remained aloft near an hour longer, or until they had got the best possible view of which their position would allow, of everything around the ship. Bob went down, and took a glass up to his officer, Mark sweeping the whole horizon with it, in the anxious wish to make out something cheering in connection with the boats. The drift of these unfortunate craft must have been towards the land, and that he examined with the utmost care. Aided by the glass, and his elevation, he got a tolerable view of the spot, which certainly promised as little in the way of supplies as any other bit of naked reef he had ever seen. The distance, however, was so great as to prevent his obtaining any certain information on that point. One thing, however, he did ascertain, as he feared, with considerable accuracy. After passing the glass along the whole of that naked rock, he could see nothing on it in motion. Of birds there were a good many, more indeed than from the extent of the visible reef he might have expected; but no signs of man could be discovered. As the ocean, in all directions, was swept by the glass, and this single fragment of a reef, which was less than a mile in length, was the only thing that even resembled land, the melancholy conviction began to force itself on Mark and Bob, that all their shipmates had perished! They might have perished in one of several ways; as the naked reef did not lie precisely to leeward of the ship, the boats may have driven by it, in the deep darkness of the past night, and gone far away out of sight of the spot where they had left the vessel, long ere the return of day. There was just the possibility that the spars of the ship might be seen by the wanderers, if they were still living, and the faint hope of their regaining the vessel, in the course of the day, by means of their oars. It was, however, more probable that the boats had capsized in some of the numerous fragments of breakers, that were visible even in the present calm condition of the ocean, and that all in them had been drowned. The best swimmer must have hopelessly perished, in such a situation, and in such a night, unless carried by a providential interference to the naked rock to leeward. That no one was living on that reef, the glass pretty plainly proved.
Mark and Bob Betts descended to the deck, after passing a long time aloft making their observations. Both were pretty well assured that their situation was almost desperate, though each was too resolute, and too thoroughly imbued with the spirit of a seaman, to give up while there was the smallest shadow of hope. As it was now getting past the usual breakfast hour, some cold meat was got out, and, for the first time since Mark had been transferred to the cabin, they sat down on the windlass and ate the meal together. A little, however, satisfied men in their situation; Bob Betts fairly owning that he had no appetite, though so notorious at the ship's beef and a biscuit, as to be often the subject of his messmates' jokes. That morning even he could eat but little, though both felt it to be a duty they owed to themselves to take enough to sustain nature. It was while these two forlorn and desolate mariners sat there on the windlass, picking, as it might be, morsel by morsel, that they first entered into a full and frank communication with each other, touching the realities of their present situation. After a good deal had passed between them, Mark suddenly asked-- "Do you think it possible, Bob, for us two to take care of the ship, should we even manage to get her into deep water again?"
"Well, that is not so soon answered, Mr. Woolston," returned Bob. "We're both on us stout, and healthy, and of good courage, Mr. Mark; but 'twould be a desperate long way for two hands to carry a wessel of four hundred tons, to take the old 'Cocus from this here anchorage, all the way to the coast of America; and short of the coast there's no ra'al hope for us. Howsever, sir, _that_ is a subject that need give us no consarn."
"I do not see that, Bob; we shall have to do it, unless we fall in with something at sea, could we only once get the vessel; out from among these reefs."
"Ay, ay, sir--could' we get her out from among these reefs, indeed! There's the rub, Mr. Woolston; but I fear 't will never be 'rub and _go_.'"
"You think, then, we are too fairly in for it, ever to get the ship clear?"
"Such is just my notion, Mr. Woolston, on that subject, and I've no wish to keep it a secret. In my judgment, was poor Captain Crutchely alive and back at his post, and all hands just as they was this time twenty-four hours since, and the ship where she is now, that _here_ she would have to stay. Nothing short of kedging can ever take the wessel clear of the reefs to windward on us, and man-of-war kedging could hardly do it, then."
"I am sorry to hear you say this," answered Mark, gloomily, "though I feared as much myself."
"Men is men, sir, and you can get no more out on 'em than is in 'em. I looked well at these reefs, sir, when aloft, and they're what I call as hopeless affairs as ever I laid eyes on. If they lay in any sort of way, a body might have some little chance of getting through 'em, but they don't lay, no how. ' T would be 'luff' and 'keep her away' every half minute or so, should we attempt to beat up among 'em; and who is there aboard here to brace up, and haul aft, and ease off, and to swing yards sich as our'n?"
"I was not altogether without the hope, Bob, of getting the ship into clear water: though I have thought it would be done with difficulty, I am still of opinion we had better try it, for the alternative is a very serious matter."
"I don't exactly understand what you mean by attorneytives, Mr. Mark; though it's little harm, or little good that any attorney can do the old 'Cocus, now! But, as for getting this craft through them reefs, to windward, and into clear water, it surpasses the power of man. Did you just notice the tide-ripples, Mr. Mark, when you was up in the cross-trees?"
"I saw them, Bob, and am fully aware of the difficulty of running as large a vessel as this among them, even with a full crew. But what will become of us, unless we get the ship into open water?"
"Sure enough, sir. I see no other hope for us, Mr. Mark, but to Robinson Crusoe it awhile, until our times come; or, till the Lord, in his marcy, shall see fit to have us picked up."
"Robinson Crusoe it!" repeated Mark, smiling at the quaintness of Bob's expression, which the well-meaning fellow uttered in all simplicity, and in perfect good faith--"where are we to find even an uninhabited island, on which to dwell after the mode of Robinson Crusoe?"
"There's a bit of a reef to-leeward, where I dare say a man might pick up a living, arter a fashion," answered Bob, coolly; "then, here is the ship."
"And how long would a hempen cable hold the ship in a place like this, where every time the vessel lifts to a sea, the clench is chafing on a rock? No, no, Bob--the ship cannot long remain where she is, depend on _that_. We must try and pass down to leeward, if we cannot beat the ship through the dangers to windward."
"Harkee, Mr. Mark; I thought this matter over in my mind, while we was aloft, and this is my idee as to what is best to be done, for a start. There's the dingui on the poop, in as good order as ever a boat was. She will easily carry two on us, and, on a pinch, she might carry half a dozen. Now, my notion is to get the dingui into the water, to put a breaker and some grub in her, and to pull, down to that bit of a reef, and have a survey of it. I'll take the sculls going down, and you can keep heaving the by way of finding out if there be sich a thang as a channel in that direction. If the ship is ever to be moved by us two, it must be by going to leeward, and not by attempting to turn up ag'in wind and tide among them 'ere rocks, out here to the eastward. No, sir; let us take the dingui, and surwey the reef, and look for our shipmates; a'ter which we can best tell what to undertake, with some little hope of succeeding. The weather seems settled, and the sooner we are off the better."
This proposal struck Mark's young mind as plausible, as well as discreet. To recover even a single man would be a great advantage, and he had lingering hopes that some of the people might yet be found on the reef. Then Bob's idea about getting the ship through the shoal water, by passing to leeward, in preference to making the attempt against the wind, was a sound one; and, on a little reflection, he was well enough disposed to acquiesce in it. Accordingly, when they quitted the windlass, they both set about putting this project in execution.
The dingui was no great matter of a boat, and they had not much difficulty in getting it into the water. First by slinging, it was swayed high enough to clear the rail, when Bob bore it over the side, and Mark lowered away. It was found to be tight, Captain Crutchely having kept it half full of water ever since they got into the Pacific, and in other respects it was in good order. It was even provided with a little sail, which did very well before the wind. While Bob saw to provisioning the boat, and filling its breakers with fresh water, Mark attended to another piece of duty that he conceived to be of the last importance. The Rancocus carried several guns, an armament prepared to repel the savages of the sandal-wood islands, and these guns were all mounted and in their places. There were two old-fashioned sixes, and eight twelve-pound carronades. The first made smart reports when properly loaded. Our young mate now got the keys of the magazine, opened it, and brought forth three cartridges, with which he loaded three of the guns. These guns he fired, with short intervals between them, in hopes that the reports would be carried to the ears of some of the missing people, and encourage them to make every effort to return. The roar of artillery sounded strangely enough in the midst of that vast solitude; and Bob Betts, who had often been in action, declared that he was much affected by it, As no immediate result was expected from the firing of these guns, Mark had no sooner discharged them, than he joined Betts, who by this time had everything ready, and prepared to quit the ship. Before he did this, however, he made an anxious and careful survey of the weather it being all-important to be certain no change in this respect was likely to occur in his absence. All the omens were favourable, and Bob reporting for the third time that everything was ready, the young man went over the side, and descended, with a reluctance he could not conceal, into the boat. Certainly, it was no trifling matter for men in the situation of our two mariners, to leave their vessel all alone, to be absent for a large portion of the day. It was to be done, however; though it was done reluctantly, and not without many misgivings, in spite of the favourable signs in the atmosphere.
When Mark had taken his seat in the dingui, Bob let go his hold of the ship, and set the sail. The breeze was light, and fair to go, though it was by no means so certain how it would serve them on the return. Previously to quitting the ship, Mark had taken a good look at the breakers to leeward, in order to have some general notion of the course best to steer, and he commenced his little voyage, but entirely without a plan for his own government. The breakers were quite as numerous to leeward as to windward, but the fact of there being so many of them made smooth water between them. A boat, or a ship, that was once fairly a league or so within the broken lines of rocks, was like a vessel embayed, the rollers of the open ocean expending their force on the outer reefs, and coming in much reduced in size and power. Still the uneasy ocean, even in its state of rest, is formidable at the points where its waters meet with rocks, or sands and the breakers that did exist, even as much embayed as was the dingui, were serious matters for so small a boat to encounter. It was necessary, consequently, to steer clear of them, lest they should capsize, or fill, this, the only craft of the sort that now belonged to the vessel, the loss of which would be a most serious matter indeed.
The dingui slided away from the ship with a very easy movement. There was just about as much wind as so small a craft needed, and Bob soon began to sound, Mark preferring to steer. It was, however, by no means easy to sound in so low a boat, while in such swift motion; and Bob was compelled to give it up. As they should be obliged to return with the oars, Mark observed that then he would feel his way back to the ship. Nevertheless, the few casts of the lead that did succeed, satisfied our mariners that there was much more than water enough for the Rancocus, between the reefs. _On_ them, doubtless it would turn out to be different.
Mark met with more difficulty than he had anticipated in keeping the dingui out of the breakers. So very smooth was the sort of bay he was in--a bay by means of the reefs to windward, though no rock in that direction rose above the surface of the sea--so very smooth, then, was the sort of bay he was in, that the water did not break, in many places, except at long intervals; and then only when a roller heavier than common found its way in from the outer ocean. As a consequence, the breakers that did suddenly show themselves from a cause like this, were the heaviest of all, and the little dingui would have fared badly had it been caught on a reef, at the precise moment when such a sea tumbled over in foam. This accident was very near occurring once or twice, but it was escaped, more by providential interference than by any care or skill in the adventurers.
It is very easy to imagine the intense interest with which our two mariners drew near to the visible reef. Their observations from the cross-trees of the ship, had told them this was all the land anywhere very near them, and if they did not find their lost shipmates here, they ought not to expect to find them at all. Then this reef, or island, was of vast importance in other points of view. It might become their future home; perhaps for years, possibly for life. The appearances of the sunken reefs, over and among which he had just passed, had greatly shaken Mark's hope of ever getting the ship from among them, and he even doubted the possibility of bringing her down, before the wind, to the place where he was then going. All these considerations, which began to press more and more painfully on his mind, each foot as he advanced, served to increase the intensity of the interest with which he noted every appearance on, or about, the reef, or island, that he was now approaching. Bob had less feeling on the subject. He had less imagination, and foresaw consequences and effects less vividly than his officer, and was more accustomed to the vicissitudes of a seaman's life. Then he had left no virgin bride at home, to look for his return; and had moreover made up his mind that it was the will of Providence that he and Mark were to 'Robinson Crusoe it' awhile, on 'that bit of a reef.' Whether they should ever be rescued from so desolate a place, was a point on which he had not yet begun to ponder.
The appearances were anything but encouraging, as the dingui drew nearer and nearer to the naked part of the reef. The opinions formed of this place, by the examination made from the cross-trees, turned out to be tolerably accurate, in several particulars. It was just about a mile in length, while its breadth varied from half a mile to less than an eighth of a mile. On its shores, the rock along most of the reef rose but a very few feet above the surface of the water, though at its eastern, or the weather extremity, it might have been of more than twice the usual height; its length lay nearly east and west. In the centre of this island, however, there was a singular formation of the rock, which appeared to rise to an elevation of something like sixty or eighty feet, making a sort of a regular circular mound of that height, which occupied no small part of the widest portion of the island. Nothing like tree, shrub, or grass, was visible, as the boat drew near enough to render such things apparent. Of aquatic birds there were a good many: though even they did not appear in the numbers that are sometimes seen in the vicinity of uninhabited islands. About certain large naked rocks, at no great distance however from the principal reef, they were hovering in thousands.
At length the little dingui glided in quite near to the island. Mark was at first surprised to find so little surf beating against even its weather side, but this was accounted for by the great number of the reefs that lay for miles without it; and, particularly, by the fact that one line of rock stretched directly across this weather end, distant from it only two cables' lengths, forming a pretty little sheet of perfectly smooth water between it and the island. Of course, to do this, the line of reef just mentioned must come very near the surface; as in fact was the case, the rock rising so high as to be two or three feet out of water on the ebb, though usually submerged on the flood. The boat was obliged to pass round one end of this last-named reef, where there was deep water, and then to haul its wind a little in order to reach the shore.
It would be difficult to describe the sensations with which Mark first landed. In approaching the place, both he and Bob had strained their eyes in the hope of seeing some proof that their shipmates had been there; but no discovery rewarded their search. Nothing was seen, on or about the island, to furnish the smallest evidence that either of the boats had touched it. Mark found that he was treading on naked rock when he had landed, though the surface was tolerably smooth. The rock itself was of a sort to which he was unaccustomed; and he began to suspect, what in truth turned out on further investigation to be the fact, that instead of being on a reef of coral, he was on one of purely volcanic origin. The utter nakedness of the rock both surprised and grieved him. On the reefs, in every direction, considerable quantities of sea-weed had lodged, temporarily at least; but none of it appeared to have found its way to this particular place. Nakedness and dreariness were the two words which best described the island; the only interruption to its solitude and desolation being occasioned by the birds, which now came screaming and flying above the heads of the intruders, showing both by their boldness and their cries, that they were totally unacquainted with men.
The mound, in the centre of the reef, was an object too conspicuous to escape attention, and our adventurers approached it at once, with the expectation of getting a better look-out from its summit, than that they had on the lower level of the surface of the ordinary reef. Thither then they proceeded, accompanied by a large flight of the birds. Neither Mark nor Bob, however, had neglected to turn his eyes towards the now distant ship, which was apparently riding at its anchor, in exactly the condition in which it had been left, half an hour before. In that quarter all seemed right, and Mark led the way to the mount, with active and eager steps.
On reaching the foot of this singular elevation, our adventurers found it would not be so easy a matter as they had fancied, to ascend it. Unlike the rest of the reef which they had yet seen, it appeared to be composed of a crumbling rock, and this so smooth and perpendicular as to render it extremely difficult to get up. A place was found at length, however, and by lending each other a hand, Mark and Bob finally got on the summit. Here a surprise was ready for them, that drew an exclamation from each, the instant the sight broke upon him. Instead of finding an elevated bit of table-rock, as had been expected, a circular cavity existed within, that Mark at once recognised to be the extinct crater of a volcano! After the first astonishment was over, Mark made a close examination of the place.
The mound, or barrier of lava and scoriæ that composed the outer wall of this crater, was almost mathematically circular. Its inner precipice was in most places absolutely perpendicular, though overhanging in a few; there being but two or three spots where an active man could descend in safety. The area within might contain a hundred acres while the wall preserved a very even height of about sixty feet, falling a little below this at the leeward side, where there existed one narrow hole, or passage, on a level with the bottom of the crater; a sort of gateway, by which to enter and quit the cavity. This passage had no doubt been formed by the exit of lava, which centuries ago had doubtless broken through at this point, and contributed to form the visible reef beyond. The height of this hole was some twenty feet, having an arch above it, and its width may have been thirty. When Mark got to it, which he did by descending the wall of the crater, not without risk to his neck, he found the surface of the crater very even and unbroken, with the exception of its having a slight descent from its eastern to its western side; or from the side opposite to the outlet, or gateway, to the gateway itself. This inclination Mark fancied was owing to the circumstance that the water of the ocean had formerly entered at the hole, in uncommonly high tides and tempests, and washed the ashes which had once formed the bottom of the crater, towards the remote parts of the plain. These ashes had been converted by time into a soft, or friable rock, composing a stone that is called tufa. If there had ever been a cone in the crater, as was probably the case, it had totally disappeared under the action of time and the wear of the seasons. Rock, however, the bed of the crater could scarcely be yet considered, though it had a crust which bore the weight of a man very readily, in nearly every part of it. Once or twice Mark broke through, as one would fall through rotten ice, when he found his shoes covered with a light dust that much resembled ashes. In other places he broke this crust on purpose, always finding beneath it a considerable depth of ashes, mingled with some shells, and a few small stones.
That the water sometimes flowed into this crater was evident by a considerable deposit of salt, which marked the limits of the latest of these floods. This salt had probably prevented vegetation. The water, however, never could have entered from the sea, had not the lava which originally made the outlet left a sort of channel that was lower than the surface of the outer rocks. It might be nearer to the real character of the phenomenon were we to say, that the lava which had broken through the barrier at this point, and tumbled into the sea, had not quite filled the channel which it rather found than formed, when it ceased to flow. Cooling in that form, an irregular crevice was left, through which the element no doubt still occasionally entered, when the adjacent ocean got a sufficient elevation. Mark observed that, from some cause or other, the birds avoided the crater. It really seemed to him that their instincts warned them of the dangers that had once environed the place, and that, to use the language of sailors, "they gave it a wide berth," in consequence. Whatever may have been the cause, such was the fact; few even flying over it, though they were to be seen in hundreds, in the air all round it.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
5 | None | "The king's son have I landed by himself; Whom I left cooling of the air with sighs In an odd angle of the isle, and sitting, His arms in this sad knot."
_Tempest. _ Having completed this first examination of the crater, Mark and Bob next picked their way again to the summit of its wall, and took their seats directly over the arch. Here they enjoyed as good a look-out as the little island afforded, not only of its own surface, but of the surrounding ocean. Mark now began to comprehend the character of the singular geological formation, into the midst of which the Rancocus had been led, as it might almost be by the hand of Providence itself. He was at that moment seated on the topmost pinnacle of a submarine mountain of volcanic origin--submarine as to all its elevations, heights and spaces, with the exception of the crater where he had just taken his stand, and the little bit of visible and venerable lava, by which it was surrounded. It is true that this lava rose very near the surface of the ocean, in fifty places that he could see at no great distance, forming the numberless breakers that characterized the place; but, with the exception of Mark's Reef, as Bob named the principal island on the spot, two or three detached islets within a cable's-length of it, and a few little more remote, the particular haunts of birds, no other land was visible, far or near.
As Mark sat there, on that rock of concrete ashes, he speculated on the probable extent of the shoals and reefs by which he was surrounded. Judging by what he then saw, and recalling the particulars of the examination made from the cross-trees of the ship, he supposed that the dangers and difficulties of the navigation must extend, in an east and west direction, at least twelve marine leagues; while, in a north and south, the distance seemed to be a little, and a very little less. There was necessarily a good deal of conjecture in this estimate of the extent of the volcanic mountain which composed these extensive shoals; but, from what he saw, from the distance the ship was known to have run amid the dangers before she brought up, her present anchorage, the position of the island, and all the other materials before him to make his calculation on, Mark believed himself rather to have lessened than to have exaggerated the extent of these shoals. Had the throes of the earth, which produced this submerged rock, been a little more powerful, a beautiful and fertile island, of very respectable dimensions, would probably have been formed in its place.
From the time of reaching the reef, which is now to bear his name in all future time, our young seaman had begun to admit the bitter possibility of being compelled to pass the remainder of his days on it. How long he and his companion could find the means of subsistence in a place so barren, was merely matter of conjecture; but so long as Providence should furnish these means, was it highly probable that solitary and little-favoured spot was to be their home. It is unnecessary to state with what bitter regrets the young bridegroom admitted this painful idea; but Mark was too manly and resolute to abandon himself to despair, even at such a moment. He kept his sorrows pent up in the repository of his own bosom, and endeavoured to imitate the calm exterior of his companion. As for Bob, he was a good deal of a philosopher by nature and, having made up his mind that they were doomed to 'Robinson Crusoe it,' for a few years at least, he was already turning over in his thoughts the means of doing so to the best advantage. Under such circumstances, and with such feelings, it is not at all surprising that their present situation and their future prospects soon became the subject of discourse, between these two solitary seamen.
"We are fairly in for it, Mr. Mark," said Bob, "and differ from Robinson only in the fact that there are two of us; whereas he was obliged to set up for himself, and by himself, until he fell in with Friday!"
"I wish I could say _that_ was the only difference in our conditions, Betts, but it is very far from being so. In the first place he had an island, while we have little more than a reef; he had soil, while we have naked rock; he had fresh water, and we have none; he had trees, while we have not even a spear of grass. All these circumstances make out a case most desperately against us."
"You speak truth, sir; yet is there light ahead. We have a ship, sound and tight as the day she sailed; while Robinson lost his craft under his feet. As long as there is a plank afloat, a true salt never gives up."
"Ay, Bob, I feel that, as strongly as you can yourself; nor do I mean to give up, so long as there is reason to think God has not entirely deserted us. But that ship is of no use, in the way of returning to our friends and home; or, of no use as a ship. The power of man could scarcely extricate her from the reefs around her."
"It's a bloody bad berth," said Bob, squirting the saliva of his tobacco half-way down the wall of the crater, "that I must allow. Howsomever, the ship will be of use in a great many ways, Mr. Mark, if we can keep her afloat, even where she is. The water that's in her will last us two a twelvemonth, if we are a little particular about it; and when the rainy season sets in, as the rainy season will be sure to do in this latitude, we can fill up for a fresh start. Then the ship will be a house for us to live in, and a capital good house, too. You can live aft, sir, and I'll take my swing in the forecastle, just as if nothing had happened."
"No, no, Bob; there is an end of all such distinctions now. Misery, like the grave, brings all upon a level. You and I commenced as messmates, and we are likely to end as messmates. There is a use to which the ship may be put, however, that you have not mentioned, and to which we must look forward as our best hope for this world. She may be broken up by us, and we may succeed in building a craft large enough to navigate these mild seas, and yet small enough to be taken through, or over the reefs. In _that_ way, favoured by Divine Providence, we may live to see our friends again."
"Courage, Mr. Mark, courage, sir. I know it must be hard on the feelin's of a married man, like yourself, that has left a parfect pictur' behind him, to believe he is never to return to his home again. But I don't believe that such is to be our fate. I never heard of such an end to a Crusoe party. Even Robinson, himself, got off at last, and had a desperate hard journey of it, after he hauled his land-tacks aboard. I like that idee of the new craft 'specially well, and will lend a hand to help you through with it with all my heart. I'm not much of a carpenter, it's true; nor do I suppose you are anything wonderful with the broad-axe and adze; but two willing and stout men, who has got their lives to save, can turn their hands to almost anything. For my part, sir, since I _was_ to be wrecked and to Robinson it awhile, I'm gratefully thankful that I've got you for a companion, that's all!"
Mark smiled at this oblique compliment, but he felt well assured that Bob meant all for the best. After a short pause, he resumed the discourse by saying-- "I have been thinking, Bob, of the possibility of getting the ship safely down as far as this island. Could we but place her to leeward of that last reef off the weather end of the island, she might lie there years, or until she fell to pieces by decay. If we are to attempt building a decked boat, or anything large enough to ride out a gale in, we shall want more room than the ship's decks to set it up in. Besides, we could never get a craft of those dimensions off the ship's decks, and must, of necessity, build it in some place where it may be launched. Our dingui would never do to be moving backward and forward, so great a distance, for it will carry little more than ourselves. All things considered, therefore, I am of opinion we can do nothing better to begin with, than to try to get the ship down here, where we have room, and may carry out our plans to some advantage."
Bob assented at once to this scheme, and suggested one or two ideas in approbation of it, that were new even to Mark. Thus, it was evident to both, that if the ship herself were ever to get clear of the reef, it must be by passing out to leeward; and by bringing her down to the island so much would be gained on the indispensable course. Thus, added Bob, she might be securely moored in the little bay to windward of the island; and, in the course of time it was possible that by a thorough examination of the channels to the westward, and by the use of buoys, a passage might be found, after all, that would carry them out to sea. Mark had little hope of ever getting the Rancocus extricated from the maze of rocks into which she had so blindly entered, and where she probably never could have come but by driving over some of them; but he saw many advantages in this plan of removing the ship, that increased in number and magnitude the more he thought on the subject. Security to the fresh water was one great object to be attained. Should it come on to blow, and the ship drift down upon the rocks to leeward of her, she would probably go to pieces in an hour or two, when not only all the other ample stores that she contained, but every drop of sweet water at the command of the two seamen, would inevitably be lost. So important did it appear to Mark to make sure of a portion of this great essential, at least, that he would have proposed towing down to the reef, or island, a few casks, had the dingui been heavy enough to render such a project practicable. After talking over these several points still more at large, Mark and Bob descended from the summit of the crater, made half of its circuit, and returned to their boat.
As the day continued calm, Mark was in no hurry, but passed half an hour in sounding the little bay that was formed by the sunken rocks that lay off the eastern, or weather end of the Crater Reef, as, in a spirit of humility, he insisted on calling that which everybody else now calls Mark's Reef. Here he not only found abundance of water for all he wanted, but to his surprise he also found a sandy bottom, formed no doubt by the particles washed from the surrounding rocks under the never-ceasing abrasion of the waves. On the submerged reef there were only a few inches of water, and our mariners saw clearly that it was possible to secure the ship in this basin, in a very effectual manner, could they only have a sufficiency of good weather in which to do it.
After surveying the basin, itself, with sufficient care, Bob pulled the dingui back towards the ship, Mark sounding as they proceeded. But two difficulties were found between the points that it was so desirable to bring in communication with each other. One of these difficulties consisted in a passage between two lines of reef, that ran nearly parallel for a quarter of a mile, and which were only half a cable's-length asunder. There was abundance of water between these reefs, but the difficulty was in the course, and in the narrowness of the passage. Mark passed through the latter four several times, sounding it, as it might be, foot by foot, and examining the bottom with the eye; for, in that pellucid water, with the sun near the zenith, it was possible to see two or three fathoms down, and nowhere did he find any other obstacle than this just mentioned. Nor was any buoy necessary, the water breaking over the southern end of the outer, and over the northern end of the inner ledge, and nowhere else near by, thus distinctly noting the very two points where it would be necessary to alter the course.
The second obstacle was much more serious than that just described. It was a reef with a good deal of water over most of it; so much, indeed, that the sea did not break unless in heavy gales, but not enough to carry a ship like the Rancocus over, except in one, and that a very contracted pass, of less than a hundred feet in width. This channel it would be indispensably necessary to buoy, since a variation from the true course of only a few fathoms would infallibly produce the loss of the ship. All the rest of the distance was easily enough made by a vessel standing down, by simply taking care not to run into visible breakers.
Mark and Bob did not get back to the Rancocus until near three o'clock. They found everything as they had left it, and the pigs, poultry and goat, glad enough to see them, and beginning to want their victuals and drink. The two first are to be found on board of every ship, but the last is not quite so usual. Captain Crutchely had brought one along to supply milk for his tea, a beverage that, oddly enough, stood second only to grog in his favour. After Bob had attended to the wants of the brute animals, he and Mark, again sat down on the windlass to make another cold repast on broken meat--as yet, they had not the hearts to cook anything. As soon as this homely meal was taken Mark placed a couple of buoys in the dingui, with the pig-iron that was necessary to anchor them, and proceeded to the spot on the reef, where it was proposed to place them.
Our mariners were quite an hour in searching for the channel, and near another in anchoring the buoys in a way to render the passage perfectly safe. As soon as this was done, Bob pulled back to the ship, which was less than a mile distant, as fast as he could, for there was every appearance of a change of weather. The moment was one, now, that demanded great coolness and decision. Not more than an hour of day remained, and the question was whether to attempt to move the ship that night, when the channel and its marks were all fresh in the minds of the two seamen, and before the foul weather came, or to trust to the cable that was down to ride out any blow that might happen. Mark, young as he was, thought justly on most professional subjects. He knew that heavy rollers would come in across the reef where the vessel then lay, and was fearful that the cable would chafe and part, should it come on to blow hard for four-and-twenty hours continually. These rollers, he also knew by the observation of that day, were completely broken and dispersed on the rocks, before they got down to the island, and he believed the chances of safety much greater by moving the ship at once, than by trying the fortune of another night, out where she then lay. Bob submitted to this decision precisely as if Mark was still his officer, and no sooner got his orders than he sprang from sail to sail, and rope to rope, like a cat playing among the branches of some tree. In that day, spensers were unknown, staysails doing their duty. Thus Bob loosed the jib, main-topmast and mizen-staysails, and saw the spanker clear for setting. While he was thus busied, Mark was looking to the stopper and shank-painter of the sheet-anchor, which had been got ready to let go, before Captain Crutchely was lost. He even succeeded in getting that heavy piece of metal a cock-bill, without calling on Bob for assistance.
It was indeed time for them to be in a hurry; for the wind began to come in puffs, the sun was sinking into a bank of clouds, and all along the horizon to windward the sky looked dark and menacing. Once Mark changed his mind, determining to hold on, and let go the sheet-anchor where he was, should it become necessary; but a lull tempted him to proceed. Bob shouted out that all was ready, and Mark lifted the axe with which he was armed, and struck a heavy blow on the cable. That settled the matter; an entire strand was separated, and three or four more blows released the ship from her anchor. Mark now sprang to the jib-halliards, assisting Bob to hoist the sail. This was no sooner done than he went aft to the wheel, where he arrived in time to help the ship to fall off. The spanker was next got out as well as two men could do it in a hurry, and then Bob went forward to tend the jib-sheet, and to look out for the buoys.
It was indispensable in such a navigation to make no mistake, and Mark enjoined the utmost vigilance on his friend. Twenty times did he hail to inquire if the buoys were to be seen, and at last he was gratified by an answer in the affirmative.
"Keep her away, Mr. Mark--keep her away, you may, sir; we are well to windward of the channel. Ay, that'll do, Mr. Woolston--that's your beauty, sir. Can't you get a sight of them b'ys yourself, sir?"
"Not just yet, Bob, and so much the greater need that you should look out the sharper. Give the ship plenty of room, and I'll let her run down for the passage, square for the channel."
Bob now ran aft, telling the mate he had better go on the forecastle himself and conn the ship through the passage, which was a place he did not like. Mark was vexed that the change should be made just at that critical instant, but bounding forward, he was between the knight-heads in half a minute, looking out for the buoys. At first, he could not see them; and then he most felt the imprudence of Bob's quitting his post in such a critical instant. In another minute, however, he found one; and presently the other came in sight, fearfully close, as, it now appeared to our young mariner, to its neighbour. The position of the ship, nevertheless, was sufficiently to windward, leaving plenty of room to keep off in. As soon as the ship was far enough ahead, Mark called out to Bob to put his helm hard up. This was done, and away the Rancocus went, Mark watching her with the utmost vigilance, lest she should sheer a little too much to the one side or to the other. He hardly breathed as the vessel glided down upon these two black sentinels, and, for an instant, he fancied the wind or the current had interfered with their positions. It was now too late, however, to attempt any change, and Mark saw the ship surging onward on the swells of the ocean, which made their way thus far within the reefs, with a greater intensity of anxiety than he had ever before experienced in his life. Away went the ship, and each time she settled in the water, our young man expected to hear her keel grating on the bottom, but it did not touch. Presently the buoys were on her quarters, and then Mark knew that the danger of this one spot was passed!
The next step was to find the southern end of the outer ledge that formed the succeeding passage. This was not done until the ship was close aboard of it. A change had come over the spot within the last few hours, in consequence of the increase of wind, the water breaking all along the ledge, instead of on its end only; but Mark cared not for this, once certain he had found that end. He was now half-way between his former anchorage and the crater, and he could distinguish the latter quite plainly. But sail was necessary to carry the ship safely through the channel ahead, and Mark called to Bob to lash the helm a-midships after luffing up to his course, and to spring to the main-topmast staysail halliards, and help him hoist the sail. This was soon done, and the new sail was got up, and the sheet hauled aft. Next followed the mizen staysail, which was spread in the same manner. Bob then flew to the wheel, and Mark to his knight-heads again. Contrary to Mark's apprehensions, he saw that the ship was luffing up close to the weather ledge, leaving little danger of her going on to it. As soon as met by the helm, however, she fell off, and Mark no longer had any doubt of weathering the northern end of the inner ledge of this passage. The wind coming in fresher puffs, this was soon done, when the ship was kept dead away for the crater. There was the northern end of the reef, which formed the inner basin of all, to double, when that which remained to do was merely to range far enough within the reef to get a cover, and to drop the anchor. In order to do this with success, Mark now commenced hauling down the jib. By the time he had that sail well in, the ship was off the end of the sunken reef, when Bob put his helm a-starboard and rounded it. Down came the main-topmast staysail, and Mark jumped on the forecastle, while he called out to Bob to lash the helm a-lee. In an instant Bob was at the young man's side, and both waited for the ship to luff into the wind, and to forge as near as possible to the reef. This was successfully done also, and Mark let go the stopper within twenty feet of the wall of the sunken reef, just as the ship began to drive astern. The canvas was rolled up and secured, the cable payed out, until the ship lay just mid-channel between the island and the sea-wall without, and the whole secured. Then Bob took off his tarpaulin and gave three cheers, while Mark walked aft, silently returning thanks to God for the complete success of this important movement.
Important most truly was this change. Not only was the ship anchored, with her heaviest anchor down, and her best cable out, in good holding ground, and in a basin where very little swell ever penetrated, and that entering laterally and diminished in force; but there she was within a hundred and fifty feet of the island, at all times accessible by means of the dingui, a boat that it would not do to trust in the water at all outside when it blew in the least fresh. In short, it was scarcely possible to have a vessel in a safer berth, so long as her spars and hull were exposed to the gales of the ocean, or one that was more convenient to those who used the island. By getting down her spars and other hamper, the power of the winds would be much lessened, though Mark felt little apprehension of the winds at that season of the year, so long as the sea could not make a long rake against the vessel. He believed the ship safe for the present, and felt the hope of still finding a passage, through the reef to leeward, reviving in his breast.
Well might Mark and Bob rejoice in the great feat they had just performed. That night it blew so heavily as to leave little doubt that the ship never could have been kept at her anchor, outside; and had she struck adrift in the darkness nothing could have saved them from almost immediate destruction. The rollers came down in tremendous billows, breaking and roaring on all sides of the island, rendering the sea white with their foam, even at midnight; but, on reaching the massive, natural wall that protected the Rancocus, they dashed themselves into spray against it, wetting the vessel from her truck down, but doing her no injury. Mark remained on deck until past twelve o'clock, when finding that the gale was already breaking, he turned in and slept soundly until morning. As for Bob, he had taken his watch below early in the evening, and there he remained undisturbed until the appearance of day, when he turned out of his own accord.
Mark took another look at the sea, reefs and islands, from the main-topmast cross-trees of the ship, as she lay in her new berth. Of course, the range of his vision was somewhat altered by this change of position, and especially did he see a greater distance to the westward, or towards the lee side of the reefs. Nothing encouraging was made out, however; the young man rather inclining more to the opinion than he had ever done before, that the vessel could not be extricated from the rocks which surrounded her. With this conviction strongly renewed, he descended to the deck, to share in the breakfast Bob had set about preparing, the moment he quitted his cat-tails; for Bob insisted on sleeping in the forecastle, though Mark had pressed him to take one of the cabin state-rooms. This time the meal, which included some very respectable ship's coffee, was taken on the cabin-table, the day being cloudless, and the sun's rays possessing a power that made it unpleasant to sit long anywhere out of a shade. While the meal was taken, another conversation was held touching their situation.
"By the manner in which it blew last night," Mark observed, "I doubt if we should have had this comfortable cabin to eat in this morning, and these good articles to consume, had we left the ship outside until morning," "I look upon it as a good job well done, Mr. Mark," answered Bob. "I must own I had no great hopes of our ever getting here, but was willing to try it; for them rollers didn't mind half-a-dozen reefs, but came tumbling in over them, in a way to threaten the old 'Cocus with being ground into powder. For my part, sir, I thank God, from the bottom of my heart, that we are here."
"You have reason to do so, Bob; and while we may both regret the misfortune that has befallen us, we had need remember how much better off we are than our shipmates, poor fellows! --or how much better we are off than many a poor mariner who loses his vessel altogether."
"Yes, the saving of the ship is a great thing for us. We can hardly call this a shipwreck, Mr. Mark, though we have been ashore once; it is more like being docked, than anything else!"
"I have heard, before, of vessels being carried over reefs, and bars of rivers, into berths they could not quit," answered Mark. "But, reflect a moment, Bob, how much better our condition is, than if we had been washed down on this naked reef, with only such articles to comfort us, as could be picked up along shore from the wreck!"
"I'm glad to hear you talk in this rational way, Mr. Mark; for it's a sign you do not give up, or take things too deeply to heart. I was afeard that you might be thinking too much of Miss Bridget, and make yourself more unhappy than is necessary for a man who has things so comfortable around him."
"The separation from my wife causes me much pain, Betts, but I trust in God. It has been in his pleasure to place us in this extraordinary situation, and I hope that something good will come of it."
"That's the right sentiments, sir--only keep such feelings uppermost, and we shall do right down well. Why, we have water, in plenty, until after the rainy season shall be along, when we can catch a fresh supply. Then, there is beef and pork enough betwixt decks to last you and me five or six years; and bread and flour in good quantities, to say nothing of lots of small stores, both forward and aft."
"The ship is well found, and, as you say, we might live a long time, years certainly, on the food she contains. There is, however, one thing to be dreaded, and to provide against which shall be my first care. We are now fifty days on salted provisions, and fifty more will give us both the scurvy."
"The Lord in his mercy protect me from that disease!" exclaimed Bob. "I had it once, in an old v'y'ge round the Horn, and have no wish to try it ag'in, But there must be fish in plenty among these rocks, Mr. Mark, and we have a good stock of bread. By dropping the beef and pork, for a few days at a time, might we not get shut of the danger?"
"Fish will help us, and turtle would be a great resource, could we meet with any of _that_. But, man requires mixed food, meats and vegetables, to keep him healthy; and nothing is so good for the scurvy as the last. The worst of our situation is a want of soil, to grow any vegetables in. I did not see so much as a rush, or the coarsest sea-plant, when we were on the island yesterday. If we had soil, there is seed in plenty on board, and this climate would bring forward vegetation at a rapid rate."
"Ay, ay, sir, and I'll tell you what I've got in the way of seeds, myself. You may remember the delicious musk and watermelons we fell in with last v'y'ge, in the east. Well, sir, I saved some of the seed, thinking to give it to my brother, who is a Jarsey farmer, you know, sir; and, sailor-like, I forgot it altogether, when in port. If a fellow could get but a bit of earth to put them melon-seeds in, we might be eating our fruit like gentlemen, two months hence, or three months, at the latest."
"That is a good thought, Betts, and we will turn it over in our minds. If such a thing is to be done at all, the sooner it is done the better, that the melons maybe getting ahead while we are busy with the other matters. This is just the season to put seed into the ground, and I think we might make soil enough to sustain a few hills of melons. If I remember right, too, there are some of the sweet potatoes left."
Bob assented, and during the rest of the meal they did nothing but pursue this plan of endeavouring to obtain half-a-dozen or a dozen hills of melons. As Mark felt all the importance of doing everything that lay in his power to ward off the scurvy, and knew that time was not to be lost, he determined that the very first thing he would now attend to, would be to get all the seed into as much ground as he could contrive to make. Accordingly, as soon as the breakfast was ended, Mark went to collect his seeds Bob set the breakfast things aside, after properly cleaning them.
There were four shoats on board, which had been kept in the launch, until that boat was put into the water, the night the Rancocus ran upon the rocks. Since that time they had been left to run about the decks, producing a good deal of dirt, and some confusion. These shoats Bob now caught, and dropped into the bay, knowing that their instinct would induce them to swim for the nearest land. All this turned out as was expected, and the pigs were soon seen on the island, snuffing around on the rocks, and trying to root. A small quantity of the excrement of these animals still lay on the deck, where it had been placed when the launch was cleaned for service, no one thinking at such a moment of cleaning the decks. It had been washed by the sea that came aboard quite across the deck, but still formed a pile, and most of it was preserved. This manure Mark was about to put in a half-barrel, in order to carry it ashore, for the purpose of converting it into soil, when Bob suddenly put an end to what he was about, by telling him that he knew where a manure worth two of that was to be found. An explanation was asked and given. Bob, who had been several voyages on the western coast of America, told Mark that the Peruvians and Chilians made great use of the dung of aquatic birds, as a manure, and which they found on the rocks that lined their coast. Now two or three rocks lay near the reef, that were covered with this deposit, the birds still hovering about them, and he proposed to take the dingui, and go in quest of a little of that fertilizing manure. A very little, he said, would suffice, the Spaniards using it in small quantities, but applying it at different stages in the growth of the plant. It is scarcely necessary to say that Bob had fallen on a knowledge of the use of the article which is now so extensively known under the name of guano, in the course of his wanderings, and was enabled to communicate the fact to his companion. Mark knew that Betts was a man of severe truth, and he was so much the more disposed to listen to his suggestion. While our young mate was getting the boat ready, therefore, Bob collected his tools, provided himself with a bucket, passed the half-barrel, into which Mark had thrown the sweepings of the decks, into the dingui, and descended himself and took the sculls. The two then proceeded to Bob's rock, where, amid the screams of a thousand sea-birds, the honest fellow filled his bucket with as good guano as was ever found on the coast of Peru.
While the boat was at the rock, Mark saw that the pigs had run round to the western end of the island, snuffing at everything that came in their way, and trying in vain to root wherever one of them could insert his nose. As a hog is a particularly sagacious animal, Mark kept his eyes on them while Bob was picking out his guano, in the faint hope that they might discover fresh water, by means of their instinct. In this way he saw them enter the gate way of the crater, pigs being pretty certain to run their noses into any such place as that.
On landing, Mark took a part of the tools and the bucket of guano, while Bob shouldered the remainder, and they went up to the hole, and entered the crater together, having landed as near to the gate-way as they could get, with that object. To Mark's great delight he found that the pigs were now actually rooting with some success, so far as stirring the surface was concerned, though getting absolutely nothing for their pains. There were spots on the plain of the crater, however, where it was possible, by breaking a sort of crust, to get down into coarse ashes that were not entirely without some of the essentials of soil. Exposure to the air and water, with mixing up with sea-weed and such other waste materials as he could collect, the young man fancied would enable him to obtain a sufficiency of earthy substances to sustain the growth of plants. While on the summit of the crater-wall, he had seen two or three places where it had struck him sweet-potatoes and beans might be made to grow, and he determined to ascend to those spots, and make his essay there, as being the most removed from the inroads of the pigs. Could he only succeed in obtaining two or three hundred melons, he felt that a great deal would be done in providing the means of checking any disposition to scurvy that might appear in Bob or himself. In this thoughtful manner did one so young look ahead, and make provision for the future.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
6 | None | "----that done, partake The season, prime for sweetest scents and airs; Then commune how that day they best may ply Their growing work; for much their work outgrew The hands dispatch of two gard'ning so wide."
Milton.
Our two mariners had come ashore well provided with the means of carrying out their plans. The Rancocus was far better provided with tools suited to the uses of the land, than was common for ships, her voyage contemplating a long stay among the islands she was to visit. Thus, axes and picks were not wanting, Captain Crutchely having had an eye to the possible necessity of fortifying himself against savages. Mark now ascended the crater-wall with a pick on his shoulder, and a part of a coil of ratlin-stuff around his neck. As he went up, he used the pick to make steps, and did so much in that way, in the course of ten minutes, as greatly to facilitate the ascent and descent at the particular place he had selected. Once on the summit, he found a part of the rock that overhung its base, and dropped one end of his line into the crater. To this Bob attached the bucket, which Mark hauled up and emptied. In this manner everything was transferred to the top of the crater-wall that was needed there, when Bob went down to the dingui to roll up the half-barrel of sweepings that had been brought from the ship.
Mark next looked about for the places which had seemed to him, on his previous visit, to have most of the character of soil. He found a plenty of these spots, mostly in detached cavities of no great extent, where the crust had not yet formed; or, having once formed, had been disturbed by the action of the elements. These places he first picked to pieces with his pick; then he stirred them well up with a hoe, scattering a little guano in the heaps, according to the directions of Betts. When this was done, he sent down the bucket, and hauled up the sweepings of the deck, which Bob had ready for him, below. Nor was this all Bob had done, during the hour Mark was at work, in the sun, on the summit of the crater. He had found a large deposit of sea-weed, on a rock near the island, and had made two or three trips with the dingui, back and forth, to transfer some of it to the crater. After all his toil and trouble, the worthy fellow did not get more than a hogshead full of this new material, but Mark thought it well worth while to haul it up, and to endeavour to mix it with his compost. This was done by making it up in bundles, as one would roll up hay, of a size that the young man could manage.
Bob now joined his friend on the crater-wall, and assisted in carrying the sea-weed to the places prepared to receive it, when both of the mariners next set about mixing it up with the other ingredients of the intended soil. After working for another hour in this manner, they were of opinion that they might make the experiment of putting in the seed. Melons, of both sorts, and of the very best quality, were now put into the ground, as were also beans peas, and Indian-corn, or maize. A few cucumber-seeds, and some onions were also tried, Captain Crutchely having brought with him a considerable quantity of the common garden seeds, as a benefit conferred on the natives of the islands he intended to visit, and through them on future navigators. This care proceeded from his owners, who were what is called 'Friends,' and who somewhat oddly blended benevolence with the practices of worldly gain.
Mark certainly knew very little of gardening, but Bob could turn his hand to almost anything. Several mistakes were made, notwithstanding, more particularly in the use of the seed, with which they were not particularly acquainted. Mark's Reef lay just within the tropics, it is true (in 21° south latitude), but the constant sea-breeze rendered its climate much cooler than would otherwise have been the case. Thus the peas, and beans, and even the onions, did better, perhaps, on the top of the crater, than they would have done in it; but the ochre, egg-plants, melons, and two or three other seeds that they used, would probably have succeeded better had they been placed in the warmest spots which could be found. In one respect Mark made a good gardener. He knew that moisture was indispensable to the growth of most plants, and had taken care to put all his seeds into cavities, where the rain that fell (and he had no reason to suppose that the dry season had yet set in) would not run off and be wasted. On this point he manifested a good deal of judgment, using his hoe in a way to avoid equally the danger of having too much or too little water.
It was dinner-time before Mark and Betts were ready to quit the 'Summit,' as they now began to term the only height in their solitary domains. Bob had foreseen the necessity of a shade, and had thrown an old royal into the boat. With this, and two or three light spars, he contrived to make a sort of canopy, down in the crater, beneath which he and Mark dined, and took their siestas. While resting on a spare studding-sail that had also been brought along, the mariners talked over what they had done, and what it might be best to undertake next.
Thus far Mark had been working under a species of excitement, that was probably natural enough to his situation, but which wanted the coolness and discretion that are necessary to render our efforts the most profitable to ourselves, or to others. Now, that the feverish feeling which set him at work so early to make a provision against wants which, at the worst, were merely problematical, had subsided, Mark began to see that there remained many things to do, which were of even more pressing necessity than anything yet done. Among the first of these there was the perfect security of the ship. So long as she rode at a single anchor, she could not be considered as absolutely safe; for a shift of wind would cause her to swing against the 'sea-wall,' as he called the natural breakwater outside of her, where, if not absolutely wrecked, she might receive material damage. Prudence required, therefore, that the ship should be moored, as well as anchored. Nevertheless, there was a good deal of truth in what Mark had said touching the plants growing while he and Bob were busy at other matters; and this thought, of itself, formed a sufficient justification for what he had just done, much as it had been done under present excitement. As they under the shade of the royal, our mariners discussed these matters, and matured some plans for the future.
At two o'clock Mark and Bob resumed their work. The latter suggested the necessity of getting food and water ashore for the pigs, as an act that humanity imperiously demanded of them; not humanity in the sense of feeling for our kind, but in the sense in which we all ought to feel for animal suffering, whether endured by man or beast. Mark assented as to the food, but was of opinion a thunder shower was about to pass over the reef. The weather certainly did wear this aspect, and Bob was content to wait the result, in order to save himself unnecessary trouble. As for the pigs, they were still in the crater rooting, as it might be for life or death, though nothing edible had as yet rewarded them for their toil. Perhaps they found it pleasant to be thrusting their noses into something that resembled soil, after so long a confinement to the planks of a ship. Seeing them at work in this manner, suggested to Mark to try another experiment, which certainly looked far enough ahead, as if he had no great hopes of getting off the island for years to come. Among the seeds of Captain Crutchely were those of oranges, lemons, limes, shaddocks, figs, and grapes; all plants well enough suited to the place, if there were only soil to nourish them. Now, one of the hogs had been rooting, as best he might, just under the wall, on the northern side of the crater, making a long row of little hillocks, of earthy ashes, at unequal distances it is true, but well enough disposed for the nature of the different fruits, could they only be got to grow. Along this irregular row of hillocks did Mark bury his seeds, willing to try an experiment which might possibly benefit some other human being, if it never did any good to himself. When this was done, he and Betts left the crater, driving the hogs out before them.
Having made his plantation, Mark felt a natural desire to preserve it. He got the royal, therefore, and succeeded in fastening it up as a substitute for a gate, in their natural gate-way. Had the pigs met with any success in rooting, it is not probable this slight obstacle would have prevented their finding their way, again, into the cavity of the crater; but, as it was, it proved all-sufficient, and the sail was permitted to hang before the hole, until a more secure gate was suspended in its stead.
The appearances of the thunder-shower were so much increased by this time, that our mariners hastened back to the ship in order to escape a ducking. They had hardly got on board before the gust came, a good deal of water falling, though not in the torrents in which one sometimes sees it stream down within the tropics. In an hour it was all over, the sun coming out bright and scorching, after the passage of the gust. One thing occurred, however, which at first caused both of the seamen a good deal of uneasiness, and again showed them the necessity there was for mooring the ship. The wind shifted from the ordinary direction of the trades, during the squall, to a current of air that was nearly at right angles to the customary course. This caused the ship to swing, and brought her so near the sea-wall, that once or twice her side actually rubbed against it. Mark was aware, by his previous sounding, that this wall rather impended over its base, being a part of an old crater, beyond a question, and that there was little danger of the vessel's hitting the bottom, or taking harm in any other way than by friction against the upper part; but this friction might become too rude, and finally endanger the safety of the vessel.
As soon as the weather became fine, however, the trades returned, and the ship swung round to her old berth. Bob now suggested the expediency of carrying out their heaviest kedge ashore, of planting it in the rocks, and of running out to it two or three parts of a hawser, to which a line of planks might be lashed, and thus give them the means of entering and quitting the ship, without having recourse to the dingui. Mark approved of this plan, and, it requiring a raft to carry ashore the kedge, the dingui being so light they were afraid to trust it, it was decided to commence that work in the morning. For the rest of the present day nothing further was done, beyond light and necessary jobs, and continuing the examination of the island. Mark was curious to look at the effect of the shower, both in reference to his plantations, and to the quantity of fresh water that might have lodged on the reef. It was determined, therefore, to pass an hour or two ashore before the night shut in again.
Previously to quitting the ship, Bob spoke of the poultry. There were but six hens, a cock, and five ducks, left. They were all as low in flesh and spirits, as it was usual to find birds that have been at sea fifty days, and the honest tar proposed turning them all adrift on the reef, to make their own living in the best way they could. Now and then a little food might be put in their way, but let them have a chance for their lives. Mark assented at once, and the coops were opened. Each fowl was carried to the taffrail, and tossed into the air, when it flew down upon the reef, a distance of a couple of hundred feet, almost as a matter of course. Glad enough were the poor things to be thus liberated. To Mark's surprise, no sooner did they reach the reef, than to work they went, and commenced picking up something with the greatest avidity, as if let loose in the best supplied poultry-yard. Confident there was nothing for even a hen to glean on the rocks when he left there, the young man could not account for this, until turning his eyes inboard, he saw the ducks doing the same thing on deck. Examining the food of these last-mentioned animals, he found there were a great number of minute mucilaginous particles on the deck, which no doubt had descended with the late rain, and which all the birds, as well as the hogs, seemed eager to devour. Here, then, was a supply, though a short-lived one, of a manna suited to those creatures, which might render them happy for a few hours, at least. Bob caught the ducks, and tossed them overboard, when they floundered about and enjoyed themselves in a way that communicated a certain pleasure even to the desolate and shipwrecked men who had set them at liberty. Nothing with life now remained in the ship but the goat, and Mark thought it best not to turn her ashore until they had greater facilities for getting the necessary food to her than the dingui afforded. As she was not likely to breed, there was no great use in keeping this animal at all, to say nothing of the means of feeding her, for any length of time; but Mark was unwilling to take her life, since Providence had brought them all to that place in company. Then he thought she might be a pretty object leaping about the cliffs of the crater, giving the island a more lively and inhabited appearance, though he foresaw she might prove very destructive to his plantations, did his vegetables grow. As there was time enough to decide on her final fate, it was finally settled she should be put ashore, and have a comfortable fortnight, even though condemned to die at the end of that brief period.
On landing, every hole in the face of the cliff was found filled with fresh water. Betts was of opinion that the water-casks might all be filled with the water which was thus collected, the fluid having seemingly all flowed into these receptacles, while little had gone into the sea. This was encouraging for the future, at any rate; the want of water, previously to this shower, appearing to Mark to be a more probable occurrence than the want of food. The sea might furnish the last, on an emergency, while it could do nothing with the first. But the manner in which the ducks were enjoying themselves, in these fresh pools, can scarcely be imagined! As Mark stood looking at them, a doubt first suggested itself to his mind concerning the propriety of men's doing anything that ran counter to their instincts, with any of the creatures of God. Pet-birds in cages, birds that were created to fly, had always been disagreeable to him; nor did he conceive it to be any answer to say that they were born in cages, and had never known liberty. They were created with an instinct for flight, and intense must be their longings to indulge in the power which nature had bestowed on them. In the cage in which he now found himself, though he could run, walk, leap, swim, or do aught that nature designed him to do, in the way of mere animal exploits, young Mark felt how bitter were the privations he was condemned to suffer.
The rain had certainly done no harm, as yet, to the planting. All the hills were entire, as Mark and Bob had left them, though well saturated with water. In a few, there might be even too much of the element, perhaps, but Mark observed that a tropical sun would soon remove that objection. His great apprehension was that he had commenced his gardening too late, and that the dry weather might set in too soon for the good of his vegetables; if any of them, indeed, ever came up at all. Here was one good soaking secured, at all events; and, knowing the power of a tropical sun, Mark was of opinion that the fate of the great experiment he had tried would soon be known. Could he succeed in producing vegetation among the _débris_ of the crater, he and Bob might find the means of subsistence during their natural lives; but, should that resource fail them, all their hopes would depend on being able to effect their escape in a craft of their own construction. In no case, however, but that of the direst necessity, did Mark contemplate the abandonment of his plan for getting back to the inhabited world, his country, and his bride!
That night our mariners had a sounder sleep than they had yet been blest with since the loss of their shipmates, and the accident to the vessel itself. The two following days they passed in securing the ship. Bob actually made a very respectable catamaran, or raft, out of the spare spars, sawing the topmasts and lower yards in two, for that purpose, and fastening them together with ingenuity and strength, by means of lashings. But Mark hit upon an expedient for getting the two kedges ashore, that prevented the necessity of having recourse to the raft on that occasion. These kedges lay on the poop, where they were habitually kept, and two men had no great difficulty in getting them over the stern, suspended by stoppers. Now Mark had ascertained that the rock of the Reef rose like a wall, being volcanic, like all the rest of the formation, and that the ship could float almost anywhere alongside of it. Aided by the rake of the stern of an old-fashioned Philadelphia-built ship, nothing was easier than to veer upon the cable, let the vessel drop in to the island, until the kedges actually hung over the rocks, and then lower the last down. All this was done, and the raft was reserved for other purposes. Notwithstanding the facility with which the kedges were got ashore, it took Mark and Bob quite half a day to plant them in the rock precisely where they were wanted. When this was accomplished, however, it was so effectually done as to render the hold even greater than that of the sheet-anchor. The stocks were not used at all, but the kedges were laid flat on the rock, quite near to each other, and in such a manner that the flukes were buried in crevices of the lava, giving a most secure hold, while the shanks came out through natural grooves, leading straight towards the ship. Six parts of a hawser were bent to the kedges, three to each, and these parts were held at equal distances by pieces of spars ingeniously placed between them, the whole being kept in its place by regular stretchers that were lashed along the hawsers at distances of ten feet, giving all the parts of the ropes the same level. Before these stretchers were secured, the ship was hove ahead by her cable, and the several parts of the hawser brought to an equal strain. This left the vessel about a hundred feet from the island, a convenient, and if the anchor held, a _safe_ position; though Mark felt little fear of losing the ship against rocks that were so perpendicular and smooth. On the stretchers planks were next laid and lashed, thus making a clear passage between the vessel and the shore, that might be used at all times, without recourse to the dingui; besides mooring the ship head and stern, thereby keeping her always in the same place, and in the same position.
The business of securing the ship occupied nearly two days, and was not got through with until about the middle of the afternoon of the second day. It was Saturday, and Mark had determined to make a good beginning, and keep all their Sabbaths, in future, as holy times, set apart for the special service of the Creator. He had been born and educated an Episcopalian, but Bob claimed to be a Quaker, and what was more he was a little stiff in some of his notions on the opinion of his sect. The part of New Jersey in which Betts was born, had many persons of this religious persuasion, and he was not only born, but, in one sense, educated in their midst; though the early age at which he went to sea had very much unsettled his practice, much the most material part of the tenets of these good persons. When the two knocked off work, Saturday afternoon, therefore, it was with an understanding that the next day was to be one of rest in the sense of Christians, and, from that time henceforth, that the Sabbath was to be kept as a holy day. Mark had ever been inclined to soberness of thought on such subjects. His early engagement to Bridget had kept him from falling into the ways of most mariners, and, time and again, had a future state of being been the subject of discourse between him and his betrothed. As the seasons of adversity are those in which men are the most apt to bethink them of their duties to God, it is not at all surprising that one of this disposition, thus situated, felt renewed demands on his gratitude and repentance.
While Mark, in this frame of mind, went rambling around his narrow domains, Bob got the dingui, and proceeded with his fishing-tackle towards some of the naked rocks, that lifted their caps above the surface of the sea, in a north-westerly direction from the crater. Of these naked rocks there were nearly twenty, all within a mile of the crater, and the largest of them not containing more than six or eight acres of dry surface. Some were less than a hundred feet in diameter. The great extent and irregular formation of the reefs all around the island, kept the water smooth, for some distance, on all sides of it; and it was only when the rollers were sent in by heavy gales, that the dingui could not move about, in this its proper sphere, in safety.
Betts was very fond of fishing, and could pass whole days, at a time, in that quiet amusement, provided he had a sufficient supply of tobacco. Indeed, one of the greatest consolations this man possessed, under the present misfortune, was the ample store of this weed which was to be found in the ship. Every man on board the Rancocus, Mark alone excepted, made use of tobacco; and, for so long a voyage, the provision laid in had been very abundant. On this occasion, Bob enjoyed his two favourite occupations to satiety, masticating the weed while he fished.
With Mark it was very different. He was fond of his fowling-piece, but of little use was that weapon in his present situation. Of all the birds that frequented the adjacent rocks, not one was of a sort that would be eaten, unless in cases of famine. As he walked over the island, that afternoon, his companion was the goat, which had been driven ashore on the new gangway, and was enjoying its liberty almost as much as the ducks. As the animal frisked about him, accompanying him everywhere in his walks. Mark was reminded of the goats of Crusoe, and his mind naturally adverted to the different accounts of shipwrecks of which he had read, and to a comparison between his own condition and those of other mariners who had been obliged to make their homes, for a time, on otherwise uninhabited islands.
In this comparison, Mark saw that many things made greatly against him, on the one hand; while, on the other, there were many others for which he had every reason to be profoundly grateful. In the first place, this island was, as yet, totally without vegetation of every kind. It had neither plant, shrub, nor tree. In this he suffered a great privation, and it even remained to be proved by actual experiment, whether he was master of what might be considered the elements of soil. It occurred to him that something like vegetation must have shown itself, in or about the crater, did its _débris_ contain the fertilizing principle, Mark not being sufficiently versed in the new science of chemical agriculture, to understand that the admixtures of certain elements might bring to life forces that then were dormant. Then the Reef had no water. This was a very, very great privation, the most serious of all, and might prove to be a terrible calamity. It is true that, just at that moment, there was a shower every day, and sometimes two or three of them; but it was then spring, and there could be little reason to doubt that droughts would come in the hot and dry season. As a last objection, the Reef had no great extent, and no variety, the eye taking it all in at a glance, while the crater was its sole relief against the dullest monotony. Nor was there a bit of wood, or fuel of any sort to cook with, after the supply now in the ship should be exhausted. Such were the leading disadvantages of the situation in which our mariners were placed, as compared with those into which most other shipwrecked seamen had been thrown.
The advantages, on the other hand, Mark, in humble gratitude to God, admitted to be very great. In the first place, the ship and all she contained was preserved, giving them a dwelling, clothes, food and water, as well as fuel, for a long time to come; possibly, aided by what might be gleaned on even that naked reef, sufficient to meet all their wants for the duration of a human life. The cargo of the Rancocus was of no great extent, and of little value in a civilized country; but Mark knew that it included many articles that would be of vast service where he was. The beads and coarse trinkets with which it had been intended to trade with the savages, were of no use whatever, it is true; but the ship's owners were pains-taking and thoughtful Quakers, as has been already intimated, who blended with great shrewdness in the management of their worldly affairs, a certain regard to benevolence in general, and a desire to benefit their species. On this principle, they had caused a portion of their cargo to be made up, sending, in addition to all the ruder and commoner tools, that could be used by a people without domestic animals, a small supply of rugs, coarse clothes, coarse earthen-ware, and a hundred similar things, that would be very serviceable to any who knew how to use them. Most of the seeds came from these thoughtful merchants.
If fresh water were absolutely wanting on the reef, it rained a good deal; in the rainy season it must rain for a few weeks almost incessantly, and the numerous cavities in the ancient lava, formed natural cisterns of great capacity. By taking the precaution of filling up the water-casks of the ship, periodically, there was little danger of suffering for the want of this great requisite. It is true, the sweet, cool, grateful draught, that was to be got from the gushing spring, must be forgotten; but rain-water collected in clean rock, and preserved in well-sweetened casks, was very tolerable drinking for seamen. Captain Crutchely, moreover, had a filterer for the cabin, and through it all the water used there was habitually passed.
In striking the balance between the advantages and disadvantages of his own situation, as compared with that of other shipwrecked mariners, Mark confessed that he had quite as much reason to be grateful as to repine. The last he was resolved not to do, if possible; and he pursued his walk in a more calm and resigned mood than he had been in since the ship entered among the shoals.
Mark, naturally enough, cast his eyes around him, and asked himself the question what was to be done with the domestic animals they had now all landed. The hogs might, or might not be of the greatest importance to them as their residence on the island was or was not protracted, and as they found the means of feeding them. There was still food enough in the ship to keep these creatures for some months, and food that had been especially laid in for that purpose; but that food would serve equally well for the fowls, and our young man was of opinion, that eggs would be of more importance to himself and Betts, than hog's flesh. Then there was the goat; she would soon cease to be of any use at all, and green food was not to be had for her. A little hay, however, remained; and Mark was fully determined that Kitty, as the playful little thing was called, should live at least as long as that lasted. She was fortunate in being content with a nourishment that no other animal wanted.
Mark could see absolutely nothing on the rocks for a bird to live on, yet were the fowls constantly picking up something. They probably found insects that escaped his sight; while it was certain that the ducks were revelling in the pools of fresh water, of which there might, at that moment, have been a hundred on the reef. As all these creatures were, as yet, regularly fed from the supplies in the ship, each seemed to be filled with the joy of existence; and Mark, as he walked among them, felt how profound ought to be his own gratitude, since he was still in a state of being which admitted of a consciousness of happiness so much beyond anything that was known to the inferior animals of creation. He had his mind, with all its stores gathered from study and observation, his love for God, and his hopes of a blessed future, ever at command. Even his love for Bridget had its sweets, as well as its sorrows. It was grateful to think of her tenderness to himself, her beauty, her constancy, of which he would not for a moment doubt, and of all the innocent and delightful converse they had had during a courtship that occupied so much of their brief lives.
Just as the sun was setting, Bob returned from his fishing excursion. To Mark's surprise, he saw that the dingui floated almost with her gunwale-to, and he hastened down to meet his friend, who came ashore in a little bay, quite near the gate-way, and in which the rock did not rise as much like a wall as it did on most of the exterior of the reef. Bob had caught about a dozen fish, some of which were of considerable size, though all were of either species or varieties that were unknown to them both. Selecting two of the most promising-looking, for their own use, he threw the others on the rocks, where the pigs and poultry might give them a trial. Nor was it long before these creatures were hard at work on them, disregarding the scales and fins. At first the hens were a little delicate, probably from having found animal food enough for their present wants in the insects; but, long before the game was demolished, they had come in for their full share. This experiment satisfied the mariners that there would be no difficulty in furnishing plenty of food for all their stock, and for any length of time, Kitty excepted. It is true, the pork and the poultry would be somewhat fishy; but that would be a novelty, and should it prove disagreeable on tasting it, a little clean feeding, at the proper moment, would correct the flavour.
But the principal cargo of the dingui was not the dozen fish mentioned. Bob had nearly filled the boat with a sort of vegetable loam, that he had found lodged in the cavity of one of the largest rocks, and which, from the signs around the place, he supposed to have been formed by deposits of sea-weed. By an accident of nature, this cavity in the rock received a current, which carried large quantities of floating weed _into_ it, while every storm probably had added to its stores since the mass had risen above the common level of the sea, by throwing fresh materials on to the pile, by means of the waves, nothing quitting it. Bob reported that there were no signs of vegetation around the rock, which circumstance, however, was easily enough accounted for by the salt water that was incessantly moistening the surface, and which, while it took with it the principle of future, was certain to destroy all present, vegetable life; or, all but that which belongs exclusively to aquatic plants.
"How much of this muck do you suppose is to be found on your rock, Bob?" asked Mark, after he had examined the dingui's cargo, by sight, taste, and smell. "If is surprisingly like a rich earth, if it be not actually so."
"Lord bless you, Mr. Mark, there is enough on't to fill the old 'Cocus, ag'in and ag'in. How deep it is, I don't pretend to know; but it's a good hundred paces across it, and the spot is as round as that there chimbly, that you call a cr'ature."
"If that be the case, we will try our hands at it next week, and see what can be done with an importation. I do not give up the blessed hope of the boat, Bob--that you will always bear in mind--but it is best to keep an eye on the means of living, should it please God to prevent our getting to sea again."
"To sea, Mr. Mark, neither you nor I, nor any mortal man will ever get, in the old 'Cocus ag'in, as I know by the looks of things outside of us. 'Twill never do to plant in my patch, however, for the salt water must wash it whenever it blows; though a very little work, too, might keep it out, when I come to think on it. Sparrow-grass would grow there, as it is, desperately well; and Friend Abraham White had both seeds and roots put up for the use of the savages, if a body only know'd whereabouts to look for them, among the lot of rubbish of that sort, that he sent aboard."
"All the seeds and roots are in two or three boxes, in the steerage," answered Mark. "I'll just step up to the crater and bring a shovel, to throw this loam out of the boat with, while you can clean the fish and cook the supper. A little fresh food, after so much salt, will be both pleasant and good for us."
Bob assented, and each went his way. Mark threw the loam into a wheelbarrow, of which Friend Abraham had put no less than three in the ship, as presents to the savages, and he wheeled it, at two or three loads, into the crater, where he threw it down in a pile, intending to make a compost heap of all the materials of the sort he could lay his hands on.
As for Bob he cleaned both fish, taking them on board the ship to do so. He put the largest and coarsest into the coppers, after cutting it up, mixing with it onions, pork, and ship's bread, intending to start a fire beneath it early in the morning, and cook a sort of chowder. The other he fried, Mark and he making a most grateful meal on it, that evening.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
7 | None | "Be thou at peace! --Th' all-seeing eye, Pervading earth, and air, and sky, The searching glance which none may flee, Is still, in mercy, turn'd on thee."
Mrs. Hemans.
The Sabbath ever dawns on the piously-inclined, with hope and a devout gratitude to the Creator for all his mercies. This is more apt to be the case in genial seasons, and rural abodes, perhaps, than amidst the haunts of men, and when the thoughts are diverted from the proper channels by the presence of persons around us. Still greater is the influence of absolute solitude, and that increased by the knowledge of a direct and visible dependence on the Providence of God, for the means of even prolonging existence. In the world, men lose sight of this dependence, fancying themselves and their powers of more account than the truth would warrant, and even forgetting whence these very boasted powers are derived; but man, when alone, and in critical circumstances, is made to feel that he is not sufficient for his own wants, and turns with humility and hope to the divine hand that upholds him.
With feelings of this character, did Mark and Betts keep their first Sabbath on the reef. The former read the morning service, from beginning to end, while the latter sat by, an attentive listener. The only proof given of any difference in religious faith between our mariners, was of so singular a nature as to merit notice. Notwithstanding Bob's early familiarity with Mark, his greater age, and the sort of community of feeling and interest created by their common misfortune, the former had not ceased to treat the last with the respect due to his office. This deference never deserted him, and he had riot once since the ship was embayed, entered the cabin without pulling off his hat As soon as church commenced, however, Bob resumed his tarpaulin, as a sort of sign of his own orthodoxy in the faith of his fathers; making it a point to do as they had done in meeting, and slightly concerned lest his companion might fall into the error of supposing he was a man likely to be converted. Mark also observed that, in the course of that Sabbath, Bob used the pronouns 'thee' and 'thou,' on two or three occasions, sounding oddly enough in the mouth of the old salt.
Well did both our mariners prove the efficacy of the divine provision of a day of rest, in a spiritual sense, on the occasion of this their first Sabbath on the reef. Mark felt far more resigned to his fate than he could have believed possible, while Betts declared that he should be absolutely happy, had he only a better boat than the dingui; not that the dingui was at all a bad craft of its kind, but it wanted size. After the religious services, for which both our mariners had shaved and dressed, they took a walk together, on the reef, conversing of their situation and future proceedings. Bob then told Mark, for the first time, that, in his opinion, there was the frame and the other materials of a pinnace, or a large boat, somewhere in the hold, which it was intended to put together, when the ship reached the islands, as a convenience for cruising about among them to trade with the savages, and to transport sandal-wood. The mate had never heard of this boat, but acknowledged that a part of the hold-had been stowed while he was up at Bristol, and it might have been taken in then. Bob confessed that he had never seen it, though he had worked in the stevedore's gang; but was confident he had heard Friend Abraham White and Captain Crutchely talking of its dimensions and uses. According to his recollection it was to be a boat considerably larger than the launch, and to be fitted with masts and sails, and to have a half-deck. Mark listened to ah1 this patiently, though he firmly believed that the honest fellow was deceiving himself the whole time. Such a craft could scarcely be in the ship, and he not hear of it, if he did not actually see it; though he thought it possible that the captain and owners may have had some such plan in contemplation, and conversed together on it, in Betts's presence. As there were plenty of tools on board, however, by using stuff of one sort or another, that was to be found in the ship, Mark had strong hopes of their being able, between them, to construct, in the course of time--though he believed a long time might be necessary--a craft of some sort, that should be of sufficient stability to withstand the billows of that ordinarily mild sea, and enable them to return to their homes and friends. In conversing of things of this sort, in religious observances, and in speculating on the probable fate of their shipmates, did our mariners pass this holy day. Bob was sensibly impressed with the pause in their ordinary pursuits, and lent himself to the proper feelings of the occasion with a zeal and simplicity that gave Mark great satisfaction; for, hitherto, while aware that his friend was as honest a fellow as ever lived, in the common acceptation of such a phrase, he had not supposed him in the least susceptible of religious impressions. But the world had suddenly lost its hold on Betts, the barrier offered by the vast waters of the Pacific, being almost as impassable, in his actual circumstances, as that of the grave; and the human heart turns to God in its direst distress, as to the only being who can administer relief. It is when men are prosperous that they vainly imagine they are sufficient for their own wants, and are most apt to neglect the hand that alone can give durable support.
The following morning our mariners resumed their more worldly duties with renewed powers. While the kettle was boiling for their tea, they rolled ashore a couple of empty water-casks, and filled them with fresh water, at one of the largest natural reservoirs on the reef; it having rained hard in the night. After breakfast, Mark walked round to examine his piles of loam, in the crater, while Bob pulled away in the dingui, to catch a few fish, and to get a new cargo of the earth; it being the intention of Mark to join him at the next trip, with the raft, which required some little arranging, however, previously to its being used for such a purpose. The rain of the past night had thoroughly, washed the pile of earth, and, on tasting it. Mark was convinced that much of the salt it contained had been carried off. This encouraged him to persevere in his gardening projects. As yet, the spring had only just commenced, and he was in hopes of being able to prepare one bed, at least, in time to obtain useful vegetables from it.
The Rancocus had a great many planks and boards in her hold, a part of the ample provision made by her owners for the peculiar voyage on which she had been sent. Of real cargo, indeed, she had very little, the commerce between the civilized man and the savage being ordinarily on those great principles of Free Trade, of which so much is said of late years, while so little is understood, and which usually give the lion's share of the profit to them who need it least. With some of these planks, Mark made a staging for his raft. By the time he was ready, Bob returned with a load of loam, and, on the next outward voyage, the raft was taken as well as the dingui. Mark had fitted pins and grummets, by which the raft was rowed, he and Bob impelling it, when light, very easily at the rate of two miles in the hour.
Mark found Betts's deposit of decayed vegetable matter even larger and more accessible than he had hoped for. A hundred loads might be got without even using a wheelbarrow; and to all appearances there was enough of it to give a heavy dressing to many acres, possibly to the whole area of the crater. The first thing the young man did was to choose a suitable place, dig it well up, mixing a sufficiency of guano with it, agreeably to Betts's directions, and then to put in some of his asparagus roots. After this he scattered a quantity of the seed, raking the ground well after sowing. By the time this was done, Bob had both dingui and raft loaded, when they pulled the last back to the reef, towing the boat. In this manner our two mariners continued to work most of the time, for the next fortnight, making, daily, more or less trips to the 'loam-rock,' as they called the place where this precious deposit had been made; though they neglected none of their other necessary duties. As the distance was short, they could come and go many times in a day, transporting at each trip about as much of the loam as would make an ordinary American cart-load of manure. In the whole, by Mark's computation, they got across about fifty of these cargoes, in the course of their twelve days' work. The entire day, however, was on no occasion given up wholly to this pursuit. On the contrary, many little odd tasks wore completed, which were set by their necessities, or by fore thought and prudence. All the empty water-casks, for one thing, were rolled ashore, and filled at the largest pool; the frequency of the rains admonishing them of the wisdom of making a provision for the dry season. The Rancocus had a good deal of water still left in her, some of it being excellent Delaware river water, though she had filled up at Valparaiso, after passing the Horn. Mark counted the full casks, and allowing ten gallons a day for Bob and himself, a good deal more than could be wanted, there remained in the ship fresh water enough to last them two years. It is true, it was not such water as the palate often craved of a warm day; but they were accustomed to it, and it was sweet. By keeping it altogether between decks, the sun had no power on it, and it was even more palatable than might have been supposed. Mark occasionally longed for one good drink at some gushing spring that he remembered at home, it is true; and Bob was a little in the habit of extolling a particular well that, it would seem, his family were reputed to have used for several generations. Notwithstanding these little natural backslidings on this subject, our mariners might be thought well off on the score of water, having it in great abundance, and with no reasonable fear of ever losing it altogether. The casks taken ashore were filled for their preservation, as well as for convenience, an old sail being spread over them, after they were rolled together and chocked. As yet, no water was given to any of the stock, all the animals finding it in abundance, in the cavities of the lava.
Some of the time, moreover, Betts passed in fishing, supplying not only Mark and himself, but the pigs and the poultry, with as much food as was desired. Several of the fish caught turned out to be delicious, while others were of a quality that caused them to be thrown into the compost heap. A cargo of guano was also imported, the rich manure being mixed up in liberal quantities with the loam. At the end of the first week of these voyages to 'loam-rock,' Betts went out to fish in a new direction, passing to windward of the 'sea-wall,' as they called the reef that protected the ship, and pulling towards a bit of naked rock a short distance beyond it, where he fancied he might find a particular sort of little fish, that greatly resembled the Norfolk Hog-fish, one of the most delicious little creatures for the pan that is to be found in all the finny tribe. He had been gone a couple of hours, when Mark, who was at work within the crater, picking up the encrusted ashes that formed its surface, heard Bob's shout outside, as if he wished assistance. Throwing down the pick, our young man ran out, and was not a little surprised to see the sort of cargo with which Bob was returning to port. It would seem that a great collection of sea-weed had formed to windward of the rock where Bob had gone to fish, at which spot it ordinarily gathered in a pile until the heap became too large to lodge any longer, when, owing to the form of the rock, it invariably broke adrift, and passed to the southward of the Reef, floating to leeward, to fetch up on some other rock, or island, in that direction. Bob had managed to get this raft round a particular point in the reef, when the wind and current carried it, as near as might be, directly towards the crater. He was calling to Mark to come to his assistance, to help get the raft into a sort of bay, ahead of him, where it might be lodged; else would there be the danger of its drifting past the Reef, after all his pains. Our young man saw, at once, what was wanted, got a line, succeeded in throwing it to Bob, and by hauling upon it brought the whole mass ashore in the very spot Betts wished to see it landed.
This sea-weed proved to be a great acquisition on more accounts than one. There was as much of it in quantity as would have made two good-sized loads of hay. Then, many small shell-fish were found among it, which the pigs and poultry ate with avidity. It also contained seeds, that the fowls picked up as readily as if it had been corn. The hogs moreover masticated a good deal of the weed, and poor Kitty, the only one of the domestic animals on the Reef that was not now living to its heart's content, nibbled at it, with a species of half-doubting faith in its salubrity. Although it was getting to be late in the afternoon, Mark and Bob got two of Friend Abraham White's pitchforks (for the worthy Quaker had sent these, among other implements of husbandry, as a peace-offering to the Fejee savages), and went to work with a hearty good-will, landed all this weed, loaded it up, and wheeled it into the crater, leaving just enough outside to satisfy the pigs and the poultry. This task concluded the first week of the labour already mentioned.
At the termination of the second week, Mark and Betts held a council on the subject of their future proceedings. At this consultation it was decided that it would be better to finish the picking up of a considerable plot of ground, one of at least half an acre in extent, that was already commenced, within the crater, scatter their compost over it, and spade all up together, and plant, mixing in as much of the sea-weed as they could conveniently spade under. Nothwithstanding their success in finding the loam, and this last discovery of a means of getting sea-weed in large supplies to the Reef, Mark was not very sanguine of success in his gardening. The loam appeared to him to be cold and sour, as well as salt, though a good deal freshened by the rain since it was put in the crater; and he knew nothing of the effects of guano, except through the somewhat confused accounts of Bob. Then the plain of the crater offered nothing beside a coarse and shelly ashes. These ashes were deep enough for any agricultural purpose, it is true, for Mark could work a crowbar down into them its entire length; but they appeared to him to be totally wanting in the fertilizing principle. Nor could he account for the absence of everything like vegetation, on or about the reef, if the elements of plants of any sort were to be found in the substances of which it was composed. He had read, however, that the territory around active volcanoes, and which was far enough removed from the vent to escape from the destruction caused by lava, scoriæ and heat, was usually highly fertile, in consequence of the ashes and impalpable dust that was scattered in the air; but seeing no proofs of any such fertility here, he supposed that the adjacent sea had swallowed up whatever there might have been of these bountiful gifts. With these impressions, it is not surprising that Mark was disposed to satisfy himself with a moderate beginning, in preference to throwing away time and labour in endeavouring to produce resources which after all would fail them.
Mark's plan, as laid before his companion, on the occasion of the council mentioned, was briefly this:--He proposed to pass the next month in preparing the half-acre they had commenced upon, and in getting in seed; after which they could do no more than trust their husbandry to Providence and the seasons. As soon as done with the tillage, it was his idea that they ought to overhaul the ship thoroughly, ascertain what was actually in her, and, if the materials of the boat mentioned by Betts were really to be found, to set that craft up as soon as possible, and to get it into the water. Should they not find the frame and planks of the pinnace, as Betts seemed to think they would, they must go to work and get out the best frame they could themselves, and construct such a craft as their own skill could contrive. After building such a boat, it was Mark's opinion that he and Bob could navigate her across that tranquil ocean, until they reached the coast of South America, or some of the islands that were known to be friendly to the white man; for, fifty yearns ago, it will be remembered, we did not possess the same knowledge of the Pacific that we possess to-day, and mariners did not trust themselves always with confidence among the natives of its islands. With this plan pretty well sketched out, then, our mariners saw the first month of their captivity among the unknown reefs of this remote quarter of the world, draw to its close.
Mark was a little surprised by a proposal that he received from Bob, next morning, which was the Sabbath, of course. "Friends have monthly meetings," Betts observed, "and he thought they ought to set up some such day on the Reef. He was willing to keep Christmas, if Mark saw fit, but rather wished to pay proper respect to all the festivals and observances of Friends." Mark was secretly amused with this proposition, even while it pleased him. The monthly meeting of the Quakers was for the secular part of church business, as much as for the purposes of religious worship; and Bob having all those concerns in his own hands, it was not so easy to see how a stated day was to aid him any in carrying out his church government. But Mark understood the feeling which dictated this request, and was disposed to deal gently by it. Betts was becoming daily more and more conscious of his dependence on a Divine Providence, in the situation in which he was thrown; and his mind, as well as his feelings, naturally enough reverted to early impressions and habits, in their search for present relief. Bob had not the clearest notions of either the theory or practice of his sect, but he remembered much of the last, and believed he should be acting right by conforming as closely as possible to the 'usages of Friends,' Mark promised to take the matter into consideration, and to come to some decision on it, at an early day.
The following Monday it rained nearly the whole morning, confining our mariners to the ship. They took that occasion to overhaul the ''twixt-deck' more thoroughly than had yet been done, and particularly to give the seed-boxes a close examination. Much of the lumber, and most of the tools too, were stowed on this deck, and something like a survey was also made of them. The frame and other materials of the pinnace were looked for, in addition, but without any success. If in the ship at all, they were certainly not betwixt decks. Mark was still of opinion no such articles would ever be found; but Betts insisted on the conversation he had overheard, and on his having rightly understood it. The provision of tools was very ample, and, in some respects, a little exaggerated in the way of Friend White's expectations of civilizing the people of Fejee. It may be well, here, to say a word concerning the reason that the Rancocus contained so many of these tributes to civilization. The voyage of the ship, it will be remembered, was in quest of sandal-wood. This sandal-wood was to be carried to Canton and sold, and a cargo of teas taken in with the avails. Now, sandal-wood was supposed to be used for the purposes of idolatry, being said to be burned before the gods of that heathenish people, Idolatry being one of the chiefest of all sins, Friend Abraham White had many compunctions and misgivings of conscience touching the propriety of embarking in the trade at all. It was true, that our knowledge of the Chinese customs did not extend far enough to render it certain that the wood was used for the purpose of burning before idols, some pretending it was made into ornamental furniture; but Friend Abraham White had heard the first, and was disposed to provide a set-off, in the event of the report's being true, by endeavouring to do something towards the civilization of the heathen. Had he been a Presbyterian merchant, of a religious turn, it is probable a quantity of tracts would have been made to answer the purpose; but, belonging to a sect whose practice was generally as perfect as its theory is imperfect, Friend Abraham White's conscience was not to be satisfied with any such shallow contrivance. It is true that he expected to make many thousands of dollars by the voyage, and doubtless would so have done, had not the accident befallen the ship, or had poor Captain Crutchely drank less in honour of his wedding-day; but the investment in tools, seeds, pigs, wheelbarrows, and other matters, honestly intended to better the condition of the natives of Vanua Levu and Viti Levu, did not amount to a single cent less than one thousand dollars, lawful money of the republic.
In looking over the packages, Mark found white clover seed, and Timothy seed, among other things, in sufficient quantity to cover most of the mount of the crater. The weather temporarily clearing off, he called to Bob, and they went ashore together, Mark carrying some of the grass seed in a pail, while. Betts followed with a vessel to hold guano. Providing a quantity of the last from a barrel that had been previously filled with it, and covered to protect it from the rain, they clambered up the side of the crater. This was the first time either had ascended since the day they finished planting there, and Mark approached his hills with a good deal of freshly-revived interest in their fate. From _them_ he expected very little, having had no loam to mix with the ashes; but, by dwelling so much of late on the subject of tillage, he was not without faint hopes of meeting with some little reward for the pains he had taken. The reader will judge of the rapture then, as well as of the surprise, with which he first saw a hill of melons, already in the fourth leaf. Here, then, was the great problem successfully solved. Vegetation had actually commenced on that hitherto barren mount, and the spot which had lain--how long, Mark knew not, but probably for a thousand years, if not for thousands of years, in its nakedness--was about to be covered with verdure, and blest with fruitfulness. The inert principles which, brought to act together; had produced this sudden change from barrenness to fertility, had probably been near neighbours to each other all that time, but had failed of bringing forth their fruits, for the want of absolute contact. So Mark reasoned, for he nothing doubted that it was Betts's guano that had stimulated the otherwise barren deposit of the volcano, and caused his seed to germinate. The tillage may have aided, as well as the admission of air, light and water; but something more than this, our young gardener fancied, was wanting to success. That something the manure of birds, meliorated and altered by time, had supplied, and lo! the glorious results were before his eyes.
It would not be easy to portray to the reader all the delight which these specks of incipient verdure conveyed to the mind of Mark Woolston. It far exceeded the joy that would be apt to be awakened by a relief from an apprehension of wanting food at a distant day, for it resembled something of the character of a new creation. He went from hill to hill, and everywhere did he discover plants, some just peeping through the ashes, others already in leaf, and all seemingly growing and thriving. Fortunately, Kitty had not been on the mount for the last fortnight, her acquired habits, and the total nakedness of the hills, having kept her below with the other animals, since her first visits. Mark saw the necessity of keeping her off the elevation, which she would certainly climb the instant anything like verdure caught her eyes from below. He determined, therefore, to confine her to the ship, until he had taken the precautions necessary to prevent her ascending the mount. This last was easily enough done. On the exterior of the hills there were but three places where even a goat could get up. This was owing to the circumstance that the base of the ascent rose like a wall, for some ten or twelve feet, everywhere but at the three points mentioned. It appeared to Mark as if the sea had formerly washed around the crater, giving this form to its bottom for so wall-like was the rock for these ten or twelve feet, that it would have defied the efforts of a man for a long time, to overcome the difficulties of the ascent. At two of the places where the _débris_ had made a rough footing, half an hour's work would remove the material, and leave these spots as impassable as the others. At the third point, it might require a good deal of labor to effect the object. At this last place, Mark told Betts it would be necessary, for the moment, to make some sort of a fence. Within the crater, it was equally difficult to ascend, except at one or two places; but these ascents our mariners thought of improving, by making steps, as the animals were effectually excluded from the plain within by means of the sail which served for a curtain at the gateway, or hole of entrance.
As soon as Mark had recovered a little from his first surprise, he sent Bob below to bring up some buckets filled with the earth brought from Loam Rock, or island. This soil was laid carefully around each of the plants, the two working alternately at the task, until a bucket-full had been laid in each hill. Mark did not know it at the time, but subsequent experience gave him reason to suspect, that this forethought saved most of his favourites from premature deaths. Seed might germinate, and the plants shoot luxuriantly from out of the ashes of the volcano, under the united influence of the sun and rains, in that low latitude, but it was questionable whether the nourishment to be derived from such a soil, if soil it could yet be called, would prove to be sufficient to sustain the plants when they got to be of an age and size to demand all the support they wanted. So convinced did Mark become, as the season advanced, of the prudence of what he then did out of a mere impulse, that he passed hours, subsequently, in raising loam to the summit of the mount, in order to place it in the different hills. For this purpose, Bob rigged a little derrick, and fitted a whip, so that the buckets were whipped up, sailor-fashion, after two or three experiments made in lugging them up by hand had suggested to the honest fellow that there might be a cheaper mode of obtaining their wishes.
When Mark was temporarily satisfied with gazing at his new-found treasures, he went to work to scatter the grass stood over the summit and sides of the crater. Inside, there was not much motive for sowing anything, the rock being so nearly perpendicular; but on the outside of the hill, or 'mountain,' as Bob invariably called it, the first ten or twelve feet excepted, there could be no obstacle to the seeds taking; though from the want of soil much of it, Mark knew, must be lost; but, if it only took in spots, and gave him a few green patches for the eye to rest on, he felt he should be amply rewarded for his trouble. Bob scattered guano wherever he scattered grass-seed, and in this way they walked entirely round the crater, Mark using up at least half of Friend Abraham White's provision in behalf of the savages of Fejee, in the way of the grasses. A gentle soft rain soon came to moisten this seed, and to embed it with whatever there was of soil on the surface, giving it every chance to take root that circumstances would allow.
This preliminary step taken towards covering the face of the mount with verdure, our mariners went to work to lay out their garden, regularly, within the crater. Mark manifested a good deal of ingenuity in this matter. With occasional exceptions the surface of the plain, or the bottom of the crater, was an even crust of no great thickness, compared of concrete ashes, scoriæ &c., but which might have borne the weight of a loaded wagon. This crust once broken, which it was not very difficult to do by means of pick and crows, the materials beneath were found loose enough for the purposes of agriculture, almost without using the spade. Now, space being abundant, Mark drew lines, in fanciful and winding paths, leaving the crust for his walks, and only breaking into the loose materials beneath, wherever he wished to form a bed. This variety served to amuse him and Betts, and they worked with so much the greater zeal, as their labours produced objects that were agreeable to the eye, and which amused them now, while they promised to benefit them hereafter. As each bed, whether oval, winding or straight, was dug, the loam and sea-weed was mixed up in it, in great abundance, after which it was sown, or planted.
Mark was fully aware that many of Friend Abraham White's seeds, if they grew and brought their fruits to maturity, would necessarily change their properties in that climate; some for the worse, and others for the better. From the Irish potato, the cabbage, and most of the more northern vegetables, he did not expect much, under any circumstances; but, he thought he would try all, and having several regularly assorted boxes of garden-seeds, just as they had been purchased out of the shops of Philadelphia, his garden scarce wanted any plant that was then known to the kitchens of America.
Our mariners were quite a fortnight preparing, manuring, and sowing their _parterre_, which, when complete, occupied fully half an acre in the very centre of the crater, Mark intending it for the nucleus of future similar works, that might convert the whole hundred acres into a garden. By the time the work was done, the rains were less frequent, though it still came in showers, and those that were still more favourable to vegetation. In that fortnight the plants on the mount had made great advances, showing the exuberance and growth of a tropical climate. It sometimes, nay, it often happens, that when the sun is the most genial for vegetation, moisture is wanting to aid its power, and, in some respects, to counteract its influence. These long and periodical droughts, however, are not so much owing to heat as to other and local causes, Mark now began to hope, as the spring advanced, that his little territory was to be exempt, in a great measure, from the curse of droughts, the trades, and some other causes that to him were unknown, bringing clouds so often that not only shed their rain upon his garden, but which served in a great measure to mitigate a heat that, without shade of some sort or other, would be really intolerable.
With a view to the approaching summer, our mariners turned their attention to the constructing of a tent within the crater. They got some old sails and some spars ashore, and soon had a spacious, as well as a comfortable habitation of this sort erected. Not only did they spread a spacious tent for themselves, within the crater, but they erected another, or a sort of canopy rather, on its outside, for the use of the animals, which took refuge beneath it, during the heats of the day, with an avidity that proved how welcome it was. This outside shed, or canopy, required a good deal of care in its construction, to resist the wind, while that inside scarce ever felt the breeze. This want of wind, or of air in motion, indeed, formed the most serious objection to the crater, as a place of residence, in the hot months; and the want of breeze that was suffered in the tent, set Mark to work to devise expedients for building some sort of tent, or habitation, on the in net itself, where it would be always cool, provided one could get a protection from the fierce rays of the sun.
After a good deal of search, Mark selected a spot on the 'Summit,' as he began to term the place, and pitched his tent on, it. Holes were made in the soft rocks, and pieces of spars were inserted, to answer for posts. With a commencement as solid as this, it was not difficult to make the walls of the tent (or marquee would be the better word, since both habitations had nearly upright sides) by means of an old fore-course. In order to get the canvas up there, however, it was found necessary to cut out the pieces below, when, by means of the purchase at the derrick, it was all hoisted to the Summit.
These several arrangements occupied Mark and Bob another fortnight, completing the first quarter of a year they had passed on the Reef. By this time they had got accustomed to their situation, and had fallen into regular courses of duty, though the increasing heats admonished both of the prudence of not exposing themselves too much beneath the fiery sun at noon-day.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
8 | None | "Now from the full-grown day a beamy shower Gleams on the lake, and gilds each glossy flower, Gay insects sparkle in the genial blaze, Various as light, and countless as its rays-- Now, from yon range of rocks, strong rays rebound, Doubling the day on flowery plains around."
Savage.
After the tent on the Summit was erected, Mark passed much of his leisure time there. Thither he conveyed many of his books, of which he had a very respectable collection, his flute, and a portion of his writing materials. There he could sit and watch the growth of the different vegetables he was cultivating. As for Bob, he fished a good deal, both in the way of supplies and for his amusement. The pigs and poultry fared well, and everything seemed to thrive but poor Kitty. She loved to follow Mark, and cast many a longing look up at the Summit, whenever she saw him strolling about among his plants.
The vegetables on the Summit, or those first put into the ground, flourished surprisingly. Loam had been added repeatedly, and they wanted for nothing that could bring forward vegetation. The melons soon began to run, as did the cucumbers, squashes, and pumpkins; and by the end of the next month, there were a dozen large patches on the mount that were covered by a dense verdure. Nor was this all; Mark making a discovery about this time, that afforded him almost as, much happiness as when he first saw his melons in leaf. He was seated one day, with the walls of his tent brailed up, in order to allow the wind to blow through, when something dark on the rock caught his eye. This spot was some little distance from him, and going to it, he found that large quantities of his grass-seed had actually taken! Now he might hope to convert that barren-looking, and often glaring rock, into a beautiful grassy hill, and render that which was sometimes painful to the eyes, a pleasure to look upon. The young man understood the laws of vegetation well enough to be certain that could the roots of grasses once insinuate themselves into the almost invisible crevices of the crust that coveted the place, they would of themselves let in light, air and water enough for their own wants, and thus increase the very fertility on which they subsisted. He did not fail, however, to aid nature, by scattering a fresh supply of guano all over the hill.
While Mark was thus employed at home, Bob rowed out to the reef, bringing in his fish in such quantities that it occurred to Mark to convert them also into manure. A fresh half-acre was accordingly broken up, within the crater, the cool of the mornings and of the evenings being taken for the toil; and, as soon as a bed was picked over, quantities of fish were buried in it, and left there to decay. Nor did Betts neglect the sea-weed the while. On several occasions he floated large bodies of it in, from the outer reefs, which were all safely landed and wheeled into the crater, where a long pile of it was formed, mingled with loam from Loam Island, and guano. This work, however, gradually ceased, as the season advanced, and summer came in earnest. That season, however, did not prove by any means as formidable as Mark had anticipated, the sea-breezes keeping the place cool and refreshed. Our mariners now missed the rain, which was by no means as frequent a it had been, though it fell in larger quantities when it did come. The stock had to be watered for several weeks, the power of the sun causing all the water that lodged it the cavities of the rocks to evaporate almost immediately.
During the time it was too warm to venture out in the dingui, except for half an hour of a morning, or for as long a period of an evening, Mark turned his attention to the ship again. Seizing suitable moments, each sail was loosened, thoroughly dried, unbent, and got below. An awning was got out, and spread, and the decks were wet down, morning and evening, both for the purposes of cleanliness, and to keep them from cheeking. The hold was now entered, and overhauled, for the first time since the accident. A great many useful things were found in it, and among other articles two barrels of good sharp vinegar, which Friend Abraham White had caused to be put on board to be used with anything that could be pickled, as an anti-scorbutic. The onions and cucumbers both promising so well, Mark rejoiced at this discovery, determining at once to use some of the vinegar on a part of his expected crop of those two vegetables.
One day as Bob was rummaging about in the hold, and Mark was looking on, that being the coolest place on the whole reef, the former got hold of a piece of wood, and began to tug at it to draw it out from among a pile that lay in a dark corner. After several efforts, the stick came, when Mark, struck with a glimpse he got of its form, bade Bob bring it under the light of the hatchway. The instant he got a good look at it, Woolston knew that Bob's 'foolish, crooked stick, which was fit to stow nowhere,' as the honest fellow had described it when it gave him so much trouble, was neither more nor less than one of the ribs of a boat of larger size than common.
"This is providential, truly!" exclaimed Mark. "Your crooked stick, Bob, is a part of the frame of the pinnace of which you spoke, and which we had given up, as a thing not to be found on board!"
"You're right, Mr. Mark, you're right!" answered Bob--"and I most have been oncommon stupid not to have thought of it, when it came so hard. And if there's one of the boat's bones stowed in that place, there must be more to be found in the same latitude."
This was true enough. After working in that dark corner of the hold for several hours, all the materials of the intended craft were found and collected in the steerage. Neither Mark nor Betts was a boat-builder, or a shipwright; but each had a certain amount of knowledge on the subject, and each well knew where every piece was intended to be put. What a revolution this discovery made in the feelings of our young husband! He had never totally despaired of seeing Bridget again, for that would scarce have comported with his youth and sanguine temperament; but the hope had, of late, become so very dim, as to survive only as that feeling will endure in the bosoms of the youthful and inexperienced Mark had lived a long time for his years; had seen more and performed far more than usually falls to persons of his age, and he was, by character, prudent and practical; but it would have been impossible for one who had lived as long and as well as himself, to give up every expectation of being restored to his bride, even in circumstances more discouraging than those in which he was actually placed. Still, he had been slowly accustoming himself to the idea of a protracted separation, and had never lost sight of the expediency of making his preparations for passing his entire life in the solitary place where he and Betts had been cast by a mysterious and unexpected dispensation of a Divine Providence. When Bob, from time to-time, insisted on his account of the materials for the pinnace being in the ship, Mark had listened incredulously, unconscious himself how much his mind had been occupied by Bridget when this part of the cargo had been taken in, and unwilling to believe such an acquisition could have been made without his knowledge. Now that he saw it, however, a tumultuous rushing of all the blood in his body towards his heart, almost overpowered him, and the future entirely changed its aspects. He did not doubt an instant, of the ability of Bob and himself to put these blessed materials together, or of their success in navigating the mild sea around them, for any necessary distance, in a craft of the size this must turn out to be. A bright vista, with Bridget's brighter countenance at its termination, glowed before his imagination, and a great deal of wholesome philosophy and Christian submission were unsettled, as it might be, in the twinkling of an eye, by this all-important discovery. Mark had never abandoned the thought of constructing a little vessel with materials torn from the ship; but that would nave been a most laborious, as well as a doubtful experiment, while here was the problem solved, with a certainty and precision almost equal to one in mathematics!
The agitation and revulsion of feeling produced in Mark by the discovery of the materials of the pinnace, were so great as to prevent him from maturing any plan for several days. During that time he could perceive in himself an alteration that amounted almost to an entire change of character. The vines on the Summit were now in full leaf, and they covered broad patches of the rock with their luxuriant vegetation, while the grass could actually be seen from the ship, converting the drab-coloured concretions of the mount into slopes and acclivities of verdure. But, all this delighted him no longer. Home and Bridget met him even in the fanciful and now thriving beds within the crater, where everything appeared to push forward with a luxuriance and promise of return, far exceeding what had once been his fondest expectations. He could see nothing, anticipate nothing, talk of nothing, think of nothing, but these new-found means of quitting the Reef, and of returning to the abodes of men, and to the arms of his young wife.
Betts took things more philosophically. He had made up his mind to 'Robinson Crusoe it' a few years, and, though he had often expressed a wish that the dingui was of twice its actual size, he would have been quite as well content with this new boat could it be cut down to one-fourth of its real dimensions. He submitted to Mark's superior information, however; and when the latter told him that he could wait no longer for the return of cooler weather, or for the heat of the sun to become less intense before he began to set up the frame of his craft, as had been the first intention, Bob acquiesced in the change of plan, without remonstrance, bent on taking things as they came, in humility and cheerfulness.
Nevertheless, it was far easier bravely to determine in this matter, than to execute. The heat was now so intense for the greater part of the day, that it would have far exceeded the power of our two mariners to support it, on a naked rock, and without shade of any sort. The frame of the pinnace must be set up somewhere near the water, regular ways being necessary to launch her; and nowhere, on the shore, was the smallest shade to be found, without recourse to artificial means of procuring it. As Mark's impatience would no longer brook delay, this artificial shade, therefore, was the first thing to be attended to.
The leeward end of the reef was chosen for the new ship-yard. Although this choice imposed a good deal of additional labour on the two workmen, by compelling them to transport all the materials rather more than a mile, reflection and examination induced Mark to select the spot he did. The formation of the rock was more favourable there, he fancied, than in any other place he could find; offering greater facilities for launching. This was one motive; but the principal inducement was connected with an apprehension of floods. By the wall-like appearance of the exterior base of the mount, by the smoothness of the surface of the Reef in general, which, while it had many inequalities, wore the appearance of being semi-polished by the washing of water over it; and by the certain signs that were, to be found on most of the lower half of the plain of the crater itself, Mark thought it apparent that the entire reef the crater excepted, had been often covered with the water of the ocean, and that at no very distant day. The winter months were usually the tempestuous months in that latitude, though hurricanes might at any time occur. Now, the winter was yet an untried experiment with our two 'reefers,' as Bob sometimes laughingly called himself and Mark, and hurricanes were things that often raised the seas in their neighbourhood several feet in an hour or two. Should the water be actually driven upon the Reef, so as to admit of a current to wash across it, or the waves to roll along its surface, the pinnace would be in the greatest danger of being carried off before it could be even launched. All these things Mark bore in mind, and he chose the spot he did, with an eye to these floods, altogether. It might be six or eight months before they could be ready to get the pinnace into the water, and it now wanted but six to the stormy season. At the western, or leeward, extremity of the island, the little craft would be under the lee of the crater, which would form a sort of breakwater, and might be the means of preventing it from being washed away. Then the rock, just at that spot, was three or four feet higher than at any other point, sufficiently near the sea to admit of launching with ease; and the two advantages united, induced our young 'reefer' to incur the labour of transporting the materials the distance named, in reference to foregoing them. The raft, however, was put in requisition, and the entire frame, with a few of the planks necessary for a commencement, was carried round at one load.
Previously to laying the keel of the pinnace, Mark named it the Neshamony, after a creek that was nearly opposite to the Rancocus, another inlet of the Delaware, that had given its name to the ship from the circumstance that Friend Abraham White had been born on its low banks. The means of averting the pains and penalties of working in the sun, were also attended to, as indeed the great preliminary measure in this new enterprise. To this end, the raft was again put in requisition; an old main-course was got out of the sail-room, and lowered upon the raft; spare spars were cut to the necessary length, and thrown into the water, to be towed down in company; ropes, &c., were provided, and Bob sailed anew on this voyage. It was a work of a good deal of labour to get the raft to windward, towing having been resorted to as the easiest process, but a trip to leeward was soon made. In twenty minutes after this cargo had left the ship, it reached its point of destination.
The only time when our men could work at even their awning, were two hours early in the morning, and as many after the sun had got very low, or had absolutely set. Eight holes had to be drilled into the lava, to a depth of two feet each. Gunpowder, in very small quantities, was used, or these holes could not have been made in a twelvemonth. But by drilling with a crowbar a foot or two into the rock, and charging the cavity with a very small portion of powder, the lava was cracked, when the stones rather easily were raised by means of the picks and crows. Some idea may be formed of the amount of labour that was expended on this, the first step in the new task, by the circumstance that a month was passed in setting those eight awning-posts alone. When up, however, they perfectly answered the purpose, everything having been done in a thorough, seaman-like manner. At the top of each post, itself a portion of solid spar, a watch-tackle was lashed, by means of which the sail was bowsed up to its place. To prevent the bagging unavoidable, in an awning of that size, several uprights were set in the centre, on end, answering their purpose sufficiently without boring into the rocks.
Bob was in raptures with the new 'ship-yard.' It was as large as the mainsail of a ship of four hundred tons, was complete as to shade, with the advantage of letting the breeze circulate, and had a reasonable chance of escaping from the calamities of a flood. Mark, too, was satisfied with the result, and the very next day after this task was completed, our shipwrights set to work to lay their keel. That day was memorable on another account. Bob had gone to the Summit in quest of a tool left there, in fitting up the boat of Mark, and while on the mount, he ascertained the important fact that the melons were beginning to ripen. He brought down three or four of these delicious fruits, and Mark had the gratification of tasting some of the bounties of Providence, which had been bestowed, as a reward of his own industry and forethought. It was necessary to eat of these melons in moderation, however; but it was a great relief to get them at all, after subsisting for so long a time on salted meats, principally, with no other vegetables but such as were dry, and had been long in the ship. It was not the melons alone, however, that were getting to be ripe; for, on examining himself, among the vines which now covered fully an acre of the Summit, Mark found squashes, cucumbers, onions, sweet-potatoes, tomatoes, string-beans, and two or three other vegetables, all equally fit to be used. From that time, some of these plants were put into the pot daily, and certain slight apprehensions which Woolston had begun again to entertain on the subject of scurvy, were soon dissipated. As for the garden within the crater, which was much the most extensive and artistical, it was somewhat behind that on the Summit, having been later tilled; but everything, there, looked equally promising, and Mark saw that one acre, well worked, would produce more than he and Betts could consume in a twelvemonth.
It was an important day on the Reef when the keel of the pinnace was laid. On examining his materials, Mark ascertained that the boat-builders had marked and numbered each portion of the frame, each plank, and everything else that belonged to the pinnace. Holes were bored, and everything had been done in the boat-yard that could be useful to those who, it was expected, were to put the work together in a distant part of the world. This greatly facilitated our new boat-builders' labours in the way of skill, besides having done so much of the actual toil to their hands. As soon as the keel was laid, Mark set up the frame, which came together with very little trouble. The wailes were then got out, and were fitted, each piece being bolted in its allotted place. As the work had already been put together, there was little or no dubbing necessary. Aware that the parts had once been accurately fitted to each other, Mark was careful not to disturb their arrangement by an unnecessary use of the adze, or broad-axe, experimenting and altering the positions of the timbers and planks; but, whenever he met with any obstacle, in preference to cutting and changing the materials themselves, he persevered until the parts came together as had been contemplated. By observing this caution, the whole frame was set up, the wailes were fitted and bolted, and the garboard-streak got on and secured, without taking off a particle of the wood, though a week was necessary to effect these desired objects.
Our mariners now measured their new frame. The keel was just four-and-twenty feet long, the distance between the knight-heads and the taffrail being six feet greater; the beam, from outside to outside, was nine feet, and the hold might be computed at five feet in depth. This gave something like a measurement of eleven tons; the pinnace having been intended for a craft a trifle smaller than this. As a vessel of eleven tons might make very good weather in a sea-way, if properly handled, the result gave great satisfaction, Mark cheering Bob with accounts of crafts, of much smaller dimensions, that had navigated the more stormy seas, with entire safety, on various occasions.
The planking of the Neshamony was no great matter, being completed the week it was commenced. The caulking, however, gave more trouble, though Bob had done a good deal of that sort of work in his day. It took a fortnight for the honest fellow to do the caulking to his own mind, and before it was finished another great discovery was made by rummaging in the ship's hold, in quest of some of the fastenings which had not at first been found. A quantity of old sheet-copper, that had run its time on a vessel's bottom, was brought to light, marked "copper for the pinnace." Friend Abraham White had bethought him of the worms of the low latitudes, and had sent out enough of the refuse copper of a vessel that had been broken up to cover the bottom of this little craft fairly up to her bends. To work, then, Mark and Bob went to put on the sheathing-paper and copper that had thus bountifully been provided for them, as soon as the seams were well payed. This done, and it was no great job, the paint-brush was set to work, and the hull was completed! In all, Mark and Betts were eight weeks, hard at work, putting their pinnace together. When she was painted, the summer was more than half gone. The laying of the deck had given more trouble than any other portion of the work on the boat, and this because it was not a plain, full deck, or one that covered the whole of the vessel, but left small stern-sheets aft, which was absolutely necessary to the comfort and safety of those she was to carry. The whole was got together, however, leaving Mark and Bob to rejoice in their success thus far, and to puzzle their heads about the means of getting their craft into the water, now she was built. In a word, it was far easier to put together a vessel often tons, that had been thus ready fitted to their hands, than it was to launch her.
As each of our mariners had necessarily seen many vessels in their cradles, each had some idea of what it was now necessary to do. Mark had laid the keel as near the water as he could get it, and by this precaution had saved himself a good deal of labour. It was very easy to find materials for the ways, many heavy planks still remaining; but the difficulty was to lay them so that they would not spread. Here the awning-posts were found of good service, plank being set on their edges against them, which, in their turn, were made to sustain the props of the ways. In order to save materials in the cradle, the ways themselves were laid on blocks, and they were secured as well as the skill of our self-formed shipwrights could do it. They had some trouble in making the cradle, and had once to undo all they had done, in consequence of a mistake. At length Mark was of opinion they had taken all the necessary precautions, and told Betts that he thought they might venture to attempt launching the next day. But Bob made a suggestion which changed this plan, and caused a delay that was attended with very serious consequences.
The weather had become cloudy, and a little menacing, for the last, few days, and Bob proposed that they should lower the awning, get up shears on the rock, and step the mast of the pinnace before they launched her, as a means of saving some labour. The spar was not very heavy, it was true, and it might be stepped by crossing a couple of the oars in the boat itself; but a couple of light spars--top-gallant studding-sail booms for instance--would enable them to do it much more readily, before the craft was put into the water, than it could be done afterwards. Mark listened to the suggestion, and acquiesced. The awning was consequently lowered, and got out of the way. To prevent the hogs from tearing the sail, it was placed on two of the wheelbarrows and wheeled up into the crater, whither those animals had never yet found their way. Then the shears were got up, and the mast was stepped and rigged; the boat's sails were found and bent. Mark now thought enough had been done, and that, the next day, they might undertake the launch. But another suggestion of Bob's delayed the proceedings.
The weather still continued clouded and menacing. Betts was of opinion, therefore, that it might be well to stow the provisions and water they intended to use in the pinnace, while she was on the stocks, as they could work round her so much the more easily then than afterwards. Accordingly, the breakers were got out, on board the ship, and filled with fresh water. They were then stuck into the raft. A barrel of beef, and one of pork followed, with a quantity of bread. At two trips the raft carried all the provisions and stores that were wanted, and the cargoes were landed, rolled up to the side of the pinnace, hoisted on board of her, by means of the throat-halliard, and properly stowed. Two grapnels, or rather one grapnel, and a small kedge, were found among the pinnace's materials, everything belonging to her having been stowed in the same part of the ship. These, too, were carried round to the ship-yard, got on board, and their hawsers bent. In a word, every preparation was made that might be necessary to make sail on the pinnace, and to proceed to sea in her, at once.
It was rather late in the afternoon of the third clouded day, that Betts himself admitted no more could be done to the Neshamony, previously to putting her into the water When our two mariners ceased the business of the day, therefore, it was with the understanding that they would turn out early in the morning, wedge up, and launch. An hour of daylight remaining, Mark went up to the Summit to select a few melons, and to take a look at the state of the plantations and gardens. Before ascending the hill, the young man walked through his garden in the crater, where everything was flourishing and doing well. Many of the vegetables were by this time fit to eat, and there was every prospect of there being a sufficient quantity raised to meet the wants of two or three persons for a long period ahead. The sight of these fruits of his toil, and the luxuriance of the different plants, caused a momentary feeling of regret in Mark at the thought of being about to quit the place for ever. He even fancied he should have a certain pleasure in returning to the Reef; and once a faint outline of a plan came over his mind, in which he fancied that he might bring Bridget to this place, and pass the rest of his life with her, in the midst of its peace and tranquillity. This was but a passing thought, however, and was soon forgotten in the pictures that crowded on his mind, in connection with the great anticipated event of the next day.
While strolling about the little walks of his garden, the appearance of verdure along the edge of the crater, or immediately beneath the cliff, caught Mark's eye. Going hastily to the spot, he found that there was a long row of plants of a new sort, not only appearing above the ground, but already in leaf, and rising several inches in height. These were the results of the seeds of the oranges, lemons, limes, shaddocks, figs, and other fruits of the tropics, that he had planted there as an experiment, and forgotten. While his mind was occupied with other things, these seeds had sent forth their shoots, and the several trees were growing with the rapidity and luxuriance that distinguish vegetation within the tropics. As Mark's imagination pictured what might be the effects of cultivation and care on that singular spot, a sigh of regret mingled with his hopes for the future, as he recollected he was so soon to abandon the place for ever; while on the Summit, too, this feeling of regret was increased, rather than diminished. So much of the grass-seed had taken, and the roots had already so far extended, that acres were beginning to look verdant and smiling. Two or three months had brought everything forward prodigiously, and the frequency of the rains in showers, added to the genial warmth of the sun, gave to vegetation a quickness and force that surprised, as much as it delighted our young man.
That night Mark and Betts both slept in the ship. They had a fancy it might be the last in which they could ever have any chance of doing so, and attachment to the vessel induced both to return to their old berths; for latterly they had slept in hammocks, swung beneath the ship-yard awning, in order to be near their work. Mark was awoke at a very early hour, by the howling of a gale among the rigging and spars of the Rancocus, sounds that he had not heard for many a day, and which, at first, were actually pleasant to his ears. Throwing on his clothes, and going out on the quarter-deck, he found that a tempest was upon them. The storm far exceeded anything that he had ever before witnessed in the Pacific. The ocean was violently agitated, and the rollers came in over the reef, to windward, with a force and majesty that seemed to disregard the presence of the rocks. It was just light, and Mark called Bob, in alarm. The aspect of things was really serious, and, at first, our mariners had great apprehensions for the safety of the ship. It was true, the sea-wall resisted every shock of the rollers that reached it, but even the billows after they were broken by this obstacle, came down upon the vessel with a violence that brought a powerful strain on every rope-yarn in the sheet-cable. Fortunately, the ground-tackle, on which the safety of the vessel depended, was of the very best quality, and the anchor was known to have an excellent hold. Then, the preservation of the ship was no longer a motive of the first consideration with them; that of the pinnace being the thing now most to be regarded. It might grieve them both to see the Rancocus thrown upon the rocks, and broken up; but of far greater account was it to their future prospects that the Neshamony should not be injured. Nor were the signs of the danger that menaced the boat to be disregarded. The water of the ocean appeared to be piling in among these reefs, the rocks of which resisted its passage to leeward, and already was washing up on the surface of the Reef, in places, threatening them with a general inundation. It was necessary to look after the security of various articles that were scattered about on the outer plain, and our mariners went ashore to do so.
Although intending so soon to abandon the Reef altogether, a sense of caution induced Mark to take everything he could within the crater. All the lower portions of the outer plain were already covered with water, and those sagacious creatures, the hogs, showed by their snuffing and disturbed manner of running about, that they had internal as well as external warnings of danger. Mark pulled aside the curtain, and let all the animals into the crater. Poor Kitty was delighted to get on the Summit, whither she soon found her way, by ascending the steps commonly used by her masters. Fortunately for the plants, the grass was in too great abundance, and too grateful to her, not to be her choice in preference to any other food. As for the pigs, they got at work in a pile of sea-weed, and overlooked the garden, which was at some distance, until fairly glutted, and ready to lie down.
In the meanwhile the tempest increased in violence, the sea continued to pile among the rocks, and the water actually covered the whole of the outer plain of the Reef Now it was that Mark comprehended how the base of the crater had been worn by water, the waves washing past it with tremendous violence. There was actually a strong current running over the whole of the reef, without the crater; the water rushing to leeward, as if glad to get past the obstacle of the island on any terms, in order to hasten away before the tempest. Mark was fully half an hour engaged in looking to his marquee and its contents, all of which were exposed, more or less, to the power of the gale. After securing his books, furniture, &c., and seeing that the stays of the marquee itself were likely to hold out, he cast an eye to the ship, which was on that side of the island, also. The staunch old 'Cocus, as Bob called her, was rising and falling with the waves that now disturbed her usually placid basin; but, as yet, her cable and anchor held her, and no harm was done. Fortunately, our mariners, when they unbent the sails, had sent down all the upper and lighter spars, and had lowered the fore and main yards on the gunwale, measures of precaution that greatly lessened the strain on her ground-tackle. The top-gallant-masts had also been lowered, and the vessel was what seamen usually term 'snug.' Mark would have been very, very sorry to see her lost, even though he did expect to have very little more use out of her; for he loved the craft from habit.
After taking this look at the ship, our mate passed round the Summit, having two or three tumbles on his way in consequence of puffs of wind, until he reached the point over the gate-way, which was that nearest to the ship-yard. It now occurred to him that possibly it might become necessary to look a little to the security of the Neshamony, for by this time the water on the reef was two or three feet deep. To his surprise, on looking round for Bob, whom he thought to be at work securing property near the gateway, he ascertained that the honest fellow had waded down to the ship-yard, and clambered on board the pinnace, with a view to take care of her. The distance between the point where Mark now stood and the Neshamony exceeded half a mile, and communication with the voice would have been next to impossible, had the wind not blown as it did. With the roaring of the seas, and the howling of the gale, it was of course entirely out of the question. Mark, however, could see his friend, and see that he was gesticulating, in the most earnest manner, for himself to join him. Then it was he first perceived that the pinnace was in motion, seeming to move on her ways. Presently the blockings were washed from under her, and the boat went astern half her length at a single surge. Mark made a bound down the hill, intending to throw himself into the racing surf, and to swim off to the aid of Betts; but, pausing an instant to choose a spot at which to get down the steep, he looked towards the ship-yard, and saw the pinnace lifted on a sea, and washed fairly clear of the land!
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
9 | None | "Man's rich with little, were his judgments true; Nature is frugal, and her wants are few; These few wants answered bring sincere delights, But fools create themselves new appetites."
Young.
It would have been madness in Mark to pursue his intention. A boat, or craft of any sort, once adrift in such a gale, could not have been overtaken by even one of those islanders who are known to pass half their lives in the water; and the young man sunk down on the rock, almost gasping for breath in the intensity of his distress. He felt more for Bob than he did for himself, for escape with life appeared to him to be a forlorn hope for his friend. Nevertheless, the sturdy old sea-dog who was cast adrift, amid the raging of the elements, comported himself in a way to do credit to his training. There was nothing like despair in his manner of proceeding; but so coolly and intelligently did he set about taking care of his craft, that Mark soon found himself a curious and interested observer of all he did, feeling quite as much of admiration for Bob's steadiness and skill, as concern for his danger.
Betts knew too well the uselessness of throwing over his kedge to attempt anchoring. Nor was it safe to keep the boat in the trough of the sea, his wisest course being to run before the gale until he was clear of the rocks, when he might endeavour to lie-to, if his craft would bear it. In driving off the Reef the Neshamony had gone stern foremost, almost as a matter of course, vessels usually being laid down with their bows towards the land. No sooner did the honest old salt find he was fairly adrift, therefore, than he jumped into the stern-sheets and put the helm down. With stern-way on her, this caused the bows of the craft to fall off; and, as she came broadside to the gale, Mark thought she would fall over, also. Some idea could be formed of the power of the wind, in the fact that this sloop-rigged craft, without a rag of sail set, and with scarce any hamper aloft, no sooner caught the currents of air abeam, than she lay down to it, as one commonly sees such craft do under their canvas in stiff breezes.
It was a proof that the Neshamony was well modelled, that she began to draw ahead as soon as the wind took her fairly on her broadside, when Betts shifted the helm, and the pinnace fell slowly off. When she had got nearly before the wind, she came up and rolled to-windward like a ship, and Mark scarce breathed as he saw her plunging down upon the reefs, like a frantic steed that knows not whither he is rushing in his terror. From the elevated position he occupied, Mark could see the ocean as far as the spray, which filled the atmosphere, would allow of anything being seen at all. Places which were usually white with the foam of breakers, could not now be distinguished from any of the raging cauldron around them, and it was evident that Bob must run at hazard. Twenty times did Mark expect to see the pinnace disappear in the foaming waves, as it drove furiously onward; but, in each instance, the light and buoyant boat came up from cavities where our young man fancied it must be dashed to pieces, scudding away to leeward like the sea-fowl that makes its flight with wings nearly dipping. Mark now began to hope that his friend might pass over the many reefs that lay in his track, and gain the open water to leeward. The rise in the ocean favoured such an expectation, and no doubt was the reason why the Neshamony was not dashed to pieces within the first five minutes after she was washed off her ways. Once to leeward of the vast shoals that surrounded the crater, there was the probability of Bob's finding smoother water, and the chance of his riding out the tempest by bringing his little sloop up head to sea. The water through which the boat was then running was more like a cauldron, bubbling and boiling under some intense heat produced by subterranean fires, than the regular, rolling billows of the ocean when piled up by gales. Under the lee of the shoals this cauldron would disappear, while the mountain waves of the open ocean could not rise until a certain distance from the shallow water enabled them to 'get up,' as sailors express it. Mark saw the Neshamony for about a quarter of an hour after she was adrift, though long before the expiration of even that brief period she was invisible for many moments at a time, in consequence of the distance, her want of sail, her lowness in the water, and the troubled state of the element through which she was driving. The last look he got of her was at an instant when the spray was filling the atmosphere like a passing cloud; when it had driven away, the boat could no longer be seen!
Here was a sudden and a most unexpected change for the worse in the situation of Mark Woolston! Not only had he lost the means of getting off the island, but he had lost his friend and companion. It was true, Bob was a rough and an uncultivated associate; but he was honest as human frailty could leave a human being, true as steel in his attachments, strong in body, and of great professional skill. So great, indeed, was the last, that our young man was not without the hope he would be able to keep under the lee of the shoals until the gale broke, and then beat up through them, and still come to his rescue. There was one point, in particular, on which Mark felt unusual concern. Bob knew nothing whatever of navigation. It was impossible to teach him anything on that subject. He knew the points of the compass, but had no notion of the variations, of latitude or longitude, or of anything belonging to the purely mathematical part of the business. Twenty times had he asked Mark to give him the latitude and longitude of the crater; twenty times had he been told what they were, and just as often had he forgotten them. When questioned by his young friend, twenty-four hours after a lesson of this sort, if he remembered the figures at all, he was apt to give the latitude for the longitude, or the longitude for the latitude, the degrees for the minutes, or the minutes for the degrees. Ordinarily, however, he forgot all about the numbers themselves. Mark had in vain endeavoured to impress on his mind the single fact that any number which exceeded ninety must necessarily refer to longitude, and not to latitude; for Bob could not be made to remember even this simple distinction. He was just as likely to believe the Reef lay in the hundred and twentieth degree of latitude, as he was to fancy it lay in the twentieth. With such a head, therefore, it was but little to be expected Bob could give the information to others necessary to find the reef, even in the almost hopeless event of his ever being placed in circumstances to do so. Still, while so completely ignorant of mathematics and arithmetic, in all their details, few mariners could find their way better than Bob Betts by the simple signs of the ocean. He understood the compass perfectly, the variations excepted; and his eye was as true as that of the most experienced artist could be, when it became necessary to judge of the colour of the water. On many occasions had Mark known him intimate that the ship was in a current, and had a weatherly or a lee set, when the fact had escaped not only the officers, but the manufacturers of the charts. He judged by ripples, and sea-weed, and the other familiar signs of the seas, and these seldom failed him. While, therefore, there was not a seaman living less likely to find the Reef again, when driven off from its vicinity, by means of observations and the charts, there was not a seaman living more likely to find it, by resorting to the other helps of the navigator. On this last peculiarity Mark hung all his hopes of seeing his friend again, when the gale should abate.
Since the moment when all the charge of the ship fell upon his shoulders, by the loss of Captain Crutchely, Mark had never felt so desolate, as when he lost sight of Bob and the Neshamony. Then, indeed, did he truly feel himself to be alone, with none between him and his God with whom to commune. It is not surprising, therefore, that one so much disposed to cherish his intercourse with the Divine Spirit, knelt on the naked rock and prayed. After this act of duty and devotion, the young man arose, and endeavoured to turn his attention to the state of things around him.
The gale still continued with unabated fury. Each instant the water rose higher and higher on the Reef, until it began to enter within the crater, by means of the gutters that had been worn in the lava, covering two or three acres of the lower part of its plain. As for the Rancocus, though occasionally pitching more heavily than our young man could have believed possible behind the sea-wall, her anchor still held, and no harm had yet come to her. Finding it impossible to do any more, Mark descended into the crater, where it was a perfect lull, though the wind fairly howled on every side, and got into one of the South American hammocks, of which there had been two or three in the ship, and of which he had caused one to be suspended beneath the sort of tent he and poor Bob had erected near the garden. Here Mark remained all the rest of that day, and during the whole of the succeeding night. But for what he had himself previously seen, the roar of the ocean on the other side of his rocky shelter, and the scuffling of the winds about the Summit, he might not have been made conscious of the violence of the tempest that was raging so near him. Once and awhile, however, a puff of air would pass over him; but, on the whole, he was little affected by the storm, until near morning, when it rained violently. Fortunately, Mark had taken the precaution to give a low ridge to all his awnings and tent-coverings, which turned the water perfectly. When, therefore, he heard the pattering of the drops on the canvas, he did not rise, but remained in his hammock until the day returned. Previously to that moment, however, he dropped into a deep sleep, in which he lay several hours.
When consciousness returned to Mark, he lay half a minute trying to recall the past. Then he listened for the sounds of the tempest. All was still without, and, rising, he found that the sun was shining, and that a perfect calm reigned in the outer world. Water was lying in spots, in holes on the surface of the crater, where the pigs were drinking and the ducks bathing. Kitty stood in sight, on the topmost knoll of the Summit, cropping the young sweet grass that had so lately been refreshed by rain, disliking it none the less, probably, from the circumstance that a few particles of salt were to be found among it, the deposit of the spray. The garden looked smiling, the plants refreshed, and nothing as yet touched in it, by the visitors who had necessarily been introduced.
Our young man washed himself in one of the pools, and then crossed the plain to drive out the pigs and poultry, the necessity of husbanding his stores pressing even pain fully on his mind. As he approached the gate-way, he saw that the sea had retired; and, certain that the animals would take care of themselves, he drove them through the hole, and dropped the sail before it. Then he sought one of the ascents, and was soon on the top of the hill. The trades had returned, but scarce blew in zephyrs; the sea was calm; the points in the reefs were easily to be seen; the ship was at rest and seemingly uninjured, and the whole view was one of the sweetest tranquillity and security. Already had the pent and piled waters diffused themselves, leaving the Reef as before, with the exception that those cavities which contained rain-water, during most of the year, now contained that which was not quite so palatable. This was a great temporary inconvenience, though the heavy showers of the past night had done a good deal towards sweetening the face of the rock, and had reduced most of the pools to a liquid that was brackish rather than salt. A great many fish lay scattered about, on the island, and Mark hastened down to examine their qualities.
The pigs and poultry were already at work on the game that was so liberally thrown in their way, and Mark felt indebted to these scavengers for aiding him in what he perceived was now a task indispensable to his comfort. After going to the ship, and breaking his fast, he returned to the crater, obtained a wheelbarrow, and set to work in earnest to collect the fish, which a very few hours' exposure to the sun of that climate would render so offensive as to make the island next to intolerable. Never in his life did our young friend work harder than he did all that morning. Each load of fish, as it was-wheeled into the crater, was thrown into a trench already prepared for that purpose, and the ashes were hauled over it, by means of the hoe. Feeling the necessity of occupation to lessen his sorrow, as well as that of getting rid of pestilence, which he seriously apprehended from this inroad of animal substances, Mark toiled two whole days at this work, until fairly driven from it by the intolerable effluvium which arose, notwithstanding all he had done, on every side of the island. It is impossible to say what would have been consequences had not the birds come, in thousands, to his relief. They made quick work of it, clearing off the fish in numbers that would be nearly incredible. As it was, however, our young hermit was driven into the ship, where-he passed a whole week, the steadiness of the trades driving the disagreeable odours to leeward. At the end of that time he ventured ashore, where he found it possible to remain, though the Reef did not get purified for more than a month. Finding a great many fish still remaining that neither hog nor bird would touch, Mark made a couple of voyages to Loam Island, whence he brought two cargoes of the deposit, and landed at the usual place. This he wheeled about the Reef, throwing two or three-shovels full on each offensive creature, thus getting rid of the effluvium and preparing a considerable store of excellent manure for his future husbandry. It may be as well said here, that, at odd times, he threw these little deposits into large heaps, and subsequently wheeled them into the crater, where they were mixed with the principal pile of compost that had now been, for months, collecting there.
It is a proof of the waywardness of human nature that we bear great misfortunes better than small ones. So it proved with Mark, on this occasion; for, much as he really regarded Bob, and serious as was the loss of his friend to himself, the effects of the inundation occupied his thoughts, and disturbed him more, just at that time, than the disappearance of the Neshamony. Nevertheless, our young man had not forgotten to look out for the missing boat, in readiness to hail its return with joy. He passed much of the week he was shut up in the ship in her topmast-cross-trees, vainly examining the sea to leeward, in the hope of catching a distant view of the pinnace endeavouring to bear up through the reefs. Several times he actually fancied he saw her; but it always turned out to be the wing of some gull, or the cap of a distant breaker. It was when Mark had come ashore again, and commenced the toil of covering the decayed fish, and of gathering them into piles, that these smaller matters supplanted the deep griefs of his solitude.
One of the annoyances to which our solitary man found himself most subject, was the glare produced by a burning sun on rocks and ashes of the drab colour of the crater. The spots of verdure that he had succeeded in producing on the Summit, not only relieved and refreshed his eyes, but they were truly delightful as aids to the view, as well as grateful to Kitty, which poor creature had, by this time, cropped them down to a pretty short herbage. This Mark knew, however, was an advantage to the grass, making it finer, and causing it to thicken at the roots. The success of this experiment, the annoyance to his eyes, and a feverish desire to be doing, which succeeded the disappearance of Botts, set Mark upon the project of sowing grass-seed over as much of the plain of the crater as he thought he should not have occasion to use for the purposes of tillage. To work he went then, scattering the seed in as much profusion as the quantity to be found in the ship would justify. Friend Abraham White had provided two barrels of the seed, and this went a good way. While thus employed a heavy shower fell, and thinking the rain a most favourable time to commit his grass-seeds to the earth, Mark worked through the whole of it, or for several hours, perspiring with the warmth and exercise.
This done, a look at the garden, with a free use of the hoe, was the next thing undertaken. That night Mark slept in his hammock, under the crater-awning, and when he awoke in the morning it was to experience a weight, like that of lead in his forehead, a raging thirst, and a burning fever. Now it was that our poor solitary hermit felt the magnitude of his imprudence and the weight of the evils of his peculiar situation. That he was about to be seriously ill he knew, and it behoved him to improve the time that remained to him, to the utmost. Everything useful to him was in the ship, and thither it became indispensable for him to repair, if he wished to retain even a chance for life. Opening an umbrella, then, and supporting his tottering legs by a cane, Mark commenced a walk of very near a mile, under an almost perpendicular sun, at the hottest season of the year. Twenty times did the young man think he should be compelled to sink on the bare rock, where there is little question he would soon have expired, under the united influence of the fever within and the burning heat without. Despair urged him on, and, after pausing often to rest, he succeeded in entering the cabin, at the end of the most perilous hour he had ever yet passed.
No words of ours can describe the grateful sense of coolness, in spite of the boiling blood in his veins, that Mark Woolston experienced when he stepped beneath the shade of the poop-deck of the Rancocus. The young man knew that he was about to be seriously ill and his life might depend on the use he made of the next hour, or half-hour, even. He threw himself on a settee, to get a little rest, and while there he endeavoured to reflect on his situation, and to remember what he ought to do. The medicine-chest always stood in the cabin, and he had used its contents too often among the crew, not to have some knowledge of their general nature and uses. Potions were kept prepared in that depository, and he staggered to the table, opened the chest, took a ready-mixed dose of the sort he believed best for him, poured water on it from the filterer, and swallowed it. Our mate ever afterwards believed that draught saved his life. It soon made him deadly sick, and produced an action in his whole system. For an hour he was under its influence, when he was enabled to get into his berth, exhausted and literally unable any longer to stand. How long he remained in that berth, or near it rather--for he was conscious of having crawled from it in quest of water, and for other purposes, on several occasions--but, how long he was confined to his cabin, Mark Woolston never knew. The period was certainly to be measured by days, and he sometimes fancied by weeks. The first probably was the truth, though it might have been a fortnight. Most of that time his head was light with fever, though there were intervals when reason was, at least partially, restored to him, and he became painfully conscious of the horrors of his situation. Of food and water he had a sufficiency, the filterer and a bread-bag being quite near him, and he helped himself often from the first, in particular; a single mouthful of the ship's biscuit commonly proving more than he could swallow, even after it was softened in the water. At length he found himself indisposed to rise at all, and he certainly remained eight-and-forty hours in his berth, without quitting it, and almost without sleeping, though most of the time in a sort of doze.
At length the fever abated in its violence, though it began to assume, what for a man in Mark Woolston's situation was perhaps more dangerous, a character of a low type, lingering in his system and killing him by inches. Mark was aware of his condition, and though: of the means of relief. The ship had some good Philadelphia porter in her, and a bottle of it stood on a shelf over his berth. This object caught his eye, and he actually longed for a draught of that porter. He had sufficient strength to raise himself high enough to reach it, but it far exceeded his powers to draw the cork, even had the ordinary means been at hand, which they were not. There was a hammer on the shelf, however, and with that instrument he did succeed in making a hole in the side of the bottle, and in filling a tumbler. This liquor he swallowed at a single draught. It tasted deliciously to him, and he took a second tumbler full, when he lay down, uncertain as to the consequences. That his head was affected by these two glasses of porter, Mark himself was soon aware, and shortly after drowsiness followed. After lying in an uneasy slumber for half an hour, his whole person was covered with a gentle perspiration, in which condition, after drawing the sheet around him, the sick man fell asleep.
Our patient never knew how long he slept, on this all-important occasion. The period certainly included part of two days and one entire night; but, afterwards, when Mark endeavoured to correct his calendar, and to regain something, like a record of the time, he was inclined to think he must have lain there two nights with the intervening day. When he awoke, Mark was immediately sensible that he was free from disease. He was not immediately sensible, nevertheless, how extremely feeble disease had left him. At first, he fancied he had only to rise, take nourishment, and go about his ordinary pursuits. But the sight of his emaciated limbs, and the first effort he made to get up, convinced him that he had a long state of probation to go through, before he became the man he had been a week or two before. It was well, perhaps, that his head was so clear, and his judgment so unobscured at this, his first return to consciousness.
Mark deemed it a good symptom that he felt disposed to eat. How many days he had been altogether without nourishment he could not say, but they must have been several; nor had he received more than could be obtained from a single ship's biscuit since his attack. All this came to his mind, with a distinct recollection that he must be his own physician and nurse. For a few minutes he lay still, during which he addressed himself to God, with thanks for having spared his life until reason was restored. Then he bethought him, well as his feeble state would allow, of the course he ought to pursue. On a table in the cabin, and in sight of his berth, through the state-room door, was a liquor-case, containing wines, brandy, and gin. Our sick man thought all might yet go well, could he get a few spoonsfull of an excellent port wine which that case, contained, and which had been provided expressly for cases of sickness. To do this, however, it was necessary to obtain the key, to open the case, and to pour out the liquor; three things, of which he distrusted his powers to perform that which was the least difficult.
The key of the liquor-case was in the draw of an open secretary, which, fortunately, stood between him and the table. Another effort was made to rise, which so far succeeded as to enable the invalid to sit up in his bed. The cool breeze which aired the cabin revived him a little, and he was able to stretch out a hand and turn the cock of the filterer, which he had himself drawn near his berth, while under the excitement of fever, in order to obtain easy access to water. Accidentally this filterer stood in a draught, and the quart or two of water that had not yet evaporated was cool and palatable; that is, cool for a ship and such a climate. One swallow of the water was all Mark ventured on, but it revived him more than he could believe possible. Near the glass into which he had drawn the water, lay a small piece of pilot bread, and this he dropped into the tumbler. Then he ventured to try his feet, when he found a dizziness come over him, that compelled him to fall back on his berth. Recovering from this in a minute or two, a second attempt succeeded better, and the poor fellow, by supporting himself against the bulkheads, and by leaning on chairs, was enabled to reach the desk. The key was easily obtained, and the table was next reached. Here Mark sunk into a chair, as much exhausted as he would have been, previously to his illness, by a desperate effort to defend life.
The invalid was in his shirt, and the cool sea-breeze had the effect of an air-bath on him. It revived him in a little while, when he applied the key, opened the case, got out the bottle by using both hands, though it was nearly empty, and poured out a wine-glass of the liquor. With these little exertions he was so much exhausted as almost to faint. Nothing saved him, probably, but a sip of the wine which he took from the glass as it stood on the table. It has been much the fashion, of late years, to decry wine, and this because it is a gift of Providence that has been greatly abused. In Mark Woolston's instance it proved, what it was designed to be, a blessing instead of a curse. That single sip of wine produced an effect on him like that of magic. It enabled him soon to obtain his tumbler of water, into which he poured the remainder of the liquor. With the tumbler in his hand, the invalid next essayed to cross the cabin, and to reach the berth in the other state-room. He was two or three minutes in making this passage, sustained by a chair, into which he sunk not less than three times, and revived by a few more sips of the wine and water. In this state-room was a bed with clean cool linen, that had been prepared for Bob, but which that worthy fellow had pertinaciously refused to use, out of respect to his officer. On these sheets Mark now sank, almost exhausted. He had made a happy exchange, however, the freshness and sweetness of the new bed, of itself, acting as delicious restoratives.
After resting a few minutes, the solitary invalid formed a new plan of proceeding. He knew the importance of not over-exerting himself, but he also knew the importance of cleanliness and of a renovation of his strength. By this time the biscuit had got to be softened in the wine and water, and he took a piece, and after masticating it well, swallowed it. This was positively the first food the sick and desolate young man had received in a week. Fully aware of this, he abstained from taking a second mouthful, though sorely pressed to it by hunger. So strong was the temptation, and so sweet did that morse taste, that Mark felt he might not refrain unless he had something to occupy his mind for a few minutes. Taking a small swallow of the wine and water, he again got on his feet, and staggered to the drawer in which poor Captain Crutchely had kept his linen. Here he got a shirt, and tottered on as far as the quarter-deck. Beneath the awning Mark had kept the section of a hogshead, as a bathing-tub, and for the purpose of catching the rain-water that ran from the awning, Kitty often visiting the ship and drinking from this reservoir.
The invalid found the tub full of fresh and sweet water, and throwing aside the shirt in which he had lain so long, he rather fell than seated himself in the water. After remaining a sufficient, time to recover his breath, Mark washed his head, and long matted beard, and all parts of his frame, as well as his strength would allow. He must have remained in the water several minutes, when he managed to tear himself from it, as fearful of excess from this indulgence as from eating. The invalid now felt like a new man! It is scarcely possible to express the change that came over his feelings, when he found himself purified from the effects of so long a confinement in a feverish bed, without change, or nursing of any sort. After drying himself as well as he could with a towel, though the breeze and the climate did that office for him pretty effectually, Mark put on the clean, fresh shirt, and tottered back to his own berth, where he fell on the mattress, nearly exhausted. It was half-an-hour before he moved again, though all that time experiencing the benefits of the nourishment taken, and the purification undergone. The bath, moreover, had acted as a tonic, giving a stimulus to the whole system. At the end^of the half hour, the young man took another mouthful of the biscuit, half emptied the tumbler, fell back on his pillow, and was soon in a sweet sleep.
It was near sunset when Mark lost his consciousness on this occasion, nor did he recover it until the light of day was once more cheering the cabin. He had slept profoundly twelve hours, and this so much the more readily from the circumstance that he had previously refreshed himself with a bath and clean linen. The first consciousness of his situation was accompanied with the bleat of poor Kitty. That gentle animal, intended by nature to mix with herds, had visited the cabin daily, and had been at the sick man's side, when his fever was at its height; and had now come again, as if to inquire after his night's rest. Mark held out his hand, and spoke to his companion, for such she was, and thought she was rejoiced to hear his voice again, and to be allowed to lick his hand. There was great consolation in this mute intercourse, poor Mark feeling the want of sympathy so much as to find a deep pleasure in this proof of affection even in a brute.
Mark now arose, and found himself sensibly improved by his night's rest, the washing, and the nourishment received, little as the last had been. His first step was to empty the tumbler, bread and all. Then he took another bath, the last doing quite as much good, he fancied, as his breakfast. All that day, the young man managed his case with the same self-denial and prudence, consuming a ship's biscuit in the course of the next twenty-four hours, and taking two or three glasses of the wine, mixed with water and sweetened with sugar. In the afternoon he endeavoured to shave, but the first effort convinced him he was getting well too fast.
It was thrice twenty-four hours after his first bath, before Mark Woolston had sufficient strength to reach the galley and light a fire. In this he then succeeded, and he treated himself to a cup of good warm tea. He concocted some dishes of arrow-root and cocoa, too, in the course of that and the next day, continuing his baths, and changing his linen repeatedly. On the fifth day, he got off his beard, which was a vast relief to him, and by the end of the week he actually crawled up on the poop, where he could get a sight of his domains.
The Summit was fast getting to be really green in considerable patches, for the whole rock was now covered with grass. Kitty was feeding quietly enough on the hillside, the gentle creature having learned to pass the curtain at the gate, and go up and down the ascents at pleasure. Mark scarce dared to look for his hogs, but there they were rooting and grunting about the Reef, actually fat and contented. He knew that this foreboded evil to his garden, for the creatures must have died for want of food during his illness, had not some such relief been found. As yet, his strength would not allow him to go ashore, and he was obliged to content himself with this distant view of his estate. The poultry appeared to be well, and the invalid fancied he saw chickens running at the side of one of the hens.
It was a week later before Mark ventured to go as far as the crater. On entering it, he found that his conjectures concerning the garden were true. Two-thirds of it had been dug over by the snouts of his pigs, quite as effectually as he could have done it, in his vigour, with the spade. Tops and roots had been demolished alike, and about as much wasted as had been consumed, Kitty was found, _flagrante delictu_, nibbling at the beans, which, by this time, were dead ripe. The peas, and beans, and Indian corn had made good picking for the poultry; and everything possessing life had actually been living in abundance, while the sick man had lain unconscious of even his own, existence, in a state as near death as life.
Mark found his awning standing, and was glad to rest an hour or two in his hammock, after looking at the garden. While there the hogs entered the crater, and made a meal before his eyes. To his surprise, the sow was followed by ten little creatures, that were already getting to be of the proper size for eating. A ravenous appetite was now Mark's greatest torment, and the coarse food of the ship was rather too heavy for him. He had exhausted his wit in contriving dishes of flour, and pined for something more grateful than salted beef, or pork. Although he somewhat distrusted his strength, yet longing induced him to make an experiment. A fowling-piece, loaded with ball, was under the awning; and freshening the priming, the young man watched his opportunity when one of the grunters was in a good position, and shot it in the head. Then cutting its throat with a knife, he allowed it to bleed, when he cleaned, and _skinned it_. This last operation was not very artistical, but it was necessary in the situation of our invalid. With the carcase of this pig, which was quite as much as he could even then carry back to the ship, though the animal was not yet six weeks old, Mark made certain savoury and nourishing dishes, that contributed essentially to the restoration of his strength. In the course of the ensuing month three more of the pigs shared the same fate, as did half-a-dozen of the brood of chickens already mentioned, though the last were not yet half-grown. But Mark felt, now, as if he could eat the crater, though as yet he had not been able to clamber to the Summit.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
10 | None | "Yea! long as nature's humblest child Hath kept her temple undefiled By sinful sacrifice, Earth's fairest scenes are all his own, He is a monarch, and his throne Is built amid the skies."
Wilson.
Our youthful hermit was quite two months in regaining his strength, though, by the end of one he was able to look about him, and turn his hand to many little necessary jobs. The first thing he undertook was to set up a gate that would keep the animals on the outside of the crater. The pigs had not only consumed much the largest portion of his garden truck, but they had taken a fancy to break up the crust of that part of the crater where the grass was showing itself, and to this inroad upon his meadows, Mark had no disposition to submit. He had now ascertained that the surface of the plain, though of a rocky appearance, was so far shelly and porous that the seeds had taken very generally; and as soon as their roots worked their way into the minute crevices, he felt certain they would of themselves convert the whole surface into a soil sufficiently rich to nourish the plants he wished to produce there. Under such circumstances he did not desire the assistance of the hogs. As yet, however, the animals had done good, rather than harm to the garden, by stirring the soil up, and mixing the sea-weed and decayed fish with it; but among the grass they threatened to be more destructive; than useful. In most places the crust of the plain was just thick enough to bear the weight of a man, and Mark, no geologist, by the way, came to the conclusion that it existed at all more through the agency of the salt deposited in ancient floods, than from any other cause. According to the great general law of the earth, soil should have been formed from rock, and not rock from soil: though there certainly are cases in which the earths indurate, as well as become disintegrated. As we are not professing to give a scientific account of these matters, we shall simply state the facts, leaving better scholars than ourselves to account for their existence.
Mark made his gate out of the fife-rail, at the foot of the mainmast, sawing off the stanchions for that purpose. With a little alteration it answered perfectly, being made to swing from a post that was wedged into the arch, by cutting it to the proper length. As this was the first attack upon the Rancocus that had yet been made, by axe or saw, it made the young man melancholy; and it was only with great reluctance that he could prevail on himself to begin what appeared like the commencement of breaking up the good craft. It was done, however, and the gate was hung, thereby saving the rest of the crop. It was high time; the hogs and poultry, to say nothing of Kitty, having already got their full share. The inroads of the first, however, were of use in more ways than one, since they taught our young cultivator a process by which he could get his garden turned up at a cheap rate. They also suggested to him an idea that he subsequently turned to good account. Having dug his roots so early, it occurred to Mark that, in so low a climate, and with such a store of manure, he might raise two crops in a year, those which came in the cooler months varying a little in their properties from those which came in the warmer. On this hint he endeavoured to improve, commencing anew beds that, without it, would probably have lain fallow some months longer.
In this way did our young man employ-himself until he found his strength perfectly restored. But the severe illness he had gone through, with the sad views it had given him of some future day, when he might be compelled to give up life itself, without a friendly hand to smooth his pillow, or to close his eyes, led him to think far more seriously than he had done before, on the subject of the true character of our probationary condition here on earth, and on the unknown and awful future to which it leads us. Mark had been carefully educated on the subject of religion, and was well enough disposed to enter into the inquiry in a suitable spirit of humility; but, the grave circumstances in which he was now placed, contributed largely to the clearness of his views of the necessity of preparing for the final change. Cut off, as he was, from all communion with his kind; cast on what was, when he first knew it, literally a barren rock in the midst of the vast Pacific Ocean, Mark found himself, by a very natural operation of causes, in much closer communion with his Creator, than he might have been in the haunts of the world. On the Reef, there was little to divert his thoughts from their true course; and the very ills that pressed upon him, became so many guides to his gratitude by showing, through the contrasts, the many blessings which had been left him by the mercy of the hand that had struck him. The nights in that climate and season were much the pleasantest portions of the four-and-twenty hours. There were no exhalations from decayed vegetable substances or stagnant pools, to create miasma, but the air was as pure and little to be feared under a placid moon as under a noon-day sun. The first hours of night, therefore, were those in which our solitary man chose to take most of his exercise, previously to his complete restoration to strength; and then it was that he naturally fell into an obvious and healthful communion with the stars.
So far as the human mind has as yet been able to penetrate the mysteries of our condition here on-earth, with the double connection between the past and the future, all its just inferences tend to the belief in an existence of a vast and beneficent design. We have somewhere heard, or read, that the gipsies believe that men are the fallen angels, oiling their way backward on the fatal path along which hey formerly rushed to perdition. This may not be, probably is not true in its special detail; but that men are placed here to prepare themselves for a future and higher condition of existence, is not only agreeable to our consciousness, but is in harmony with revelation. Among the many things that have been revealed to us, where so many are hid, we are told that our information is to increase, as we draw nearer to the millennium, until "The whole earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." We may be far from that blessed day; probably are; but he has lived in vain, who has dwelt his half century in the midst of the civilization of this our own age, and does not see around him the thousand proofs of the tendency of things to the fulfilment of the decrees, announced to us ages ago by the pens of holy men. Rome, Greece, Egypt, and all that we know of the past, which comes purely of man and his passions; empires, dynasties, heresies and novelties, come and go like the changes of the seasons; while the only thing that can be termed stable, is the slow but sure progress of prophecy. The agencies that have been employed to bring about the great ends foretold so many centuries since, are so very natural, that we often lose sight of the mighty truth in its seeming simplicity. But, the signs of the times are not to be mistaken. Let any man of fifty, for instance, turn his eyes toward the East, the land of Judea, and compare its condition, its promises of to-day, with those that existed in his own youth, and ask himself how the change has been produced. That which the Richards and Sts. Louis of the middle ages could not effect with their armed hosts, is about to happen as a consequence of causes so obvious and simple that they are actually overlooked by the multitude. The Ottoman power and Ottoman prejudices are melting away, as it might be under the heat of divine truth, which is clearing for itself a path that will lead to the fulfilment of its own predictions.
Among the agents that are to be employed, in impressing the human race with a sense of the power and benevolence of the Deity, we think the science of astronomy, with its mechanical auxiliaries, is to act its full share. The more deeply we penetrate into the arcana of nature, the stronger becomes the proofs of design; and a deity thus obviously, tangibly admitted, the more profound will become the reverence for his character and power. In Mark Woolston's youth, the great progress which has since been made in astronomy, more especially in the way of its details through observations, had but just commenced. A vast deal, it is true, had been accomplished in the way of pure science, though but little that came home to the understandings and feelings of the mass. Mark's education had given him an outline of what Herschel and his contemporaries had been about, however; and when he sat on the Summit, communing with the stars, and through those distant and still unknown worlds, with their Divine First Cause, it was with as much familiarity with the subject as usually belongs to the liberally educated, without carrying a particular branch of learning into its recesses. He had increased his school acquisitions a little, by the study and practice of Navigation, and had several works that he was fond of reading, which may have made him a somewhat more accurate astronomer than those who get only leading ideas on the subject. Hours at a time did Mark linger on the Summit, studying the stars in the clear, transparent atmosphere of the tropics, his spirit struggling the while to get into closer communion with that dread Being which had produced all these mighty results; among which the existence of the earth, its revolutions, its heats and colds, its misery and happiness, are but specks in the incidents of a universe. Previously to this period, he had looked into these things from curiosity and a love of science; now, they impressed him with the deepest sense of the power and wisdom of the Deity, and caused him the better to understand his own position in the scale of created beings.
Not only did our young hermit study the stars with his own eyes, but he had the aid of instruments. The ship had two very good spy-glasses, and Mark himself was the owner of a very neat reflecting telescope, which he had purchased with his wages, and had brought with him as a source of amusement and instruction. To this telescope there was a brass stand, and he conveyed it to the tent on the Summit, where it was kept for use. Aided by this instrument, Mark could see the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, the ring of the latter, the belts of the former, and many of the phenomena of the moon. Of course, the spherical forms of all the nearer planets, then known to astronomers, were plainly to be seen by the assistance of this instrument; and there is no one familiar fact connected with our observations of the heavenly bodies, that strikes the human mind, through the senses, as forcibly as this. For near a month, Mark almost passed the nights' gazing at the stars, and reflecting on their origin and uses. He had no expectations of making discoveries, or of even adding to his own stores of knowledge: but his thoughts were brought nearer to his Divine Creator by investigations of this sort; for where a zealous mathematician might have merely exulted in the confirmation of some theory by means of a fact, he saw the hand of God instead of the solution of a problem. Thrice happy would it be for the man of science, could he ever thus hold his powers in subjection to the great object for which they were brought into existence; and, instead of exulting in, and quarrelling about the pride of human reason, be brought to humble himself and his utmost learning, at the feet of Infinite Knowledge and power, and wisdom, as they are thus to be traced in the path of the Ancient of Days!
By the time his strength returned, Mark had given up, altogether, the hope of ever seeing Betts again. It was just possible that the poor fellow might fall in with a ship, or find his way to some of the islands; but, if he did so, it would be the result of chance and not of calculations. The pinnace was well provisioned, had plenty of water, and, tempests excepted, was quite equal to navigating the Pacific; and there was a faint hope that Bob might continue his course to the eastward, with a certainty of reaching some part of South America in time. If he should lake this course, and succeed, what would be the consequence? Who would put sufficient faith in the story of a simple seaman, like Robert Betts, and send a ship to look for Mark Woolston? In these later times, the government would doubtless despatch a vessel of war on such an errand, did no other means of rescuing the man offer; but, at the close of the last century, government did not exercise that much of power. It scarcely protected its seamen from the English press-gang and the Algerine slave-driver; much less did it think of rescuing a solitary individual from a rock in the midst of the Pacific. American vessels did then roam over that distant ocean, but it was comparatively in small numbers, and under circumstances that promised but little to the hopes of the hermit. It was a subject he did not like to dwell on, and he kept his thoughts as much diverted from it as it was in his power so to do.
The season had now advanced into as much of autumn as could be found within the tropics, and on land so low. Everything in the garden had ripened, and much had been thrown out to the pigs and poultry, in anticipation of its decay. Mark saw that it was time to re-commence his beds, selecting such seed as would best support the winter of that climate, if winter it could be called. In looking around him, he made a regular survey of all his possessions, inquiring into the state of each plant he had put into the ground, as well as into that of the ground itself. First, then, as respects the plants.
The growth of the oranges, lemons, cocoa-nuts, limes, figs, &c., placed in rows beneath the cliffs, had been prodigious. The water had run off the adjacent rocks and kept them well moistened most of the season, though a want of rain was seldom known on the Reef. Of the two, too much, rather than too little water fell; a circumstance that was of great service, however, in preserving the stock, which had used little beside that it found in the pools, for the last ten months. The shrubs, or little trees, were quite a foot high, and of an excellent colour. Mark gave each of them a dressing with the hoe, and manured all with a sufficient quantity of the guano. About half he transplanted to spots more favourable, putting the cocoa-nuts, in particular, as near the sea as he could get them.
With respect to the other plants, it was found that each had flourished precisely in proportion to its adaptation to the climate. The products of some were increased in size, while those of others had dwindled. Mark took note of these facts, determining to cultivate those most which succeeded best. The melons of both sorts, the tomatoes, the egg-plants, the peppers, cucumbers, onions, beans, corn, sweet-potatoes, &c. &c., had all flourished; while the Irish potato, in particular, had scarce produced a tuber at all.
As for the soil, on examination Mark found it had beer, greatly improved by the manure, tillage and water it had received. The hogs were again let in to turn it over with their snouts, and this they did most effectually in the course of two or three days. By this time, in addition to the three grown porkers our young man possessed, there were no less than nine young ones. This number was getting to be formidable, and he saw the necessity of killing off, in order to keep them within reasonable limits. One of the fattest and best he converted into pickled pork, not from any want of that article, there being still enough left in the ship to last him several years, but because he preferred it corned to that which had been in the salt so long a time. He saw the mistake he had made in allowing the pigs to get to be so large, since the meat would spoil long before he could consume even the smallest-sized shoats. For their own good, however, he was compelled to shoot no less than five, and these he buried entire, in deep places in his garden, having heard that earth which had imbibed animal substances, in this way, was converted into excellent manure.
Mark now made a voyage to Loam Island, in quest of a cargo, using the raft, and towing the dingui. It was on this occasion that our young man was made to feel how much he had lost, in the way of labour, in being deprived of the assistance of Bob. He succeeded in loading his raft, however, and was just about to sail for home again, when it occurred to him that possibly the seeds and roots of the asparagus he had put into a corner of the deposit might have come to something. Sure enough, on going to the spot, Mark found that the seed had taken well, and hundreds of young plants were growing flourishingly, while plants fit to eat had pushed their tops through the loam, from the roots. This was an important discovery, asparagus being a vegetable of which Mark was exceedingly fond, and one easily cultivated. In that climate, and in a soil sufficiently rich, it might be made to send up new shoots the entire year; and there was little fear of scurvy so long as he could obtain plenty of this plant to eat. The melons and other vegetables, however, had removed all Mark's dread of that formidable disease; more especially as he had now eggs, chickens, and fresh fish, the latter in quantities that were almost oppressive. In a word, the means of subsistence now gave the young man no concern whatever. When he first found himself on a barren rock, indeed, the idea had almost struck terror into his mind; but, now that he had ascertained that his crater could be cultivated, and promised, like most other extinct volcanoes, unbounded fertility, he could no longer apprehend a disease which is commonly owing to salted provisions.
When Mark found his health completely re-established, he sat down and drew up a regular plan of dividing his time between work, contemplation, and amusement. Fortunately, perhaps, for one who lived in a climate where vegetation was so luxuriant when it could be produced at all, work was pressed into his service as an amusement. Of the last, there was certainly very little, in the common acceptation of the word; but our hermit was not without it altogether. He studied the habits of the sea-birds that congregated in thousands around so many of the rocks of the Reef, though so few scarce ever ventured on the crater island. He made voyages to and fro, usually connecting business with pleasure. Taking favourable times for such purposes, he floated several cargoes of loam to the Reef, as well as two enormous rafts of sea-weed. Mark was quite a month in getting these materials into his compost heap, which he intended should lie in a pile during the winter, in order that it might be ready for spading in the spring. We use these terms by way of distinguishing the seasons, though of winter, strictly speaking, there was none. Of the two, the grass grew better at mid-winter than at mid-summer, the absence of the burning heat of the last being favourable to its growth. As the season advanced, Mark saw his grass very sensibly increase, not only in surface, but in thickness. There were now spots of some size, where a turf was forming, nature performing all her tasks in that genial climate, in about a fourth of the time it would take to effect the same object in the temperate zone. On examining these places, Mark came to the conclusion that the roots of his grasses acted as cultivators, by working their way into the almost insensible crevices of the crust, letting in air and water to places whence they had hitherto been excluded. This seemed, in particular, to be the case with the grass that grew within the crater, which had increased so much in the course of what may be termed the winter, that it was really fast converting a plain of a light drab colour, that was often painful to the eyes, into a plot of as lovely verdure as ever adorned the meadows of a Swiss cottage. It became desirable to keep this grass down, and Kitty being unable to crop a meadow of so many acres, Mark was compelled to admit his pigs and poultry again. This he did at stated times only, however; or when he was at work himself in the garden, and could prevent their depredations on his beds. The rooting gave him the most trouble; but this he contrived in a great measure to prevent, by admitting his hogs only when they were eager for grass, and turning them out as soon as they began to generalize, like an epicure picking his nuts after dinner.
It was somewhere near mid-winter, by Mark's calculations, when the young man commenced a new task that was of great importance to his comfort, and which _might_ affect his future life. He had long determined to lay down a boat, one of sufficient size to explore the whole reef in, if not large enough to carry him out to sea. The dingui was altogether too small for labour; though exceedingly useful in its way, and capable of being managed even in pretty rough water by a skilful hand, it wanted both weight and room. It was difficult to float in, even a raft of sea-weed, with so light a boat; and as for towing the raft, it was next to impossible. But the raft was unwieldy, and when loaded down, besides carrying very little for its great weight, it was very much at the mercy of the currents and waves. Then the construction of a boat was having an important purpose in view, and, in that sense, was a desirable undertaking.
Mark had learned so much in putting the pinnace together, that he believed himself equal to this new undertaking. Materials enough remained in the ship to make half-a-dozen boats, and in tumbling over the lumber he had found a quantity of stuff that had evidently been taken in with a view to repair boats, if not absolutely to construct them. A ship's hold is such an omnium gatherum, stowage being necessarily so close, that it usually requires time for who does not know where to put his hand on everything, to ascertain how much or how little is to be found in it. Such was the fact with Mark, whose courtship and marriage had made a considerable inroad on his duties as a mate. As he overhauled the hold, he daily found fresh reasons for believing that Friend Abraham White had made provisions, of one sort and another, of which he was profoundly ignorant, but which, as the voyage had terminated, proved to be of the greatest utility. Thus it was, that just as he was about to commence getting out these great requisites from new planks, he came across a stem, stern-frame, and keel of a boat, that was intended to be eighteen feet long. Of course our young man profited by this discovery, getting the materials of all sorts, including these, round to the ship-yard by means of the raft.
For the next two months, or until he had reason to believe spring had fairly set in, Mark toiled faithfully at his boat. Portions of his work gave him a great deal of trouble; some of it on account of ignorance of the craft, and some on account of his being alone. Getting the awning up anew cost poor Mark the toil of several days, and this because his single strength was not sufficient to hoist the corners of that heavy course, even when aided by watch-tackles. He was compelled to rig a crab, with which he effected his purpose, reserving the machine to aid him on other occasions. Then the model of the boat cost him a great deal of time and labour. Mark knew a good bottom when he saw it, but that was a very different thing from knowing how to make one. Of the rules of draughting he was altogether ignorant, and his eye was his only guide. He adopted a plan that was sufficiently ingenious, though it would never do to build a navy on the same principle.
Having a great plenty of deal, Mark got out in the rough about twice as many timbers for one side of his boat as would be required, in this thin stuff, when he set them up in their places. Aided by this beginning, the young man began to dub and cut away, until he got each piece into something very near the shape his eye told him it ought to be. Even after he had got as far as this, our boat-builder passed a week in shaving, and planing, and squinting, and in otherwise reducing his lines to fair proportions. Satisfied, at length, with the bottom he had thus fashioned, Mark took out just one half of his pieces, leaving the other half standing. After these moulds did he saw and cut his boat's timbers, making, in each instance, duplicates. When the ribs and floors of his craft were ready, he set them up in the vacancies, and secured them, after making an accurate fit with the pieces left standing. On knocking away the deal portions of his work, Mark had the frame of his boat complete. This was much the most troublesome part of the whole job; nor was it finished, when the young man was obliged, by the progress of the seasons, to quit the ship-yard for the garden.
Mark had adopted a system of diet and a care of his person, that kept him in perfect health, illness being the evil that he most dreaded. His food was more than half vegetable, several plants having come forward even in the winter; and the asparagus, in particular, yielding at a rate that would have made the fortune of a London gardener. The size of the plants he cut was really astounding, a dozen stems actually making a meal. The hens laid all winter, and eggs were never wanting. The corned pork gave substance, as well as a relish, to all the dishes the young man cooked; and the tea, sugar and coffee, promising to hold out years longer, the table still gave him little concern. Once in a month, or so, he treated himself to a bean-soup, or a pea-soup, using the stores of the Rancocus for that purpose, foreseeing that the salted meats would spoil after a time, and the dried vegetables get to be worthless, by means of insects and worms. By this time, however, there were fresh crops of both those vegetables, which grew better in the winter than they could in the summer, in that hot climate. Fish, too, were used as a change, whenever the young man had an inclination for that sort of food, which was as often as three or four times a week; the little pan-fish already mentioned, being of a sort of which one would scarcely ever tire.
It being a matter of some moment to save unnecessary labour, Mark seldom cooked more than once in twenty-four hours, and then barely enough to last for that day. In consequence of this rule, he soon learned how little was really necessary for the wants of one person, it being his opinion that a quarter of an acre of such soil as that which now composed his garden, would more than furnish all the vegetables he could consume. The soil, it is true, was of a very superior quality. Although it had lain so long unproductive and seemingly barren, now that it had been stirred, and air and water were admitted, and guano, and sea-weed, and loam, and dead fish had been applied, and all in quantities that would have been deemed very ample in the best wrought gardens of christendom, the acre he had under tillage might be said to have been brought to the highest stage of fertility. It wanted a little in consistency, perhaps; but the compost heap was very large, containing enough of all the materials just mentioned to give the garden another good dressing. As for the grass, Mark was convinced the guano was all-sufficient for that, and this he took care to apply as often as once in two or three months.
Our young man was never tired, indeed, with feasting his eyes with the manner in which the grass had spread over the mount. It is true, that he had scattered seed, at odd and favourable moments, over most of it, by this time; but he was persuaded the roots of those first sown would have extended themselves, in the course of a year or two, over the whole Summit. Nor were these grasses thin and sickly, threatening as early an extinction as they had been quick in coming to maturity. On the contrary, after breaking what might be called the crust of the rock with their vigorous though nearly invisible roots, they made a bed for themselves, on which they promised to repose for ages. The great frequency of the rains favoured their growth, and Mark was of opinion after the experience of one summer, that his little mountain might be green the year round.
We have called the mount of the crater little, but the term ought not to be used in reference to such a hill, when the extent of the island itself was considered. By actual measurement, Mark had ascertained that there was one knoll on the Summit which was just seventy-two feet above the level of the rock. The average height, however, might be given as somewhat less than fifty. Of surface, the rocky barrier of the crater had almost as much as the plain within it, though it was so broken and uneven as not to appear near as large. Kitty had long since determined that the hill was more than large enough for all her wants; and glad enough did she seem when Mark succeeded, after a great deal of difficulty, in driving the hogs up a flight of steps he had made within the crater, to help her crop the herbage. As for the rooting of the last, so long as they were on the Summit, it was so much the better; since, in that climate, it was next to impossible to kill grass that was once fairly in growth, and the more the crust of the ashes was broken, the more rapid and abundant would be the vegetation.
Mark had, of course, abandoned the idea of continuing to cultivate his melons, or any other vegetables, on the Summit, or he never would have driven his hogs there. He was unwilling, notwithstanding, to lose the benefit of the deposits of soil and manure which he and Bob had made there with so much labour to themselves. After reflecting what he could do with them, he came to the conclusion that he would make small enclosures around some fifteen or twenty of the places, and transplant some of the fig-trees, orange-trees, limes, lemons, &c., which still stood rather too thick within the crater to ripen their fruits to advantage. In order to make these little enclosures, Mark merely drove into the earth short posts, passing around them old rope, of which there was a superabundance on board the ship. This arrangement suggested the idea of fencing in the garden, by the same means, in order to admit the pigs to eat the grass, when he was not watching them. By the time these dispositions were made, it was necessary to begin again to put in the seeds.
On this occasion Mark determined to have a succession of crops, and not to bring on everything at once, as he had done the first year of his tillage. Accordingly, he would manure and break up a bed, and plant or sow it, waiting a few days before he began another. Experience had told him that there was never an end to vegetation in that climate, and he saw no use in pushing his labours faster than he might require their fruits. It was true, certain plants did better if permitted to come to maturity in particular periods, but the season was so long as very well to allow of the arrangement just mentioned. As this distribution of his time gave the young man a good deal of leisure, he employed it in the ship-yard. Thus the boat and the garden were made to advance together, and when the last was sown and planted, the first was planked. When the last bed was got in, moreover, those first set in order were already giving forth their increase. Mark had abundance of delicious salad, young onions, radishes that seemed to grow like mushrooms, young peas, beans, &c., in quantities that enabled him to turn the hogs out on the Reef, and keep them well on the refuse of his garden, assisted a little by what was always to be picked up on the rocks.
By this time Mark had settled on a system which he thought to pursue. There was no use in his raising more pigs than he could use. Taking care to preserve the breed, therefore, he killed off the pigs, of which he had fresh litters, from time to time; and when he found the old hogs getting to be troublesome, as swine will become with years, he just shot them, and buried their bodies in his compost heap, or in his garden, where one common-sized hog would render highly fertile several yards square of earth, or ashes. This practice he continued ever after, extending it to his fowls and ducks, the latter of which produced a great many eggs. By rigidly observing this rule, Mark avoided an evil which is very common even in inhabited countries, that of keeping more stock than is good for their owner. Six or eight hens laid more eggs than he could consume, and there was always a sufficient supply of chickens for his wants. In short, our hermit had everything he actually required, and most things that could contribute to his living in great abundance. The necessity of cooking for himself, and the want of pure, cold spring water, were the two greatest physical hardships he endured. There were moments, indeed, when Mark would have gladly yielded one-half of the advantages he actually possessed, to have a good spring of living water. Then he quelled the repinings of his spirit at this privation, by endeavouring to recall how many blessings were left at his command, compared to the wants and sufferings of many another shipwrecked mariner of whom he had read or heard.
The spring passed as pleasantly as thoughts of home and Bridget would allow, and his beds and plantations flourished to a degree that surprised him. As for the grass, as soon as it once got root, it became a most beneficial assistant to his plans of husbandry. Nor was it grass alone that rewarded Mark's labours and forethought in his meadows and pastures. Various flowers appeared in the herbage; and he was delighted at finding a little patch of the common wild strawberry, the seed of which had doubtless got mixed with those of the grasses. Instead of indulging his palate with a taste of this delicious and most salubrious fruit, Mark carefully collected it all, made a bed in his garden, and included the cultivation of this among his other plants. He would not disturb a single root of the twenty or thirty different shoots that he found, all being together, and coming from the same cast of his hand while sowing, lest it might die; but, with the seed of the fruit, he was less chary. One thing struck Mark as singular. Thus far his garden was absolutely free from weeds of every sort. The seed that he put into the ground came up, and nothing else. This greatly simplified his toil, though he had no doubt that, in the course of time, he should meet with intruders in his beds. He could only account for this circumstance by the facts, that the ashes of the volcano contained of themselves no combination of the elements necessary to produce plants, and that the manures he used, in their nature, were free from weeds.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
11 | None | "The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes, And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons: O'er devastation we blind revels keep; While buried towns support the dancer's heel."
Young.
It was again mid-summer ere Mark Woolston had his boat ready for launching. He had taken things leisurely, and completed his work in all its parts, before he thought of putting the craft into the water. Afraid of worms, he used some of the old copper on this boat, too; and he painted her, inside and out, not only with fidelity, but with taste. Although there was no one but Kitty to talk to, he did not forget to paint the name which he had given to his new vessel, in her stern-sheets, where he could always see it. She was called the "Bridget Yardley;" and, notwithstanding the unfavourable circumstances in which she had been put together, Mark thought she did no discredit to her beautiful namesake, when completed. When he had everything finished, even to mast and sails, of the last of which he fitted her with mainsail and jib, the young man set about his preparations for getting his vessel afloat.
There was no process by which one man could move a boat of the size of the Bridget, while out of its proper element, but to launch it by means of regular ways. With a view to this contingency, the keel had been laid between the ways of the Neshamony, which were now all ready to be used. Of course it was no great job to make a cradle for a boat, and our boat-builder had 'wedged up,' and got the keel of his craft off the 'blocks,' within eight-and-forty hours after he had begun upon that part of his task. It only remained to knock away the spur-shores and start the boat. Until that instant, Mark had pursued his work on the Bridget as mechanically and steadily as if hired by the day When, however, he perceived that he was so near his goal, a flood of sensations came over the young man, and his limbs trembled to a degree that compelled him to be seated. Who could tell the consequences to which that boat might lead? Who knew but the 'Bridget' might prove the means of carrying him to his own Bridget, and restoring him to civilized life? At that instant, if appeared to Mark as if his existence depended on the launching of his boat, and he was fearful some unforeseen accident might prevent it. He was obliged to wait several minutes in order to recover his self-possession.
At length Mark succeeded in subduing this feeling, and he resumed his work with most of his former self-command. Everything being ready, he knocked away the spur-shores, and, finding the boat did not start, he gave it a blow with a mawl. This set the mass in motion, and the little craft slid down the ways without any interruption, until it became water-born, when it shot out from the Reef like a duck. Mark was delighted with his new vessel, now that it was fairly afloat, and saw that it sat on an even keel, according to his best hopes. Of course he had not neglected to secure it with a line, by which he hauled it in towards the rock, securing it in a natural basin which was just large enough for such a purpose. So great, indeed, were his apprehensions of losing his boat, which now seemed so precious to him, that he had worked some ringbolts out of the ship and let them into the rock, where he had secured them by means of melted lead, in order to make fast to.
The Bridget was not more than a fourth of the size of the Neshamony, though rather more than half as long. Nevertheless, she was a good boat; and Mark, knowing that he must depend on sails principally to move her, had built a short deck forward to prevent the seas from breaking aboard her, as well as to give him a place in which he might stow away various articles, under cover from the rain. Her ballast was breakers, filled with fresh water, of which there still remained several in the ship. All these, as well as her masts, sails, oars, &c., were in her when she was launched; and that important event having taken place early in the morning, Mark could not restrain his impatience for a cruise, but determined to go out on the reef at once, further than he had ever yet ventured in the dingui, in order to explore the seas around him. Accordingly, he put some food on board, loosened his fasts, and made sail.
The instant the boat moved ahead, and began to obey her helm, Mark felt as if he had found a new companion. Hitherto Kitty had, in a measure, filled this place; but a boat had been the young man's delight on the Delaware, in his boyhood, and he had not tacked his present craft more than two or three times, before he caught himself talking to it, and commending it, as he would a human being. As the wind usually blew in the same direction, and generally a good stiff breeze, Mark beat up between the Reef and Guano Island, working round the weather end of the former, until he came out at the anchorage of the Rancocus. After beating about in that basin a little while, as if merely to show off the Bridget to the ship, Mark put the former close by the wind, and stood off in the channel by which he and Bob had brought the latter into her present berth.
It was easy enough to avoid all such breakers as would be dangerous to a boat, by simply keeping out of white water; but the Bridget could pass over most of the reefs with impunity, on account of the depth of the sea on them. Mark beat up, on short tacks, therefore, until he found the two buoys between which he had brought the ship, and passing to windward of them, he stood off in the direction where he expected to find the reef over which the Rancocus had beaten. He was not long in making this discovery. There still floated the buoy of the bower, watching as faithfully as the seaman on his look-out! Mark ran the boat up to this well-tried sentinel, and caught the lanyard, holding on by it, after lowering his sails.
The boat was now moored by the buoy-rope of the ship's anchor, and it occurred to our young man that a certain use might be made of this melancholy memorial of the calamity that had befallen the Rancocus. The anchor lay quite near a reef, on it indeed in one sense; and it was in such places that fish most abounded. Fishing-tackle was in the boat, and Mark let down a line. His success was prodigious. The fish were hauled in almost as fast as he could bait and lower his hook, and what was more they proved to be larger and finer than those taken at the old fishing-grounds. By the experience of the half hour he passed at the spot, Mark felt certain that he could fill his boat there in a day's fishing. After hauling in some twenty or thirty, however, he cast off from the lanyard, hoisted his sails, and crossed the reef, still working to windward.
It was Mark's wish to learn something of the nature and extent of the shoals in this direction. With this object in view, he continued beating up, sometimes passing boldly through shallow water, at others going about to avoid that which he thought might be dangerous, until he believed himself to be about ten miles to windward of the island. The ship's masts were his beacon, for the crater had sunk below the horizon, or if visible at all, it was only at intervals, as the boat was lifted on a swell, when it appeared a low hummock, nearly awash. It was with difficulty that the naked spars could be seen at that distance; nor could they be, except at moments, and that because the compass told the young man exactly where to look for them.
As for the appearance of the reefs, no naked rock was anywhere to be seen in this direction, though there were abundant evidences of the existence of shoals. As well as he could judge, Mark was of opinion that these shoals extended at least twenty miles in this direction, he having turned up fully five leagues without getting clear of them. At that distance from his solitary home, and out of sight of everything like land, did the young man eat his frugal, but good and nourishing dinner, with his jib-sheet to windward and the boat hove-to. The freshness of the breeze had induced him to reef, and under that short sail, he found the Bridget everything he could wish. It was now about the middle of the afternoon, and Mark thought it prudent to turn out his reef, and run down for the crater. In half an hour he caught a sight of the spars of the ship; and ten minutes later, the Summit appeared above the horizon.
It had been the intention of our young sailor to stay out all night, had the weather been promising. His wish was to ascertain how he might manage the boat, single-handed, while he slept, and also to learn the extent of the shoals. As the extraordinary fertility of the crater superseded the necessity of his labouring much to keep himself supplied with food, he had formed a plan of cruising off the shoals, for days at a time, in the hope of falling in with something that was passing, and which might carry him back to the haunts of men. No vessel would or could come in sight of the crater, so long as the existence of the reefs was known; but the course steered by the Rancocus was a proof that ships did occasionally pass in that quarter of the Pacific. Mark had indulged in no visionary hopes on this subject, for he knew he might keep in the offing a twelvemonth and see nothing; but an additional twenty-four hours might realize all his hopes.
The weather, however on this his first experiment, did not encourage him to remain out the whole night. On the contrary, by the time the crater was in sight, Mark thought he had not seen a more portentous-looking sky since he had been on the Reef. There was a fiery redness in the atmosphere that alarmed him, and he would have rejoiced to be at home, in order to secure his stock within the crater. From the appearances, he anticipated another tempest with its flood. It is true, it was not the season when the last occurred, but the climate might admit of these changes. The difference between summer and winter was very trifling on that reef, and a hurricane, or a gale, was as likely to occur in the one as in the other.
Just as the Bridget was passing the two buoys by which the ship-channel had been marked, her sail flapped. This was a bad omen, for it betokened a shift of wind, which rarely happened, unless it might be from six months to six months, without being the precursor of some sort of a storm. Mark was still two miles from the Reef, and the little wind there was soon came ahead. Luckily, it was smooth water, and very little air sufficed to force that light craft ahead, while there was usually a current setting from that point towards the crater. The birds, moreover, seemed uneasy, the air being filled with them, thousands flying over the boat, around which they wheeled, screaming and apparently terrified. At first Mark ascribed this unusual behaviour of his feathered neighbours to the circumstance of their now seeing a boat for the commencement of such an acquaintance; but, recollecting how often he had passed their haunts, in the dingui, when they would hardly get out of the way, he soon felt certain there must be another reason for this singular conduct.
The sun went down in a bank of lurid fire, and the Bridget was still a mile from the ship. A new apprehension now came over our hermit. Should a tempest bring the wind violently from the westward, as was very likely to be the case under actual circumstances, he might be driven out to sea, and, did the little craft resist the waves, forced so far off as to make him lose the Reef altogether. Then it was that Mark deeply felt how much had been left him, by casting his lot on that beautiful and luxuriant crater, instead of reducing him to those dregs of misery which so many shipwrecked mariners are compelled to swallow! How much, or how many of the blessings that he enjoyed on the Reef, would he not have been willing to part with, that evening, in order to secure a safe arrival at the side of the Rancocus! By the utmost care to profit by every puff of air, and by handling the boat with the greatest skill, this happy result was obtained, however, without any sacrifice.
About nine o'clock, and not sooner, the boat was well secured, and Mark went into his cabin. Here he knelt and returned thanks to God, for his safe return to a place that was getting to be as precious to him as the love of life could render it. After this, tired with his day's work, the young man got into his berth and endeavoured to sleep.
The fatigue of the day, notwithstanding the invigorating freshness of the breeze, acted as an anodyne, and our young man soon forgot his adventures and his boat, in profound slumbers. It was many hours ere Mark awoke, and when he did, it was with a sense of suffocation. At first he thought the ship had taken fire, a lurid light gleaming in at the open door of the cabin, and he sprang to his feet in recollection of the danger he ran from the magazine, as well as from being burned. But no cracking of flames reaching his ears, he dressed hastily and went out on the poop. He had just reached this deck, when he felt the whole ship tremble from her truck to her keel, and a rushing of water was heard on all sides of him, as if a flood were coming. Hissing sounds were heard, and streams of fire, and gleams of lurid light were seen in the air. It was a terrible moment, and one that might well induce any man to imagine that time was drawing to its close.
Mark Woolston now comprehended his situation, notwithstanding the intense darkness which prevailed, except in those brief intervals of lurid light. He had felt the shock of an earthquake, and the volcano had suddenly become active. Smoke and ashes certainly filled the air, and our poor hermit instinctively looked towards his crater, already so verdant and lively, in the expectation of seeing it vomit flames. Everything there was tranquil; the danger, if danger there was, was assuredly more remote. But the murky vapour which rendered breathing exceedingly difficult, also obstructed the view, and prevented his seeing where the explosion really was. For a brief space our young man fancied he must certainly be suffocated; but a shift of wind came, and blew away the oppressive vapour, clearing the atmosphere of its sulphurous and most offensive gases and odours. Never did feverish tongue enjoy the cooling and healthful draught, more than Mark rejoiced in this change. The wind had got back to its old quarter, and the air he respired soon became pure and refreshing. Had the impure atmosphere lasted ten minutes longer, Mark felt persuaded he could not have breathed it with any safety.
The light was now most impatiently expected by our young man. The minutes seemed to drag; but, at length, the usual signs of returning day became apparent to him, and he got on the bowsprit of the ship, as if to meet it in its approach. There he stood looking to the eastward, eager to have ray after ray shoot into the firmament, when he was suddenly struck with a change in that quarter of the ocean, which at once proclaimed the power of the effort which the earth had made in its subterranean throes. Naked rocks appeared in places where Mark was certain water in abundance had existed a few hours before. The sea-wall, directly ahead of the ship, and which never showed itself above the surface more than two or three inches, in any part of it, and that only at exceedingly neap tides, was now not only bare for a long distance, but parts rose ten and fifteen feet above the surrounding sea. This proved, at once, that the earthquake had thrust upward a vast surface of the reef, completely altering the whole appearance of the shoal! In a word, nature had made another effort, and islands had been created, as it might be in the twinkling of an eye.
Mark was no sooner assured of this stupendous fact, than he hurried on to the poop, in order to ascertain what changes had occurred in and about the crater. It had been pushed upward, in common with all the rocks for miles on every side of it, though without disturbing its surface! By the computation of our young man, the Reef, which previously lay about six feet above the level of the ocean, was now fully twenty, so many cubits having been, by one single but mighty effort of nature, added to its stature. The planks which led from the stern of the vessel to the shore, and which had formed a descent, were now nearly level, so much water having left the basin as to produce this change. Still the ship floated, enough remaining to keep her keel clear of the bottom.
Impatient to learn all, Mark ran ashore, for by this time it was broad daylight, and hastened into the crater, with an intention to ascend at once to the Summit. As he passed along, he could detect no change whatever on the surface of the Reef; everything lying just as it had been left, and the pigs and poultry were at their usual business of providing for their own wants. Ashes, however, were strewn over the rocks to a depth that left his footprints as distinct as they could have been made in a light snow. Within the crater the same appearances were observed, fully an inch of ashes covering its verdant pastures and the whole garden. This gave Mark very little concern, for he knew that the first rain would wash this drab-looking mantle into the earth, where it would answer all the purposes of a rich dressing of manure.
On reaching the Summit, our young man was enabled to form a better opinion of the vast changes which had been wrought around him, by this sudden elevation of the earth's crust. Everywhere sea seemed to be converted into land, or, at least, into rock. All the white water had disappeared, and in its place arose islands of rock, or mud, or sand. A good deal of the last was to be seen, and some quite near the Reef, as we shall still continue to call the island of the crater. Island, however, it could now hardly be termed. It is true that ribands of water approached it on all sides, resembling creeks, and rivers and small sounds; but, as Mark stood there on the Summit, it seemed to him that it was now possible to walk for leagues, in every direction, commencing at the crater and following the lines of reefs, and rocks, and sands, that had been laid bare by the late upheaving. The extent of this change gave him confidence in its permanency, and the young man had hopes that what had thus been produced by the Providence of God would be permitted to remain, to answer his own benevolent purposes. It certainly made an immense difference in his own situation. The boat could still be used, but it was now possible for him to ramble for hours, if not for days, along the necks, and banks, and hummocks, and swales that had been formed, and that with a dry foot. His limits were so much enlarged as to offer something like a new world to his enterprise and curiosity.
The crater, nevertheless, was apparently about the centre of this new creation. To the south, it is true, the eye could not penetrate more than two or three leagues. A vast, dun-looking cloud, still covered the sea in that direction, veiling its surface far and wide, and mingling with the vapours of the upper atmosphere. Somewhere within this cloud, how far or how near from him he knew not, Mark made no doubt a new outlet to the pent forces of the inner earth was to be found, forming another and an active crater for the exit of the fires beneath. Geology was a science that had not made its present progress in the day of Mark Woolston, but his education had been too good to leave him totally without a theory for what had happened. He supposed that the internal fires had produced so much gas, just beneath this spot, as to open crevices at the bottom of the ocean, through which water had flowed in sufficient quantities to create a vast body of steam, which steam had been the immediate agent of lifting so much of the rock and land, and of causing the earthquake. At the same time, the internal fires had acted in concert; and following an opening, they had got so near the surface as to force a chimney for their own exit, in the form of this new crater, of the existence of which, from all the signs to the southward, Mark did not entertain the smallest doubt.
This theory may have been true, in whole or in part, or it may have been altogether erroneous. Such speculations seldom turn out to be minutely accurate. So many unknown causes exist in so many unexpected forms, as to render precise estimates of their effects, in cases of physical phenomena, almost as uncertain as those which follow similar attempts at any analysis of human motives and human conduct. The man who has been much the subject of the conjectures and opinions of his fellow-creatures, in this way, must have many occasions to wonder, and some to smile, when he sees how completely those around him misjudge his wishes and impulses. Although formed of the same substance, influenced by the same selfishness, and governed by the same passions, in nothing do men oftener err than in this portion of the exercise of their intellects. The errors arise from one man's rigidly judging his fellow by himself, and that which he would do he fancies others would do also. This rule would be pretty safe, could we always penetrate into the wants and longings of others, which quite as often fail to correspond closely with our own, as do their characters, fortunes, and hopes.
At first sight, Mark had a good deal of difficulty in understanding the predominant nature of the very many bodies of water that were to be seen on every side of him. On the whole, there still remained almost as much of one element as of the other, in the view; which of itself, however, was a vast change from what had previously been the condition of the shoals. There were large bodies of water, little lakes in extent, which it was obvious enough must disappear under the process of evaporation, no communication existing between them and the open ocean. But, on the other hand, many of these sheets were sounds, or arms of the sea, that must always continue, since they might be traced, far as eye could reach, towards the mighty Pacific. Such, Mark was induced to believe, was the fact with the belt of water that still surrounded, or nearly surrounded the Reef; for, placed where he was, the young man was unable to ascertain whether the latter had, or had not, at a particular point, any land communication with an extensive range of naked rock, sand, mud, and deposit, that stretched away to the westward, for leagues. In obvious connection with this broad reach of what might be termed bare ground, were Guano and Loam Islands; neither of which was an island any longer, except as it was a part of the whole formation around it. Nevertheless, our young man was not sorry to see that the channel around the Reef still washed the bases of both those important places of deposit, leaving it in his power to transport their valuable manures by means of the raft, or boat.
The situation of the ship next became the matter of Mark's most curious and interested investigation. She was clearly afloat, and the basin in which she rode had a communication on each side, of it, with the sound, or inlet, that still encircled the Reef. Descending to the shore, our young mariner got into the dingui, and pulled out round the vessel, to make a more minute examination. So very limpid was the water of that sea, it was easy enough to discern a bright object on the bottom, at a depth of several fathoms. There were no streams in that part of the world to pour their deposits into the ocean, and air itself is scarce more transparent than the pure water of the ocean, when unpolluted with any foreign substances. All it wants is light, to enable the eye to reach into it's mysteries for a long way. Mark could very distinctly perceive the sand beneath the Rancocus' keel, and saw that the ship still floated two or three feet clear of the bottom. It was near high water, however; and there being usually a tide of about twenty inches, it was plain enough that, on certain winds, the good old craft would come in pretty close contact with the bottom. All expectation of ever getting the vessel out of the basin must now be certainly abandoned, since she lay in a sort of cavity, where the water was six or eight feet deeper than it was within a hundred yards on each side of her.
Having ascertained these facts, Mark provided himself with a fowling-piece, provisions, &c., and set out to explore his newly acquired territories on foot. His steps were first directed to the point where it appeared to the eye, that the vast range of dry land to the westward, extending both north and south, had become connected with the Reef. If such connection existed at all, it was by two very narrow necks of rock, of equal height, both of which had come up out of the water under the late action, which action had considerably altered and extended the shores of Crater Island. Sand appeared in various places along these shores, now; whereas, previously to the earthquake, they had everywhere been nearly perpendicular rocks.
Mark was walking, with an impatient step, towards the neck just mentioned, and which was at no great distance from the ship-yard, when his eye was attracted towards a sandy beach of several acres in extent, that spread itself along the margin of the rocks, as clear from every impurity as it was a few hours before, when it had been raised from out of the bosom of the ocean. To him, it appeared that water was trickling through this sand, coming from beneath the lava of the Reef. At first, he supposed it was merely the remains of some small portion of the ocean that had penetrated to a cavity within, and which was now trickling back through the crevices of the rocks, to find its level, under the great law of nature. But it looked so pleasant to see once more water of any sort coming upwards from the earth, that the young man jumped down upon the sands, and hastened to the spot for further inquiry. Scooping up a little of the water in the hollow of his hand, he found it sweet, soft, and deliciously cool. Here was a discovery, indeed! The physical comfort for which he most pined was thus presented to him, as by a direct gift from heaven; and no miser who had found a hoard of hidden gold, could have felt so great pleasure, or a tenth part of the gratitude, of our young hermit, if hermit we may call one who did not voluntarily seek his seclusion from the world, and who worshipped God less as a penance than from love and adoration.
Before quitting this new-found treasure, Mark opened a cavity in the sand to receive the water, placing stone around it to make a convenient and clean little basin. In ten minutes this place was filled with water almost as limpid as air, and every way as delicious as the palate of man could require. The young man could scarce tear himself away from the spot, but fearful of drinking too much he did so, after a time. Before quitting the spring, however, he placed a stone of some size at a gap in the rock, a precaution that completely prevented the hogs, should they stroll that way, from descending to the beach and defiling the limpid basin. As soon as he had leisure, Mark resolved to sink a barrel in the sand, and to build a fence around it; after which the stock might descend and drink at a pool he should form below, at pleasure.
Mark proceeded. On reaching the narrowest part of the 'Neck,' he found that the rocks did not meet, but the Reef still remained an island. The channel that separated the two points of rock was only about twenty feet wide, however, though it was of fully twice that depth. The young man found it necessary to go back to the ship-yard (no great distance, by the way), and to bring a plank with which to make a bridge. This done, he passed on to the newly emerged territory. As might have been expected, the rocks were found tolerably well furnished with fish, which had got caught in pools and crevices when the water flowed into the sea; and what was of still more importance, another and a much larger spring of fresh water was found quite near the bridge, gushing through a deposit of sand of some fifteen or twenty acres in extent. The water of this spring had run down into a cavity, where it had already formed a little lake of some two acres in surface, and whence it was already running into the sea, by overflowing its banks. These two discoveries induced Mark to return to the Reef again, in quest of the stock. After laying another-plank at his bridge, he called every creature he had over into the new territory; for so great was the command he had obtained over even the ducks, that all came willingly at his call. As for Kitty, she was never more happy than when trotting at his side, accompanying him in his walks, like a dog.
Glad enough were the pigs, in particular, to obtain this new range. Here was everything they could want; food in thousands, sand to root on, fresh water to drink, pools to wallow in, and a range for their migratory propensities. Mark had no sooner set them at work on the sea-weed and shell-fish that abounded there, for the time being at least, than he foresaw he should have to erect a gate at his bridge, and keep the hogs here most of the time. With such a range, and the deposits of the tides alone, would have no great difficulty in making their own living. This would enable him to increase the number kept, which he had hitherto been obliged to keep down with the most rigid attention to the increase.
Mark now set out, in earnest, on his travels. He was absent from the Reef the entire day. At one time, he thought he was quite two leagues in a straight line from the ship, though he had been compelled to walk four to get there. Everywhere he found large sheets of salt water, that had been left on the rocks, in consequence of the cavities in the latter. In several instances, these little lakes were near a mile in length, having the most beautifully undulating outlines. None of them were deep, of course, though their bottoms varied. Some of these bottoms were clean rock; others contained large deposits of mud; and others, again, were of a clean, dark-coloured sand. One, and one only, had a bottom of a bright, light-coloured sand. As a matter of course, these lakes, or pools, must shortly evaporate, leaving their bottoms bare, or encrusted with salt. One thing gave the young man great satisfaction. He had kept along the margin of the channel that communicated with the water that surrounded the Reef, and, when at the greatest distance from the crater, he ascended a rock that must have had an elevation of a hundred feet above the sea. Of course most of this rock had been above water previously to the late eruption, and Mark had often seen it at a distance, though he had never ventured through the white water near so far, in the dingui. When on its apex, Mark got an extensive view of the scene around him. In the first place, he traced the channel just mentioned, quite into open water, which now appeared distinctly not many leagues further, towards the north-west. There were a great many other channels, some mere ribands of water, others narrow sounds, and many resembling broad, deep, serpenting creeks, which last was their true character, being strictly inlets from the sea. The lakes or pools, could be seen in hundreds, creating some confusion in the view; but all these must soon disappear, in that climate.
Towards the southward, however, Mark found the objects of his greatest wonder and admiration. By the time he reached the apex of the rock, the smoke in that quarter of the horizon had, in a great measure, risen from the sea; though a column of it continued to ascend towards a vast, dun-coloured cloud that overhung the place. To Mark's astonishment he had seen some dark, dense body first looming through the rising vapour. When the last was sufficiently removed, a high, ragged mountain became distinctly visible. He thought it arose at least a thousand feet above the ocean, and that it could not be less than a league in extent. This exhibition of the power of nature filled the young man's soul with adoration and reverence for the mighty Being that could set such elements at work. It did not alarm him, but rather tended to quiet his longings to quit the place; for he who lives amid such scenes feels that he is so much nearer to the arm of God than those who dwell in uniform security, as to think less of ordinary advantages than is common.
Mark knew that there must have been a dislocation of the rocks, to produce such a change as that he saw to the southward. It was well for him it occurred there at a distance, as he then thought, of ten or fifteen miles from the Reef, though in truth it was at quite fifty, instead of happening beneath him. It was possible, however, for one to have been on the top of that mountain, and to have lived through the late change, could the lungs of man have breathed the atmosphere. Not far from this mountain a column of smoke rose out of the sea, and Mark fancied that, at moments, he could discern the summit of an active crater at its base.
After gazing at these astonishing changes for a long time, our young man descended from the height and retraced his steps homeward. Kitty gladly preceded him, and some time after the sun had set, they regained the Reef. About a mile short of home, Mark passed all the hogs, snugly deposited in a bed of mud, where they had esconced themselves for the night, as one draws himself beneath his blanket.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
12 | None | "All things in common nature should produce Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony, Sword, pike, gun, or need of any engine Would I not have; but nature should bring forth Of its own kind, all foizen, all abundance To feed my innocent people."
_Tempest. _ For the next ten days Mark Woolston did little but explore. By crossing the channel around the Reef, which he had named the 'Armlet' (the young man often talked to himself), he reached the sea-wall, and, once there, he made a long excursion to the eastward. He now walked dryshod over those very reefs among which he had so recently sailed in the Bridget, though the ship-channel through which he and Bob had brought in the Rancocus still remained. The two buoys that had marked the narrow passage were found, high and dry; and the anchor of the ship, that by which she rode after beating over the rocks into deep water, was to be seen so near the surface, that the stock could be reached by the hand.
There was little difference in character between the newly-made land to windward and that which Mark had found in the opposite direction. Large pools, or lakes, of salt water, deposits of mud and sand, some of which were of considerable extent and thickness, sounds, creeks, and arms of the sea, with here and there a hummock of rock that rose fifteen or twenty feet above the face of the main body, were the distinguishing peculiarities. For two days Mark explored in this direction, or to windward, reaching as far by his estimate of the distance, as the place where he had bore up in his cruise in the Bridget. Finding a great many obstacles in the way, channels, mud, &c., he determined, on the afternoon of the second day, to return home, get a stock of supplies, and come out in the boat, in order to ascertain if he could not now reach the open water to windward.
On the morning of the fourth day after the earthquake, and the occurrence of the mighty change that had altered the whole face of the scene around him, the young man got under way in the Bridget. He shaped his course to windward, beating out of the Armlet by a narrow passage, that carried him into a reach that stretched away for several miles, to the northward and eastward, in nearly a straight line. This passage, or sound, was about half a mile in width, and there was water enough in nearly all parts of it to float the largest sized vessel. By this passage the poor hermit, small as was his chance of ever seeing such an event occur, hoped it might be possible to come to the very side of the Reef in a ship.
When about three leagues from the crater, the 'Hope Channel,' as Mark named this long and direct passage, divided into two, one trending still more to the northward, running nearly due north, indeed, while the other might be followed in a south-easterly direction, far as the eye could reach. Mark named the rock at the junction 'Point Fork,' and chose the latter passage, which appeared the most promising, and the wind permitting him to lay through it. The Bridget tacked in the Forks, therefore, and stood away to the south-east, pretty close to the wind. Various other channels communicated with this main passage, or the Hope; and, about noon, Mark tacked into one of them, heading about north-east, when trimmed up sharp to do so. The water was deep, and at first the passage was half a mile in width; but after standing along it for a mile or two, it seemed all at once to terminate in an oval basin, that might have been a mile in its largest diameter, and which was bounded to the eastward by a belt of rock that rose some twenty feet above the water. The bottom of this basin was a clear beautiful sand, and its depth of water, on sounding, Mark found was uniformly about eight fathoms. A more safe or convenient basin for the anchorage of ships could not have been formed by the art of man, had there been an entrance to it, and any inducement for them to come there.
Mark had beaten about 'Oval Harbour,' as he named the place, for half an hour, before he was struck by the circumstance that the even character of its surface appeared to be a little disturbed by a slight undulation which seemed to come from its north-eastern extremity. Tacking the Bridget, he stood in that direction, and on reaching the place, found that there was a passage through the rock of about a hundred yards in width. The wind permitting, the boat shot through this passage, and was immediately heaving and setting in the long swells of the open ocean. At first Mark was startled by the roar of the waves that plunged into the caverns of the rocks, and trembled lest his boat might be hove up against that hard and iron-bound coast, where one toss would shatter his little craft into splinters. Too steady a seaman, however, to abandon his object unnecessarily, he stood on, and soon found he could weather the rocks under his lee, tacking in time. After two or three short stretches were made, Mark found himself half a mile to windward of a long line, or coast, of dark rock, that rose from twenty to twenty-five feet above the level of the water, and beyond all question in the open ocean. He hove-to to sound, and let forty fathoms of line out without reaching bottom. But everywhere to leeward of him was land, or rock; while everywhere to windward, as well as ahead and astern, it was clear water. This, then, was the eastern limit of the old shoals, now converted into dry land. Here the Rancocus had, unknown to her officers, first run into the midst of these shoals, by which she had ever since been environed.
It was not easy to compute the precise distance from the outlet or inlet of Oval Harbour, to the crater. Mark thought it might be five-and-twenty miles, in a straight line, judging equally by the eye, and the time he had been in running it. The Summit was not to be seen, however, any more than the masts of the ship; though the distant Peak, and the column of dark smoke, remained in sight, as eternal land-marks. The young man might have been an hour in the open sea, gradually hauling off the land, in order to keep clear of the coast, when he bethought him of returning. It required a good deal of nerve to run in towards those rocks, under all the circumstances of the case. The wind blew fresh, so much indeed as to induce Mark to reef, but there must always be a heavy swell rolling in upon that iron-bound shore. The shock of such waves expending their whole force on perpendicular rocks may be imagined better than it can be described. There was an undying roar all along that coast, produced by these incessant collisions of the elements; and occasionally, when a sea entered a cavern, in a way suddenly to expel its air, the sound resembled that which some huge animal might be supposed to utter in its agony, or its anger. Of course, the spray was flying high, and the entire line of black rocks was white with its particles.
Mark had unwittingly omitted to take any land-marks to his inlet, or strait. He had no other means of finding it, therefore, than to discover a spot in which the line of white was broken. This inlet, however, he remembered did not open at right angles to the coast, but obliquely; and it was very possible to be within a hundred yards of it, and not see it. This fact, our young sailor was not long in ascertaining; for standing in towards the point where he expected to find the entrance, and going as close to the shore as he dared, he could see nothing of the desired passage. For an hour did he search, passing to and fro, but without success. The idea of remaining out in the open sea for the night, and to windward of such an inhospitable coast, was anything but pleasant to Mark, and he determined to stand to the northward, now, while it was day, and look for some other entrance.
For four hours did Mark Woolston run along those dark rocks, whitened only by the spray of the wide ocean, without perceiving a point at which a boat might even land. As he was now running off the wind, and had turned out his reef, he supposed he must have gone at least five-and-twenty miles, if not thirty, in that time; and thus had he some means of judging of the extent of his new territories. About five in the afternoon a cape, or headland, was reached, when the coast suddenly trended to the westward. This, then, was the north-eastern angle of the entire formation, and Mark named it Cape North-East. The boat was now jibed, and ran off west, a little northerly, for another hour, keeping quite close in to the coast, which was no longer dangerous as soon as the Cape was doubled. The seas broke upon the rocks, as a matter of course; but there being a lee, it was only under the power of the ceaseless undulations of the ocean. Even the force of the wind was now much less felt, the Bridget carrying whole sail when hauled up, as Mark placed her several times, in order to examine apparent inlets.
It was getting to be too late to think of reaching home that night, for running in those unknown channels after dark was not a desirable course for an explorer to adopt. Our young man, therefore, limited his search to some place where he might lie until the return of light. It is true, the lee formed by the rocks was now such as to enable him to remain outside, with safety, until morning; but he preferred greatly to get within the islands, if possible, to trusting himself, while asleep, to the mercy of the open ocean. Just as the sun was setting, leaving the evening cool and pleasant, after the warmth of an exceedingly hot day, the boat doubled a piece of low headland; and Mark had half made up his mind to get under its lee, and heave a grapnel ashore in order to ride by his cable during the approaching night, when an opening in the coast greeted his eyes. It was just as he doubled the cape. This opening appeared to be a quarter of a mile in width, and it had perfectly smooth water, a half-gunshot within its mouth. The helm was put down, the sheets hauled aft, and the Bridget luffed into this creek, estuary, sound, or harbour, whichever it might prove to be. For twenty minutes did Mark stand on through this passage, when suddenly it expanded into a basin, or bay, of considerable extent. This was at a distance of about a league within the coast. This bay was a league long, and half a league in width, the boat entering it close to its weather side. A long and wide sandy beach offered on that side, and the young man stood along it a short distance, until the sight of a spring induced him to put his helm down. The boat luffed short round, and came gently upon the beach. A grapnel was thrown on the sands, and Mark leaped ashore.
The water proved to be sweet, cool, and every way delicious. This was at least the twentieth spring which had been seen that day, though it was the first of which the waters had been tasted. This new-born beach had every appearance of having been exposed to the air a thousand years. The sand was perfectly clean, and of a bright golden colour, and it was well strewed with shells of the most magnificent colours and size. The odour of their late tenants alone proclaimed the fact of their recent shipwreck. This, however, was an evil that a single month would repair; and our sailor determined to make another voyage to this bay, which he called Shell Bay, in order to procure some of its treasures. It was true he could not place them before the delighted eyes of Bridget, but he might arrange them in his cabin, and fancy that she was gazing at their beauties. After drinking at the spring, and supping on the rocks above, Mark arranged a mattress, provided for that purpose, in the boat, and went to sleep.
Early next morning the Bridget was again under way, but not until her owner had both bathed and broken his fast. Bathe he did every morning throughout the year, and occasionally at night also. A day of exertion usually ended with a bath, as did a night of sweet repose also. In all these respects no one could be more fortunate. From the first, food had been abundant; and now he possessed it in superfluity, including the wants of all dependent on him. Of clothes, also, he had an inexhaustible supply, a small portion of the cargo consisting of coarse cotton jackets and trousers, with which to purchase sandal-wood. To these means, delicious water was now added in inexhaustible quantities. The late changes had given to Mark's possession territory sufficient to occupy him months, even in exploring it thoroughly, as it was his purpose to do. God was there, also, as he is everywhere. This our secluded man found to be a most precious consolation. Again and again, each day, was he now in the practice of communing in spirit, directly with his Creator; not in cold and unmeaning forms and commonplaces, but with such yearning of the soul, and such feelings of love and reverence, as an active and living faith can alone, by the aid of the Divine Spirit, awaken in the human breast.
After crossing Shell Bay, the Bridget continued on for a couple of hours, running south, westerly, through a passage of a good width, until it met another channel, at a point which Mark at once recognized as the Forks. When at Point Fork, he had only to follow the track he had come the previous day, in order to arrive at the Reef. The crater could be seen from the Forks, and there was consequently a beacon in sight, to direct the adventurer, had he wanted such assistance; which he did not, however, since he now recognized objects perfectly well as he advanced, About ten o'clock he ran alongside of the ship, where he found everything, as he had left it. Lighting the fire, he put on food sufficient to last him for another cruise, and then went up into the cross-trees in order to take a better look than he had yet obtained, of the state of things to the southward.
By this time the vast, murky cloud that had so long overhung the new outlet of the volcano, was dispersed. It was succeeded by one of ordinary size, in which the thread of smoke that arose from the crater, terminated. Of course the surrounding atmosphere was clear, and nothing but distance obstructed the view. The Peak was indeed a sublime sight, issuing, as it did, from the ocean without any relief. Mark now began to think he had miscalculated its height, and that it might be _two_ thousand feet, instead of one, above the water. There it was, in all its glory, blue and misty, but ragged and noble. The crater was clearly many miles beyond it, the young man being satisfied, after this look, that he had not yet seen its summit. He also increased his distance from Vulcan's Peak, as he named the mountain, to ten leagues, at least. After sitting in the cross-trees for fully an hour, gazing at this height with as much pleasure as the connoisseur ever studied picture, or statue, the young man determined to attempt a voyage to that place, in the Bridget. To him, such an expedition had the charm of the novelty and change which a journey from country to town could bring to the wearied worldling, who sighed for the enjoyment of his old haunts, after a season passed in the ennui of his country-house. It is true, great novelties had been presented to our solitary youth, by the great changes wrought immediately in his neighbourhood, and they had now kept him for a week in a condition of high excitement; but nothing they presented could equal the interest he felt in that distant mountain, which had arisen so suddenly in a horizon that he had been accustomed to see bare of any object but clouds, for near eighteen months.
That afternoon Mark made all his preparations for a voyage that he felt might be one of great moment to him. All the symptoms of convulsions in the earth, however, had ceased; even the rumbling sounds which he had heard, or imagined, in the stillness of the night, being no longer audible. From that source, therefore, he had no great apprehensions of danger; though there was a sort of dread majesty in the exhibition of the power of nature that he had so lately witnessed, which disposed him to approach the scene of its greatest effort with secret awe. So much did he think of the morrow and its possible consequences, that he did not get asleep for two or three hours, though he awoke in the morning unconscious of any want of rest. An hour later, he was in his boat, and under way.
Mark had now to steer in an entirely new direction, believing, from what he had seen while aloft the day before, that he could make his way out into the open ocean by proceeding a due south course. In order to do this, and to get into the most promising-looking channel in that direction, he was obliged to pass through the narrow strait that separated the Reef from the large range of rock over which he had roamed the day succeeding the earthquake. Of course, the bridge was removed, in order to allow the boat's mast to pass; but for this, Mark did not care. He had seen his stock the previous evening, and saw that it wanted for nothing. Even the fowls had gone across to the new territory, on exploring expeditions; and Kitty herself had left her sweet pastures on the Summit, to see of what the world was made beyond her old range. It is true she had made one journey in that quarter, in the company, of her master; but, one journey no more satisfied her than it would have satisfied the curiosity of any other female.
After passing the bridge, the boat entered a long narrow reach, that extended at least two leagues, in nearly a direct line towards Vulcan's Peak. As it approached the end of this piece of water, Mark saw that he must enter a bay of considerable extent; one, indeed, that was much larger than any he had yet seen in his island, or, to speak more accurately, his group of islands. On one side of this bay appeared a large piece of level land, or a plain, which Mark supposed, might cover one or two thousand acres. Its colour was so different from anything he had yet seen, that our young man was induced to land, and to walk a short distance to examine it. On reaching its margin, it was found to be a very shallow basin, of which the bottom was mud, with a foot or two of salt water still remaining, and in which sea weed, some ten or twelve inches in thickness, was floating. It was almost possible for Mark to walk on this weed, the green appearance of which induced him to name the place the Prairie. Such a collection of weed could only have been owing to the currents, which must have brought it into this basin, where it was probably retained even previously to the late eruption. The presence of the deposit of mud, as well as the height of the surrounding rocks, many of which were doubtless out of water previously to the phenomenon, went to corroborate this opinion.
After working her way through a great many channels, some wide and some narrow, some true and some false, the Bridget reached the southern verge of the group, about noon. Mark then supposed himself to be quite twenty miles from the Reef, and the Peak appeared very little nearer than when he left it. This startled him on the score of distance; and, after meditating on all his chances, the young man determined to pass the remainder of that day where he was, in order to put to sea with as much daylight before him as possible. He desired also to explore the coast and islands in that vicinity, in order to complete his survey of the cluster. He looked for a convenient place to anchor his boat, accordingly, ate his dinner, and set out on foot to explore, armed as usual with a fowling-piece.
In the first place, an outlet to the sea very different from that on the eastern side of the group, was found here, on its southern. The channel opened into a bay of some size, with an arm of rock reaching well off on the weather side, so that no broken water was encountered in passing into or out of it, provided one kept sufficiently clear of the point itself. As there was abundance of room, Mark saw he should have no difficulty in getting out into open water, here, or in getting back again. What was more, the arm, or promontory of rock just mentioned, had a hummock near a hundred feet in height on its extremity, that answered admirably for a land-mark. Most of this hummock must have been above water previously to the late eruption, though it appeared to our explorer, that all the visible land, as he proceeded south, was lifted higher and on a gradually-increasing scale, as if the eruption had exerted its force at a certain point, the new crater for instance, and raised the earth to the northward of that point, on an inclined plane. This might account, in a measure, for the altitude of the Peak, which was near the great crevice that must have been left somewhere, unless materials on its opposite side had fallen to fill it up again. Most of these views were merely speculative, though the fact of the greater elevation of all the rocks, in this part of the group, over those further north, was beyond dispute. Thus the coast, here, was generally fifty or eighty feet high; whereas, at the Reef, even now, the surface of the common rock was not much more than twenty feet above the water. The rise seemed to be gradual, moreover, which certainly favoured this theory.
As a great deal of sand and mud had been brought up by the eruption, there was no want of fresh water. Mark found even a little brook, of as perfectly sweet a stream as he had ever tasted in America, running into the little harbour where he had secured the boat. He followed this stream two miles, ere he reached its source, or sources; for it came from at least, a dozen copious springs, that poured their tribute from a bed of clean sand several miles in length, and which had every sign of having been bare for ages. In saying this, however, it is not to be supposed that the signs, as to time, were very apparent anywhere. Lava, known to have been ejected from the bowels of the earth thousands of years, has just as fresh an appearance, to the ordinary observer, as that which was thrown out ten years ago; and, had it not been for the deposits of moist mud, the remains of fish, sea-weed that was still undecayed, pools of salt water, and a few other peculiarities of the same sort, Mark would have been puzzled to find any difference between the rocks recently thrown up, and those which were formerly exposed to the air. Even the mud was fast changing its appearance, cracking and drying under the sun of the tropics. In a month or two, should as much rain as usual fall, it was probable the sea-weed would be far gone in decay.
It was still early when our adventurer kneeled on the sand, near his boat, to hold his last direct communication with his Creator, ere he slept. Those communications were now quite frequent with Mark, it being no unusual thing for him to hold them when sailing in his boat, on the deck of the ship, or in the soft salubrious air of the Summit. He slept none the less soundly for having commended his soul to God, asking support against temptations, and forgiveness for past sins. These prayers were usually very short. More than half the time they were expressed in the compendious and beautiful words given to man by Christ himself, the model and substance of all petitions of this nature. But the words were devoutly uttered, the heart keeping even pace with them, and the soul fully submitting to their influence.
Mark arose, next morning, two hours before the light appeared, and at once left the group. Time, was now important to him; for, while he anticipated the possibility of remaining under the lee of the mountain during the succeeding night, he also anticipated the possibility of being compelled to return. In a favourable time, with the wind a little free, five knots in the hour was about the maximum of the boat's rate of sailing, though it was affected by the greater or less height of the sea that was on. When the waves ran heavily, the Bridget's low sails got becalmed in the troughs, and she consequently lost much of her way. On the whole, however, five knots might be set down as her average speed, under the pressure of the ordinary trades, and with whole canvas, and a little off the wind. Close-hauled, she scarcely made more than three; while, with the wind on the quarter, she often went seven, especially in smooth water.
The course steered was about a point to the westward of south, the boat running altogether by compass, for the first two hours. At the end of that time day returned and the dark, frowning Peak itself became visible. The sun had no sooner risen, than Mark felt satisfied with his boat's performance. Objects began to come out of the mass of the mountain, which no longer appeared a pile of dark outline, without detail. He expected this, and was even disappointed that his eyes could not command more, for he now saw that he had materially underrated the distance between the crater and the Peak, which must be nearer sixty than fifty miles. The channel between the group and this isolated mass was, at least, twelve leagues in width. These twelve leagues were now to be run, and our young navigator thought he had made fully three of them, when light returned.
From that moment every mile made a sensible difference in the face of the mountain. Light and shadow first became visible; then ravines, cliffs, and colours, came into the view. Each league that he advanced increased Mark's admiration and awe; and by the time that the boat was on the last of those leagues which had appeared so long, he began to have a more accurate idea of the sublime nature of the phenomenon that had been wrought so near him. Vulcan's Peak, as an island, could not be less than eight or nine miles in length, though its breadth did not much exceed two. Running north and south, it offered its narrow side to the group of the crater, which had deceived its solitary observer. Yes! of the millions on earth, Mark Woolston, alone, had been so situated as to become a witness of this grand display of the powers of the elements. Yet, what was this in comparison with the thousand vast globes that were rolling about in space, objects so familiar as to be seen daily and nightly without raising a thought, in the minds of many, from the created to the creator? Even these globes come and go, and men remain indifferent to the mighty change!
The wind had been fresh in crossing the strait, and Mark was not sorry when his pigmy boat came under the shadow of the vast cliffs which formed the northern extremity of the Peak. When still a mile distant, he thought he was close on the rocks; nor did he get a perfectly true idea of the scale on which this rare mountain had been formed until running along at its base, within a hundred yards of its rocks. Coming in to leeward, as a matter of course, Mark found comparatively smooth water, though the unceasing heaving and setting of the ocean rendered it a little hazardous to go nearer to the shore. For some time our explorer was fearful he should not be able to land at all; and he was actually thinking of putting about, to make the best of his way back, while light remained to do so, when he came off a place that seemed fitted by art, rather than by nature, to meet his wishes. A narrow opening appeared between two cliffs, of about equal height, or some hundred feet in elevation, one of which extended further into the ocean than its neighbour. The water being quite smooth in this inlet, Mark ventured to enter it, the wind favouring his advance. On passing this gateway, he found himself nearly becalmed, in a basin that might be a hundred yards in diameter, which was not only surrounded by a sandy beach, but which had also a sandy bottom. The water was several fathoms deep, and it was very easy to run the bows of the boat anywhere on the beach. This was done, the sails were furled, and Mark sprang ashore, taking the grapnel with him. Like Columbus, he knelt on the sands, and returned his thanks to God.
Not only did a ravine open from this basin, winding its way up the entire ascent, but a copious stream of water ran through it, foaming and roaring amid its glens. At first, Mark supposed this was sea-water, still finding its way from some lake on the Peak; but, on tasting it, he found it was perfectly sweet. Provided with his gun, and carrying his pack, our young man entered this ravine, and following the course of the brook, he at once commenced an ascent. The route was difficult only in the labour of moving upwards, and by no means as difficult in that as he had expected to find it. It was, nevertheless, fortunate that this climbing was to be done in the shade, the sun seldom penetrating into those cool and somewhat damp crevices through which the brook found its way.
Notwithstanding his great activity, Mark Woolston was just an hour in ascending to the Peak. In no place had he found the path difficult, though almost always upward; but he believed he had walked more than two miles before he came out on level ground. When he had got up about three-fourths of the way, the appearances of things around him suddenly changed. Although the rock itself looked no older than that below, it had, occasionally, a covering that clearly could never have emerged from the sea within the last few days. From that point everything denoted an older existence in the air, from which our young man inferred that the summit of Vulcan's Peak had been an island long prior to the late eruption. Every foot he advanced confirmed this opinion, and the conclusion was that the ancient island had lain too low to be visible to one on the Reef.
An exclamation of delight escaped from our explorer, as he suddenly came out on the broken plain of the Peak. It was not absolutely covered, but was richly garnished with wood; cocoa-nut, bread-fruits, and other tropical trees; and it was delightfully verdant with young grasses. The latter were still wet with a recent shower that Mark had seen pass over the mountain, while standing for the island; and on examining them more closely, the traces of the former shower of volcanic ashes were yet to be seen. The warmth in the sun, after so sharp a walk, caused the young man to plunge into the nearest grove, where he had no difficulty in helping himself to as many cocoa-nuts, fresh from the trees, as a thousand men could have consumed. Every one has heard of the delicious beverage that the milk of the cocoa-nut, and of the delicious food that its pulp furnishes, when each is taken from the fruit before it hardens. How these trees came there, Mark did not know. The common theory is that birds convey the seeds from island to island; though some suppose that the earth contains the elements of all vegetation, and that this or that is quickened, as particular influences are brought to bear by means of climate and other agents.
After resting himself for an hour in that delicious grove, Mark began to roam around the plain, to get an idea of its beauties and extent. The former were inexhaustible, offering every variety of landscape, from the bold and magnificent to the soft and bewitching. There were birds innumerable, of the most brilliant plumage, and some that Mark imagined must be good to eat. In particular did he observe an immense number of a very small sort that were constantly pecking at a wild fig, of which there was a grove of considerable extent. The fig itself, he did not find as palatable as he had hoped, though it was refreshing, and served to vary the diet; but the bird struck him to be of the same kind as the celebrated reed-bird, of the Philadelphia market, which we suppose to be much the same as the _becca fichi_ of Italy. Being provided with mustard-seed shot, Mark loaded his piece properly, and killed at least twenty of these little creatures at one discharge. After cleaning them, he struck a light by means of the pan and some powder, and kindled a fire. Here was wood, too, in any quantity, an article of which he had feared in time he might be in want, and which he had already begun to husband, though used only in his simple cookery. Spitting half-a-dozen of the birds, they were soon roasted. At the same time he roasted a bunch of plantain, and, being provided with pepper and salt in his pack, as well as with some pilot-bread, and a pint-bottle of rum, we are almost ashamed to relate how our young explorer dined. Nothing was wanting to such a meal but the sweets of social converse. Mark fancied, as he sat enjoying that solitary repast, so delicious of itself, and which was just enough sweetened with toil to render it every way acceptable, that he could gladly give up all the rest of the world, for the enjoyment of a paradise like that before him, with Bridget for his Eve.
The elevation of the mountain rendered the air far more grateful and cool than he was accustomed to find it, at mid-summer, down on the Reef, and the young man was in a sort of gentle intoxication while breathing it. Then it was that he most longed for a companion, though little did he imagine how near he was to some of his species, at that very moment; and how soon that, the dearest wish of his heart, was to be met by an adventure altogether so unexpected to him, that we must commence a new chapter, in order to relate it.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
13 | None | "The merry homes of England! Around their hearths by night, What gladsome looks of household love Meet in the ruddy light! There woman's voice flows forth in song, Or childhood's tale is told, Or lips move tunefully along Some glorious page of old."
Mrs. Hemans.
The peak, or highest part of the island, was at its northern extremity, and within two miles of the grove in which Mark Woolston had eaten his dinner. Unlike most of the plain, it had no woods whatever, but rising somewhat abruptly to a considerable elevation, it was naked of everything but grass. On the peak itself, there was very little of the last even, and it was obvious that it must command a full view of the whole plain of the island, as well as of the surrounding sea, for a wide distance. Resuming his pack, our young adventurer, greatly refreshed by the delicious repast he had just made, left the pleasant grove in which he had first rested, to undertake this somewhat sharp acclivity. He was not long in effecting it, however, standing on the highest point of his new discovery within an hour after he had commenced its ascent.
Here, Mark found all his expectations realized touching the character of the view. The whole plain of the island, with the exceptions of the covers made by intervening woods, lay spread before him like a map. All its beauties, its shades, its fruits, and its verdant glades, were placed beneath his eye, as if purposely to delight him with their glories. A more enchanting rural scene the young man had never beheld, the island having so much the air of cultivation and art about it, that he expected, at each instant, to see bodies of men running across its surface. He carried the best glass of the Rancocus with him, in all his excursions, not knowing at what moment Providence might bring a vessel in sight, and he had it now slung from his shoulders. With this glass, therefore, was every part of the visible surface of the island swept, in anxious and almost alarmed search for the abodes of inhabitants. Nothing of this sort, however, could be discovered. The island was unquestionably without a human being, our young man alone excepted. Nor could he see any trace of beast, reptile, or of any animal but birds. Creatures gifted with wings had been able to reach that little paradise; but to all others, since it first arose from the sea, had it probably been unapproached, if not unapproachable, until that day. It appeared to be the very Elysium of Birds!
Mark next examined the peak itself. There was a vast deposit of very ancient guano on it, the washings of which for ages, had doubtless largely contributed to the great fertility of the plain below. A stream of more size than one would expect to find on so small an island, meandered through the plain, and could be traced to a very copious spring that burst from the earth at the base of the peak. Ample as this spring was, however, it could never of itself have supplied the water of the brook, or rivulet, which received the contributions of some fifty other springs, that reached it in rills, as it wound its way down the gently inclined plane of the island. At one point, about two leagues from the Peak, there was actually a little lake visible, and Mark could even trace its outlet, winding its way beyond it. He supposed that the surplus tumbled into the sea in a cascade.
It will readily be imagined that our young man turned his glass to the northward, in search of the group he had left that morning, with a most lively interest. It was easy enough to see it from the great elevation at which he was now placed. There it lay, stretched far and wide, extending nearly a degree of latitude, north and south, and another of longitude, east and west, most truly resembling a vast dark-looking map, spread upon the face of the waters for his special examination. It reminded Mark of the moon, with its ragged outlines of imaginary continents, as seen by the naked eye, while the island he was now on, bore a fancied resemblance to the same object viewed through a telescope; not that it had the look of molten silver which is observed in the earth's satellite, but that it appeared gloriously bright and brilliant. Mark could easily see many of the sheets of water that were to be found among the rocks, though his naked eye could distinguish neither crater nor ship. By the aid of the glass, however, the first was to be seen, though the distance was too great to leave the poor deserted Rancocus visible, even with the assistance of magnifying-glasses.
When he had taken a good look at his old possessions, Mark made a sweep of the horizon with the glass, in order to ascertain if any other land were visible, from the great elevation on which he now stood. While arranging the focus of the instrument, an object first met his eye that caused his heart almost to leap into his mouth. Land was looming up, in the western board, so distinctly as to admit of no cavil about its presence. It was an island, mountainous, and Mark supposed it must be fully a hundred miles distant. Still it was land, and strange land, and might prove to be the abode of human beings. The glass told him very little more than his eye, though he could discern a mountainous form through it, and saw that it was an island of no great size. Beyond this mountain, again, the young man fancied that he could detect the haze of more land; but, if he did, it was too low, too distant, and too indistinct, to be certain of it. It is not easy to give a clear idea of the tumult of feeling with which Mark Woolston beheld these unknown regions, though it might best be compared with the emotions of the astronomer who discovers a new planet. It would scarce exceed the truth to say that he regarded that dim, blue mountain, which arose in the midst of a watery waste, with as much of admiration, mysterious awe and gratification united, as Herschel may have been supposed to feel when he established the character of Uranus. It was fully an hour before our hermit could turn his eyes in any other direction.
And when our young mariner did look aside, it was more with the intention of relieving eyes that had grown dim with gazing, than of not returning to the same objects again, as soon as restored to their power. It was while walking to and fro on the peak, with this intent, that a new subject of interest caused him almost to leap into the air, and to shout aloud. He saw a sail! For the first time since Betts disappeared from his anxious looks, his eyes now surely rested on a vessel. What was more, it was quite near the island he was on, and seemed to be beating up to get under its lee. It appeared but a speck on the blue waves of the ocean, seen from that height, it is true; but Mark was too well practised in his craft to be mistaken. It was a vessel, under more or less canvas, how much he could not then tell, or even see--but it was most decidedly a vessel. Mark's limbs trembled so much that he was compelled to throw himself upon the earth to find the support he wanted. There he lay several minutes, mentally returning thanks to God for this unexpected favour; and when his strength revived, these signs of gratitude were renewed on his knees. Then he arose, almost in terror lest the vessel should have disappeared, or it should turn out that he was the subject of a cruel illusion.
There was no error. There was the little white speck, and he levelled the glass to get a better look at it. An exclamation now clearly broke from his lips, and for a minute or two the young man actually appeared to be out of his senses. "The pinnace," "the Neshamony," however, were words that escaped him, and, had there been a witness, might have given an insight into this extraordinary conduct. Mark had, in fact, ascertained that the sail beneath the peak was no other than the little craft that had been swept away, as already described, with Betts in it. Fourteen months had elapsed since that occurrence, and here it was again, seemingly endeavouring to return to the place where it had been launched! Mark adopted perhaps the best expedient in his power to attract attention to himself, and to let his presence be known. He fired both barrels of his fowling-piece, and repeated the discharges several times, or until a flag was shown on board the sloop, which was now just beneath the cliff, a certain sign that he had succeeded. A musket was also fired from the vessel.
Our young man rather flew than ran to the ravine, down which he went at a pace that several times placed his neck in jeopardy. It was a very different thing to descend from ascending such a mountain. In less than a quarter of an hour the half-distracted hermit was in his boat, nearly crazy with the apprehension that he might yet not meet with his friend; for, that it was Bob looking for the Reef and himself, he did not now entertain the least doubt. The most plausible course for him to adopt was precisely that which he followed. He pushed off in the Bridget, making sail on the boat, and getting out of the cove in the shortest time he could. On quitting his little haven, and coming out clear of all the rocks, another shout burst out of his very soul, when he saw the Neshamony, beyond all cavil, within a hundred fathoms of him, running along the shore in search of a place to land. That shout was returned, and Mark and Bob recognised each other at the next instant. As for the last, he just off tarpaulin, and gave three hearty cheers, while the former sank on a seat, literally unable to stand. The sheet of the sail got away from him, nor could he be said to know what he was about, until some little time after he was in the arms of his friend, and on board the pinnace.
It was half-an-hour before Mark was master of himself again. At length tears relieved him; nor was he ashamed to indulge in them, when he saw his old companion not only alive and well, but restored to him. He perceived another in the boat; but as he was of a dark skin, he naturally inferred this second person was a native of some neighbouring island where Bob had been, and who had consented to come with him in this, his search after the shipwrecked mariner. At length Bob began to converse.
"Well, Mr. Mark, the sight of you is the pleasantest prospect that has met my eyes this many a day," exclaimed the honest fellow. "It was with fear and trembling that I set out on the search, and little did I hope to fall in with you so early in the cruise."
"Thank you, thank you, Bob, and God be praised for this great mercy! You have been to some other island, I see, by your companion; but the miraculous part of all is, that you should find your way back to the Reef, since you are no navigator."
"The Reef! If this here mountain is the Reef, the country has greatly altered since I left it," answered Bob. Mark then briefly explained the great change that had actually occurred, and told his own story touching his boat and his late voyages of discovery. Betts listened with the greatest attention, casting occasional glances upward at the immense mass that had been so suddenly lifted out of the sea, as well as turning his head to regard the smoke of the more distant volcano.
"Well, this explains our 'arthquake," he answered, as soon as Mark was done. "I must have been as good as a hundred and fifty leagues from this very spot at the time you mention, and we had tremblings there that would scarce let a body stand on his feet. A ship came in two days arterwards, that must have been a hundred leagues further to the nor'ard when it happened, and her people reported that they thought heaven and 'arth was a coming together, out there in open water."
"It has been a mighty earthquake--must have been, to have wrought these vast changes; though I had supposed that Providence had confined a knowledge of its existence to myself. But, you spoke of a ship, Bob--surely we are not in the neighbourhood of vessels."
"Sartain--but, I may as well tell you my adventures at once, Mr. Mark; though I own I should like to land first, as it is a long story, and take a look at this island that you praise so much, and taste them reed-birds of which you give so good an account. I'm Jarsey-born and bred, and know what the little things be."
Mark was dying to hear Bob's story, more especially since he understood a ship was connected with it, but he could not refuse his friend's demand for sweet water and a dinner. The entrance of the cove was quite near and the boats entered that harbour and were secured; after which the three men commenced the ascent, Mark picking up by the way the spy-glass, fowling-piece, and other articles that he had dropped in the haste of his descent. While going up this sharp acclivity, but little was said; but, when they reached the summit, or the plain rather, exclamations of delight burst from the mouths of both of Mark's companions. To the young man's great surprise, those which came from Bob's dark-skinned associate were in English, as well as those which came from Bob himself. This induced him to take a good look at the man, when he discovered a face that he knew!
"How is this, Bob?" cried Mark, almost gasping for breath--"whom have you here? Is not this Socrates?"
"Ay, ay, sir; that's Soc; and Dido, his wife, is within a hundred miles of you."
This answer, simple as it was, nearly overcame our young man again. Socrates and Dido had been the slaves of Bridget, when he left home; a part of the estate she had received from her grandmother. They dwelt in the house with her, and uniformly called her mistress. Mark knew them both very well, as a matter of course; and Dido, with the archness of a favourite domestic, was often in the habit of calling him her 'young master.' A flood of expectations, conjectures and apprehensions came over our hero, and he refrained from putting any questions immediately, out of pure astonishment. He was almost afraid indeed to ask any.
Nearly unconscious of what he was about, he led the way to the grove where he had dined two or three hours before, and where the remainder of the reed-birds were suspended from the branch of a tree. The embers of the fire were ready, and in a few minutes Socrates handed Betts his dinner.
Bob ate and drank heartily. He loved a tin-pot of rum and-water, or grog, as it used to be called--though even the word is getting to be obsolete in these temperance times--and he liked good eating. It was not epicurism, however, or a love of the stomach, that induced him to defer his explanations on the present occasion. He saw that Mark must hear what he had to relate gradually, and was not sorry that the recognition of the negro had prepared him to expect something wonderful. Wonderful it was, indeed; and at last Betts, having finished his dinner, and given half-a-dozen preparatory hints, in order to lessen the intensity of his young friend's feelings, yielded to an appeal from the other's eyes, and commenced his narrative. Bob told his story, as a matter of course, with a great deal of circumlocution, and in his own language. There was a good deal of unnecessary prolixity in it, and some irrelative digressions touching currents, and the trades, and the weather; but, on the whole, it was given intelligibly, and with sufficient brevity for one who devoured every syllable he uttered. The reader, however, would most probably prefer to hear an abridgement of the tale in our own words.
When Robert Betts was driven off the Reef, by the hurricane of the preceding year, he had no choice but to let the Neshamony drive to leeward with him. As soon as he could, he got the pinnace before the wind, and, whenever he saw broken water ahead, he endeavoured to steer clear of it. This he sometimes succeeded in effecting; while at others he passed through it, or over it, at the mercy of the tempest. Fortunately the wind had piled up the element in such a way as to carry the craft clear of the rocks, and in three hours after the Neshamony was lifted out of her cradle, she was in the open ocean, to leeward of all the dangers. It blew too hard, however, to make sail on her, and Bob was obliged to scud until the gale broke. Then, indeed, he passed a week in endeavouring to beat back and rejoin his friend, but without success, 'losing all he made in the day, while asleep at night.' Such, at least, was Bob's account of his failure to find the Reef again; though Mark thought it probable that he was a little out in his reckoning, and did not look in exactly the right place for it.
At the end of this week high land was made to leeward, and Betts ran down for it, in the hope of finding inhabitants. In this last expectation, however, he did not succeed. It was a volcanic mountain, of a good many resources, and of a character not unlike that of Vulcan's Peak, but entirely unpeopled. He named it after his old ship, and passed several days on it. On describing its appearance, and its bearings from the place where they then were, Mark had no doubt it was the island that was visible from the peak near them, and at which he had been gazing that very afternoon, for fully an hour with longing eyes. On describing its form to Bob, the latter coincided in this opinion, which was in fact the true one.
From the highest point of Rancocus Island, land was to be seen to the northward and westward, and Bob now determined to make the best of his way in that direction, in the hope of falling in with some vessel after sandal-wood or bêche-le-mar. He fell in with a group of low islands, of a coral formation, about a hundred leagues from his volcanic mountain, and on them he found inhabitants. These. people were accustomed to see white men, and turned out to be exceedingly mild and just. It is probable that they connected the sudden appearance of a vessel like the Neshamony, having but one man in it, with some miraculous interposition of their gods, for they paid Bob the highest honours, and when he landed, solemnly tabooed his sloop. Bob was a long-headed fellow in the main, and was not slow to perceive the advantage of such a ceremony, and encouraged it. He also formed a great intimacy with the chief, exchanging names and rubbing noses with him. This chief was styled Betto, after the exchange, and Bob was called Ooroony by the natives. Ooroony stayed a month with Betto, when he undertook a voyage with him in a large canoe, to another group, that was distant two or three hundred miles, still further to the northward, and where Bob was told he should find a ship. This account proved to be true, the ship turning out to be a Spaniard, from South America, engaged in the pearl fishery, and on the eve of sailing for her port. From some misunderstanding with the Spanish captain, that Bob never comprehended and of course could not explain, and which he did not attempt to explain, Betto left the group in haste, and without taking leave of his new friend, though he sent him a message of apology, one-half of which was lost on Bob, in consequence of not understanding the language. The result was, however, to satisfy the latter that his friend was quite as sorry to abandon _him_, as he was glad to get away from the Spanish captain.
This desertion left Betts no choice between remaining on the pearl island, or of sailing in the brig, which went to sea next day. He decided to do the last. In due time he was landed at Panama, whence he made his way across the isthmus, actually reaching Philadelphia in less than five months after he was driven off the Reef. In all this he was much favoured by circumstances; though an old salt, like Bob, will usually make his way where a landsman would be brought up.
The owners of the Rancocus gave up their ship, as soon as Betts had told his story, manifesting no disposition to send good money after bad. They looked to the underwriters, and got Bob to make oath to the loss of the vessel; which said oath, by the way, was the ground-work of a law-suit that lasted Friend Abraham White as long as he lived. Bob next sought Bridget with his tale. The young wife received the poor fellow with floods of tears, and the most eager attention to his story, as indeed did our hero's sister Anne. It would seem that Betts's arrival was most opportune. In consequence of the non-arrival of the ship, which was then past due two or three months, Doctor Yardley had endeavoured to persuade his daughter that she was a widow, if indeed, as he had of late been somewhat disposed to maintain, she had ever been legally married at all. The truth was, that the medical war in Bristol had broken out afresh, in consequence of certain cases that had been transferred to that village, during one of the fever-seasons in Philadelphia. Greater cleanliness, and the free use of fresh water, appear to have now arrested the course of this formidable disease, in the northern cities of America; but, in that day, it was of very frequent occurrence. Theories prevailed among the doctors concerning it, which were bitterly antagonistical to each other; and Doctor Woolston headed one party in Bucks, while Doctor Yardley headed another. Which was right, or whether either was right, is more than we shall pretend to say, though we think it probable that both were wrong. Anne Woolston had been married to a young physician but a short time, when this new outbreak concerning yellow fever occurred. Her husband, whose name was Heaton, unfortunately took the side of this grave question that was opposed to his father-in-law, for a reason no better than that he believed in the truth of the opposing theory, and this occasioned another breach. Doctor Yardley could not, and did not wholly agree with Doctor Heaton, because the latter was Doctor Woolston's son-in-law, and he altered his theory a little to create a respectable point of disagreement; while Doctor. Woolston could not pardon a disaffection that took place, as it might be, in the height of a war. About this time too, Mrs. Yardley died.
All these occurrences, united to the protracted absence of Mark, made Bridget and Anne extremely unhappy. To increase this unhappiness, Doctor Yardley took it into his head to dispute the legality of a marriage that had been solemnized on board a ship. This was an entirely new legal crotchet, but the federal government was then young, and jurisdictions had not been determined as clearly as has since been the case. Had it been the fortune of Doctor Yardley to live in these later times, he would not have given himself the trouble to put violent constructions on anything; but, getting a few female friends to go before the necessary judge, with tears in their eye's, anything would be granted to their requests, very much as a matter of course. Failing of this, moreover, there is always the resource of the legislature, which will usually pass a law taking away a man's wife, or his children, and sometimes his estate, if a pretty pathetic appeal can be made to it, in the way of gossip. We have certainly made great progress in this country, within the last twenty years; but whether it has been in a direction towards the summit of human perfection, or one downward towards the destruction of all principles, the next generation will probably be better able to say than this. Even the government is getting to be gossipian.
In the case of Bridget, however, public sympathy was with her, as it always will be with a pretty woman. Nevertheless, her father had great influence in Bucks county, more especially with the federalists and the anti-depletionists, and it was in his power to give his daughter great uneasiness, if not absolutely to divorce her. So violent did he become, that he actually caused proceedings to be commenced in Bridget's name, to effect a legal separation, taking the grounds that the marriage had never been consummated, that the ceremony had occurred on board a ship, that the wife was of tender years, and lastly, that she was an heiress. Some persons thought the Doctor's proceedings were instigated by the circumstance that another relative had just died, and left Bridget five thousand dollars, which were to be paid to her the day she was eighteen, the period of a female's reaching her majority, according to popular notions. The possession of this money, which Bridget received and, placed in the hands of a friend in town, almost made her father frantic for the divorce, or a decree against the marriage, he contending there was no marriage, and that a divorce was unnecessary. The young wife had not abandoned the hope of seeing her husband return, all this time, although uneasiness concerning the fate of the ship, was extending from her owners into the families of those who had sailed in her. She wished to meet Mark with a sum of money that would enable him, at once, to commence life respectably, and place him above the necessity of following the seas.
Betts reached Bristol the very day that a decision was made, on a preliminary point, in the case of Yardley versus Woolson, that greatly encouraged the father in his hopes of final success, and as greatly terrified his daughter. It was, in fact, a mere question of practice, and had no real connection with the merits of the matter at issue; but it frightened Bridget and her friend Anna enormously. In point of fact, there was not the smallest danger of the marriage being declared void, should any one oppose the decision; but this was more than any one of the parties then knew, and Doctor Yardley seemed so much in earnest, that Bridget and Anne got into the most serious state of alarm on the subject. To increase their distress, a suitor for the hand of the former appeared in the person of a student of medicine, of very fair expectations and who supported every one of Doctor Yardley's theories, in all their niceties and distinctions; and what is more, would have supported them, had they been ten times as untenable as they actually were, in reason.
Had the situation of Doctor Heaton been more pleasant than it was, it is probable that the step taken by himself, his wife, and Bridget, would never have been thought of. But it was highly unpleasant. He was poor, and dependent altogether on his practice for a support. Now, it was in Doctor Woolston's power to be of great service to the young couple, by introducing the son-in-law to his own patients, but this he could not think of doing with a depletionist; and John, as Anne affectionately styled her husband, was left to starve on his system of depletion. Such was the state of things when Bob appeared in Bristol, to announce to the young wife not only the existence but the deserted and lone condition of her husband. The honest fellow knew there was something clandestine about the marriage, and he used proper precautions not to betray his presence to the wrong persons. By means of a little management he saw Bridget privately, and told his story. As Bob had been present at the wedding, and was known to stand high in Mark's favour, he was believed, quite as a matter of course, and questioned in a thousand ways, until the poor fellow had not really another syllable to communicate.
The sisters shed floods of tears at the thought of poor Mark's situation. For several days they did little besides weep and pray. Then Bridget suddenly dried her tears, and announced an intention to go in person to the rescue of her husband. Not only was she determined on this, but, as a means of giving a death-blow to all expectations of a separation and to the hopes of her new suitor, she was resolved to go in a way that should enable her to remain on the Reef with Mark, and, if necessary, to pass the remainder of her days there. Bob had given a very glowing description of the charms of the residence, as well as of the climate, the latter quite justly, and declared his readiness to accompany this faithful wife in the pursuit of her lost partner. The whole affair was communicated to Doctor and Mrs. Heaton, who not only came into the scheme, but enlisted in its execution in person. The idea pleased the former in particular, who had a love of adventure, and a desire to see other lands, while Anne was as ready to follow her husband to the ends of the earth, as Bridget was to go to the same place in quest of Mark. In a word, the whole project was deliberately framed, and ingeniously carried out.
Doctor Heaton had a brother, a resident of New York, and often visited him. Bridget was permitted to accompany Anne to that place, whither her money was transferred to her. A vessel was found that was about to sail for the North-west Coast, and passages were privately engaged. A great many useful necessaries were laid in, and, at the proper time, letters of leave-taking were sent to Bristol, and the whole party sailed. Previously to the embarkation, Bob appeared to accompany the adventurers. He was attended by Socrates, and Dido, and Juno, who had stolen away by order of their young mistress, as well as by a certain Friend Martha Waters, who had stood up in 'meeting' with Friend Robert Betts, and had become "bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh;" and her maiden sister, Joan Waters, who was to share their fortunes. In a word, Bob had brought an early attachment to the test of matrimony.
So well had the necessary combinations been made, that the ship sailed with our adventurers, nine in number, without meeting with the slightest obstacle. Once at sea, of course nothing but that caused by the elements was to be anticipated. Cape Horn was doubled in due time, are Doctor Heaton, with all under his care, was landed at Panama, just five months, to a day, after leaving New York. Here passages were taken in the same brig that Bob had returned in, which was again bound out, on a pearl-fishing voyage. Previously to quitting Panama, however, a recruit was engaged in the person of a young American shipwright, of the name of Bigelow, who had run from his ship a twelvemonth before, to marry a Spanish girl, and who had become heartily tired of his life in Panama. He and his wife and child joined the party, engaging to serve the Heatons, for a stipulated sum, for the term of two years.
The voyage from Panama to, the pearl islands was a long one, but far from unpleasant. Sixty days after leaving port the adventurers were safely landed, with all their effects. These included two cows, with a young bull, two yearling colts, several goats obtained in South America, and various implements of husbandry that it had not entered into the views of Friend Abraham White to send to even the people of Fejee. With the natives of the pearl island, Bob, already known to them and a favourite, had no difficulty in negotiating. He had brought them suitable and ample presents, and soon effected an arrangement, by which they agreed to transport him and all his stores, the animals included, to Betto's Islands, a distance of fully three hundred miles. The horses and cows were taken on a species of catamaran, or large raft, that is much used in those mild seas, and which sail reasonably well a little off the wind, and not very badly on. At Betto's Islands a new bargain was struck, and the whole party proceeded to Rancocus Island, Bob making his land-fall without any difficulty, from having observed the course steered in coming from it.
At Betto's group, however, Bob found the Neshamony, covered with mats, and tabooed, precisely as he had left her to a rope-yarn. Not a human hand had touched anything belonging to the boat, or a human foot approached it, during the whole time of his absence. Ooroony, or Betto, was rewarded for his fidelity by the present of a musket and some ammunition, articles that were really of the last importance to his dignity and power. They were as good as a standing army to him, actually deciding summarily a point of disputed authority, that had long been in controversy between himself and another chief, in his favour. The voyage between Betto's group and Rancocus Island was made in the Neshamony, so far as the human portion of the freight was concerned, The catamarans and canoes, however, came on with the other animals, and all the utensils and stores.
The appearance of Rancocus Island created quite as much astonishment among the native mariners, as had that of the horses, cows, &c. Until they saw it, not one of them had any notion of its existence, or of a mountain at all. They dwelt themselves on low coral islands, and quite beyond the volcanic formation, and a hill was a thing scarcely known to them. At this island Heaton and Betts deemed it prudent to dismiss their attendants, not wishing them to know anything of the Reef, as they were not sure what sort of neighbours they, might prove, on a longer acquaintance. The mountain, however, possessed so many advantages over the Reef, as the latter was when Bob left it, that the honest fellow frankly admitted its general superiority, and suggested the possibility of its becoming their permanent residence. In some respects it was not equal to the Reef, as a residence, however, the fishing in particular turning out to be infinitely inferior. But it had trees and fruits, being very much of the same character as Vulcan's Peak, in this respect. Nevertheless, there was no comparison between the two islands as places of residence, the last having infinitely the most advantages. It was larger, had more and better fruits, better water, and richer grasses. It had also a more even surface, and a more accessible plain. Rancocus Island was higher and more broken, and, while it might be a pleasanter place of residence than the Reef during the warm months, it never could be a place as pleasant as the plain of the Peak.
Bob found it necessary to leave his friends, and most of his stores, at Rancocus Island; Mrs. Heaton becoming a mother two days after their arrival at it, and the cows both increasing their families in the course of the same week. It was, moreover, impossible to transport everybody and everything in the Neshamony, at the same time. As Doctor Heaton would not leave Anne at such a moment, and Bridget was of the same way of thinking, it was thought best to improve the time by sending out Betts to explore. It will be remembered that he was uncertain where the Reef was to be found exactly, though convinced it was to windward, and within a hundred miles of him. While roaming over the rocks of Rancocus, however, Vulcan's Peak had been seen, as much to Bob's surprise as to his delight. To his surprise, inasmuch as he had no notion of the great physical change that had recently been wrought by the earthquake, yet could scarce believe he had overlooked such an object in his former examinations; and to his delight, because he was now satisfied that the Reef must be to the northward of that strange mountain, and a long distance from it, because no such peak had been visible from the former when he left it. It was a good place to steer for, nevertheless, on this new voyage, since it carried him a hundred miles to wind ward; and when Bob, with Socrates for a companion, left Rancocus to look for the Reef, he steered as near the course for the Peak as the wind would permit. He had made the island from the boat, after a run of ten hours; and, at the same time, he made the crater of the active volcano. For the latter, he stood that night, actually going within a mile of it, and, next morning, he altered his course, and beat up for the strange island. When Mark first discovered him, he had nearly made the circuit of Vulcan's Peak, in a vain endeavour to land, and he would actually have gone on his way, had it not been for the firing of the fowling-piece, the report of which he heard, and the smoke of which he saw.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
14 | None | "Compell the hawke to sit, that is unmanned, Or make the hound, untaught, to draw the deere, Or bring the free, against his will, in band, Or move the sad, a pleasant tale to heere, Your time is lost, and you no whit the neere! So love ne learnes, of force, the heart to knit: She serves but those, that feels sweet fancie's fit."
_Churchyard_, We leave the reader to imagine with what feelings Mark heard these facts. Bridget, for whom his tenderness was unabated; Bridget, who had been the subject of so many of his thoughts since his shipwreck, had shown herself worthy to be thus loved, and was now on an island that he might easily reach in a run of a few hours! The young man retired further within the grove, leaving Bob and Socrates behind, and endeavoured to regain his composure by himself. Before rejoining his companions, he knelt and returned thanks to God for this instance of his great kindness. It was a long time, notwithstanding before he could become accustomed to the idea of having associates, at all. Time and again, within the next month or two, did he _dream_ that all this fancied happiness was only a _dream_, and awoke under a sense of having been the subject of an agreeable illusion. It took months perfectly to restore the tone of his mind in this respect, and to bring it back into the placid current of habitual happiness. The deep sense of gratitude to God he never lost; but the recollection of what he had suffered, and from what he had been relieved by the Divine mercy, remained indelibly impressed on his heart, and influenced his future life to a degree that increased the favour a thousand-fold.
The mode of proceeding was next discussed, in the course of doing which Mark communicated to Bob, somewhat in detail, the circumstance of the recent convulsion, and the changes which it had produced. After talking the matter over, both agreed it would be every way desirable to bring the whole party, and as much of the property as could be easily moved, up to windward at once. Now, that the natives knew of the existence of Rancocus Island, their visits might be often expected, and nothing was more uncertain than their policy and friendship. Once on Rancocus Island the Peak could be seen, and from the Peak the Reef was visible. In this way, then, there was every reason to believe that the existence of their little colony would soon become known, and the property they possessed the object of cupidity and violence. Against such consequences it would be necessary to guard with the strictest care, and the first step should be to get everything of value up to windward, with the least possible delay. The natives often went a long distance, in their canoes and on their rafts, with the wind abeam, but it was not often they undertook to go directly to windward. Then the activity of the volcano might be counted on as something in favour of the colonists, since those uninstructed children of nature would be almost certain to set the phenomenon down to the credit of some god, or some demon, neither of whom would be likely to permit his special domains to be trespassed on with impunity.
While Mark and Bob were talking these matters over, Socrates had been shooting and cleaning a few dozen more of the reed-birds. This provision of the delicacy was made, because Betts affirmed no such delicious little creature was to be met with on Rancocus, though they were to be found on Vulcan's Peak literally in tens of thousands. This difference could be accounted for in no other way, than by supposing that some of the birds had originally found their way to the latter, favoured by accidental circumstances, driven by a hurricane, transported on sea-weed, or attending the drift of some plants, and that the same, or similar circumstances, had never contributed to carry them the additional hundred miles to leeward.
It was near sunset when the Neshamony left Snug Cove, as Mark had named his little haven, at the foot of the ravine, which, by the way, he called the Stairs, and put to sea, on her way to Rancocus Island. The bearings of the last had been accurately taken, and our mariners were just as able to run by night as by day. It may as well be said here, moreover, that the black was a capital boatman, and a good fresh-water sailor in general, a proficiency that he had acquired in consequence of having been born and brought up on the banks of the Delaware. But it would have been very possible to run from one of these islands to the other, by observing the direction of the wind alone, since it blew very steadily in the same quarter, and changes in the course were always to be noted by changes in the violence or freshness of the breeze. In that quarter of the ocean the trades blew with very little variation from the south-east, though in general the Pacific Trades are from the south-west.
Mark was delighted with the performances of the Neshamony. Bob gave a good account of her qualities, and said he should not hesitate to make sail in her for either of the continents, in a case of necessity. Accustomed, as he had been of late, to the little Bridget, the pinnace appeared a considerable craft to Mark, and he greatly exalted in this acquisition. No seaman could hesitate about passing from the Reef to the islands, at any time when it did not absolutely blow a gale, in a boat of this size and of such qualities; and, even in a gale, it might be possible to make pretty good weather of it. Away she now went, leaving the Bridget moored in Snug Cove, to await their return. Of course, Mark and Bob had much discourse, while running down before the wind that night, in which each communicated to the other many things that still remained to be said. Mark was never tired of asking questions about Bridget; her looks, her smiles, her tears, her hopes, her fears, her health, her spirits, and her resolution, being themes of which he never got weary. A watch was set, nevertheless, and each person in the pinnace had his turn of sleep, if sleep he could.
At the rising of the sun Mark was awake. Springing to his feet, he saw that Rancocus Island was plainly in view. In the course of the ten hours she had been out, the Neshamony had run about seventy miles, having a square-sail set, in addition to her jib and mainsail. This brought the mountain for which she was steering within ten leagues, and directly to leeward. A little impatience was betrayed by the young husband, but, on the whole, he behaved reasonably well. Mark had never neglected his person, notwithstanding his solitude. Daily baths, and the most scrupulous attention to his attire, so far as neatness went, had kept him not only in health, but in spirits, the frame of the mind depending most intimately on the condition of the body. Among other habits, he preserved that of shaving daily. The cutting of his hair gave him the most trouble, and he had half a mind to get Bob to act as barber on the present occasion. Then he remembered having seen Bridget once cut the hair of a child, and he could not but fancy how pleasant it would be to have her moving about him, in the performance of the same office on himself. He decided, consequently, to remain as he was, as regarded his looks, until his charming bride could act as his hair-dresser. The toilette, however, was not neglected, and, on the whole, there was no reason to complain of the young man's appearance. The ship furnished him clothes at will, and the climate rendered so few necessary, that even a much smaller stock than he possessed, would probably have supplied him for life.
When about a league from the northern end of Rancocus Island, Bob set a little flag at his mast-head, the signal, previously arranged, of his having been successful. Among the stores brought by the party from America, were three regular tents, or marquees, which Heaton purchased at a sale of old military stores, and had prudently brought with him, to be used as occasion might demand. These marquees were now pitched on a broad piece of low land, that lay between the cliffs and the beach, and where the colony had temporarily established itself. Mark's heart beat violently as Bob pointed out these little canvas dwellings to him. They were the abodes of his friends, including his young wife. Next the cows appeared, quietly grazing near by, with a pleasant home look, and the goats and colts were not far off, cropping the grass. Altogether our young man was profoundly overcome again, and it was some time ere he could regain his self-command. On a point that proved to be the landing-place, stood a solitary female figure. As the boat drew nearer she extended her arms, and then, as if unable to stand, she sunk on a rock which had served her for a seat ever since the distant sail was visible. In two more minutes Mark Woolston had his charming young bride encircled in his arms. The delicacy which kept the others aloof from this meeting, was imitated by Bob, who, merely causing the boat, to brush near the rock, so as to allow of Mark's jumping ashore, passed on to a distant landing, where he was met by most of his party, including 'Friend Martha,' who rejoiced not a little in the safe return of Friend Robert Betts. In half-an-hour Mark and Bridget came up to the marquees, when the former made the acquaintance of his brother-in-law, and had the happiness of embracing his sister. It was a morning of the purest joy, and deepest gratitude. On the one side, the solitary man found himself restored to the delights of social life, in the persons of those on earth whom he most loved and, on the other hand, the numberless apprehensions of those who looked for him, and his place of retirement, had all their anxiety rewarded by complete success. Little was done that day but to ask and answer questions. Mark had to recount all that had happened since Bob was taken from him, and not trifling was the trepidation created among his female listeners, when he related the history of the earthquake. Their fears, however, were somewhat appeased by his assurances of security; the circumstance that a volcano was in activity near by, being almost a pledge that no very extensive convulsions could follow.
The colonists remained a week at Rancocus Island, being actually too happy to give themselves the disturbance of a removal. At the end of that time, however, Anne was so far recovered that they began to talk of a voyage, Bridget, in particular, dying to see the place where Mark had passed so many solitary hours; and, as he had assured her more than once, where her image had scarcely ever been absent from his thoughts an hour at a time. As it would be impossible to embark all the effects at once, in the Neshamony, some method was to be observed in the removal. The transportation of the cows and horses was the most serious part of the undertaking, the pinnace not being constructed to receive such animals. Room, nevertheless, could be made for one at a time, and still leave sufficient space in the stern-sheets for the accommodation of five or six persons. It was very desirable to get the females away first, lest the rumour of the mountain, hitherto unknown, should spread among the islands, and bring them visitors who might prove to be troublesome, if not dangerous. Parties existed in Betto's group, as we believe they exist everywhere else; and Bob knew very well that nothing but the ascendancy of his friend, the chief, Ooroony, had been the means of his escaping as well as he did, in the land-fall among them that he had made. The smallest reverse of fortune might put Betto down, and some bitter foe up, and then there was the certainty that war canoes might come off in quest of the mountain, at any time, without asking the leave of the friendly chief, even while he remained in power. On the whole, therefore, it was determined to freight the pinnace with the most valuable of the effects, put all the females on board, and send her off under the care of Mark, Heaton, and Socrates, leaving Bob and Bigelow to look after the stock and the rest of the property. It was supposed the boat might be absent a week. This was done accordingly, Bob, on taking leave of Friend Martha, particularly recommending to her attention the Vulcan's Peak reed-birds, throwing in a hint that he should be glad to find a string of them in the pinnace, on her return.
The voyage to windward was a much more serious business than the run to leeward. By Bob's advice Mark reefed his mainsail, and took the bonnet off the jib. Following the same instructions, he stood away to the southward, letting the boat go through the water freely, intending to tack when he came near the volcano, and not before. This was what Bob himself had done, and that which had turned out so well with him, he fancied might succeed with his friend. The Neshamony left Rancocus Island just at sunset. Next morning Mark saw the smoke of the Volcano, and stood for it. After making two stretches he came up within a league of this spot, when he tacked and stood to the northward and eastward, Vulcan's Peak having been in plain view the entire day. As respects the volcano, it was in a comparatively quiet state, though rumbling sounds were heard, and stones were cast into the air in considerable quantities, while the boat was nearest in. One thing, moreover, Mark ascertained, which greatly increased his confidence in the permanency of the changes that had lately occurred in the physical formation of all that region. He found himself in comparatively shoal water, when fully a league from this new crater. Shoal in a seaman's sense, though not in shallow water; the soundings being from fifteen to twenty fathoms, with a rocky bottom.
Between the volcano and Vulcan's Peak it blew quite fresh, and Mark had a good occasion to ascertain the qualities of the pinnace. A long, heavy swell came rolling through the passage, which was near sixty miles in width, seemingly with a sweep that extended to the Southern Ocean. Notwithstanding all this, the little craft did wonders, struggling along in a way one would hardly have expected from so small a vessel. She made fully two knots' headway in the worst of it, and in general her rate of sailing, close on a wind and under pretty short canvas, was about three. The night was very dark, and there was nothing to steer by but the wind, which gave some little embarrassment; but finding himself in much smoothe water than he had been all the previous day, about midnight, our young man felt satisfied that he was under the lee of the island, and at no great distance from it. He made short tacks until daylight, when the huge mass hove up out of the departing darkness, within a mile of the boat. It only remained to run along the land for two or three miles, and to enter the haven of Snug Cove. Mark had been telling his companions what a secret place this haven was to conceal a vessel in, when he had a practical confirmation of the truth of his statement that caused him to be well laughed at. For ten minutes he could not discover the entrance himself, having neglected to take the proper land-marks, that he might have no difficulty in running for his port. After a time, however, he caught sight of an object that he remembered, and found his way into the cove. Here lay the little namesake of his pretty wife, just as he had left her, the true Bridget smiling and blushing as the young husband pointed out the poor substitute he had been compelled to receive for herself, only ten days earlier.
Mark, and Socrates, and Dido, and Teresa, Bigelow's wife, all carried up heavy loads; while Heaton had as much as he could do to help Anne and the child up the sharp acclivity. Bridget, with her light active step, and great eagerness to behold a scene that Mark had described with so much eloquence, was the first, by a quarter of an hour, on the plain. When the others reached the top, they saw the charming young thing running about in the nearest grove, that in which her husband had dined, collecting fruit, and apparently as enchanted as a child. Mark paused as he gained the height, to gaze on this sight, so agreeable in his eyes, and which rendered the place so very different from what it had been so recently, while he was in possession of its glorious beauties, a solitary man. Then, he had several times likened himself to Adam in the garden of Eden, before woman was given to him for a companion. Now, now he could feast his eyes on an Eve, who would have been highly attractive in any part of the world.
The articles brought up on the plain, at this first trip, comprised all that was necessary to prepare and to partake of a breakfast in comfort. A fire was soon blazing, the kettle on, and the bread-fruit baking. It was almost painful to destroy the reed-birds, or _becca fichi_ so numerous were they, and so confiding. One discharge from each barrel of the fowling-piece had enabled Heaton to bring in enough for the whole party, and these were soon roasting. Mark had brought with him from the Reef a basket of fresh eggs, and they had been Bridget's load, in ascending the mountain. He had promised her an American breakfast, and these eggs, boiled, did serve to remind everybody of a distant home, that was still remembered with melancholy pleasure. A heartier, or a happier meal, notwithstanding, was never made than was that breakfast. The mountain air, invigorating though bland, the exercise, the absence of care, the excellence of the food, which comprised fresh figs, a tree or two of tolerable sweetness having been found, the milk of the cocoa-nut, the birds, the eggs, the bread-fruit, &c., all contributed their share to render the meal memorable.
The men, and the three labouring women, were employed two days in getting the cargo of the Neshamony up on the plain; or to Eden, as Bridget named the spot, unconscious how often she herself had been likened to a lovely Eve, in the mind of her young husband. Two of the marquees had been brought, and were properly erected, having board floors, and everything comfortably arranged within and without them. A roof, however, was scarcely necessary in that delicious climate, where one could get into the shade of a grove; and a thatched shed was easily prepared for a dwelling for the others. By the end of the third day the whole party in Eden was comfortably established, and Mark took a short leave of his bride, to sail for Rancocus again, Bridget shed fears at this separation short as it was intended to be; and numberless were the injunctions to be wary of the natives, should the latter have visited Betts, in the time intervening between the departure of the Neshamony and her return.
The voyage between the two islands lost something of its gravity each time it was made. Mark learned a little every trip, of the courses to be steered, the peculiarities of the currents, and the height of the seas. He ran down to Rancocus, on this occasion, in three hours less time than he had done it before, sailing at dusk, and reaching port next day at noon. Nothing had occurred, and to work the men went at once, to load the pinnace. Room was left for one of the cows and its calf: and Bob being seriously impressed with the importance of improving every moment, the little sloop put to sea again, the evening of the very day on which it had arrived.
Bridget was standing on a rock, by the side of the limpid water of the cove, when the Neshamony shot through its entrance into the little haven, and her hand was in Mark's the instant he landed. Tears gushed into the eyes of the young man as he recalled his year of solitude, and felt how different was such a welcome from his many melancholy arrivals and departures, previously to the recent events.
It was rather a troublesome matter to get the cow and calf up the mountain. The first did not see enough that was attractive in naked rocks, to induce her to mount in the best of humours. She drank freely, however, at the brook, appearing to relish its waters particularly well. At length the plan was adopted of carrying the calf up a good distance, the cries of the little thing inducing its mother immediately to follow. In this way both were got up into Eden, in the course of an hour. And well did the poor cow vindicate the name, when she got a look at the broad glades of the sweetest grasses, that were stretched before her. So strongly was her imagination struck with the view--for we suppose that some cows have even more imagination than many men--that she actually kicked up her heels, and away she went, head down and tail erect, scampering athwart the sward like a colt. It was not long, however, before she began to graze, the voyage having been made on a somewhat short allowance of both food and water. If there ever was a happy animal, it was that cow! Her troubles were all over. Sea-sickness, dry food, short allowances of water, narrow lodgings, and hard beds, were all, doubtless, forgotten, as she roamed at pleasure over boundless fields, on which the grass was perennial, seeming never to be longer or shorter than was necessary to give a good bite; and among which numberless rills of the purest waters were sparkling like crystal. The great difficulty in possessing a dairy, in a warm climate, is the want of pasture, the droughts usually being so long in the summer months. At Vulcan's Peak, however, and indeed in all of that fine region, it rained occasionally, throughout the year; more in winter than in summer, and that was the sole distinction in the seasons, after allowing for a trifling change in the temperature. These peculiarities appear to have been owing to the direction of the prevalent winds, which not only brought frequent showers, but which preserved a reasonable degree of freshness in the atmosphere. _Within_ the crater, Mark had often found the beat oppressive, even in the shade; but, _without_, scarcely ever, provided his body was not directly exposed to the sun's rays. Nor was the difference in the temperature between the Reef and the Peak, as marked as might have been expected from the great elevation of the last. This was owing to the circumstance that the sea air, and that usually in swift motion, entered so intimately into the composition of the atmosphere down on that low range of rocks, imparting its customary freshness to everything it passed over.
Mark did not make the next trip to Rancocus. By this time Anne passed half the day in the open air, and was so fast regaining her strength that Heaton did not hesitate to leave her. The doctor had left many things behind him that he much wished to see embarked in person, and he volunteered to be the companion of Socrates, on this occasion, leaving the bridegroom behind, with his bride. By this time Heaton himself was a reasonably good sailor, and to him Mark confided the instructions as to the course to be steered, and the distance to be run. All resulted favourably, the Neshamony making the trip in very good time, bringing into the cove, the fourth day after she had sailed, not only the remaining cow, and her calf, but several of the goats. Convinced he might now depend on Heaton and Socrates to sail the pinnace, and Anne expressing a perfect willingness to remain on the Peak, in company with Teresa and Dido, Mark resolved to proceed to the crater with his two Bridgets, feeling the propriety of no longer neglecting the property in that quarter of his dominions. There was nothing to excite apprehension, and the women had all acquired a certain amount of resolution that more properly belonged to their situation than to their sex or nature. Anne's great object of concern was the baby. As long as that was safe, everything with her was going on well; and Dido being a renowned baby doctor, and all the simples for a child's ailings being in the possession of the young mother, she raised no objection whatever to her brother's quitting her.
Bridget had great impatience to make this voyage, for she longed to see the spot where her husband had passed so many days in solitude. Everything he had mentioned, in their many conferences on this subject, was already familiar to her in imagination; but, she wished to become more intimately acquainted with each and all. For Kitty she really entertained a decided fondness, and even the pigs, as Mark's companions, had a certain romantic value in her eyes.
The morning was taken for the departure, and just as the little craft got out from under the lee of the Peak, and began to feel the true breeze, the sun rose gloriously out of the eastern waves, lighting the whole of the blue waters with his brilliant rays. Never did Vulcan's Peak appear more grand or more soft--for grandeur or sublimity, blended with softness, make the principal charm of noble tropical scenery--than it did that morning; and Bridget looked up at the dark, overhanging cliffs, with a smile, as she said-- "We may love the Reef, dear Mark, for what it did for you in your distress, but I foresee that this Eden will eventually become our home."
"There are many things to render this mountain preferable to the Reef; though, now we are seriously thinking of a colony, it may be well to keep both. Even Rancocus would be of great value to us, as a pasture for goats, and a range for cattle. It may be long before the space will be wanted by human beings, for actual cultivation; but each of our present possessions is now, and long will continue to be, of great use to us as assistants. We shall live principally on the Peak, I think myself; but we must fish, get our salt, and obtain most of our vegetables from the Reef."
"Oh! that Reef, that Reef--how long will it be, Mark, before we see it?"
The enamoured young husband laughed, and kissed his charming wife, and told her to restrain her impatience. Several hours must elapse before they could even come in sight of the rocks. These hours did pass, and with the occurrence of no event worthy of being recorded. The Trades usually blew fresh in that quarter of the ocean, but it was seldom that they brought tempests. Occasionally squalls did occur, it is true; but a prudent and experienced mariner could ordinarily guard against their consequences, while the hurricane seldom failed, like most other great physical phenomena, to have its precursors, that were easily seen and understood. On the present occasion, the boat ran across the passage in very good time, making the crater in about five hours, and the ship's masts in six. Mark made a good land-fall coming in to leeward of the cape, or low promontory already mentioned--Cape South he called it--while there still remained several hours of day. Bridget was greatly struck with the vast difference she could not help finding between the appearance of these low, dark, and so often naked rocks, and that of the Eden she had just left. Tears came into her eyes, as she pictured her husband a solitary wanderer over these wastes, with no water, even, but that which fell from the clouds, or which came from the casks of the ship. When, however, she gave utterance to this feeling, one so natural to her situation, Mark told her to have patience until they reached the crater, when she would see that he had possessed a variety of blessings, for which he had every reason to be grateful to God.
There was no difficulty in getting into the proper channel, when the boat fairly flew along the rocks that lined the passages. So long as she was in rough water, the sails of so small a craft were necessarily becalmed a good deal of the time; but, now that there was nothing to intercept the breeze, she caught it all, and made the most of it. To Mark's surprise, as they passed the Prairie, he saw all of his swine on it, now, including two half-unconsumed litters of well-grown pigs, some seventeen in number. These animals had actually found their way along the rocks, a distance of at least twenty miles from home, and by the crooked path they had taken, probable one much greater. They all appeared full, and contented. So much of the water had already evaporated as to make it tolerable walking on the sea-weed; and Mark, stopping to examine the progress of things, prognosticated that another year, in that climate, would convert the whole of that wide plain into dry land. In many places, the hogs had already found their way down, through the sea-weed, into the mud; and there was one particular spot, quite near the channel, where the water was all gone, and where the pigs had rooted over so much of the surface, as to convert two or three acres into a sort of half-tilled field, in which the sea-weed was nearly turned under the mud. Nothing but drenching rains were wanting to render such a place highly productive, and it was certain those rains would come at the end of the season.
About the middle of the day, Mark ran the beat alongside of the Reef, at the usual landing, and welcomed Bridget to his and her home, with a kiss. Everything was in its place, and a glance sufficed to show that no human foot had been there, during the weeks of his absence. Kitty was browsing on the Summit, and no spaniel could have played more antics than she did, at the sight of her master. At first, Mark had thought of transferring this gentle and playful young goat to the Peak, and to place her in the little flock collected there; but he had been induced to change his mind, by recollecting how much she contributed to the beauty of the Summit, by keeping down the grass. He had therefore brought her a companion, which had no sooner been landed on the Reef, than it bounded off to make acquaintance with the stranger on the elevation.
Bridget was almost overcome when she got on board the ship. There was even a certain sublimity in the solitude that reigned over everything, that impressed her imagination, and she wondered that any human being could so long have dwelt there alone, uncheered by the hope of deliverance. In the cabin of that vessel she had plighted her faith to Mark, and a flood of recollections burst upon her as she entered it. Mark was obliged to allow her to seek relief in tears. But, half an hour brought her round again, and then she set about putting things in order, and making this very important abode submit to the influence of woman's love of comfort and order. By the time Mark came back from his garden, whither he had gone to ascertain its condition, Bridget had his supper ready for him, prepared with a neatness and method to which he had long been a stranger. That was a very delicious meal to both. The husband had lighted a fire in the galley, where the wife had cooked the meal, which consisted principally of some pan-fish, taken in the narrow channels between the rocks, and which had been cleaned by Mark himself, as they sailed along. It was, indeed, a great point of solicitude with this young husband to prevent his charming wife from performing duties for which she was unfitted by education, while the wife herself was only too solicitous to make herself useful. In one sense, Bridget was a very knowing person about a household. She knew how to prepare many savoury compounds, and had the whole culinary art at her fingers' ends, in the way of giving directions. It was no wonder, then, that Mark found everything she touched, or prepared, good, as everything she said sounded pleasant and reasonable. The last is a highly important ingredient in matrimonial life, but the first has its merit. And Bridget Woolston was both pleasant and reasonable. Though a little romantic, and inclined to hazard all for feeling, and what she conceived to be duty, at the bottom of all ran a vein of excellent sense, which had been reasonably attended to. Her temper was sweetness itself, and that is one of the greatest requisites in married happiness. To this great quality must be added affection, for she was devoted to Mark, and nothing he wished would she hesitate about striving to obtain, even at painful sacrifices to herself. One as generous-minded and manly as her husband, could not fail to discover and appreciate such a disposition, which entered very largely into the composition of their future happiness.
Our young couple did not visit the crater and the Summit until the sun had lost most of its power. Then Mark introduced his wife into his garden, and to his lawn. Exclamations of delight escaped the last, at nearly every step; for, in addition to the accidental peculiarities of such a place, the vegetation had advanced, as vegetation only can advance within the tropics, favoured by frequent rains and a rich soil. The radishes were half as large as Bridget's wrists, and as tender as her heart. The lettuce was already heading; the beans were fit to pull; the onions large enough to boil, and the peas even too old. On the Summit Mark cut a couple of melons, which were of a flavour surpassing any he had ever before tasted. With that spot Bridget was especially delighted. It was, just then, as green as grass could be, and Kitty had found its plants so very sweet, that she had scarce descended once to trespass on the garden. Here and there the imprint of her little hoof was to be traced on a bed, it is true, but she appeared to have gone there more to look after the condition of the garden than to gratify her appetite.
While on the Summit, Mark pointed out to his wife the fowls, now increased to something like fifty. Two or three broods of chickens had come within the last month, making their living on the reef that was separated from that of the crater by means of the bridge of planks. As two or three flew across the narrow pass, however, he was aware that the state of his garden must be owing to the fact that they still found a plenty on those rocks for their support. In returning to the ship, he visited a half-barrel prepared for that purpose, and, as he expected, found a nest containing a dozen eggs. These he took the liberty of appropriating to his own use, telling Bridget that they could eat some of them for their breakfast.
But food never had been an interest to give our solitary man much uneasiness. From the hour when he found muck, and sea-weed, and guano, he felt assured of the means of subsistence; being in truth, though he may not have known it himself, more in danger of falling behind hand, in consequence of the indisposition to activity that almost ever accompanies the abundance of a warm climate, than from the absolute want of the means of advancing. That night Mark and Bridget knelt, side by side, and returned thanks to God for all his mercies. How sweet the former found it to see the light form of his beautiful companion moving about the spacious cabin, giving it an air of home and happiness, no one can fully appreciate who has not been cut off from these accustomed joys, and then been suddenly restored to them.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
15 | None | "I beg, good Heaven, with just desires, What need, not luxury, requires; Give me, with sparing hands, but moderate wealth, A little honour, and enough of health; Free from the busy city life, Near shady groves and purling streams confined, A faithful friend, a pleasing wife; And give me all in one, give a contented mind."
Anonymous.
Mark and Bridget remained at the Reef a week, entirely alone. To them the time seemed but a single day; and so completely were they engrossed with each other, and their present happiness, that they almost dreaded the hour of return. Everything was visited, however, even to the abandoned anchor, and Mark made a trip to the eastward, carrying his wife out into the open water, in that direction. But the ship and the crater gave Bridget the greatest happiness. Of these she never tired, though the first gave her the most pleasure. A ship was associated with all her earliest impressions of Mark; on board that very ship she had been married; and now it formed her home, temporarily, if not permanently. Bridget had been living so long beneath a tent, and in savage huts, that the accommodations of the Rancocus appeared like those of a palace. They were not inelegant even, though it was not usual, in that period of the republic, to fit up vessels with a magnificence little short of royal yachts, as is done at present. In the way of convenience, however, our ship could boast of a great deal. Her cabins were on deck, or under a poop, and consequently enjoyed every advantage of light and air. Beneath were store-rooms, still well supplied with many articles of luxury, though time was beginning to make its usual inroads on their qualities. The bread was not quite as sound as it was once, nor did the teas retain all their strength and flavour. But the sugar was just as sweet as the day it was shipped, and in the coffee there was no apparent change. Of the butter, we do not choose to say anything. Bridget, in the prettiest manner imaginable, declared that as soon as she could set Dido at work the store-rooms should be closely examined, and thoroughly cleaned. Then the galley made such a convenient and airy kitchen! Mark had removed the house, the awning answering every purpose, and his wife declared that it was a pleasure to cook a meal for him, in so pleasant a place.
The first dish Bridget ever literally cooked for Mark, with her own hands, or indeed for any one else, was a mess of 'grass,' as it was the custom of even the most polished people of America then to call asparagus. They had gone together to the asparagus bed on Loam Island, and had found the plant absolutely luxuriating in its favourite soil. The want of butter was the greatest defect in this mess, for, to say the truth, Bridget refused the ship's butter on this occasion, but luckily, enough oil remained to furnish a tolerable substitute. Mark declared he had never tasted anything in his life half so good!
At the end of the week, the governor, as Heaton had styled Mark, and as Bridget had begun playfully to term him, gave the opinion that it was necessary for them to tear themselves away from their paradise. Never before, most certainly, had the Reef appeared to the young husband a spot as delightful as he now found it, and it did seem to him very possible for one to pass a whole life on it without murmuring. His wife again and again assured him she had never before been half as happy, and that, much as she loved Anne and the baby, she could remain a month longer, without being in the least wearied. But it was prudent to return to the Peak, for Mark had never felt his former security against foreign invasion, since he was acquainted with the proximity of peopled islands.
The passage was prosperous, and it gave the scene an air of civilization and life, to fall in with the Neshamony off the cove. She was coming in from Rancocus, on her last trip for the stores, having brought everything away but two of the goats. These had been driven up into the mountains, and there left. Bigelow had come away, and the whole party of colonists were now assembled at Vulcan's Peak. But Betts had a communication to make that gave the governor a good deal of concern. He reported that after they had got the pinnace loaded, and were only waiting for the proper time of day to quit Rancocus, they discovered a fleet of canoes and catamarans, approaching the island from the direction of the Group, as they familiarly termed the cluster of islands that was known to be nearest to them, to the northward and westward. By means of a glass, Betts had ascertained that a certain Waally was on board the leading canoe, and he regarded this as an evil omen. Waally was Ooroony's most formidable rival and most bitter foe; and the circumstance that he was leading such a flotilla, of itself, Bob thought, was an indication that he had prevailed over honest Betto, in some recent encounter, and was now abroad, bent on further mischief. Indeed, it seemed scarcely possible that men like the natives should hear of the existence of such a mountain as that of Rancocus Island, in their vicinity, and not wish to explore, if not to possess it.
Betts had pushed off, and made sail, as soon as assured of this fact. He knew the pinnace could outsail anything the islanders possessed, more especially on a wind, and he manoeuvred about the flotilla for an hour, making his observations, before he left it. This was clearly a war party, and Bob thought there were white men in it. At least, he saw two individuals who appeared to him to be white sailors, attired in a semi-savage way, and who were in the same canoe with the terrible Waally. It was nothing out of the way for seamen to get adrift on the islands scattered about in the Pacific, there being scarcely a group in which more or less of them are not to be found. The presence of these men, too, Bob regarded as another evil omen, and he felt the necessity of throwing all the dust he could into their eyes. When the pinnace left the flotilla, therefore, instead of passing out to windward of the island, as was her true course, she steered in an almost contrary direction, keeping off well to leeward of the land, in order not to get becalmed under the heights, for Bob well knew the canoes, with paddles, would soon overhaul him, should he lose the wind.
It was the practice of our colonists to quit Rancocus just before the sun set, and to stand all night on a south-east course. This invariably brought them in sight of the smoke of the volcano by morning, and shortly after they made the Peak. All of the day that succeeded, was commonly passed in beating up to the volcano, or as near to it as it was thought prudent to go; and tacking to the northward and eastward, about sunset of the second day, it was found on the following morning, that the Neshamony was drawing near to the cliffs of Vulcan's Peak, if she were not already beneath them. As a matter of course, then, Bob had not far to go, before night shut in, and left him at liberty to steer in whatever direction he pleased. Fortunately, that night had no moon, though there was not much danger of so small a craft as the Neshamony being seen at any great distance on the water, even by moonlight. Bob consequently determined to beat up off the north end of the island, or Low Cape, as it was named by the colonists, from the circumstance of its having a mile or two of low land around it, before the mountains commenced. Once off the cape again, and reasonably well in, he might possibly make discoveries that would be of use.
It took two or three hours to regain the lost ground, by beating to windward. By eleven o'clock, however, the Neshamony was not only off the cape, but quite close in with the landing. The climate rendering fires altogether unnecessary at that season, and indeed at nearly all seasons, except for cooking, Bob could not trace the encampment of the savages, by that means. Still, he obtained all the information he desired. This was not done, however, without great risk, and by a most daring step on his part. He lowered the sails of the boat and went alongside of the rock, where the pinnace usually came to, the canoes, &c., having made another, and a less eligible harbour. Bob then landed in person, and stole along the shore in the direction of the sleeping savages. Unknown to himself, he was watched, and was just crouching under some bushes, in order to get a little nearer, when he felt a hand on his shoulder. There was a moment when blood was in danger of being shed, but Betts's hand was stayed by hearing, in good English, the words-- "Where are you bound, shipmate?"
This question was asked in a guarded, under-tone, a circumstance that reassured Bob, quite as much as the language. He at once perceived that the two men whom he had, rightly enough, taken for seamen, were in these bushes, where it would seem they had long been on the watch, observing the movements of the pinnace. They told Bob to have no apprehensions, as all the savages were asleep, at some little distance, and accompanied him back to the Neshamony. Here, to the surprise and joy of all parties, Bigelow recognised both the sailors, who had not only been his former shipmates, but were actually his townsmen in America, the whole three having been born within a mile of each other. The history of these three wanderers from home was very much alike. They had come to the Pacific in a whaler, with a drunken captain, and had, in succession, left the ship. Bigelow found his way to Panama, where he was caught by the dark eyes of Theresa, as has been related. Peters had fallen in with Jones, in the course of his wanderings, and they had been for the last two years among the pearl islands, undecided what to do with themselves, when Waally ordered both to accompany him in the present expedition. They had gathered enough in hints given by different chiefs, to understand that a party of Christians was to be massacred, or enslaved, and plundered of course. They had heard of the 'canoe' that had been tabooed for twelve moons, but were at a loss to comprehend one-half of the story, and were left to the most anxious conjectures. They were not permitted to pass on to the islands under the control of Ooroony, but were jealously detained in Waally's part of the group, and consequently had not been in a situation to learn all the particulars of the singular party of colonists who had gone to the southward. Thus much did Peters relate, in substance, when a call among the savages notified the whole of the whites of the necessity of coming to some conclusion concerning the future. Jones and Peters acknowledged it would not be safe to remain any longer, though the last gave his opinion with an obvious reluctance. As it afterwards appeared, Peters had married an Indian wife, to whom he was much attached, and he did not like the idea of abandoning her. There was but a moment for reflection, however, and almost without knowing it himself, when he found the pinnace about to make sail in order to get off the land, he followed Jones into her, and was half a mile from the shore before he had time to reflect much on her he had left behind him. His companion consoled him by telling him that an opportunity might occur of sending a message to Petrina, as they had named the pretty young savage, who would not fail to find her way to Rancocus, sooner or later.
With these important accessions to his forces, Bob did not hesitate about putting to sea, leaving Waally to make what discoveries he might. Should the natives ascend to the higher parts of the mountain, they could hardly fail to see both the smoke of the volcano and the Peak, though it would luckily not be in their power to see the Reef, or any part of that low group of rocks. It was very possible they might attempt to cross the passage between the two mountains, though the circumstance that Vulcan's Peak lay so directly to windward of Rancocus offered a very serious obstacle to their succeeding. Had the two sailors remained with them, _they_, indeed, might have taught the Indians to overcome the winds and waves; but these very men were of opinion, from what they had seen of the natives and of their enterprises, that it rather exceeded their skill and perseverance, to work their canoes a hundred miles dead to windward, and against the sea that was usually on in that quarter of the Pacific.
The colonists, generally, gave the two recruits a very welcome reception. Bridget smiled when Mark suggested that Jones, who was a well-looking lad enough, would make a very proper husband for Joan, and that he doubted not his being called on, in his character of magistrate, to unite them in the course of the next six months. The designs of the savages, however, caused the party to think of anything but weddings, just at that moment, and a council was held to devise a plan for their future government. As Mark was considered the head of the colony, and had every way the most experience, his opinion swayed those of his companions, and all his recommendations were adopted. There were on board the ship eight carronades, then quite a new gun, and mounted on trucks. They were of the bore of twelve-pounders, but light and manageable, There was also abundance of ammunition in the vessel's magazine, no ship coming to the Fejees to trade without a proper regard to the armament. Mark proposed going over to the Reef with the Neshamony, the very next day, in order to transport two of the guns, with a proper supply of powder and shot, to the Peak. Now there was one place on the path, or Stairs, where it would be easy to defend the last against an army, the rocks, which were absolutely perpendicular on each side of it, coming so close together, as to render it practicable to close the passage by a narrow gate. This gate Mark did not purpose to erect now, for he thought it unnecessary. All he intended was to plant the two guns at this pass; one on a piece of level rock directly over it, and a little on one side, which would command the entrance of the cove, and the cove itself, as well as the whole of the path beneath, and the other on another natural platform, a short distance above, where it could not only command the pass, but, by using the last as a sort of embrasure, by firing through it, could not only sweep the ravine for some distance down, but could also rake the entrance of the cove, and quite half of the little basin itself.
Bob greatly approved of this arrangement, though all the seamen were too much accustomed to obey their officers to raise the smallest objections to anything that Mark proposed. Betts was the only person who had made the circuit of the Peak; but he, and Mark, and Heaton, who had been a good deal round the cliffs, on the side of the water, all agreed in saying they did not believe it possible for a human being to reach the plain, unless the ascent was made by the Stairs. This, of course, rendered the fortifying of the last a matter of so much the greater importance, since it converted the whole island into a second Gibraltar. It was true, the Reef would remain exposed to depredations; though Mark was of opinion that, by leaving a portion of their force in the ship, with two or three of the guns at command, it would not be difficult to beat off five hundred natives. As for the crater, it might very easily be made impregnable.
At this meeting Heaton proposed the establishment of some sort of government and authority, which they should all solemnly swear to support. The idea was favourably received, and Mark was unanimously chosen governor for life, the law being the rule of right, with such special enactments as might, from time to time, issue from a council of three, who were also elected for life. This council consisted of the governor, Heaton, and Setts. Human society has little difficulty in establishing itself on just principles, when the wants are few and interests simple. It is the bias given by these last that perverts it from the true direction. In our island community, most of its citizens were accustomed to think that education and practice gave a man certain claims to control, and, as yet, demagogueism had no place with them. A few necessary rules, that were connected with their particular situation, were enacted by the council and promulgated, when the meeting adjourned. Happily they were as yet far, very far from that favourite sophism of the day, which would teach the inexperienced to fancy it an advantage to a legislator to commence his career as low as possible on the scale of ignorance, in order that he might be what it is the fashion, to term "a self-made man."
Mark now took the command, and issued his orders with a show of authority. His attention was first turned to rendering the Peak impregnable. There were a plenty of muskets and fowling-pieces already there, Heaton having come well provided with arms and ammunition. As respects the last, Peters and Jones were set to work to clear out a sort of cavern in the rock, that was not only of a convenient size, but which was conveniently placed for such a purpose, at no great distance from the head of the Stairs, to receive the powder, &c. The cavity was perfectly dry, an indispensable requisite, and it was equally well protected against the admission of water.
The next thing was to collect a large pile of dry wood on the naked height of the Peak. This was to be lighted, at night, in the event of the canoes appearing while he was absent, Mark being of opinion that he could see such a beacon-fire from the Reef, whither he was about to proceed. Having made these arrangements, the governor set sail with Betts, Bigelow, and Socrates for his companions; leaving Heaton, with Peters and Jones, to take care of most of the females. We say of most, since Dido and Juno went along, in order to cook, and to wash all the clothes of the whole colony, a part of which were sent in the pinnace, but most of which were on hoard the ship. This was a portion of his duty, when a solitary man, to which Mark was exceedingly averse, and having shirts almost _ad libitum_, Bridget had found nearly a hundred ready for the 'buck-basket.' There was no danger, therefore, that the 'wash' would be too small.
Betts was deeply impressed with the change that he found in the rocks. There, where he had left, water over which he had often floated his raft, appeared dry land. Nor was he much less struck with the appearance of the crater. It was now a hill of a bright, lively verdure, Kitty and her new friend keeping it quite as closely cropped as was desirable. The interior, too, struck him forcibly; for there, in addition to the garden, now flourishing, though a little in want of the hoe, was a meadow of acres in extent, in which the grass was fit to cut. Mark had observed this circumstance when last at the crater, and Socrates had brought his scythe and forks, to cut and cure the hay.
The morning after the arrival, everybody went to work. The women set up their tubs, under an awning spread for that purpose, near the spring, and were soon up to their elbows in suds. The scythe was set in motion, and the pinnace was taken round to the ship. Three active seamen soon hoisted out the carronades, and stowed them in the little sloop. The ammunition followed, and half-a-dozen barrels of the beef and pork were, put in the Neshamony also. Mark scarcely ever touched this food now, the fish, eggs, chickens, and pigs, keeping his larder sufficiently well supplied. But some of the men pined for _ship's_ provisions, beef and pork that had now been packed more than two years, and the governor thought it might be well enough to indulge them. The empty barrels would be convenient on the Peak, and the salt would be acceptable, after being dried and pulverized.
The day was passed in loading the Neshamony, and in looking after various interests on the Reef. The hogs had all come in, and were fed. Mark shot one, and had it dressed, putting most of its meat into the pinnace. He also sent Bob out to his old place of resort, near Loam Island, whence he brought back near a hundred hog-fish. These were divided, also, some being given to Dido's mess, and the rest put in the pinnace, after taking out enough for a good supper. About ten at night the Neshamony sailed, Mark carrying her out into the open water, when he placed Bob at the helm. Bigelow had remained in the ship, to overhaul the lumber, of which there were still large piles both betwixt decks and in the lower hold, as did the whole of the Socrates family, who were yet occupied with the hay harvest and the 'wash.' Before he lay down to catch his nap, Mark took a good look to the southward, in quest of the beacon, but it was not burning, a sign the savages had not appeared in the course of the day. With this assurance he fell asleep, and slept until informed by Bob that the pinnace was running in beneath the cliffs. Betts called him, because the honest fellow was absolutely at a loss to know where to find the entrance of the cove. So closely did the rocks lap, that this mouth of the harbour was most effectually concealed from all but those who happened to get quite close in with the cliffs, and in a particular position. Mark, himself, had caught a glimpse of this narrow entrance accidentally, on his first voyage, else might he have been obliged to abandon the hope of getting on the heights; for subsequent examination showed that there was but that one spot, on the whole circuit of Vulcan's Peak, where man could ascend to the plain, without having recourse to engineering and the labour of months, if not of years.
Bob had brought along one of the two swivels of the ship, as an armament for the Neshamony, and he fired it under the cliffs, as a signal of her return. This brought down all the men, who, with their united strength, dragged the carronades up the Stairs, and placed them in position. With a view to scale the guns, the governor now had each loaded, with a round shot and a case of canister. The gun just above the pass, he pointed himself, at the entrance of the cove, and touched it off. The whole of the missiles went into the passage, making the water fairly foam again. The other gun was depressed so as to sweep the Stairs and, on examination, it was found that its shot had raked the path most effectually for a distance exceeding a hundred yards. Small magazines were made in the rocks, near each guy, when the most important part of the arangements for defence were considered to be satisfactorily made for the present. The remainder of the cargo was discharged, and got up the mountain, though it took three days to effect the last. The provisions were opened below and overhauled, quite one-half of the pork being consigned to the soap-fat, though the beef proved to be still sound and sweet. Such as was thought fit to be consumed was carried up in baskets, and re-packed on the mountain, the labour of rolling up the barrels satisfying everybody, after one experiment. This difficulty set Mark to work with his wits, and he found a shelf that overhung the landing, at a height of fully a hundred yards above it, where there was a natural platform of rock, that would suffice for the parade of a regiment of men. Here he determined to rig a derrick, for there was an easy ascent and descent to this 'platform,' as the place was called, and down which a cart might go without any difficulty, if a cart was to be had. The 'platform' might also be used for musketeers, in an action, and on examining it, Mark determined to bring over one of the two long sixes, and mount it there, with a view to command the offing. From that height a shot could be thrown in any direction, for more than a mile, outside of the harbour.
Heaton had seen no signs of the canoes, nor could Mark, at any time during the next four clays after his return, though he was each day on the Peak itself, to examine the ocean. On the fifth day, therefore, he and Bob crossed over to the Reef again, taking Bridget along this time. The latter delighted in the ship, the cabins of which were so much more agreeable and comfortable than the tents, and which had so long been her husband's solitary abode.
On reaching the Reef, the governor was greatly surprised to find that Bigelow had the frame of a boat even larger than the pinnace set up, one that measured fourteen tons, though modelled to carry, rather than to sail. In overhauling the 'stuff' in the ship, he had found not only all the materials for this craft, but those necessary for a boat a little larger than the Bridget, which, it seems, had been sent for the ordinary service of the ship, should anything occur to occasion the loss of the two she commonly used, in addition to the dingui. These were treasures, indeed, vessels of this size being of the utmost use to the colonists. For the next month, several hands were kept at work on these two boats, when both were got into the water, rigged, and turned over for duty. The largest boat of the little fleet, which had no deck at all, not even forward, and which was not only lighter-built but lighter-rigged, having one large sprit-sail that brailed, was called the Mary, in honour of Heaton's mother; while the jolly-boat carried joy to the hearts of the house of Socrates, by being named the Dido. As she was painted black as a crow, this appellation was not altogether inappropriate, Soc declaring, "dat 'e boat did a good deal favour his ole woman."
While these things were in progress, the Neshamony was not idle. She made six voyages between the Reef and the Peak in that month, carrying to the last, fish, fresh pork, various necessaries from the ship, as well as eggs and salt. Some of the fowls were caught and transferred to the Peak, as well as half-a-dozen of the porkers. The return cargo consisted of reed-birds, in large quantities, several other varieties of birds, bread-fruits, bananas, yams, cocoa-nuts, and a fruit that Heaton discovered, which was of a most delicious flavour, resembling strawberries and cream, and which was afterwards ascertained to be the charra-moya, the fruit that, of all others, when good, is thought to surpass everything else of that nature. Bridget also picked a basket of famously large wild strawberries on the Summit, and sent them to Anne. In return. Anne sent her sister, not only cream and milk, by each passage, but a little fresh butter. The calves had been weaned, and the two cows were now giving their largest quantity of milk, furnishing almost as much butter as was wanted.
At the crater, Socrates put everything in order. He mowed the grass, and made a neat stack of it, in the centre of the meadow. He cleaned the garden thoroughly, and made some arrangements for enlarging it, though the yield, now, was quite as great as all the colonists could consume; for, no sooner was one vegetable dug, or cut, than another was put in its place. On the Peak, Peters, who was half a farmer, dug over an acre or two of rich loam, and made a fence of brush, with a view of having a garden in Eden. Really, it almost seemed superfluous; though those who had been accustomed to salads, and beans, and beets, and onions, and cucumbers, and all the other common vegetables of a civilized kitchen, soon began to weary of the more luscious fruits of the tropics. With the wild figs, however, Heaton, who was a capital horticulturist, fancied he could do something. He picked out three or four thriving young trees of that class, which bore fruit a little better flavoured than most around them, and cut away all their neighbours, letting in the sun and air freely. He also trimmed their branches, and dug around the roots, which he refreshed with guano; the use of which had been imparted by Mark to his fellow-colonists, though Bigelow knew all about it from-having lived in Peru, and Bob had early let the governor himself into the secret.
The governor and his lady, as the community now began to term Mr. and Mrs. Mark Woolston, were on the point of embarking in the Neshamony, to visit Vulcan's Peak, after a residence on the Reef of more than a month, when the orders for sailing were countermanded, in consequence of certain signs in the atmosphere, which indicated something like another hurricane. The tempest came, and in good earnest, but without any of the disastrous consequences which had attended that of the previous year. It blew fearfully, and the water was driven into all the sounds, creeks, channels and bays of the group, bringing many of the islands, isthmuses, peninsulas, and plains of rock, what the seamen call 'awash,' though no material portion was actually overflowed. At the Reef itself, the water rose a fathom, but it did not reach the surface of the island by several feet, and all passed off without any other consequences than giving the new colonists a taste of the climate.
Mark, on this occasion, for the first time, noted a change that was gradually taking place on the surface of the Reef, without the crater. Most of its cavities were collecting deposits, that were derived from various sources. Sea-weed, offals, refuse stuff of all kinds, the remains of the deluge of fish that occurred the past year, and all the indescribable atoms that ever contribute to form soil in the neighbourhood of man. There were many spots on the Reef, of acres in extent, that formed shallow basins, in which the surface might be two or three inches lower than the surrounding rocks, and, in these spots in particular, the accumulations of an incipient earthy matter were plainly visible. As these cavities collected and retained the moisture, usually from rain to rain, Mark had some of Friend Abraham White's grass-seed sown over them, in order to aid nature in working out her own benevolent designs. In less than a month, patches of green began to appear on the dusky rocks, and there was good reason to hope that a few years would convert the whole Reef into a smiling, verdant plain. It was true, the soil could not soon obtain any useful depth, except in limited spots; but, in that climate, where warmth and moisture united to push vegetation to the utmost, it was an easy thing to obtain a bottom for grasses of almost all kinds.
Nor did Mark's provident care limit itself to this one instance of forethought. Socrates was sent in the dinghy to the prairie, over which the hogs had now been rooting for fully two months, mixing together mud and sea-weed, somewhat loosely it is true, but very extensively; and there he scattered Timothy-seed in tolerable profusion. Socrates was a long-headed, as well as a long-footed fellow, and he brought back from this expedition a report that was of material importance to the future husbandry of the colonists. According to his statement, this large deposit of mud and sea-weed lay on a peninsula, that might be barricaded against the inroads of hogs, cattle, &c., by a fence of some two or three rods in length. This was a very favourable circumstance, where wood was to be imported for many years to come, if not for ever; though the black had brought the seeds of certain timbers, from the Peak, and put them into the ground in a hundred places on the Reef, where the depth of deposit, and other circumstances, seemed favourable to their growth. As for the Prairie, could it be made to grow grasses, it would be a treasure to the colony, inasmuch as its extent reached fully to a thousand acres. The examination of Socrates was flattering in other respects. The mud was already dry, and the deposit of salt did riot seem to be very great; little water having been left there after the eruption, or lifting of the earth's crust. The rains had done much, and certain coarse, natural grasses, were beginning to show themselves in various parts of the field. As the hogs would not be likely to root over the same spot twice, it was not proposed to exclude them, but they were permitted to range over the field at pleasure, in the hope that they would add to its fertility by mixing the materials for soil. In such a climate, every change of a vegetable character was extremely rapid, and now that no one thought of abandoning the settlement, it was very desirable to obtain the different benefits of civilization as soon as possible.
All the blacks remained at the Reef, where Mark himself passed a good deal of his time. In their next visit to the Peak, they found things flourishing, and the garden looking particularly well. The Vulcanists had their melons in any quantity, as well as most vegetables without limits. It was determined to divide the cows, leaving one on the Peak, and sending the other to the crater, where there was now sufficient grass to keep two or three such animals. With a view to this arrangement, Bob had been directed to fence in the garden and stack, by means of ropes and stanchions let into the ground. When the Anne returned to the Reef, therefore, from her first voyage to the Peak, a cow was sent over in her. This change was made solely for the convenience of the milk, all the rest of the large stock being retained on the plain, where there was sufficient grass to sustain thousands of hoofs.
But the return cargo of the Anne, on this her first voyage, was composed mainly of ship-timber. Heaton had found a variety of the teak in the forests that skirted the plain, and Bigelow had got out of the trees the frame of a schooner that was intended to measure about eighty tons. A craft of that size would be of the greatest service to them, as it would enable the colonists to visit any part of the Pacific they pleased, and obtain such supplies as they might find necessary. Nor was this all; by mounting on her two of the carronades, she would effectually give them the command of their own seas, so far as the natives were concerned at least. Mark had some books on the draughting of vessels, and Bigelow had once before laid down a brig of more than a hundred tons in dimensions. Then the stores, rigging, copper, &c., of the ship, could never be turned to better account than in the construction of another vessel, and it was believed she could furnish materials enough for two or three such craft. Out of compliment to his old owner, Mark named this schooner in embryo, the 'Friend Abraham White,' though she was commonly known afterwards as the 'Abraham.'
The cutting of the frame of the intended schooner was a thing easy enough, with expert American axemen, and with that glorious implement of civilization, the American axe. But it was not quite so easy to get the timber down to the cove. The keel, in particular, gave a good deal of trouble. Heaton had brought along with him both cart and wagon wheels, and without that it is questionable if the stick could have been moved by any force then at the command of the colony. By suspending it in chains beneath the axles, however, it was found possible to draw it, though several of the women had to lend their aid in moving the mass. When at the head of the Stairs, the timber was lowered on the rock, and was slid downwards, with occasional lifts by the crowbar and handspike. When it reached the water it was found to be much too heavy to float, and it was by no means an easy matter to buoy it up in such a way that it might be towed. The Anne was three times as long making her passage with this keel in tow, as she was without it. It was done, however, and the laying of the keel was effected with some little ceremony, in the presence of nearly every soul belonging to the colony.
The getting out and raising of the frame of the 'Friend Abraham White' took six weeks. Great importance was attached to success in this matter, and everybody assisted in the work with right good will. At one time it was doubted if stuff enough could be found in the ship to plank her up with, and it was thought it might become necessary to break up the Rancocus, in order to complete the job. To Bridgets great joy, however, the good _old_ Rancocus--so they called her, though she was even then only eight years old--the good old Rancocus' time had not yet come, and she was able to live in her cabin for some months longer. Enough planks were found by using those of the 'twixt decks, a part of which were not bolted down at all to accomplish all that was wanted.
Heaton was a man of singular tastes, which led him to as remarkable acquirements. Among other accomplishments, he was a very good general mechanician, having an idea of the manner in which most of the ordinary machinery ought to be, not only used, but fabricated. At the point where the rivulet descended the cliff into the sea, he discovered as noble a mill-seat as the heart of man could desire to possess. To have such a mill-seat at command, and not to use it, would, of itself, have made him unhappy, and he could not be easy until he and Peters, who had also a great taste and some skill in that sort of thing, were hard at work building a saw-mill. The saw had been brought from America, as a thing very likely to be wanted, and three months after these, two ingenious men had commenced their work, the saw was going, cutting teak, as well as a species of excellent yellow pine that was found in considerable quantities, and of very respectable size, along the cliffs in the immediate vicinity of the mill. The great difficulty to be overcome in that undertaking, was the transportation of the timber. By cutting the trees most favourably situated first, logs were got into the pond without much labour; but after they were in planks, or boards, or joists, they were quite seven miles horn the head of the Stairs, in the vicinity of which it was, on several accounts, the most desirable to dwell. Had the Abraham been kept on the stocks, until the necessary timber was brought from the mill, across the plain of Eden, she would have been well seasoned before launching; but, fortunately, that was not necessary--materials sufficient for her were got on board the ship, as mentioned, with some small additions of inch boards that were cut to finish her joiners' work.
Months passed, as a matter of course, while the schooner and the mill were in the course of construction. The work on the first was frequently intermitted, by little voyages in the other craft, and by labour necessary to be done in preparing dwellings on the Peak, to meet the rainy season, which was now again near at hand. Past experience had told Mark that the winter months in his islands, if winter a season could be termed, during which most of the trees, all the grasses, and many of the fruits continued to grow and ripen as in summer, were not very formidable. It is true it then rained nearly every day, but it was very far from raining all day. Most of the rain, in fact, fell at night, commencing a little after the turn in the day, and terminating about midnight. Still it must be very unpleasant to pass such a season beneath canvass, and, about six weeks ere the wet time commenced, everybody turned to, with a will, to erect, proper framed houses. Now that the mill was sawing, this was no great task, the pine working beautifully and easily into almost every article required.
Heaton laid out his house with some attention to taste, and more to comfort. It was of one story, but fully a hundred feet in length, and of half that in depth. Being a common American dwelling that was clap-boarded, it was soon put up and enclosed, the climate requiring very little attention to warmth. There were windows, and even glass, a small quantity of that article having been brought along by the colonists. The floors were beautiful, and extremely well laid down; nor were the doors, window-shutters, &c., neglected. The whole, moreover, was painted, the stores of the ship still furnishing the necessary materials. But there was neither chimney nor plastering, for Heaton had neither bricks nor lime. Bricks he insisted he could and would make, and did, though in no great number; but lime, for some time, baffled his ingenuity. At last, Socrates suggested the burning of oyster-shells, and by dint of fishing a good deal, among the channels of the reef, a noble oyster-bed was found, and the boats brought in enough of the shells to furnish as much lime as would put up a chimney for the kitchen; one apartment for that sort of work being made, as yet, to suffice for the wants of all who dwelt in Eden.
These various occupations and interests consumed many months, and carried the new-comers through the first wet season which they encountered as a colony. As everybody was busy, plenty reigned, and the climate being so very delicious as to produce a sense of enjoyment in the very fact of existence, everybody but Peters was happy. He, poor fellow, mourned much for his Peggy, as he called the pretty young heathen wife he had left behind him in Waally's country.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
16 | None | "Forthwith a guard at every gun Was placed along the wall; The beacon blazed upon the roof Of Edgecombe's lofty hall; And many a fishing bark put out, To pry along the coast; And with loose rein, and bloody spur Rode inland many a post."
_The Spanish Armada. _ Macauley.
The building of the houses, and of the schooner, was occupation for everybody, for a long time. The first were completed in season to escape the rains; but the last was on the stocks fully six months after her keel had been laid. The fine weather had returned, even, and she was not yet launched. So long a period had intervened since Waally's visit to Rancocus Island without bringing any results, that the council began to hope the Indians had given up their enterprises, from the consciousness of not having the means to carry them out; and almost every one ceased to apprehend danger from that quarter. In a word, so smoothly did the current of life flow, on the Reef and at Vulcan's Peak, that there was probably more danger of their inhabitants falling into the common and fatal error of men in prosperity, than of anything else; or, of their beginning to fancy that they deserved all the blessings that were conferred on them, and forgetting the hand that bestowed them. As if to recall them to a better sense of things, events now occurred which it is our business to relate, and which aroused the whole colony from the sort of pleasing trance into which they had fallen, by the united influence of security, abundance, and a most seductive climate.
As time rolled on, in the first place, the number of the colony had begun to augment by natural means. Friend Martha had presented Friend Robert with a little Robert; and Bridget made Mark the happy parent of a very charming girl. This last event occurred about the commencement of the summer, and just a twelvemonth after the happy reunion of the young couple. According to Mark's prophecy, Jones had succeeded with Joan, and they were married even before the expiration of the six months mentioned. On the subject of a marriage ceremony there was no difficulty, Robert and Martha holding a Friends' meeting especially to quiet the scruples of the bride, though she was assured the form could do no good, since the bridegroom did not belong to meeting. The governor read the church service on the occasion, too, which did no harm, if it did no good. About this time, poor Peters, envying the happiness of all around him, and still pining for his Petrina, or Peggy, as he called her himself, begged of the governor the use of the Dido, in order that he might make a voyage to Wally's group in quest of his lost companion. Mark knew how to feel for one in the poor fellow's situation, and he could not think of letting him go alone on an expedition of so much peril. After deliberating on the matter, he determined to visit Rancocus Island himself--not having been in that direction, now, for months--and to go in the Neshamony, in order to take a couple of hogs over; it having long been decided to commence breeding that valuable animal, in the wild state, on the hills of that uninhabited land.
The intelligence that a voyage was to be made to Rancocus Island seemed to infuse new life into the men of the colony, every one of whom wished to be of the party. The governor had no objection to indulging as many as it might be prudent to permit to go; but he saw the necessity of putting some restraint on the movement. After canvassing the matter in the council, it was determined that, in addition to Mark and Peters, who went of course, the party should consist of Bob, Bigelow, and Socrates. The carpenter was taken to look for trees that might serve to make the ways of the schooner, which was yet to be launched; and the latter was thought necessary in his capacity of a cook. As for Betts, he went along as the governor's counsellor and companion.
Bridget's little girl was born in the cabin of the ship; and the week preceding that set for the voyage, she and the child were taken across to the Peak, that the former might spend the period of her husband's absence with Anne, in the Garden of Eden. These absences and occasional visits gave a zest to lives that might otherwise have become too monotonous, and were rather encouraged than avoided. It was, perhaps, a little strange that Bridget rather preferred the Reef than the Peak for a permanent residence; but there was her much-beloved ship, and there she ever had her still more beloved husband for a companion.
On the appointed day, the Neshamony set sail, having on board a family of three of the swine. The plan for the excursion included a trip to the volcano, which had not yet been actually visited by any of the colonists. Mark had been within a league of it, and Bob had passed quite near to it in his voyage to the Peak; but no one had ever positively landed, or made any of those close examinations of the place, which, besides being of interest in a general way, was doubly so to those who were such near neighbours to a place of the kind. This visit Mark now decided to make on his way to leeward, taking the volcano in his course to Rancocus Island. The _détour_ would lead the Neshamony some fifteen or eighteen leagues on one side; but there was abundance of time, and the volcano ought to be no longer neglected.
The wind did not blow as fresh as in common, and the Neshamony did not draw near to the volcano until late in the afternoon of the day she sailed. The party approached this place with due caution, and not without a good deal of awe. As the lead was used, it was found that the water shoaled gradually for several leagues, becoming less and less, deep as the boat drew near to the cone, which was itself a circular and very regular mountain, of some six or eight hundred feet in height, with a foundation of dry rock and lava, that might have contained a thousand acres. Everything seemed solid and permanent; and our mariners were of opinion there was very little danger of this formation ever disappearing below the surface of the sea again.
The volcano being in activity, some care was necessary in landing. Mark took the Neshamony to windward, and found a curvature in the rocks where it was possible to get ashore without having the boat knocked to pieces. He and Bob then went as near the cone as the falling stones would allow, and took as good a survey of the place as could be done under the circumstances. That there would be soil, and plenty of it, sooner or later, was plain enough; and that the island might become a scene of fertility and loveliness, in the course of ages, like so many others of volcanic origin in that quarter of the world, was probable. But that day was distant; and Mark was soon satisfied that the great use of the spot was its being a vent to what would otherwise be the pent and dangerous forces that were in the course of a constant accumulation beneath.
The party had been about an hour on the island, and was about to quit it, when a most startling discovery was made. Bob saw a canoe drawn close in among the rocks to leeward, and, on a further examination, a man was seen near it. At first, this was taken as an indication of hostilities, but, on getting a second look, our mariners were satisfied that nothing of that sort was to be seriously apprehended. It was determined to go nearer to the stranger, at once, and learn the whole truth.
A cry from Peters, followed by his immediately springing forward to meet a second person, who had left the canoe, and who was bounding like a young antelope to meet him, rendered everything clear sooner even than had been anticipated. All supposed that this eager visitor was a woman, and no one doubted that it was Peggy, the poor fellow's Indian wife. Peggy it proved to be; and after the weeping, and laughing, and caressing of the meeting were a little abated, the following explanation was made by Peters, who spoke the language of his wife with a good deal of facility, and who acted as interpreter.
According to the accounts now given by Peggy, the warfare between Ooroony and Waally had been kept up with renewed vigour, subsequently to the escape of Jones and her own husband. Fortune had proved fickle, as so often happens, and Waally got to be in the ascendant. His enemy was reduced to great straits, and had been compelled to confine himself to one of the smallest islands of the group, where he was barely able to maintain his party, by means of the most vigilant watchfulness. This left Waally at liberty to pursue his intention of following the party of whites, which was known to have gone to the southward, with so much valuable property, as well as to extend his conquests, by taking possession of the mountain visited by him the year previously. A grand expedition was accordingly planned, and a hundred canoes had actually sailed from the group, with more than a thousand warriors on board, bent on achieving a great exploit. In this expedition, Unus, the brother of Peggy, had been compelled to join, being a warrior of some note, and the sister had come along, in common with some fifty other women; the rank of Unus and Peggy not being sufficient to attract attention to their proceedings. Waally had postponed this, which he intended for the great enterprise of a very turbulent life, to the most favourable season of the year. There was a period of a few weeks every summer, when the trades blew much less violently than was usually the case, and when, indeed, it was no unusual thing to have shifts of wind, as well as light breezes. All this the Indians perfectly well understood, for they were bold navigators, when the sizes and qualities of their vessels were considered. As it appeared, the voyage from the group to Rancocus Island, a distance of fully a hundred leagues, was effected without any accident, and the while of that formidable force was safely landed at the very spot where Betts had encamped on his arrival out with the colonists. Nearly a month had been passed in exploring the mountain, the first considerable eminence most of the Indians had ever beheld; and in making their preparations for further proceedings. During that time, hundreds had seen Vulcan's Peak, as well as the smoke of the volcano, though the reef, with all its islands, lay too low to be discerned from such a distance. The Peak was now the great object to be attained, for there it was universally believed that Betto (meaning Betts) and his companions had concealed themselves and their much-coveted treasures. Rancocus Island was well enough, and Waally made all his plans for colonizing it at once, but the other, and distant mountain, no doubt was the most desirable territory to possess, or white men would not have brought their women so far in order to occupy it.
As a matter of course, Unus and Peggy learned the nature of the intended proceedings. The last might have been content to wait for the slower movements of the expedition, had she not ascertained that threats of severely punishing the two deserters, one of whom was her own husband, had been heard to fall from the lips of the dread Waally himself. No sooner, therefore, did this faithful Indian girl become mistress of the intended plan, than she gave her brother no peace until he consented to put off into the ocean with her, in a canoe she had brought from home, and which was her own property. Had not Unus been disaffected to his new chief, this might not so easily have been done, but the young Indian was deadly hostile to Waally, and was a secret friend of Ooroony: a state of feeling which disposed him to desert the former, at the first good opportunity.
The two adventurers put off from Rancocus Island just at dark, and paddled in the direction that they believed would carry them to the Peak. It will be remembered that the last could not be seen from the ocean, until about half the passage between the islands was made, though it was plainly apparent from the heights of Rancocus, as already mentioned. Next morning, when day returned, the smoke of the volcano was in sight, but no Peak. There is little question that the canoe had been set too much to the southward, and was diagonally receding from its desired point of debarkation, instead of approaching it. Towards the smoke, Unus and his sister continued to paddle, and, after thirty-six hours of nearly unremitted labour, they succeeded in landing at the volcano, ignorant of its nature, awe-struck and trembling, but compelled to seek a refuge there, as the land-bird rests its tired wing on the ship's spars, when driven from the coast by the unexpected gale. When discovered, Peggy and her brother were about to take a fresh start from their resting-place, the Peak being visible from the volcano.
Mark questioned these two friends concerning the contemplated movement of Waally, with great minuteness, Unus was intelligent for a savage, and appeared to understand himself perfectly. He was of opinion that his countrymen would endeavour to cross, the first calm day, or the first day when the breeze should be light; and that was just the time when our colonists did not desire to meet the savages out at sea. He described the party as formidable by numbers and resolution, though possessing few arms besides those of savages. There were half a dozen old muskets in the canoes, with a small supply of ammunition; but, since the desertion of Jones and Peters, no one remained who knew how to turn these weapons to much account. Nevertheless, the natives were so numerous, possessed so many weapons that were formidable in their own modes of fighting, and were so bent on success, that Unus did not hesitate to give it as his opinion, the colonists would act wisely in standing off for some other island, if they knew where another lay, even at the cost of abandoning most of their effects.
But, our governor had no idea of following any such advice. He was fully aware of the strength of his position on the Peak, and felt no disposition to abandon it. His great apprehension was for the Reef, where his territories were much more assailable. It was not easy to see how the crater, and ship, and the schooner on the stocks, and all the other property that, in the shape of hogs, poultry, &c., was scattered far and wide in that group, could be protected against a hundred canoes, by any force at his command. Even with the addition of Unus, who took service at once, with all his heart, among his new friends, Mark could muster but eight men; viz., himself, Heaton, Betts, Bigelow, Socrates, Peters, Jones and Unus. To these might possibly be added two or three of the women, who might be serviceable in carrying ammunition, and as sentinels, while the remainder would be required to look after the children, to care for the stock, &c. All these facts passed through Mark's mind, as Peters translated the communication of Unus, sentence by sentence.
It was indispensable to come to some speedy decision. Peters was now happy and contented with his nice little Peggy, and there was no longer any necessity for pursuing the voyage on his account. As for the project of placing the hogs on Rancocus, this was certainly not the time to do it, even if it were now to be done at all; we say 'now,' since the visits of the savages would make any species of property on that island, from this time henceforth, very insecure. It was therefore determined to abandon the voyage, and to shape their course back to the Peak, with as little delay as possible. As there were indications of shell-fish, sea-weed, &c., being thrown ashore at the Volcano, two of the hogs were put ashore there to seek their fortunes. According to the new plan, the Neshamony made sail on her return passage, about an hour before the sun set. As was usual in that strait, the trades blew pretty fresh, and the boat, although it had the canoe of Unus in tow, came under the frowning cliffs some time before the day reappeared. By the time the sun rose, the Neshamony was off the cove, into which she hastened with the least possible delay. It was the governor's apprehension that his sails might be seen from the canoes of Waally, long before the canoes could be seen from his boat, and he was glad to get within the cover of his little haven. Once there, the different crafts were quite concealed from the view of persons outside, and it now remained to be proved whether their cover was not so complete as effectually to baffle a hostile attempt to find it.
The quick and unexpected return of the Neshamony produced a great deal of surprise on the Plain. She had not been seen to enter the cove, and the first intimation any one in the settlement had of such an occurrence, was the appearance of Mark before the door of the dwelling. Bigelow was immediately sent to the Peak with a glass, to look out for canoes, while Heaton was called in from the woods by means of a conch. In twenty minutes the council was regularly in session, while the men began to collect and to look to their arms. Peters and Jones were ordered to go down to the magazine, procure cartridges, and then proceed to the batteries and load the carronades. In a word, orders were given to make all the arrangements necessary for the occasion.
It was not long ere a report came down from Bigelow. It was brought by his Spanish wife, who had accompanied her husband to the Peak, and who came running in, half breathless, to say that the ocean was covered with canoes and catamarans; a fleet of which was paddling directly for the island, being already within three leagues of it. Although this intelligence was expected, it certainly caused long faces and a deep gloom to pervade that little community. Mark's fears were always for the Reef, where there happened to be no one just at that moment but the black women, who-were altogether insufficient to defend it, under the most favourable circumstances, but who were now without a head. There was the hope, however, of the Indians not seeing those low islands, which they certainly could not do as long as they remained in their canoes. On the other hand, there was the danger that some one might cross from the Reef in one of the boats, a thing that was done as often as once a week, in which case a chase might ensue, and the canoes be led directly towards the spot that it was so desirable to conceal. Juno could sail a boat as well as any man among them, and, as is usually the case, that which she knew she could do so well, she was fond of doing; and she had not now been across for nearly a week. The cow kept at the crater gave a large mess of milk, and the butter produced by her means was delicious when eaten fresh, but did not keep quite as well in so warm a climate as it might have done in one that was colder, and Dido was ever anxious to send it to Miss Bridget, as she still called her mistress, by every available opportunity. The boat used by the negresses on such occasions, was the Dido, a perfectly safe craft in moderate weather, but she was just the dullest sailer of all those owned by the colony. This created the additional danger of a capture, in the event of a chase. Taking all things into consideration therefore, Mark adjourned the council to the Peak, a feverish desire to look out upon the sea causing him to be too uneasy where he was, to remain there in consultation with any comfort to himself. To the Peak, then, everybody repaired, with the exception of Bigelow, Peters, and Jones, who were now regularly stationed at the carronades to watch the entrance of the cove. In saying everybody, we include not only all the women, but even their children.
So long as the colonists remained on the plain, there was not the smallest danger of anyone of them being seen from the surrounding ocean. This the woods, and their great elevation, prevented. Nor was there much danger of the party in the batteries being seen, though so much lower, and necessarily on the side of the cliff, since a strict order had been given to keep out of sight, among the trees, where they could see everything that was going on, without being seen themselves. But on the naked Peak it was different. High as it was, a man might be seen from the ocean, if moving about, and the observer was tolerably near by. Bob had seen Mark, when his attention was drawn to the spot by the report of the latter's fowling-piece; and the governor had often seen Bridget, on the look-out for him, as he left the island, though her fluttering dress probably made her a more conspicuous object than most persons would have been. From all this, then, the importance of directing the movements of the party that followed him became apparent to Mark, who took his measures accordingly.
By the time the governor reached the Peak, having ascended it on its eastern side, so as to keep his person concealed, the hostile fleet was plainly to be seen with the naked eye. It came on in a tolerably accurate line, or lines, abreast; being three deep, one distant from the other about a cable's length. It steered directly for the centre of the island, whereas the cove was much nearer to its northern than to its southern end; and the course showed that the canoes were coming on at random, having nothing in view but the island.
But Mark's eyes were turned with the greatest interest to the northward, or in the direction of the Reef. As they came up the ascent, Bridget had communicated to him the fact that she expected Juno over that day, and that it was understood she would come quite alone. Bridget was much opposed to the girl's taking this risk; but Juno had now done it so often successfully, that nothing short of a positive command to the contrary would be likely to stop her. This command, most unfortunately, as Mark now felt, had not been given; and great was his concern when Betts declared that he saw awhile speck to the northward, which looked like a sail. The glass was soon levelled in that direction, and no doubt any longer remained on the subject. It was the Dido, steering across from the Reef, distant then about ten miles; and she might be expected to arrive in about two hours! In other words, judging by the progress of the canoes, there might be a difference of merely half an hour or so between the time of the arrival of the boat and that of the canoes.
This was a very serious matter; and never before had the council a question before it which gave its members so much concern, or which so urgently called for action, as this of the course that was now to be taken to avert a danger so imminent. Not only was Juno's safety involved; but the discovery of the cove and the reef, one or both, was very likely to be involved in the issue, and the existence of the whole colony placed in extreme jeopardy. As the canoes were still more than a league from the island, Bob thought there was time to go out with the Bridget, and meet the Dido, when both boats could ply to windward until it was dark; after which, they might go into the reef, or come into the cove, as circumstances permitted. The governor was about to acquiesce in this suggestion, little as he liked it, when a new proposition was made, that at first seemed so strange that no one believed it could be put in execution, but to which all assented in the end.
Among the party on the Peak were Unus and Peggy. The latter understood a good deal of English, and that which she did not comprehend, in the course of the discussions on this interesting occasion, Bob, who had picked up something of the language of her group, explained to her, as well as he could. After a time, the girl ran down to the battery and brought up her husband, through whom the proposal was made that, at first, excited so much wonder. Peggy had told Unus what was going on, and had pointed out to him the boat of Juno, now sensibly drawing nearer to the island, and Unus volunteered to _swim_ out and meet the girl, so as to give her timely warning, as well as instructions how to proceed!
Although Mark, and Heaton, and Bridget, and all present indeed, were fully aware that the natives of the South Seas could, and often did pass hours in the water, this proposal struck them all, at first, as so wild, that no one believed it could be accepted. Reflection, however did its usual office, and wrought a change in these opinions. Peters assured the governor that he had often known Unus to swim from island to island in the group, and that on the score of danger to him, there was not the least necessity of feeling any uneasiness. He did not question the Indian's power to swim the entire distance to the Reef, should it be necessary.
Another difficulty arose, however, when the first was overcome. Unus could speak no English, and how was he to communicate with Juno, even after he had entered her boat? The girl, moreover, was both resolute and strong, as her present expedition sufficiently proved, and would be very apt to knock a nearly naked savage on the head, when she saw him attempting to enter her boat. From this last opinion, however, Bridget dissented. Juno was kind-hearted, and would be more disposed, she thought, to pick up a man found in the water at sea, than to injure him. But Juno could read writing. Bridget herself had taught her slaves to read and write, and Juno in particular was a sort of 'expert,' in her way. She wrote and read half the nigger-letters of Bristol, previously to quitting America. She would now write a short note, which would put the girl on her guard, and give her confidence in Unus. Juno knew the whole history of Peters and Peggy, having taken great interest in the fate of the latter. To own the truth, the girl had manifested a very creditable degree of principle on the subject, for Jones had tried to persuade his friend to take Juno, a nice, tidy, light-coloured black, to wife, and to forget Peggy, when Juno repelled the attempt with spirit and principle. It is due to Peters, moreover, to add that he was always true to his island bride. But the occurrence had made Juno acquainted with the whole history of Peggy; and Bridget, in the few lines she now wrote to the girl, took care to tell her that the Indian was the brother of Peggy. In that capacity, he would be almost certain of a friendly reception. The rest of the note was merely an outline of their situation, with, an injunction to let Unis direct the movements.
No sooner was this important note written, than Unus hastened down to the cove. He was accompanied by Mark, Peters and Peggy; the former to give his instructions, and the two latter to act as interpreters. Nor was the sister without feeling for the brother on the occasion. She certainly did not regard his enterprise as it would have been looked upon by a civilized woman, but she manifested a proper degree of interest in its success. Her parting words to her brother, were advice to keep well to windward, in order that, as he got near the boat, he might float down upon it with the greater facility, aided by the waves.
The young Indian was soon ready. The note was secured in his hair, and moving gently in the water, he swam out of the cove with the ease, if not with the rapidity of a fish. Peggy clapped her hands and laughed, and otherwise manifested a sort of childish delight, as if pleased that one of her race should so early make himself useful to the countrymen of her husband. She and Peters repaired to the battery, which was the proper station of the man, while Mark went nimbly up the Stairs, on his way to the Peak. And here we might put in a passing word on the subject of these ascents and descents. The governor had now been accustomed to them more than a twelvemonth, and he found that the effect they produced on the muscles of his lower limbs was absolutely surprising. He could now ascend the Stairs in half the time he had taken on his first trials, and he could carry burthens up and down them, that at first he would not have dreamed of attempting even to take on his shoulders. The same was true with all the colonists, male and female, who began to run about the cliffs like so many goats--_chamois_ would be more poetical--and who made as light of the Stairs as the governor himself.
When Mark reached the Peak again, he found matters drawing near to a crisis. The canoes were within a league of the island, coming on steadily in line, and paddling with measured sweeps of their paddles. As yet, the sail of Juno's boat had escaped them. This was doubtless owing to their lowness in the water, and the distance that still separated them. The Dido was about five miles from the northern end of the island, while the fleet was some five more to the southward of it. This placed the two almost ten miles apart though each seemed so near, seen from the elevation of the Peak, that one might have fancied that he could throw a shot into either.
Unus was the great point of interest for the moment. He was just coming out clear of the island, and might be seen with the naked eye, in that pure atmosphere, a dark speck floating on the undulating surface of the ocean. By the aid of the glass, there was no difficulty in watching his smallest movement. With a steady and sinewy stroke of his arms, the young savage pursued his way, keeping to windward, as instructed by his sister, and making a progress in the midst of those rolling billows that was really wonderful. The wind was not very fresh, nor were the seas high; but the restless ocean, even in its slumbers, exhibits the repose of a giant, whose gentlest heavings are formidable and to be looked to. In one particular, our colonists were favoured. Owing to some accidental circumstances of position, a current set round the northern end of the island, and diffused itself on its western side by expanding towards the south. This carried the canoes from the boat and the cove, and insomuch increased Juno's chance of escape.
The meeting between Unus and the boat took place when the latter was within a league of the land. As the sailing directions were for every craft to fall in with the island rather to windward of the Peak, on account of the very current just mentioned, it was questionable with Mark and Betts whether any in the canoes could now perceive the boat, on account of the intervening heights. It was pretty certain no one, as yet, had made this important discovery, for the impetuosity of savages would instantly have let the fact be known through their shouts and their eagerness to-chase. On the contrary, all remained tranquil in the fleet, which continued to approach the land with a steady but regulated movement, that looked as if a secret awe pervaded the savages as they drew nearer and nearer to that unknown and mysterious world. To them the approaching revelations were doubtless of vast import; and the stoutest heart among them must have entertained some such sensations as were impressed on the spirits of Columbus and his companions, when they drew near to the shores of Guanahani.
In the mean time, Juno came confidingly on, shaping her course rather more to windward than usual even, on account of the lightness of the breeze. This effectually prevented her seeing or being seen from the canoes; the parties diagonally drawing nearer, in utter ignorance of each other's existence. As for Unus, he manoeuvred quite skilfully. After getting a couple of miles off the land, he swam directly to windward; and it was well he did, the course of the boat barely permitting his getting well on her weather-bow, when it was time to think of boarding.
Unus displayed great judgment in this critical part of the affair. So accurately did he measure distances, that he got alongside of the Dido, with his hand on her weather gunwale, without Juno's having the least idea that he was anywhere near her. At one effort he was in the boat; and while the girl was still uttering her scream of alarm, he stood holding out the note, pronouncing the word "Missus" as well as he could. The girl had acquired too much knowledge of the habits of the South Sea islanders, while passing through and sojourning in the different groups she had visited, to be overwhelmed with the occurrence. What is more, she recognised the young Indian at a glance; some passages of gallantry having actually taken place between them during the two months Heaton and his party remained among Ooroony's people. To be frank with the reader, the first impression of Juno was, that the note thus tendered to her was a love-letter, though its contents instantly undeceived her. The exclamation and changed manner of the girl told Unus that all was right; and he went quietly to work to take in the sail, as the most effectual method of concealing the presence of the boat from the thousand hostile and searching eyes in the canoes. The moment Mark saw the canvas come in, he cried out 'all is well,' and descended swiftly from the Peak, to hasten to a point where he could give the necessary attentions to the movements of Waally and his fleet.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
17 | None | "Ho! strike the flag-staff deep, Sir Knight,-- Ho! scatter flowers, fair maids,-- Ho! gunners fire a loud salute-- Ho! gallants, draw your blades;--" Macaulay.
So much time had passed in the execution of the plan of Unus, that the canoes were close under the cliffs, when the governor and his party reached the wood that fringed their summits, directly over the northern end of their line. Even this extremity of their formation was a mile or two to leeward of the cove, and all the craft, catamarans included, were drifting still further south, under the influence of the current. So long as this state of things continued, there was nothing for the colonists to apprehend, since they knew landing at any other spot than the cove was out of the question. The strictest orders had been given for every one to keep concealed, a task that was by no means difficult, the whole plain being environed with woods, and its elevation more than a thousand feet above the sea. In short, nothing but a wanton exposure of the person, could render it possible for one on the water to get a glimpse of another on the heights above him.
The fleet of Waally presented an imposing sight. Not only were his canoes large, and well filled with men, but they were garnished with the usual embellishments of savage magnificence. Feathers and flags, and symbols of war and power, were waving and floating over the prows of most of them, while the warriors they contained were gay in their trappings. It was apparent, however, to the members of the council, who watched every movement of the fleet with the utmost vigilance, that their foes were oppressed with doubts concerning the character of the place they had ventured so far to visit. The smoke of the Volcano was visible to them, beyond a doubt, and here was a wall of rock interposed between them and the accomplishment of their desire to land. In this last respect, Rancocus Island offered a shore very different from that of Vulcan's Peak. The first; in addition to the long, low point so often mentioned, had everywhere a beach of some sort or other; while, on the last, the waves of the Pacific rose and fell as against a precipice, marking their power merely by a slight discoloration of the iron-bound coast. Those superstitious and ignorant beings naturally would connect all these unusual circumstances with some supernatural agencies; and Heaton early, gave it as his opinion that Waally, of whom he had some personal knowledge, was hesitating, and doubtful of the course he ought to pursue, on account of this feeling of superstition. When this opinion was expressed, the governor suggested the expediency of firing one of the carronades, under the supposition that the roar of the gun, and most especially the echo, of which there was one in particular that was truly terrific, might have the effect to frighten away the whole party. Heaton was in doubt about the result, for Waally and his people knew something of artillery, though of echoes they could not know anything at all. Nothing like an echo, or indeed a hill, was to be found in the low coral islands of their group, and the physical agents of producing such sounds were absolutely wanting among them. It might be that something like an echo had been heard at Rancocus Island, but it must have been of a very different calibre from that which Heaton and Mark were in the habit of making for the amusement of the females, by firing their fowling-pieces down the Stairs. As yet neither of the guns had been fired from the proper point, which was the outer battery, or that on the shelf of rock, though a very formidable roaring had been made by the report of the gun formerly fired, as an experiment to ascertain how far it would command the entrance of the cove. After a good deal of discussion, it was decided to try the experiment, and Betts, who knew all about the means necessary to produce the greatest reverberations, was despatched to the shelf-battery with instructions to scale its gun, by pointing it along the cliff and making all the uproar he could.
This plan was carried out just as Waally had assembled his chiefs around his own canoe, whither he had called them by an order, to consult on the manner in which the entire coast of the island ought to be examined, that a landing might be effected. The report of the gun came quite unexpectedly to all parties; the echo, which rolled along the cliffs for miles, being absolutely terrific! Owing to the woods and intervening rocks, the natives could see no smoke, which added to their surprise, and was doubtless one reason they did not, at first, comprehend the long, cracking, thundering sounds that, as it might be, rolled out towards them from the island. A cry arose that the strange rocks were speaking, and that the Gods of the place were angry. This was followed by a general and confused flight;--the canoes, paddling away as if their people were apprehensive of being buried beneath the tumbling rocks. For half an hour nothing was seen but frantic efforts to escape, nothing heard but the dip of the paddle and the wash of its rise.
Thus far the plan of the governor had succeeded even beyond his expectations. Could he get rid of these savages without bloodshed, it would afford him sincere delight, it being repugnant to all his feelings to sweep away rows of such ignorant men before the murderous fire of his cannon. While he and Heaton were congratulating each other on the encouraging appearances, a messenger came down from the Peak, where Bridget remained on the look-out, to report that the boat had drifted in, and was getting close under the cliffs, on the northern end of the island, which was in fact coming close under the Peak itself. A signal to push for the cove had been named to Juno, and Bridget desired to know whether it ought to be made, else the boat would shortly be too near in, to see it. The governor thought the moment favourable, for the canoes were still paddling in a body away from the spot whence the roar had proceeded, and their course carried them to the southward and westward, while Unus would approach from the northward and eastward. Word was sent, accordingly, to make the signal.
Bridget no sooner received this order than she showed the flag, which was almost immediately answered by setting the boat's sail. Unus now evidently took the direction of matters on board the Dido, It is probable he appreciated the effect of the gun and its echo, the first of which he fully comprehended, though the last was as great and as awful a mystery to him, as to any one of his countrymen. Nevertheless, he imputed the strange and fearful roar of the cliffs to some control of the whites over the power of the hills, and regarded it as a friendly roar, even while he trembled. Not so would it be with his countrymen, did he well know; they would retire before it; and the signal being given at that instant, the young Indian had no hesitation about the course he ought to take.
Unus understood sailing a boat perfectly well. On setting his sail, he stood on in the Dido until he was obliged to bear up on account of the cliffs. This brought him so close to the rocks as greatly to diminish the chances of being seen. There both wind and current aided his progress; the first drawing round the end of the island, the coast of which it followed in a sort of eddy, for some time, and the latter setting down towards the cove, which was less than two miles from the north bluff. In twenty minutes after he had made sail, Unus was entering the secret little harbour, Waally and his fleet being quite out of sight from one as low as the surface of the ocean, still paddling away to the south-west, as hard as they could.
Great was the exultation of the colonists, at this escape of Juno's. It even surpassed their happiness at the retreat of their invaders. If the boat were actually unseen, the governor believed the impression was sufficient to keep the savages aloof for a long time, if not for ever; since they would not fail to ascribe the roar, and the smoke of the volcano, and all the mysteries of the place, to supernatural agencies. If the sail _had_ been seen, however, it was possible that, on reflection, their courage might revive, and more would be seen of them. Unus was extolled by everybody, and seemed perfectly happy. Peggy communicated his thoughts, which were every way in favour of his new friends. Waally he detested. He denounced him as a ruthless tyrant, and declared he would prefer death to submission to his exactions. Juno highly approved of all his sentiments, and was soon known as a sworn friend of Peggy's. This hatred of tyranny is innate in men, but it is necessary to distinguish between real oppression and those restraints which are wholesome, if not indispensable to human happiness. As for the canoes, they were soon out of sight in the south-western hoard, running off, under their sails, before the wind. Waally, himself, was too strong-minded and resolute, to be as much overcome by the echo, as his companions; but, so profound and general was the awe excited, that he did not think it advisable to persevere in his projects, at a moment so discouraging. Acquiescing in the wishes of all around him, the expedition drew off from the island, making the best of its way back to the place from which it had last sailed. All these circumstances became known to the colonists, in the end, as well as the reasoning and the more minute incidents that influenced the future movements; For the time being, however, Woolston and his friends were left to their own conjectures on the Subject; which, however, were not greatly out of the way. It was an hour after Juno and Unus were safe up on the plain, before the look-outs at the Peak finally lost sight of the fleet, which, when last seen, was steering a course that would carry it between the volcano and Rancocus Island, and might involve it in serious difficulties in the succeeding night. There was no land in sight from the highest points on Rancocus Island, nor any indications of land, in a south-westerly direction; and, did the canoes run past the latter, the imminent danger of a general catastrophe would be the consequence. Once at sea, under an uncertainty as to the course to be steered, the situation of those belonging to the expedition would be painful, indeed, nor could the results be foreseen. Waally, nevertheless, escaped the danger. Edging off to keep aloof from the mysterious smoke, which troubled his followers almost as much as the mysterious echoes, the party, most fortunately for themselves, got a distant view of the mountains for which they were running, and altered their course in sufficient time to reach their place of destination, Ly the return of light the succeeding morning.
All thoughts of the expedition to Rancocus Island were temporarily abandoned by the governor and his council. Mark was greatly disappointed, nor did his regrets cease with disappointment only. Should Waally leave a portion of his people on that island, a collision must occur, sooner or later; there being a moral impossibility of the two colonies continuing friends while so near each other. The nature of an echo would be ascertained, before many months, among the hills of Rancocus Island, and when that came to be understood, there was an end of the sacred character that the recent events had conferred on the Peak. Any straggling vagabond, or runaway from a ship, might purchase a present importance by explaining things, and induce the savages to renew their efforts. In a word, there was the moral certainty that hostilities must be renewed ere many months, did Waally remain so near them, and the question now seriously arose, whether it were better to press the advantage already obtained, and drive him back to his group, or to remain veiled behind the sort of mystery that at present enshrouded them. These points were gravely debated, and became subjects of as great interest among the colonists, as ever banks, or abolitionism, or antimasonry, or free-trade, or any other of the crotchets of the day, could possibly be in America. Many were the councils that were convened to settle this important point of policy, which, after all, like most other matters of moment, was decided more by the force of circumstances, than by any of the deductions of human reason. The weakness of the colony and the dangers to its existence, disposed of the question of an aggressive war. Waally was too strong to be assailed by a dozen enemies, and all the suggestions of prudence were in favour of remaining quiet, until the Friend Abraham White could, at least, be made available in the contest. Supported by that vessel, indeed, matters would be changed; and Mark thought it would be in his power to drive in Waally, and even to depose him and place Ooroony at the head of the natives once more. To finish and launch the schooner, therefore, was now the first great object, and, after a week of indecision and consultations, it was determined to set about that duty with vigour.
It will be easily seen, that the getting of the Abraham into the water was an affair of a good deal of delicacy, under the circumstances. The strait between the Peak and Cape South was thirty miles wide, and it was twenty more to the crater. Thus the party at work on the vessel would be fully fifty miles from the main abodes of the colony, and thrown quite out of the affair should another invasion be attempted. As for bringing the Neshamony, the Dido, the Bridget, and the fighter, into the combat, everybody was of opinion it would be risking too much. It is true, one of the swivels was mounted on the former, and might be of service, but the natives had got to be too familiar with fire-arms to render it prudent to rely on the potency of a single swivel, in a conflict against a force so numerous, and one led by a spirit as determined as that of Waally's was known to be. All idea of righting at sea, therefore, until the schooner was launched, was out of the question, and every energy was turned to effect the latter most important object. A separation of the forces of the colony was inevitable, in the meanwhile; and reliance must be placed on the protection of Providence, for keeping the enemy aloof until the vessel was ready for active service.
The labour requiring as much physical force as could be mustered, the arrangement was settled in council and approved by the governor, on the following plan, viz:--Mark was to proceed to the Reef with all the men that could be spared, and a portion of the females. It was not deemed safe, however, to leave the Peak with less than three defenders, Heaton, Peters and Unus being chosen for that important station; the former commanding, of course. Mark, Betts, Bigelow, Socrates, and Jones, formed the party _for_ the Reef, to which were attached Bridget, Martha, Teresa, and the blacks. Bigelow went across, indeed, a day or two before the main party sailed, in order to look after Dido, and to get his work forward as fast as possible. When all was ready, and that was when ten days had gone by after the retreat of Waally, without bringing any further tidings from him, the governor sailed in the Neshamony, having the Bridget and the lighter in company, leaving the Dido for the convenience of Heaton and his set. Signals were agreed on, though the distance was so great as to render them of little use, unless a boat were mid-channel. A very simple and ingenious expedient, nevertheless, was suggested by Mark, in connection with this matter. A single tree grew so near the Peak as to be a conspicuous object from the ocean; it was not large, though it could be seen at a great distance, more particularly in the direction of the Reef. The governor intimated an intention to send a boat daily far enough out into the strait to ascertain whether this tree were, or were not standing; and Heaton was instructed to have it felled as soon as he had thoroughly ascertained that Waally was abroad again with hostile intentions. Other signals were also agreed on, in order to regulate the movements of the boats, in the event of their being called back to the Peak to repel an invasion.
With the foregoing arrangements completed and thoroughly understood, the governor set sail for the Reef, accompanied by his little squadron. It was an exquisitely beautiful day, one in which all the witchery of the climate developed itself, soothing the nerves and animating the spirits. Bridget had lost most of her apprehensions of the natives, and could laugh with her husband and play with her child almost as freely as before the late events. Everybody, indeed, was in high spirits, the launching of the schooner being regarded as a thing that would give them complete command of the adjacent seas.
The passage was short, a fresh breeze blowing, and four hours after quitting the cliffs, the Neshamony was under the lee of Cape South, and heading for the principal inlet. As the craft glided along, in perfectly smooth water now, Mark noted the changes that time was making on those rocks, which had so lately emerged from the depths of the ocean. The prairie, in particular, was every way worthy of his attention. A mass of sea-weed, which rested on a sort of stratum of mud immediately after the eruption, had now been the favourite pasturage of the hogs for more than a twelvemonth. These hogs at the present time exceeded fifty full-grown animals, and there were twice that number of grunters at their heels. Then the work they had done on the Prairie was incredible. Not less than hundreds of acres had they rooted over, mixing the sea-weed with the mud, and fast converting the whole into soil. The rains had washed away the salt, or converted it into manure, as well as contributing to the more rapid decay of the vegetable substances. In that climate the changes are very rapid, and Mark saw that another year or two would convert the whole of that vast range, which had been formerly computed at a surface of a thousand acres, into very respectable pastures, if not into meadows. Of meadows, however, there was very little necessity in that latitude; the eternal summer that reigned furnishing pasturage the year round. The necessary grasses might be wanting to seed down so large a surface, but those which Socrates had put in were well-rooted, and it was pretty certain they would, sooner or later, spread themselves over the whole field. In defiance of the hogs, and their increasing inroads, large patches were already green and flourishing. What is more, young trees were beginning to show themselves along the margin of the channels. Henton had brought over from Betto's group several large panniers made of green willows, and these Socrates had cut into strips, and thrust into the mud. Almost without an exception they had struck out roots, and never ceasing, day or night, to grow, they were already mostly of the height of a man. Four or five years would convert them into so many beautiful, if not very useful trees.
Nor was this all. Heaton, under the influence of his habits, had studied the natures of the different trees he had met with on the other islands. The cocoa-nut, in particular, abounded in both groups, and finding it was a tree that much affected low land and salt water, he had taken care to set out various samples of his roots and fruits, on certain detached islets near this channel, where the soil and situation induced him to believe they would flourish. Sea sand he was of opinion was the most favourable for the growth of this tree, and he had chosen the sites of his plantations with a view to those advantages. On the Peak cocoa-nuts were to be found, but they were neither very fine, nor in very large quantities. So long as Mark had that island to himself, the present, supply-would more than equal the demand, but with the increase of the colony a greater number of the trees would become very desirable. Five or six years would be needed to produce the fruit-bearing tree, and the governor was pleased to find that the growth of one of those years had been already secured, in the case of those he had himself planted, in and on the crater, near three years had contributed to their growth, and neither the Guano nor Loam Island having been forgotten, many of them were now thirty feet high. As he approached the crater, on that occasion, he looked at those promising fruits of his early and provident care for the future with great satisfaction, for seldom was the labour of man better rewarded. Mark well knew the value of this tree, which was of use in a variety of ways, in addition to the delicious and healthful fruit it bears; delicious and healthful when eaten shortly after it is separated from the tree. The wood of the kernel could be polished, and converted into bowls, that were ornamental as well as useful. The husks made a capital cordage, and a very respectable sail-cloth, being a good substitute for hemp, though hemp, itself, was a plant that might be grown on the prairies to an almost illimitable extent. The leaves were excellent for thatching, as well as for making brooms, mats, hammocks, baskets and a variety of such articles, while the trunks could be converted into canoes, gutters, and timber generally. There was also one other expensive use of this tree, which the governor had learned from Heaton. While Bridget was still confined to the ship, after the birth of her daughter. Mark had brought her a dish of greens, which she pronounced the most delicious of any thing in its way she had ever tasted. It was composed of the young and delicate leaves of the new growth, or of the summit of the cocoa-nut tree, somewhat resembling the artichoke in their formation, though still more exquisite in taste. But the tree from which this treat was obtained died,--a penalty that must ever be paid to partake of that dish. As soon as Bridget learned this, she forbade the cutting of any more for her use, at least. All the boats got into port in good season, and the Reef once more became a scene of life and activity. The schooner was soon completed, and it only remained to put her into the water. This work was already commenced by Bigelow, and the governor directed everybody to lend a hand in effecting so desirable an object. Bigelow had all his materials ready, and so perseveringly did our colonists work, that the schooner was all ready to be put into the water on the evening of the second day. The launch was deferred only to have the benefit of daylight. That afternoon Mark, accompanied by his wife, had gone in the Bridget, his favourite boat, to look for the signal tree. He went some distance into the strait, ere he was near enough to get a sight of it even with the glass; when he did procure a view, there it was precisely as he had last seen it. Putting the helm of the boat up, the instant he was assured of his fact, the governor wore short round, making the best, of his way back to the crater, again. The distances, it will be remembered, were considerable, and it required time to make the passage. The sun was setting as Mark was running along the channel to the Reef, the young man pointing out to his charming wife the growth of the trees, the tints of the evening sky, the drove of hogs, the extent of his new meadows, and such other objects as would be likely to interest both, in the midst of such a scene. The boat rounded a point where a portion of the hogs had been sleeping, and as it came sweeping up, the animals rose in a body, snuffed the air, and began scampering off in the way conformable to their habits, Mark laughing and pointing with his fingers to draw Bridget's attention to their antics. " _There_ are more of the creatures" said Bridget; "yonder, on the further side of the prairie--I dare say the two parties will join each other, and have a famous scamper, in company."
"More!" echoed Mark; "that can hardly be, as we passed some thirty of them several miles to the southward. --What is it you see, dearest, that you mistake for hogs?"
"Why, yonder--more than a mile from us; on the opposite side of the prairie and near the water, in the other channel."
"The other is not a channel at all; it is a mere bay that leads to nothing; so none of our boats or people can be there. The savages, as I am your husband, Bridget!"
Sure enough, the objects which Bridget had mistaken for mere hogs, were in truth the heads and shoulders of some twenty Indians who were observing the movements of the boat from positions taken on the other side of the plain, so as to conceal all but the upper halves of their bodies. They had two canoes; war canoes, moreover; but these were the whole party, at that point at least.
This was a most grave discovery. The governor had hoped the Reef, so accessible on every side by means of canoes, would, for years at least, continue to be a _terra incognita_ to the savages. On this ignorance of the natives would much of its security depend, for the united forces of the colonists could scarcely suffice to maintain the place against the power of Waally. The matter as it was, called for all his energies, and for the most prompt measures.
The first step was to apprise the people at the Reef of the proximity of these dangerous neighbours. As the boat was doubtless seen, its sails rising above the land, there was no motive in changing its course, or for attempting to conceal it. The crater, ship and schooner on the stocks, were all in sight of the savages at that moment, though not less than two leagues distant, where they doubtless appeared indistinct and confused. The ship might produce an influence in one or two ways. It might inflame the cupidity of Waally, under the hope of possessing so much treasure, and tempt him on to hasten his assault; or it might intimidate him by its imagined force, vessels rarely visiting the islands of the Pacific without being prepared to defend themselves. The savages would not be likely to comprehend the true condition of the vessel, but would naturally suppose that she had a full crew, and possessed the usual means of annoying her enemies. All this occurred to the governor in the first five minutes after his discovery, while his boat was gliding onwards towards her haven.
Bridget behaved admirably. She trembled a little at first, and pressed her child to her bosom with more than the usual warmth, but her self-command was soon regained, and from that instant, Mark found in her a quick, ingenious, and useful assistant and counsellor. Her faculties and courage seemed to increase with the danger, and so far from proving an encumbrance, as might naturally enough have been expected, she was not only out of the way, as respects impediments, but she soon became of real use, and directed the movements of the females with almost as much skill and decision as Mark directed those of their husbands.
The boat did not reach the Reef until dusk, or for an hour after the savages had been seen. The colonists had just left their work, and the evening being cool and refreshing after a warm summer's day, they were taking their suppers under a tent or awning, at no great distance from the ship-yard, when the governor joined them. This tent, or awning, had been erected for such purposes, and had several advantages to recommend it. It stood quite near the beach of the spring, and cool fresh water was always at hand. It had a carpet of velvet-like grass, too, a rare thins for the Reef, on the outside of the crater. But, there were cavities on its surface, in which foreign substances had collected, and this was one of them. Sea-weed, loam, dead fish, and rain-water had made a thin soil on about an acre of rocks at this spot, and the rain constantly assisting vegetation, the grass-seed had taken root there, and this being its second season, Betts had found the sward already sufficient for his purposes, and caused an awning to be spread, converting the grass into a carpet. There might now have been a dozen similar places on the reef, so many oases in its desert, where soil had formed and grass was growing. No one doubted that, in time and with care, those, then living might see most of those naked rocks clothed with verdure, for the progress of vegetation in such a climate, favoured by those accidental causes which seemed to prevent that particular region from ever suffering by droughts, is almost magical, and might convert a wilderness into a garden in the course of a very few years.
Mark did not disturb the happy security in which he found his people by any unnecessary announcement of danger. On the contrary, he spoke cheerfully, complimented them on the advanced state of their work, and took an occasion to get Betts aside, when he first communicated the all-important discovery he had made. Bob was dumbfounded at first; for, like the governor himself, he had believed the Reef to be one of the secret spots of the earth, and had never anticipated an invasion in that quarter. Recovering himself, however, he was soon in a state of mind to consult intelligently and freely.
"Then we're to expect the rep_tyles_ to-night?" said Betts, as soon as he had regained his voice.
"I think not," answered Mark. "The canoes I saw were in the false channel, and cannot possibly reach us without returning to the western margin of the rocks and entering one of the true passages. I rather think this cannot be done before morning. Daylight, indeed, may be absolutely necessary to them; and as the night promises to be dark, it is not easy to see how strangers can find their way to us, among the maze of passages they must meet. By land, they cannot get here from any of the islands on the western side of the group; and even if landed on the central island, there is only one route, and that a crooked one, which will bring them here without the assistance of their canoes. We are reasonably well fortified, Betts, through natural agencies, on that side; and I do not apprehend seeing anything more of the fellows until morning."
"What a misfortin 'tis that they should ever have discovered the Reef!"
"It certainly is; and it is one, I confess, I had not expected. But we must take things as they are, Betts, and do our duty. Providence--that all-seeing Power, which spared you and me when so many of our shipmates were called away with short notice--Providence may still be pleased to look on us with favour."
"That puts me in mind, Mr. Mark, of telling you something that I have lately l'arn'd from Jones, who was about a good deal among the savages, since his friend's marriage with Peggy, and before he made his escape to join us. Jones says that, as near as he can find out, about three years ago, a ship's launch came into Betto's Land, as we call it--Waally's Country, however, is meant; and that is a part of the group I never ventured into, seeing that my partic'lar friend, Ooroony, and Waally, was always at daggers drawn--but a ship's launch came in there, about three years since, with seven living men in it. Jones could never get a sight of any of the men, for Waally is said to have kept them all hard at work for himself; but he got tolerable accounts of them, as well as of the boat in which they arrived."
"Surely, Bob, you do not suppose that launch to have been ours, and those men to have been a part of our old crew!" exclaimed Mark, with a tumult of feeling he had not experienced since he had reason to think that Bridget was about to be restored to him.
"Indeed, but I do, sir. The savages told Jones that the boat had a bird painted in its starn-sheets; and that was the case with our launch, Mr. Mark, which was ornamented with a spread-eagle in that very spot. Then, one of the men was said to have a red mark on his face; and you may remember, sir, that Bill Brown had a nat'ral brand of that sort. Jones only mentioned the thing this arternoon, as we was at work together; and I detarmined to let you know all about it, at the first occasion. Depend on it, Mr. Woolston, some of our chaps is still living."
This unexpected intelligence momentarily drove the recollection of the present danger from the governor's mind. He sent for Jones, and questioned him closely touching the particulars of his information; the answers he received certainly going far towards corroborating Betts's idea of the character of the unknown men. Jones was never able even to get on the island where these men were said to be; but he had received frequent descriptions of their ages, appearances, numbers, &c. It was also reported by those who had seen them, that several of the party had died of hunger before the boat reached the group; and that only about half of those who had originally taken to the boat, which belonged to a ship that had been wrecked, lived to get ashore. The man with a mark on his face was represented as being very expert with tools, and was employed by Waally to build him a canoe that would live out in the gales of the ocean. This agreed perfectly with the trade and appearance of Brown, who had been the Rancocus's carpenter, and had the sort of mark so particularly described.
The time, the boat, the incidents of the wreck, meagre as the last were, as derived through the information of Jones, and all the other facts Mark could glean in a close examination of the man's statements, went to confirm the impression that a portion of those who had been carried to leeward in the Rancocus's launch, had escaped with their lives, and were at that moment prisoners in the power of the very savage chief who now threatened his colony with destruction.
But the emergency did not admit of any protracted inquiry into, or any consultation on the means necessary to relieve their old shipmates from a fate so miserable. Circumstances required that the governor should now give his attention to the important concerns immediately before him.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
18 | None | "To whom belongs this valley fair, That sleeps beneath the filmy air, Even like a living thing? Silent as infant at the breast, Save a still sound that speaks of rest, That streamlet's murmuring?"
Wilson.
When the governor had communicated to his people that the savages were actually among the islands of their own group, something very like a panic came over them. A few minutes, however, sufficed to restore a proper degree of confidence, when the arrangements necessary to their immediate security were entered into. As some attention had previously been bestowed on the fortifications of the crater, that place was justly deemed the citadel of the Reef. Some thought the ship would be the most easily defended, on account of the size of the crater, and because it had a natural ditch around it, but so much property was accumulated in and around the crater that it could not be abandoned without a loss to which the governor had no idea of submitting. The gate of the crater was nothing in the way of defence, it is true; but one of the cannonades had been planted so as to command it, and this was thought sufficient for repelling all ordinary assaults. It has been said, already, that the outer wall of the crater was perpendicular at its base, most probably owing to the waves of the ocean in that remote period when the whole Reef was washed by them in every gale of wind. This perpendicular portion of the rock, moreover, was much harder than the ordinary surface of the Summit, owing in all probability to the same cause. It was even polished in appearance, and in general was some eighteen or twenty feet in height, with the exception of the two or three places, by one of which Mark and Betts had clambered up on their first visit to the Summit. These places, always small, and barely sufficient to allow of a man's finding footing on them, had long been picked away, in order to prevent the inroads of Kitty, and when the men had turned their attention to rendering the place secure against a sudden inroad, they being the only points where an enemy could get up, without resorting to ladders or artificial assistance, had, by means of additional labour, been rendered as secure as all the rest of the 'outer wall,' as the base of the crater was usually termed among them. It was true, that civilized assailants, who had the ordinary means at command, would soon have mastered this obstacle; but savages would not be likely to come prepared to meet it. The schooner, with her cradle and ways, had required all the loose timber, to the last stick, and the enemy was not likely to procure any supplies from the ship-yard. Two of the carronades were on the Summit, judiciously planted; two were on board the Abraham, as was one of the long sixes, and the remainder of the guns, (three at the rock excepted) were still on board the ship.
Mark divided his forces for the night. As Bridget habitually lived in the Rancocus' cabins, he did not derange her household at all, but merely strengthened her crew, by placing Bigelow and Socrates on board her; each with his family; while Betts assumed the command of the crater, having for his companion Jones. These were small garrisons; but the fortresses were strong, considering all the circumstances, and the enemy were uncivilized, knowing but little of fire-arms. By nine o'clock everything was arranged, and most of the women and children were on their beds, though no one there undressed that night.
Mark and Betts met, by agreement, alongside of the schooner, as soon as their respective duties elsewhere would allow. As the Reef, proper, was an island, they knew no enemy could find his way on it without coming by water, or by passing over the narrow bridge which has already been mentioned as crossing the little strait near the spring. This rendered them tolerably easy for the moment, though Mark had assured his companion it was not possible for the canoes to get to the Reef under several hours. Neither of the men could sleep, however, and they thought it as well to be on the look-out, and in company, as to be tossing about in their berths, or hammocks, by themselves. The conversation turned on their prospects, almost as a matter of course.
"We are somewhat short-handed, sir, to go to quarters ag'in them vagabonds," observed Betts, in reply to some remark of the governor's. "I counted a hundred and three of their craft when they was off the Peak the other day, and not one on 'em all had less than four hands aboard it, while the biggest must have had fifty. All told, I do think, Mr. Mark, they might muster from twelve to fifteen hundred fighting men."
"That has been about my estimate of their force, Bob; but, if they were fifteen thousand, we must bring them to action, for we fight for everything."
"Ay, ay, sir," answered Betts, ejecting the tobacco juice in the customary way, "there's reason in roasted eggs, they say, and there's reason in firing a few broadsides afore a body gives up. What a different place this here rock's got to be, sir, from what it was when you and I was floating sea-weed and rafting loam to it, to make a melon or a cucumber bed! Times is changed, sir, and we're now at war. Then it was all peace and quiet; and now it's all hubbub and disturbance."
"We have got our wives here now, and that I think you'll admit is something, Bob, when you remember the pains taken by yourself to bring so great a happiness about," "Why, yes, sir--I'll allow the wives is something--" "Ship ahoy!" hailed a voice in good English, and in the most approved seaman-like tones of the voice.
The hail came from the margin of the island nearest to the Reef; or that which was connected with the latter by means of the bridge, but not from a point very near the latter.
"In the name of heavenly mercy!" exclaimed Betts, "what can that mean, governor?"
"I know that voice," said Mark, hurriedly; "and the whole matter begins to clear up to me. Who hails the Rancocus?"
"Is that ship the Rancocus, then?" answered the voice from the island.
"The Rancocus, and no other--are you not Bill Brown, her late carpenter?"
"The very same, God bless you, Mr. Woolston, for I now know _your_ voice, too. I'm Bill, and right down glad am I to have things turn out so. I half suspected the truth when I saw a ship's spars this afternoon in this place, though little did I think, yesterday, of ever seeing anything more of the old 'Cocus. Can you give me a cast across this bit of a ferry, sir?"
"Are you alone, Bill--or who have you for companions?"
"There's two on us, sir, only--Jim Wattles and I--seven on us was saved in the launch; Mr. Hillson and the supercargo both dying afore we reached the land, as did the other man, we seven still living, though only two on us is here."
"Are there any black fellows with you? --Any of the natives?"
"Not one, sir. We gave 'em the slip two hours ago, or as soon as we saw the ship's masts, being bent on getting afloat in some craft or other, in preference to stopping with savages any longer. No, Mr. Woolston; no fear of them to-night, for they are miles and miles to leeward, bothered in the channels, where they'll be pretty sartain to pass the night; though you'll hear from 'em in the morning. Jim and I took to our land tacks, meeting with a good opportunity, and by running directly in the wind's eye, have come out here. We hid ourselves till the canoes was out of sight, and then we carried sail as hard as we could. So give us a cast and take us aboard the old ship again, Mr. Woolston, if you love a fellow-creatur', and an old shipmate in distress."
Such was the singular dialogue which succeeded the unexpected hail. It completely put a new face on things at the Reef. As Brown was a valuable man, and one whose word he had always relied on, Mark did not hesitate, but told him the direction to the bridge, where he and Betts met him and Wattles, after each of the parties had believed the others to be dead now fully three years!
The two recovered seamen of the Rancocus were alone, having acted in perfect good faith with their former officer, who led them to the awning, gave them some refreshment, and heard their story. The account given by Jones, for the first time that very day, turned out to be essentially true. When the launch was swept away from the ship, it drove down to leeward, passing at no great distance from the crater, of which the men in her got a glimpse, without being able to reach it. The attention of Hillson was mainly given to keeping the boat from filling or capsizing; and this furnished abundance of occupation. The launch got into one of the channels, and by observing the direction, which was nearly east and west, it succeeded in passing through all the dangers, coming out to leeward of the shoals. As everybody believed that the ship was hopelessly lost, no effort was made to get back to the spot where she had been left. No island appearing, Hillson determined to run off to the westward, trusting to fall in with land of some sort or other. The provisions and water were soon consumed, and then came the horrors usual to such scenes at sea. Hillson was one of the first that perished, his previous excesses unfitting him to endure privation. But seven survived when the launch reached an island in Waally's part of the group, so often mentioned. There they fell into the hands of that turbulent and warlike chief. Waally made the seamen his slaves, treating them reasonably well, but exacting of them the closest attention to his interests. Brown, as a ship-carpenter, soon became a favourite, and was employed in fashioning craft that it was thought might be useful in carrying out the ambitious projects of his master. The men were kept on a small island, and were watched like any other treasure, having no opportunity to communicate with any of those whites who appeared in other parts of the group. Thus, while Betts passed two months with Ooroony, and Heaton and his party nearly as much more time, these sailors, who heard of such visitors, could never get access to them. This was partly owing to the hostilities between the two chiefs--Ooroony being then in the ascendant--and partly owing to the special projects of Waally, who, by keeping his prisoners busily employed on his fleet, looked forward to the success which, in fact, crowned his efforts against his rival.
At length Waally undertook the expedition which had appeared in such force beneath the cliffs of the Peak. By this time, Brown had become so great a favourite, that he was permitted to accompany the chief; and Wattles was brought along as a companion for his shipmate. The remaining five were left behind, to complete a craft on which they had now been long employed, and which was intended to be the invincible war-canoe of those regions. Brown and Wattles had been in Waally's own canoe when the terrible echoes so much alarmed the uninstructed beings who heard it. They described them as much the most imposing echoes they had ever heard; nor did they, at first, know what to make of them, themselves. It was only on reflection, and after the retreat to Rancocus Island, that Brown, by reasoning on the subject, came to the conclusion that the whites, who were supposed to be in possession of the place, had fired a gun, which had produced the astounding uproar that had rattled so far along the cliff. As all Brown's sympathies were with the unknown people of his own colour, he kept his conjectures to himself, and managed to lead Waally in a different direction, by certain conclusions of his own touching the situation of the reef where the Rancocus had been lost.
Bill Brown was an intelligent man for his station and pursuits. He knew the courses steered by the launch, and had some tolerably accurate notions of the distances run. According to his calculations, that reef could not be very far to the northward of the Peak, and, by ascending the mountains on Rancocus Island, he either saw, or fancied he saw, the looming of land in that part of the ocean. It then occurred to Brown that portions of the wreck might still be found on the reef, and become the means of effecting his escape from the hands of his tyrants. Waally listened to his statements and conjectures with the utmost attention, and the whole fleet put to sea the very next day, in quest of this treasure. After paddling to windward again, until the Peak was fairly in sight, Brown steered to the north-east, a course that brought him out, after twenty-four hours of toil, under the lee of the group of the reef. This discovery of itself, filled Waally with exultation and pride. Here were no cliffs to scale, no mysterious mountain to appal, nor any visible obstacle to oppose his conquests. It is true, that the newly-discovered territory did not appear to be of much value, little beside naked rock, or broad fields of mud and sea-weed intermingled, rewarding their first researches. But better things were hoped for. It was something to men whose former domains were so much circumscribed and girded by the ocean, to find even a foundation for a new empire. Brown was now consulted as to every step to be taken, and his advice was implicitly followed. Columbus was scarcely a greater man, for the time being, at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, than Bill Brown immediately became at the court of Waally. His words were received as prophecies, his opinions as oracles.
Honest Bill, who anticipated no more from his discoveries than the acquisition of certain portions of wood, iron, and copper, with, perhaps, the addition of a little rigging, certain sails and an anchor or two, acted, at first, for the best interests of his master. He led the fleet along the margin of the group until a convenient harbour was found. Into this all the canoes entered, and a sandy beach supplying fresh water in abundance having been found, an encampment was made for the night. Several hours of daylight remaining, however, when these great preliminary steps had been taken, Brown proposed to Waally an exploring expedition in a couple of the handiest of the canoes. The people thus employed were those who had given the alarm to the governor. On that occasion, not only was the boat seen, but the explorers were near enough to the reef, to discover not only the crater, but the spars of the ship. Here, then, was a discovery scarcely less important than that of the group itself! After reasoning on the facts, Waally came to the conclusion that these, after all, were the territories that Heaton and his party had come to seek; and that here he should find those cows which he had once seen, and which he coveted more than any other riches on earth. Ooroony had been weak enough to allow strangers in possession of things so valuable, to pass through _his_ islands; but _he_, Waally, was not the man to imitate this folly. Brown, too, began to think that the white men sought were to be found here. That whites were in the group was plain enough by the ship, and he supposed they might be fishing for the pearl-oyster, or gathering bêche-le-mar for the Canton market. It was just possible that a colony had established itself in this unfrequented place, and that the party of which he had heard so much, had come hither with their stores and herds. Not the smallest suspicion at first crossed his mind that he there beheld the spars of the Rancocus; but, it was enough for him and Wattles that Christian men were there, and that, in all probability, they were men of the Anglo-Saxon race. No sooner was it ascertained that the explorers were in a false channel, and that it would not be in their power to penetrate farther in their canoes, than our two seamen determined to run, and attach themselves to the strangers. They naturally thought that they should find a vessel armed and manned, and ready to stand out to sea as soon as her officers were apprized of the danger that threatened them, and did not hesitate about joining their fortune with hers, in preference to remaining with Waally any longer. Freedom possesses a charm for which no other advantage can compensate, and those two old sea-dogs, who had worked like horses all their lives, in their original calling, preferred returning to the ancient drudgery rather than live with Waally, in the rude abundance of savage chiefs. The escape was easily enough made, as soon, as it was dark, Brown and Wattles being on shore most of the time, under the pretence that it was necessary, in order that they might ascertain the character of there unknown colonists by signs understood best by themselves.
Such is a brief outline of the explanations that the two recovered seamen made to their former officer. In return, the governor as briefly related to them the manner in which the ship had been saved, and the history of the colony down to that moment. When both tales had been told, a consultation on the subject of future proceedings took place, quite as a matter of course. Brown, and his companion, though delighted to meet their old shipmates, were greatly disappointed in not finding a sea-going vessel ready to receive them. They did not scruple to say that had they known the actual state of things on the Reef, they would not have left the savages, but trusted to being of more service even to their natural friends, by continuing with Waally, in their former relation, than by taking the step they had. Repentance, or regrets, however, came too late; and now they were fairly in for it, neither expressed any other determination than to stand by the service into which they had just entered, honestly, if not quite as gladly as they had anticipated.
The governor and Betts both saw that Brown and Wattles entertained a high respect for the military prowess of the Indian chief. They pronounced him to be not only a bold, but an adroit warrior; one, full of resources and ingenuity, when his means were taken into the account. The number of men with him, however, Brown assured Mark, was less than nine hundred, instead of exceeding a thousand, as had been supposed from the count made on the cliffs. As it now was explained, a great many women were in the canoes. Waally, moreover, was not altogether without fire-arms. He was master of a dozen old, imperfect muskets, and what was more, he had a four-pound gun. Ammunition, however, was very scarce, and of shot for his gun he had but three. Each of these shot had been fired several times, in his wars with Ooroony, and clays had been spent in hunting them up, after they had done their work, and of replacing them in the chief's magazine. Brown could not say that they had done much mischief, having, in every instance, being fired at long distances, and with a very uncertain aim. The business of sighting guns was not very well understood by the great mass of Christians, half a century since; and it is not at all surprising that savages should know little or nothing about it. Waally's gunners, according to Brown's account of the matter, could never be made to understand that the bore of a gun was not exactly parallel to its exterior surface, and they invariably aimed too high, by sighting along the upper side of the piece. This same fault is very common with the inexperienced in using a musket; for, anxious to get a sight of the end of their piece, they usually stick it up into the air and overshoot their object. It was the opinion of Brown, on the whole, that little was to be apprehended from Waally's fire-arms. The spear and club were the weapons to be dreaded; and with these the islanders were said to be very expert. But the disparity in numbers was the main ground of apprehension.
When Brown was told how near the schooner was to being launched, he earnestly begged the governor, to let him and Bigelow go to work and put her into the water, immediately. Everything necessary to a cruise was on board her, even to her provisions and water, the arrangements having been made to launch her with her sails bent; and, once in the water, Bill thought she would prove of the last importance to the defence. If the worst came to the worst, all hands could get on board her, and by standing through some of the channels that were clear of canoes, escape into the open water. Once there, Waally could do nothing with them, and they might be governed by circumstances.
Woolston viewed things a little differently. He loved the Reef; it had become dear to him by association and history, and he did not relish the thought of abandoning it. There was too much property at risk, to say nothing of the ship, which would doubtless be burned for its metals, should the Indians get possession, even for a day. In that ship he had sailed; in that ship he had been married; in that ship his daughter had been born; and in that ship Bridget loved still to dwell, even more than she affected all the glories of the Eden of the Peak. That ship was not to be given up to savages without a struggle Nor did Mark believe anything would be gained by depriving the men of their rest during the accustomed hours. Early in the morning, with the light itself, he did intend to have Bigelow under the schooner's bottom; but he saw no occasion for his working in the dark. Launching was a delicate business, and some accident might happen in the obscurity. After talking the matter over, therefore, all hands retired to rest, leaving one woman at the crater, and one on board the ship, on the look-out; women being preferred to men, on this occasion, in order that the latter might reserve their strength for the coming struggle.
At the appointed hour next morning, every one on the Reef was astir at the first peep of day. No disturbance had occurred in the night, and, what is perhaps a little remarkable, the female sentinels had not given any false alarm. As soon as a look from the Summit gave the governor reason to believe that Waally was not very near him, he ordered preparations to be made for the launch of the Friend Abraham White. A couple of hours' work was still required to complete this desirable task; and everybody set about his or her assigned duty with activity and zeal. Some of the women prepared the breakfast; others carried ammunition to the different guns, while Betts went round and loaded them, one and all; and others, again, picked up such articles of value as had been overlooked in the haste of the previous evening, carrying them either into the crater, or on board the ship.
On examining his fortifications by daylight, the governor resolved to set up something more secure in the way of a gate for the crater. He also called off two or three of the men to get out the boarding-netting of the ship, which was well provided in that respect; a good provision having been made, byway of keeping the Fejee people at arms' length. These two extraordinary offices delayed the work on the ways; and when the whole colony went to breakfast, which they did about an hour after sunrise, the schooner was not yet in the water, though quite ready to be put there, Mark announced that there was no occasion to be in a hurry, no canoes were in sight, and there was time to have everything done deliberately and in order.
This security came very near proving fatal to the whole party. Most of the men breakfasted under the awning, which was near their work; while the women took that meal in their respective quarters. Some of the last were in the crater, and some in the ship. It will be remembered that the awning was erected near the spring, and that the spring was but a short distance from the bridge. This bridge, it will also be recollected, connected the Reef with an island that stretched away for miles, and which had formed the original range for the swine, after the changes that succeeded the eruption. It was composed of merely two long ship's planks, the passage being only some fifty or sixty feet in width.
The governor, now, seldom ate with his people. He knew enough of human nature to understand that authority was best preserved by avoiding familiarity. Besides, there is, in truth, no association more unpleasant to those whose manners have been cultivated, than that of the table, with the rude and unrefined. Bridget, for instance, could hardly be expected to eat with the wives of the seamen; and Mark naturally wished to eat with his own family. On that occasion he had taken his meal in the cabin of the Rancocus, as usual, and had come down to the awning to see that the hands turned-to as soon as they were through with their own breakfasts. Just as he was about to issue the necessary order, the air was filled with frightful yells, and a stream of savages poured out of an opening in the rocks, on to the plain of the "hog pasture," as the adjoining field was called, rushing forward in a body towards the crater. They had crept along under the rocks by following a channel, and now broke cover within two hundred yards of the point they intended to assail.
The governor behaved admirably on this trying occasion. He issued his orders clearly, calmly, and promptly. Calling on Bigelow and Jones by name, he ordered them to withdraw the bridge, which could easily be done by hauling over the planks by means of wheels that had long been fitted for that purpose. The bridge withdrawn, the channel, or harbour, answered all the purposes of a ditch; though the South Sea islanders would think but little of swimming across it. Of course, Waally's men knew nothing of this bridge, nor did they know of the existence of the basin between them and their prey. They rushed directly towards the ship-yard, and loud were their yells of disappointment when they found a broad reach of water still separating them from the whites. Naturally they looked for the point of connection; but, by this time, the planks were wheeled in, and the communication was severed. At this instant, Waally had all his muskets discharged, and the gun fired from the catamaran, on which it was mounted. No one was injured by this volley, but a famous noise was made; and noise passed for a good deal in the warfare of that day and region.
It was now the turn of the colonists. At the first alarm everybody rushed to arms, and every post was manned, or _womaned_, in a minute. On the poop of the ship was planted one of the cannon, loaded with grape, and pointed so as to sweep the strait of the bridge. It is true, the distance was fully a mile, but Betts had elevated the gun with a view to its sending its missiles as far as was necessary. The other carronades on the Summit were pointed so as to sweep the portion of the hog pasture that was nearest, and which was now swarming with enemies, Waally, himself, was in front, and was evidently selecting a party that was to swim for the sandy beach, a sort of forlorn hope. No time was to be lost. Juno, a perfect heroine in her way, stood by the gun on the poop, while Dido was at those on the Summit, each brandishing or blowing, a lighted match. The governor made the preconcerted signal to the last, and she applied the match. Away went the grape, rattling along the surface of the opposite rocks, and damaging at least a dozen of Waally's men. Three were killed outright, and the wounds of the rest were very serious. A yell followed, and a young chief rushed towards the strait, with frantic cries, as if bent on leaping across the chasm. He was followed by a hundred warriors. Mark now made the signal to Juno. Not a moment was lost by the undaunted girl, who touched off her gun in the very nick of time. Down came the grape, hissing along the Reef; and, rebounding from its surface, away it leaped across the strait, flying through the thickest of the assailants. A dozen more suffered by that discharge. Waally now saw that a crisis was reached, and his efforts to recover the ground lost were worthy of his reputation. Calling to the swimmers, he succeeded in getting them down into the water in scores.
The governor had ordered those near him to their stations. This took Jones and Bigelow on board the Abraham, where two carronades were pointed through the stern ports, forming a battery to rake the hog pasture, which it was foreseen must be the field of battle if the enemy came by land, as it was the only island that came near enough to the Reef to be used in that way. As for Mark himself, accompanied by Brown and Wattles, all well armed, he held his party in reserve, as a corps to be moved wherever it might be most needed. At that all-important moment a happy idea occurred to the young governor. The schooner was all ready for launching. The reserve were under her bottom, intending to make a stand behind the covers of the yard, when Mark found himself at one of the spur-shores, just as Brown, armed to the teeth, came up to the other.
"Lay aside your arms," cried the governor, "and knock away your spur-shore, Bill! --Down with it, while I knock this away! --Look out on deck, for we are about to launch you!"
These words were just uttered, when the schooner began to move. All the colonists now cheered, and away the Abraham went, plunging like a battering-ram into the midst of the swimmers. While dipping deepest, Bigelow and Jones fired both their carronades, the shot of which threw the whole basin into foam. This combination of the means of assault was too much for savages to resist. Waally was instantly routed. His main body retreated into the coves of the channel, where their canoes lay, while the swimmers and stragglers got out of harm's way, in the best manner they could.
Not a moment was to be lost. The Abraham was brought up by a hawser, as is usual, and was immediately boarded by Mark, Bigelow and Wattles. This gave her a crew of five men, who were every way equal to handling her. Betts was left in command of the Reef, with the remainder of the forces. To make sail required but two minutes, and Mark was soon under way, rounding Loam Island, or what had _once_ been Loam Island, for it was now connected with the hog pasture, in order to get into the reach where Waally had his forces. This reach was a quarter of a mile wide, and gave room for manoeuvring. Although the schooner bore down to the assault with a very determined air, it was by no means Mark's cue to come to close quarters. Being well to windward, with plenty of room, he kept the Abraham tacking, yawing, waring, and executing other of the devices of nautical delay, whilst his men loaded and fired her guns, as fast as they could. There were more noise and smoke, than there was bloodshed, as commonly happens on such occasions; but these sufficed to secure the victory. The savages were soon in a real panic, and no authority of Waally's could check their flight. Away they paddled to leeward, straining every nerve to get away from pursuers, whom they supposed to be murderously bent on killing them to a man. A more unequivocal flight never occurred in war.
Although the governor was much in earnest, he was riot half as bloodthirsty as his fleeing enemies imagined. Every dictate of prudence told him not to close with the canoes until he had plenty of sea-room. The course they were steering would take them all out of the group, into the open water, in the course of three or four hours, and he determined to follow at a convenient distance, just hastening the flight by occasional hints from his guns. In this manner, the people of the Abraham had much the easiest time of it, for they did little besides sail, while the savages had to use all their paddles to keep out of the schooner's way; they sailed, also, but their speed under their cocoa-nut canvas was not sufficient to keep clear of the Friend Abraham White, which proved to be a very fast vessel, as well as one easily handled.
At length, Waally found his fleet in the open ocean, where he trusted the chase would end. But he had greatly mistaken the course of events, in applying that 'flattering unction.' It was now that the governor commenced the chase in good earnest, actually running down three of the canoes, and making prisoners of one of the crews. In this canoe was a young warrior, whom Bill Brown and Wattles at once recognised as a favourite son of the chief. Here was a most important conquest, and, Mark turned it to account. He selected a proper agent from among the captives, and sent him with a palm-branch to Waally himself, with proposals for an exchange. There was no difficulty in communicating, since Brown and Wattles both spoke the language of the natives with great fluency. Three years of captivity had, at least, taught them that much.
A good deal of time was wasted before Waally could be brought to confide in the honour of his enemies. At last, love for his offspring brought him, unarmed, alongside of the schooner, and the governor met this formidable chief, face to face. He found the latter a wily and intelligent savage. Nevertheless, he had not the art to conceal his strong affection for his son, and on that passion did Mark Woolston play. Waally offered canoes, robes of feathers, whales' teeth, and every thing that was most esteemed among his own people, as a ransom for the boy. But this was not the exchange the governor desired to make. He offered to restore the son to the arms of his father as soon as the five seamen who were still prisoners on his citadel island should be brought alongside of the schooner. If these terms were rejected, the lad must take the fate of war.
Great was the struggle in the bosom of Waally, between natural affection, and the desire to retain his captives. After two hours of subterfuges, artifices, and tricks, the former prevailed, and a treaty was made. Agreeably to its conditions, the schooner was to pilot the fleet of canoes to Betto's group, which could easily be done, as Mark knew not only its bearings, but its latitude and longitude. As soon as this was effected, Waally engaged to send a messenger for the seamen, and to remain himself on board the Abraham until the exchange was completed. The chief wished to attach terms, by which the colonists were to aid him in more effectually putting down Ooroony, who was checked rather than conquered, but Mark refused to listen to any such proposition. He was more disposed to aid, than to overcome the kind hearted Ooroony, and made up his mind to have an interview with him before he returned from the intended voyage.
Some delay would have occurred, to enable Mark to let Bridget know of his intended absence, had it not been for the solicitude of Betts. Finding the sails of the schooner had gone out of sight to leeward, Bob manned the Neshamony, and followed as a support. In the event of a wreck, for instance, his presence might have been of the last importance. He got alongside of the Abraham just as the treaty was concluded, and was in time to carry back the news to the crater, where he might expect still to arrive that evening. With this arrangement, therefore, the parties separated, Batts beating back, through the channels of the Reef and the governor leading off to the northward and westward, under short canvas; all of Waally's canoes, catamarans, &c. following about a mile astern of him.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
19 | None | "Nay, shrink not from the word 'farewell!' As if 'twere friendship's final knell; Such fears may prove but vain: So changeful is life's fleeting day, Whene'er we sever--hope may say, We part--to meet again."
Bernard Barton.
The Abraham went under short canvas, and she was just three days, running dead before the wind, ere she came in sight of Waally's islands. Heaving-to to windward of the group, the canoes all passed into their respective harbours, leaving the schooner in the offing, with the hostages on board, waiting for the fulfilment of the treaty. The next day, Waally himself re-appeared, bringing with him Dickinson, Harris, Johnson, Edwards and Bright, the five seamen of the Rancocus that had so long been captives in his hands. It went hard with that savage chief to relinquish these men, but he loved his son even more than he loved power. As for the men themselves, language cannot portray their delight. They were not only rejoiced to be released, but their satisfaction was heightened on finding into whose hands they had fallen. These men had all kept themselves free from wives, and returned to their _colour_, that word being now more appropriate than _colours,_ or ensign, unshackled by any embarrassing engagements. They at once made the Abraham a power in that part of the world. With twelve able seamen, all strong, athletic and healthy men, to handle his craft, and with his two carronades and a long six, the governor felt as if he might interfere with the political relations of the adjoining states with every prospect of being heard. Waally was, probably, of the same opinion, for he made a great effort to extend the treaty so far as to overturn Ooroony altogether, and thus secure to their two selves the control of all that region. Woolston inquired of Waally, in what he should be benefited by such a policy? when the wily savage told him, with the gravest face imaginable, that he, Mark, might retain, in addition to his territories at the Reef, Rancocus Island! The governor thanked his fellow potentate for this hint, and now took occasion to assure him that, in future, each and all of Waally's canoes must keep away from Rancocus Island altogether; that island belonged to him, and if any more expeditions visited it, the call should be returned at Waally's habitations. This answer brought on an angry discussion, in which Waally, once or twice, forgot himself a little; and when he took his leave, it was not in the best humour possible.
Mark now deliberated on the state of things around him. Jones knew Ooroony well, having been living in his territories until they were overrun by his powerful enemy, and the governor sent him to find that chief, using a captured canoe, of which they had kept two or three alongside of the schooner for the purpose. Jones, who was a sworn friend of the unfortunate chief, went as negotiator. Care was taken to land at the right place, under cover of the Abraham's guns, and in six hours Mark had the real gratification of taking Ooroony, good, honest, upright Ooroony, by the hand, on the quarter-deck of his own vessel. Much as the chief had suffered and lost, within the last two years, a gleam of returning happiness shone on him when he placed his foot on the deck of the schooner. His reception by the governor was honourable and even touching. Mark thanked him for his kindness to his wife, to his sister, to Heaton, and to his friend Bob. In point of fact, without this kindness, he, Woolston, might then have been a solitary hermit, without the means of getting access to any of his fellow-creatures, and doomed to remain in that condition all his days. The obligation was now frankly admitted, and Ooroony shed tears of joy when he thus found that his good deeds were remembered and appreciated.
It has long been a question with moralists, whether or not, good and evil bring their rewards and punishments in this state of being. While it might be dangerous to infer the affirmative of this mooted point, as it would be cutting off the future and its consequences from those whose real hopes and fears ought to be mainly concentrated in the life that is to come, it would seem to be presuming to suppose that principles like these ever can be nugatory in the control even of our daily concerns.
If it be true that God "visits the sins of the fathers upon the children even to the third and fourth generations of them that hate him," and that the seed of the righteous man is never seen begging his bread, there is much reason to believe that a portion of our transgressions is to meet with its punishment here on earth. We think nothing can be more apparent than the fact that, in the light of mere worldly expediency, an upright and high-principled course leads to more happiness than one that is the reverse; and if "honesty is the best policy," after all the shifts and expedients of cupidity, so does virtue lead most unerringly to happiness here, as it opens up the way to happiness hereafter.
All the men of the Abraham had heard of Ooroony, and of his benevolent qualities. It was his goodness, indeed, that had been the cause of his downfall; for had he punished Waally as he deserved to be, when the power was in his hands, that turbulent chief, who commenced life as his lawful tributary, would never have gained a point where he was so near becoming his master. Every man on board now pressed around the good old chief, who heard on all sides of him assurances of respect and attachment, with pledges of assistance. When this touching scene was over, Mark held a council on the quarter-deck, in which the whole matter of the political condition of the group was discussed, and the wants and dangers of Ooroony laid bare.
As commonly happens everywhere, civilized nations and popular governments forming no exceptions to the rule, the ascendency of evil in this cluster of remote and savage islands was owing altogether to the activity and audacity of a few wicked men, rather than to the inclination of the mass. The people greatly preferred the mild sway of their lawful chief, to the violence and exactions of the turbulent warrior who had worked his way into the ascendant; and, if a portion of the population had, unwittingly, aided the latter in his designs, under the momentary impulses of a love of change, they now fully repented of their mistake, and would gladly see the old condition of things restored. There was one island, in particular, which might be considered as the seat of power in the entire group. Ooroony had been born on it, and it had long been the residence of his family; but Waally succeeded in driving him off of it, and of intimidating its people, who, in secret, pined for the return of their ancient rulers. If this island could be again put in his possession, it would, itself, give the good chief such an accession of power, as would place him, at once, on a level with his competitor, and bring the war back to a struggle on equal terms. Could this be done with the assistance of the schooner, the moral effect of such an alliance would, in all probability, secure Ooroony's ascendency as long as such an alliance lasted.
It would not have been easy to give a clearer illustration of the truth that "knowledge is power," than the case now before us affords. Here was a small vessel, of less than a hundred tons in measurement, with a crew of twelve men, and armed with three guns, that was not only deemed to be sufficient but which was in fact amply sufficient to change a dynasty among a people who counted their hosts in thousands. The expedients of civilized life gave the governor this ascendency, and he determined to use it justly, and in moderation. It was his wish to avoid bloodshed; and after learning all the facts he could, he set about his task coolly and with prudence.
The first thing done, was to carry the schooner in, within reach of shot of Waally's principal fortress, where his ruling chiefs resided, and which in fact was the hold where about a hundred of his followers dwelt; fellows that kept the whole island in fear, and who rendered it subservient to Waally's wishes. This fortress, fort, or whatever it should be called, was then summoned, its chief being commanded to quit, not only the hold, but the island altogether. The answer was a defiance. As time was given for the reception of this reply, measures had been taken to support the summons by a suitable degree of concert and activity. Ooroony landed in person, and got among his friends on the island, who, assured of the support of the schooner, took up arms to a man, and appeared in a force that, of itself, was sufficient to drive Waally's men into the sea. Nevertheless, the last made a show of resistance until the governor fired his six-pounder at them. The shot passed through the wooden pickets, and, though it hurt no one, it made such a clatter, that the chief in command sent out a palm-branch, and submitted. This bloodless conquest caused a revolution at once, in several of the less important islands, and in eight-and-forty hours, Ooroony found himself where he had been when Betts appeared in the Neshamony. Waally was fain to make the best of matters, and even he came in, acknowledged his crimes, obtained a pardon, and paid tribute. The effect of this submission on the part of Waally, was to establish Ooroony more strongly than ever in authority, and to give him a chance of reigning peacefully for the remainder of his days. All this was done in less than a week after the war had begun in earnest, by the invasion of the Reef!
The governor was too desirous to relieve the anxiety of those he had left behind him to accept the invitations that he, and his party, now received to make merry. He traded a little with Ooroony's people, obtaining many things that were useful in exchange for old iron, and other articles of little or no value. What was more, he ascertained that sandal-wood was to be found on Rancocus Island in small quantities, and in this group in abundance. A contract was made, accordingly, for the cutting and preparing of a considerable quantity of this wood, which was to be ready for delivery in the course of three months, when it was understood that the schooner was to return and take it in. These arrangements completed, the Friend Abraham White sailed for home.
Instead of entangling himself in the channels to leeward, Mark made the land well to the northward, entering the group by a passage that led him quite down to the Reef, as the original island was now uniformly called, with a flowing sheet. Of course the schooner was seen an hour before she arrived, and everybody was out on the Reef to greet the adventurers. Fears mingled with the other manifestations of joy, when the result of this great enterprise came to be known. Mark had a delicious moment when he folded the sobbing Bridget to his heart, and Friend Martha was overcome in a way that it was not usual for her to betray feminine weakness.
Everybody exulted in the success of the colony, and it was hoped that the future would be as quiet as it was secure.
But recent events began to give the governor trouble, on other accounts. The accession to his numbers, as well as the fact that these men were seamen, and had belonged to the Rancocus, set him thinking on the subject of his duty to the owners of that vessel. So long as he supposed him self to be a cast-away, he had made use of their property without compunction, but circumstances were now changed, and he felt it to be a duty seriously to reflect on the possibility of doing something for the benefit of those who had, undesignedly it is true, contributed so much to his own comfort. In order to give this important subject a due consideration, as well as to relieve the minds of those at the Peak, the Abraham sailed for the cove the morning after her arrival at the Reef. Bridget went across to pay Anne a visit, and most of the men were of the party. The Neshamony had carried over the intelligence of Waally's repulse, and of the Abraham's having gone to that chief's island, but the result of this last expedition remained to be communicated.
The run was made in six hours, and the Abraham was taken into the cove, and anchored there, just as easily as one of the smaller craft. There was water enough for anything that floated, the principal want being that of room, though there was enough even of room to receive a dozen vessels of size. The place, indeed, was a snug, natural basin, rather than a port, but art could not have made it safer, or even much more commodious. It was all so small an island could ever require in the way of a haven, it not being probable that the trade of the place would reach an amount that the shipping it could hold would not carry.
The governor now summoned a general council of the colony. The seven seamen attended, as well as all the others, one or two at the crater excepted, and the business in hand was entered on soberly, and, in some respects, solemnly. In the first place, the constitution and intentions of the colonists were laid before the seven men, and they were asked as to their wishes for the future. Four of these men, including Brown, at once signed the constitution, and were sworn in as citizens. It was their wish to pass their days in that delicious climate, and amid the abundance of those rich and pleasing islands. The other three engaged with Mark for a time, but expressed a desire to return to America, after awhile. Wives were wanting; and this the governor saw, plainly enough, was a difficulty that must be got over, to keep the settlement contented. Not that a wife may not make a man's home very miserable, as well as very happy; but, most people prefer trying the experiment for themselves, instead of profiting by the experience of others.
As soon as the question of citizenship was decided, and all the engagements were duly made, the governor laid his question of conscience before the general council. For a long time it had been supposed that the Rancocus could not be moved. The eruption had left her in a basin, or hole, where there was just water enough to float her, while twelve feet was the most that could be found on the side on which the channel was deepest. Now, thirteen feet aft was the draught of the ship when she was launched. This Bob well knew, having been launched in her. But, Brown had suggested the possibility of lifting the vessel eighteen inches or two feet, and of thus carrying her over the rock by which she was imprisoned. Once liberated from that place, every one knew there would be no difficulty in getting the ship to sea, since in one of the channels, that which led to the northward, a vessel might actually carry out fully five fathoms, or quite thirty feet. This channel had been accurately sounded by the governor himself, and of the fact he was well assured. Indeed, he had sounded most of the true channels around the Reef. By true channels is meant those passages that led from the open water quite up to the crater, or which admitted the passage of vessels, or boats: while the false were _culs de sac_, through which there were no real passages.
The possibility, thus admitted, of taking the Rancocus to sea, a grave question of conscience arose. The property belonged to certain owners in Philadelphia, and was it not a duty to take it there? It is true, Friend Abraham White and his partners had received back their money from the insurers--this fact Bridget remembered to have heard before she left home; but those insurers, then, had their claims. Now, the vessel was still sound and seaworthy. Her upper works might require caulking, and her rigging could not be of the soundest; but, on the whole, the Rancocus was still a very valuable ship, and a voyage might be made for her yet. The governor thought that could she get her lower hold filled with sandal-wood, and that wood be converted into teas at Canton, as much would be made as would render every one contented with the result of the close of the voyage, disastrous as had been its commencement. Then Bridget would be of age shortly, when she would become entitled to an amount of property that, properly invested, would contribute largely to the wealth and power of the colony, as well as to those of its governor.
In musing on all these plans, Mark had not the least idea of abandoning the scheme for colonizing. That was dearer to him now than ever; nevertheless, he saw obstacles to their execution. No one could navigate the ship but himself; in truth, he was the only proper person to carry her home, and to deliver her to her owners, whomsoever those might now be, and he could not conceal from himself the propriety, as well as the necessity, of his going in her himself. On the other hand, what might not be the consequences to the colony, of his absence for twelve months? A less time than that would not suffice to do all that was required to be done. Could he take Bridget with him, or could he bear to leave her behind? Her presence might be necessary for the disposal of the real estate of which she was the mistress, while her quitting the colony might be the signal for breaking it up altogether, under the impression that the two persons most interested in it would never return.
Thus did the management of this whole matter become exceedingly delicate. Heaton and Betts, and in the end all the rest, were of opinion that the Rancocus ought to be sent back to America, for the benefit of those to whom she now legally belonged. Could she get a cargo, or any considerable amount of sandal-wood, and exchange it for teas by Canton, the proceeds of these teas might make a very sufficient return for all the outlays of the voyage, as well as for that portion of the property which had been used by the colonists. The use of this property was a very different thing, now, from what it was when Mark and Betts had every reason to consider themselves as merely shipwrecked seamen. Then, it was not only a matter of necessity, but, through that necessity, one of right; but, now, the most that could be said about it, was that it might be very convenient. The principles of the colonists were yet too good to allow of their deceiving themselves on this subject. They had, most of them, engaged with the owners to take care of this property, and it might be questioned, if such a wreck had ever occurred as to discharge the crew. The rule in such cases we believe to be, that, as seamen have a lien on the vessel for their wages, when that lien ceases to be of value, their obligations to the ship terminate. If the Rancocus _could_ be carried to America, no one belonging to her was yet legally exonerated from his duties.
After weighing all these points, it was gravely and solemnly declared that an effort should first be made to get the ship out of her present duresse, and that the question of future proceedings should then be settled in another council. In the mean time, further and more valuable presents were to be sent to both Ooroony and Waally, from the stores of beads, knives, axes, &c., that were in the ship, with injunctions to them to get as much sandal-wood as was possible cut, and to have it brought down to the coast. Betts was to carry the presents, in the Neshamony, accompanied by Jones, who spoke the language, when he was to return and aid in the work upon the vessel.
The duty enjoined in these decisions was commenced without delay. Heaton and Unus were left at the Peak, as usual, to look after things in that quarter, and to keep the mill from being idle, while all the rest of the men returned to the Reef, and set about the work on the ship. The first step taken was to send down all the spars and rigging that remained aloft; after which everything was got up out of the hold, and rolled, or dragged ashore. Of cargo, strictly speaking, the Rancocus had very little in weight, but she had a great many water-casks, four or five times as many as would have been put into her in an ordinary voyage. These casks had all been filled with fresh water, to answer the double purpose of a supply for the people, and as ballast for the ship. When these casks were all got on deck, and the water was started, it was found that the vessel floated several inches lighter than before. The sending ashore of the spars, sails, rigging, lumber, provisions, &c., produced a still further effect, and, after carefully comparing the soundings, and the present draught of the vessel, the governor found it would be necessary to lift the last only eight inches, to get her out of her natural dock. This result greatly encouraged the labourers, who proceeded with renewed spirit. As it would be altogether useless to overhaul the rigging, caulk decks, &c., unless the ship could be got out of her berth, everybody worked with that end in view at first. In the course of a week, the water-casks were under her bottom, and it was thought that the vessel would have about an inch to spare. A gale having blown in the water, and a high tide coming at the same time, the governor determined to try the experiment of crossing the barrier. The order came upon the men suddenly, for no one thought the attempt would be made, until the ship was lifted an inch or two higher. But Mark saw what the wind had been doing for them, and he lost not a moment. The vessel was moved, brought head to her course, and the lines were hauled upon. Away went the Rancocus, which was now moved for the first time since the eruption!
Just as the governor fancied that the ship was going clear, she struck aft. On examination it was found that her heel was on a knoll of the rock, and that had she been a fathom on either side of it, she would have gone clear. The hold, however, was very slight, and by getting two of the anchors to the cat-heads, the vessel was canted sufficiently to admit, of her passing. Then came cheers for success, and the cry of "walk away with her!" That same day the Rancocus was hauled alongside of the Reef, made fast, and secured just as she would have been at her own wharf, in Philadelphia.
Now the caulkers began their part of the job. When caulked and scraped, she was painted, her rigging was overhauled and got into its places, the masts and yards were sent aloft, and all the sails were overhauled. A tier of casks, filled with fresh water, was put into her lower hold for ballast, and all the stores necessary for the voyage were sent on board her. Among other things overhauled were the provisions. Most of the beef and pork was condemned, and no small part of the bread; still, enough remained to take the ship's company to a civilized port. So reluctant was the governor to come to the decision concerning the crew, that he even bent sails before a council was again convened. But there was no longer any good excuse for delay. Betts had long been back, and brought the report that the sandal-wood was being hauled to the coast in great quantities, both factions working with right good will. In another month the ship might be loaded and sail for America.
To the astonishment of every one, Bridget appeared in the council, and announced her determination to remain behind, while her husband carried the ship to her owners. She saw and felt, the nature of his duty, and could consent to his performing it to the letter. Mark was quite taken by surprise by this heroic and conscientious act in his young wife, and he had a great struggle with himself on the subject of leaving her behind him. Heaton, however, was so very prudent, and the present relations with their neighbours--neighbours four hundred miles distant--were so amicable, the whole matter was so serious, and the duty so obvious, that he finally acquiesced, without suffering his doubts to be seen.
The next thing was to select a crew. The three men who had declined becoming citizens of the colony, Johnson, Edwards, and Bright, all able seamen, went as a matter of course. Betts would have to go in the character of mate, though Bigelow might have got along in that capacity. Betts knew nothing of navigation, while Bigelow might find his way into port on a pinch. On the other hand, Betts was a prime seaman--a perfect long-cue, in fact--whereas the most that could be said of Bigelow, in this respect, was that he was a stout, willing fellow, and was much better than a raw hand. The governor named Betts as his first, and Bigelow as his second officer. Brown remained behind, having charge of the navy in the governor's absence. He had a private interview with Mark, however, in which he earnestly requested that the governor would have the goodness "to pick out for him the sort of gal that he thought would make a fellow a good and virtuous wife, and bring her out with him, in whatever way he might return." Mark made as fair promises as the circumstances of the case would allow, and Brown was satisfied.
It was thought prudent to have eight white men on board the ship, Mark intending to borrow as many more of Ooroony's people, to help pull and haul. With such a crew, he thought he might get along very well. Wattles chose to remain with his friend Brown; but Dickinson and Harris, though ready and willing to return, wished to sail in the ship. Like Brown, they wanted wives, but chose to select them for themselves. On this subject Wattles said nothing. We may add here, that Unus and Juno were united before the ship sailed. They took up land on the Peak, where Unus erected for himself a very neat cabin. Bridget set the young couple up, giving the furniture, a pig, some fowls, and other necessaries.
At length the day for sailing arrived. Previously to departing, Mark had carried the ship through the channel, and she was anchored in a very good and safe roadstead, outside of everything. The leave-taking took place on board her. Bridget wept long in her husband's arms, but finally got so far the command of herself, as to assume an air of encouraging firmness among the other women. By this time, it was every way so obvious Mark's presence would be indispensable in America, that his absence was regarded as a necessity beyond control. Still it was hard to part for a year, nor was the last embrace entirely free from anguish. Friend Martha Betts took leave of Friend Robert with a great appearance of calmness, though she felt the separation keenly. A quiet, warm-hearted woman, she had made her husband very happy; and Bob was quite sensible of her worth. But to him the sea was a home, and he regarded a voyage round the world much as a countryman would look upon a trip to market. He saw his wife always in the vista created by his imagination, but she was at the end of the voyage.
At the appointed hour, the Rancocus sailed, Brown and Wattles going down with her in the Neshamony as far as Betto's group, in order to bring back the latest intelligence of her proceedings. The governor now got Ooroony to assemble his priests and chiefs, and to pronounce a taboo on all intercourse with the whites for one year. At the end of that time, he promised to return, and to bring with him presents that should render every one glad to welcome him back. Even Waally was included in these arrangements; and when Mark finally sailed, it was with a strong hope that in virtue of the taboo, of Ooroony's power, and of his rival's sagacity, he might rely on the colony's meeting with no molestation during his absence. The reader will see that the Peak and Reef would be in a very defenceless condition, were it not for the schooner. By means of that vessel, under the management of Brown, assisted by Wattles, Socrates and Unus, it is true, a fleet of canoes might be beaten off; but any accident to the Abraham would be very likely to prove fatal to the colony, in the event of an invasion. Instructions were given to Heaton to keep the schooner moving about, and particularly to make a trip as often as once in two months, to Ooroony's country, in order to look after the state of things there. The pretence was to be trade--beads, hatchets, and old iron being taken each time, in exchange for sandal-wood; but the principal object was to keep an eye on the movements, and to get an insight into the policy, of the savages.
After taking in a very considerable quantity of sandal-wood, and procuring eight active assistants from Ooroony the Rancocus got under way for Canton. By the Neshamony, which saw her into the offing, letters were sent back to the Reef, when the governor squared away for his port. At the end of fifty days, the ship reached Canton, where speedy and excellent sale was made of her cargo. So very lucrative did Mark make this transaction, that, finding himself with assets after filling up with teas, he thought himself justified in changing his course of proceeding. A small American brig, which was not deemed fit to double the capes, and to come-on a stormy coast, was on sale. She could run several years in a sea as mild as the Pacific, and Mark purchased her for a song. He put as many useful things on board her as he could find, including several cows, &c. Dry English cows were not difficult to find, the ships from Europe often bringing out the animals, and turning them off when useless. Mark was enabled to purchase six, which, rightly enough, he thought would prove a great acquisition to the colony. A plentiful supply of iron was also provided, as was ammunition, arms, and guns. The whole outlay, including the cost of the vessel, was less than seven thousand dollars; which sum Mark knew he should receive in Philadelphia, on account of the personal property of Bridget, and with which he had made up his mind to replace the proceeds of the sandal-wood, thus used, did those interested exact it. As for the vessel, she sailed like a witch, was coppered and copper-fastened, but was both old and weak. She had quarters, having been used once as a privateer, and mounted ten sixes. Her burthen was two hundred tons, and her name the Mermaid. The papers were all American, and in perfect rule.
The governor might not have made this purchase, had it not been for the circumstance that he met an old acquaintance in Canton, who had got married in Calcutta to a pretty and very well-mannered English girl--a step that lost him his berth, however/on board a Philadelphia ship. Saunders was two or three years Mark's senior, and of an excellent disposition and diameter. When he heard the history of the colony, he professed a desire to join it, engaging to pick up a crew of Americans, who were in his own situation, or had no work on their hands, and to take the brig to the Reef. "This arrangement was made and carried out; the Mermaid sailing for the crater" the day before the Rancocus left for Philadelphia, having Bigelow on board as pilot and first officer; while Woolston shipped an officer to supply his place. The two vessels met in the China seas, and passed a week in company, when each steered her course; the governor quite happy in thinking that he had made this provision for the good of his people. The arrival of the Mermaid would be an eventful day in the colony, on every account; and, the instructions of Saunders forbidding his quitting the islands until the end of the year, her presence would be a great additional means of security.
It is unnecessary for us to dwell on the passage of the Rancocus. In due time she entered the capes of the Delaware, surprising all interested with her appearance. Friend Abraham White was dead, and the firm dissolved. But the property had all been transferred, to the insurers by the payment of the amount underwritten, and Mark made his report at the office. The teas were sold to great advantage, and the whole matter was taken fairly into consideration. After deducting the sum paid the firm, principal and interest, the insurance company resolved to give the ship, and the balance of the proceeds of the sale, to Captain Woolston, as a reward for his integrity and prudence. Mark had concealed nothing, but stated what he had done in reference to the Mermaid, and told his whole story with great simplicity, and with perfect truth. The result was, that the young man got, in addition to the ship, which was legally conveyed to him, some eleven thousand dollars in hard money. Thus was honesty shown to be the best policy!
It is scarcely necessary to say that his success made Mark Woolston a great man, in a small way. Not only was he received with open arms by all of his own blood; but Dr. Yardley now relented, and took him by the hand. A faithful account was rendered of his stewardship; and Mark received as much ready money, on account of his wife, as placed somewhat more than twenty thousand dollars at his disposal. With this money he set to work, without losing a day, to make arrangements to return to Bridget and the crater; for he always deemed that his proper abode, in preference to the Peak. In this feeling, his charming wife coincided; both probably encouraging a secret interest in the former, in consequence of the solitary hours that had been passed there by the young husband, while his anxious partner was far away.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
20 | None | "There is no gloom on earth, for God above Chastens in love; Transmuting sorrows into golden joy Free from alloy. His dearest attribute is still to bless, And man's most welcome hymn is grateful cheerfulness."
Moral Alchemy.
The mode of proceeding now required great caution on the part of Mark Woolston. His mind was fully made up not to desert his islands, although this might easily be done, by fitting out the ship for another voyage, filling her with sandal-wood, and bringing off all who chose to abandon the place. But Woolston had become infatuated with the climate, which had all the witchery of a low latitude without any of its lassitude. The sea-breezes kept the frame invigorated, and the air reasonably cool, even at the Reef; while, on the Peak, there was scarcely ever a day, in the warmest months, when one could not labour at noon. In this respect the climate did not vary essentially from that of Pennsylvania, the difference existing in the fact that there was no winter in his new country. Nothing takes such a hold on men as a delicious climate. They may not be sensible of all its excellencies while in its enjoyment, but the want of it is immediately felt, and has an influence on all their pleasures. Even the scenery-hunter submits to this witchery of climate, which casts a charm over the secondary beauties of nature, as a sweet and placid temper renders the face of woman more lovely than the colour of a skin, or the brilliancy of fine eyes. The Alps and the Apennines furnish a standing proof of the truth of this fact. As respects grandeur, a startling magnificence, and all that at first takes the reason, as well as the tastes, by surprise, the first are vastly in advance of the last; yet, no man of feeling or sentiment, probably ever dwelt a twelve-month amid each, without becoming more attached to the last. We wonder at Switzerland, while we get to love Italy. The difference is entirely owing to climate; for, did the Alps rise in a lower latitude, they would be absolutely peerless.
But Mark Woolston had no thought of abandoning the crater and the Peak. Nor did he desire to people them at random, creating a population by any means, incorporating moral diseases in his body politic by the measures taken to bring it into existence. On the contrary, it was his wish, rather, to procure just as much force as might be necessary to security, so divided in pursuits and qualities as to conduce to comfort and civilization, and then to trust to the natural increase for the growth that might be desirable in the end. Such a policy evidently required caution and prudence. The reader will perceive that governor Woolston was not influenced by the spirit of trade that is now so active, preferring happiness to wealth, and morals to power.
Among Woolston's acquaintances, there was a young man of about his own age, of the name of Pennock, who struck him as a person admirably suited for his purposes. This Pennock had married very young, and was already the father of three children. He began to feel the pressure of society, for he was poor. He was an excellent farmer, accustomed to toil, while he was also well educated, having been intended for one of the professions. To Pennock Mark told his story, exhibited his proofs, and laid bare his whole policy, under a pledge of secresy, offering at the same time to receive his friend, his wife, children, and two unmarried sisters, into the colony. After taking time to reflect and to consult, Pennock accepted the offer as frankly as it had been made. From this time John Pennock relieved the governor, in a great measure, of the duly of selecting the remaining emigrants, taking that office on himself. This allowed Mark to attend to his purchases, and to getting the ship ready for sea. Two of his own brothers, however, expressed a wish to join the new community, and Charles and Abraham Woolston were received in the colony lists. Half-a-dozen more were admitted, by means of direct application to the governor himself, though the accessions were principally obtained through the negotiations and measures of Pennock. All was done with great secrecy, it being Mark's anxious desire, on many accounts, not to attract public attention to his colony.
The reasons were numerous and sufficient for this wish to remain unknown. In the first place, the policy of retaining the monopoly of a trade that must be enormously profitable, was too obvious to need any arguments to support it. So long as the sandal-wood lasted, so long would it be in the power of the colonists to coin money; while it was certain that competitors would rush in, the moment the existence of this mine of wealth should be known. Then, the governor apprehended the cupidity and ambition of the old-established governments, when it should be known that territory was to be acquired. It was scarcely possible for man to possess any portion of this earth by a title better than that with which Mark Woolston was invested with his domains. But, what is right compared to might! Of his native country, so abused in our own times for its rapacity, and the desire to extend its dominions by any means, Mark felt no apprehension. Of all the powerful nations of the present day, America, though not absolutely spotless, has probably the least to reproach herself with, on the score of lawless and purely ambitious acquisitions. Even her conquests in open war have been few, and are not yet determined in character. In the end, it will be found that little will be taken that Mexico could keep; and had that nation observed towards this, ordinary justice and faith, in her intercourse and treaties, that which has so suddenly and vigorously been done, would never have even been attempted.
It may suit the policy of those who live under the same system, to decry those who do not; but men are not so blind that they cannot see the sun at noon-day. One nation makes war because its consul receives the rap of a fan; and men of a different origin, religion and habits, are coerced into submission as the consequence. Another nation burns towns, and destroys their people in thousands, because their governors will not consent to admit a poisonous drug into their territories: an offence against the laws of trade that can only be expiated by the ruthless march of the conqueror. Yet the ruling men of both these communities affect a great sensibility when the long-slumbering young lion of the West rouses himself in his lair, after twenty years of forbearance, and stretches out a paw in resentment for outrages that no other nation, conscious of his strength, would have endured for as many months, because, forsooth, he _is_ the young lion of the West. Never mind: by the time New Zealand and Tahiti are brought under the yoke, the Californians may be admitted to an equal participation in the rights of American citizens.
The governor was fully aware of the danger he ran of having claims, of some sort or other, set up to his islands, if he revealed their existence; and he took the greatest pains to conceal the fact. The arrival of the Rancocus was mentioned in the papers, as a matter of course; but it was in a way to induce the reader to suppose she had met with her accident in the midst of a naked reef, and principally through the loss of her men; and that, when a few of the last were regained, the voyage was successfully resumed and terminated. In that day, the great discovery had not been made that men were merely incidents of newspapers; but the world had the folly to believe that newspapers were incidents of society, and were subject to its rules and interests. Some respect was paid to private rights, and the reign of gossip had not commenced. [4] [Footnote 4: We hold in our possession a curious document, the publication of which might rebuke this spirit of gossip, and give a salutary warning to certain managers of the press, who no sooner hear a rumour than they think themselves justified in embalming it among the other truths of their daily sheets. The occurrences of life brought us in collision, legally, with an editor; and we obtained a verdict against him. Dissatisfied with defeat, as is apt to be the case, he applied for a new trial. Such an application was to be sustained by affidavits, and he made his own, as usual. Now, in this affidavit, our competitor swore distinctly and unequivocally, to certain alleged facts (we think to the number of six), every one of which was untrue. Fortunately for the party implicated, the matter sworn to was purely _ad captandum_ stuff, and, in a legal sense, not pertinent to the issue. This prevented it from being perjury in law. Still, it was all untrue, and nothing was easier than to show it. Now, we do not doubt that the person thus swearing _believed_ all that he swore to, or he would not have had the extreme folly to expose himself as he did; but he was so much in the habit of publishing gossip in his journal, that, when an occasion arrived, he did not hesitate about swearing to what he had read in other journals, without taking the trouble to inquire if it were true! One of these days we may lay all this, along with much other similar proof of the virtue there is in gossip, so plainly before the world, that he who runs may read.]
In the last century, however, matters were not carried quite so far as they are at present. No part of this community, claiming any portion of respectability, was willing to publish its own sense of inferiority so openly, as to gossip about its fellow-citizens, for no more direct admissions of inferiority can be made than this wish to comment on the subject of any one's private concerns. Consequently Mark and his islands escaped. There was no necessity for his telling the insurers anything about the Peak, for instance, and on that part of the subject, therefore, he wisely held his tongue. Nothing, in short, was said of any colony at all. The manner in which the crew had been driven away to leeward, and recovered, was told minutely, and the whole process by which the ship was saved. The property used, Mark said had been appropriated to his wants, without going into details, and the main results being so very satisfactory, the insurers asked no further.
As soon as off the capes, the governor set about a serious investigation of the state of his affairs. In the way of cargo, a great many articles had been laid in, which experience told him would be useful. He took with him such farming tools as Friend Abraham White had not thought of furnishing to the natives of Fejee, and a few seeds that had been overlooked by that speculating philanthropist. There were half a dozen more cows on board, as well as an improved breed of hogs. Mark carried out, also, a couple of mares, for, while many horses could never be much needed in his islands, a few would always be exceedingly useful. Oxen were much wanted, but one of his new colonists had yoked his cows, and it was thought they might be made useful, in a moderate degree, until their stouter substitutes could be reared. Carts and wagons were provided in sufficient numbers. A good stock of iron in bars was laid in, in addition to that which was wrought into nails, and other useful articles. Several thousand dollars in coin were also provided, being principally in small pieces, including copper. But all the emigrants took more or less specie with them.
A good deal of useful lumber was stowed in the lower hold, though the mill by this time furnished a pretty good home supply. The magazine was crammed with ammunition, and the governor had purchased four light field-guns, two three-pounders and two twelve-pound howitzers, with their equipments. He had also brought six long, iron twelves, ship-guns, with their carriages &c. The last he intended for his batteries, the carronades being too light for steady work, and throwing their shot too wild for a long range. The last could be mounted on board the different vessels. The Rancocus, also, had an entire new armament, having left all her old guns but two behind her. Two hundred muskets were laid in, with fifty brace of pistols. In a word, as many arms were provided as it was thought could, in any emergency, become necessary.
But it was the human portion of his cargo that the governor, rightly enough, deemed to be of the greatest importance. Much care had been bestowed on the selection, which had given all concerned in it not a little trouble. Morals were the first interest attended to. No one was received but those who bore perfectly good characters. The next thing was to make a proper division among the various trades and pursuits of life. There were carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, tailors, shoemakers, &c., or, one of each, and sometimes more. Every 'man was married, the only exceptions being in the cases of younger brothers and sisters, of whom about a dozen were admitted along with their relatives. The whole of the ships' betwixt decks was fitted up for the reception of these emigrants, who were two hundred and seven in number, besides children. Of the last there were more than fifty, but they were principally of an age to allow of their being put into holes and corners.
Mark Woolston was much too sensible a man to fall into any of the modern absurdities on the subject of equality, and a community of interests. One or two individuals, even in that day, had wished to accompany him, who were for forming an association in which all property should be shared in common, and in which nothing was to be done but that which was right. Mark had not the least objection in the world to the last proposition, and would have been glad enough to see it carried out to the letter, though he differed essentially with the applicants, as to the mode of achieving so desirable an end. He was of opinion that civilization could not exist without property, or property without a direct personal interest in both its accumulation and its preservation. They, on the other hand, were carried away by the crotchet that community-labour was better than individual labour, and that a hundred men would be happier and better off with their individualities compressed into one, than by leaving them in a hundred subdivisions, as they had been placed by nature. The theorists might have been right, had it been in their power to compress a hundred individuals into one, but it was riot. After all their efforts, they would still remain a hundred individuals, merely banded together under more restraints, and with less liberty than are common.
Of all sophisms, that is the broadest which supposes personal liberty is extended by increasing the power of the community. Individuality is annihilated in a thousand things, by the community-power that already exists in this country, where persecution often follows from a man's thinking and acting differently from his neighbours, though the law professes to protect him. The reason why this power becomes so very formidable, and is often so oppressively tyrannical in its exhibition, is very obvious. In countries where the power is in the hands of the few, public sympathy often sustains the man who resists its injustice; but no public sympathy can sustain him who is oppressed by the public itself. This oppression does not often exhibit itself in the form of law, but rather in its denial. He, who has a clamour raised against him by numbers, appeals in vain to numbers for justice, though his claim may be clear as the sun at noon-day. The divided responsibility of bodies of men prevents anything like the control of conscience, and the most ruthless wrongs are committed, equally without reflection and without remorse.
Mark Woolston had thought too much on the subject, to be the dupe of any of these visionary theories. Instead of fancying that men never knew anything previously to the last ten years of the eighteenth century, he was of the opinion of the wisest man who ever lived, that 'there was nothing new under the sun.' That 'circumstances might alter cases' he was willing enough to allow, nor did he intend to govern the crater by precisely the same laws as he would govern Pennsylvania, or Japan; but he well understood, nevertheless, that certain great moral truths existed as the law of the human family, and that they were not to be set aside by visionaries; and least of all, with impunity.
Everything connected with the colony was strictly practical. The decision of certain points had unquestionably given the governor trouble, though he got along with them pretty well, on the whole. A couple of young lawyers had desired to go, but he had the prudence to reject them. Law, as a science, is a very useful study, beyond a question; but the governor, rightly enough, fancied that his people could do without so much science for a few years longer. Then another doctor volunteered his services. Mark remembered the quarrels between his father and his father-in-law, and thought it better to die under one theory than under two. As regards a clergyman, Mark had greater difficulty. The question of sect was not as seriously debated half a century ago as it is to-day; still it was debated. Bristol had a very ancient society, of the persuasion of the Anglican church, and Mark's family belonged to it. Bridget, however, was a Presbyterian, and no small portion of the new colonists were what is called Wet-Quakers; that is, Friends who are not very particular in their opinions or observances. Now, religion often caused more feuds than anything else: still it was impossible to have a priest for every persuasion, and one ought to suffice for the whole colony. The question was of what sect should that one clergyman be? So many prejudices were to be consulted, that the governor was about to abandon the project in despair, when accident determined the point. Among Heaton's relatives was a young man of the name of Hornblower, no bad appellation, by the way, for one who had to sound so many notes of warning, who had received priest's orders from the hands of the well-known Dr. White, so long the presiding Bishop of America, and whose constitution imperiously demanded a milder climate than that in which he then lived. As respects him, it became a question purely of humanity, the divine being too poor to travel on his own account, and he was received on board the Rancocus, with his wife, his sister, and two children, that he might have the benefit of living within the tropics. The matter was fully explained to the other emigrants, who could not raise objections if they would, but who really were not disposed to do so in a case of such obvious motives. A good portion of them, probably, came to the conclusion that Episcopalian ministrations were better than none, though, to own the truth, the liturgy gave a good deal of scandal to a certain portion of their number. _Reading_ prayers was so profane a thing, that these individuals could scarcely consent to be present at such a vain ceremony; nor was the discontent, on this preliminary point, fully disposed of until the governor once asked the principal objector how he got along with the Lord's Prayer, which was not only written and printed, but which usually was committed to memory! Notwithstanding this difficulty, the emigrants did get along with it without many qualms, and most of them dropped quietly into the habit of worshipping agreeably to a liturgy, just as if it were not the terrible profanity that some of them had imagined. In this way, many of our most intense prejudices get lost in new communications.
It is not our intention to accompany the Rancocus, day by day, in her route. She touched at Rio, and sailed again at the end of eight and forty hours. The passage round the Horn was favourable, and having got well to the westward, away the ship went for her port. One of the cows got down, and died before it could be relieved, in a gale off the cape; but no other accident worth mentioning occurred. A child died with convulsions, in consequence of teething, a few days later; but this did not diminish the number on board, as three were born the same week. The ship had now been at sea one hundred and sixty days, counting the time passed at Rio, and a general impatience to arrive pervaded the vessel. If the truth must be said, some of the emigrants began to doubt the governor's ability to find his islands again, though none doubted of their existence. The Kannakas, however, declared that they began to smell home, and it is odd enough, that this declaration, coming as it did from ignorant men who made it merely on a fanciful suggestion, obtained more credit with most of the emigrants, than all the governor's instruments and observations.
One day, a little before noon it was, Mark appeared on deck with his quadrant, and as he cleaned the glasses of the instrument, he announced his conviction that the ship would shortly make the group of the crater. A current had set him further north than he intended to go, but having hauled up to south-west, he waited only for noon to ascertain his latitude, to be certain of his position. As the governor maintained a proper distance from his people, and was not in the habit of making-unnecessary communications to them, his present frankness told for so much the more, and it produced a very general excitement in the ship. All eyes were on the look-out for land, greatly increasing the chances of its being shortly seen. The observation came at noon, as is customary, and the governor found he was about thirty miles to the northward of the group of islands he was seeking. By his calculation, he was still to the eastward of it, and he hauled up, hoping to fall in with the land well to windward. After standing on three hours in the right direction, the look-outs from the cross-trees declared no land was visible ahead. For one moment the dreadful apprehension of the group's having sunk under another convulsion of nature crossed Mark's mind, but he entertained that notion for a minute only. Then came the cry of "sail ho!" to cheer everybody, and to give them something else to think of.
This was the first vessel the Rancocus had seen since she left Rio. It was to windward, and appeared to be standing down before the wind. In an hour's time the two vessels were near enough to each other to enable the glass to distinguish objects; and the quarter-deck, on board the Rancocus, were all engaged in looking at the stranger. " 'Tis the Mermaid," said Mark to Betts, "and it's all right. Though what that craft can be doing here to windward of the islands is more than I can imagine!"
"Perhaps, sir, they's a cruising arter us," answered Bob. "This is about the time they ought to be expectin' on us; and who knows but Madam Woolston and Friend Marthy may not have taken it into their heads to come out a bit to see arter their lawful husbands?"
The governor smiled at this conceit, but continued his observations in silence.
"She behaves very strangely, Betts," Mark, at length, said. "Just take a look at her. She yaws like a galliot in a gale, and takes the whole road like a drunken man. There can be no one at the helm."
"And how lubberly, sir, her canvas is set! Just look at that main-taw-sail, sir; one of the sheets isn't home by a fathom, while the yard is braced in, till it's almost aback!"
The governor walked the deck for five minutes in intense thought, though occasionally he stopped to look at the brig, now within a league of them. Then he suddenly called out to Bob, to "see all clear for action, and to get everything ready to go to quarters."
This order set every one in motion. The women and children were hurried below, and the men, who had been constantly exercised, now, for five months, took their stations with the regularity of old seamen. The guns were cast loose--ten eighteen-pound carronades and two nines, the new armament--cartridges were got ready, shot placed at hand, and all the usual dispositions for combat were made. While this was doing, the two vessels were fast drawing nearer to each other, and were soon within gun-shot. But, no one on board the Rancocus knew what to make of the evolutions of the Mermaid. Most of her ordinary square-sails were set, though not one of them all was sheeted home, or well hoisted. An attempt had been made to lay the yards square, but one yard-arm was braced in too far, another not far enough, and nothing like order appeared to have prevailed at the sail-trimming. But, the of the brig was the most remarkable. Her general course would seem to be dead before the wind; but she yawed incessantly, and often so broadly, as to catch some of her light sails aback. Most vessels take a good deal of room in running down before the wind, and in a swell; but the Mermaid took a great deal more than was Common, and could scarce be said to look any way in particular. All this the governor observed, as the vessels approached nearer and nearer, as well as the movements of those of the crew who showed themselves in the rigging.
"Clear away a bow-gun," cried Mark, to Betts--"something dreadful must have happened; that brig is in possession of the savages, who do not know how to handle her!"
This announcement produced a stir on board the Rancocus, as may well be imagined. If the savages had the brig, they probably had the group also; and what had become of the colonists? The next quarter of an hour was one of the deepest expectation with all in the ship, and of intense agony with Mark. Betts was greatly disturbed also; nor would it have been safe for one of Waally's men to have been within reach of his arm, just then. Could it be possible that Ooroony had yielded to temptation and played them false? The governor could hardly believe it; and, as for Betts, he protested loudly it could not be so.
"Is that bow-gun ready?" demanded the governor.
"Ay, ay, sir; all ready."
"Fire, but elevate well--we will only frighten them, at first. We betide them, if they resist."
Betts did fire, and to the astonishment of everybody, the brig returned a broadside! But resistance ceased with this one act of energy, if it could be so termed. Although five guns were actually fired, and nearly simultaneously, no aim was even attempted. The shot all flew off at a tangent from the position of the ship; and no harm was done to any but the savages themselves, of whom three or four were injured by the recoils. From the moment the noise and smoke were produced, everything like order ceased on board the brig, which was filled with savages. The vessel broached to, and the sails caught aback. All this time, the Rancocus was steadily drawing nearer, with an intent to board; but, unwilling to expose his people, most of whom were unpractised in strife, in a hand-to-hand conflict with ferocious savages, the governor ordered a gun loaded with grape to be discharged into the brig. This decided the affair at once. Half a dozen were killed or wounded; some ran below; a few took refuge in the top; but most, without the slightest hesitation, jumped overboard. To the surprise of all who saw them, the men in the water began to swim directly to windward; a circumstance which indicated that either land or canoes were to be found in that quarter of the ocean. Seeing the state of things on board the brig, Mark luffed up under her counter, and laid her aboard. In a minute, he and twenty chosen men were on her decks; in another, the vessels were again clear of each other, and the Mermaid under command.
No sooner did the governor discharge his duties as a seaman, than he passed below. In the cabin he found Mr. Saunders, (or Captain Saunders, as he was called by the colonists,) bound hand and foot. His steward was in the same situation, and Bigelow was found, also a prisoner, in the steerage. These were all the colonists on board, and all but two who had been on board, when the vessel was taken.
Captain Saunders could tell the governor very little more than he saw with his own eyes. One fact of importance, however, he could and did communicate, which was this: Instead of being to windward of the crater, as Mark supposed, he was to leeward of it; the currents no doubt having set the ship to the westward faster than had been thought. Rancocus Island would have been made by sunset, had the ship stood on in the course she was steering when she made the Mermaid.
But the most important fact was the safety of the females. They were all at the Peak, where they had lived for the last six months, or ever since the death of the good Ooroony had again placed Waally in the ascendant. Ooroony's son was overturned immediately on the decease of the father, who died a natural death, and Waally disregarded the taboo, which he persuaded his people could have no sanctity as applied to the whites. The plunder of these last, with the possession of the treasure of iron and copper that was to be found in their vessels, had indeed been the principal bribe with which the turbulent and ambitious chief regained his power. The war did not break out, however, as soon as Waally had effected the revolution in his own group. On the contrary, that wily politician had made so many protestations of friendship after that event, which he declared to be necessary to the peace of his island; had collected so much sandal-wood, and permitted it to be transferred to the crater, where a cargo was already stored; and had otherwise made so many amicable demonstrations, as completely to deceive the colonists. No one had anticipated an invasion; but, on the contrary, preparations were making at the Peak for the reception of Mark, whose return had now been expected daily for a fortnight.
The Mermaid had brought over a light freight of wood from Betto's group, and had discharged at the crater. This done, she had sailed with the intention of going out to cruise for the Rancocus, to carry the news of the colony, all of which was favourable, with the exception of the death of Ooroony and the recent events; but was lying in the roads, outside of everything--the Western Roads, as they were called, or those nearest to the other group--waiting for the appointed hour of sailing, which was to be the very morning of the day in which she was fallen in with by the governor. Her crew consisted only of Captain Saunders, Bigelow, the cook and steward, and two of the people engaged at Canton--one of whom was a very good-for-nothing Chinaman. The two last had the look-out, got drunk, and permitted a fleet of hostile canoes to get alongside in the dark, being knocked on the head and tossed overboard, as the penalty of this neglect of duty. The others owed their lives to the circumstance of being taken in their sleep, when resistance was out of the question. In the morning, the brig's cable was cut, sail was set, after a fashion, and an attempt was made to carry the vessel over to Betto's group. It is very questionable whether she ever could have arrived; but that point was disposed of by the opportune appearance of the Rancocus.
Saunders could communicate nothing of the subsequent course of the invaders. He had been kept below the whole time, and did not even know how many canoes composed the fleet. The gang in possession of the Mermaid was understood, however, to be but a very small part of Waally's force present, that chief leading in person. By certain half-comprehended declarations of his conquerors, Captain Sauriders understood that the rest had entered the channel, with a view to penetrate to the crater, where Socrates, Unus and Wattles were residing with their wives and families, and where no greater force was left when the Mermaid sailed. The property there, however, was out of all proportion in value to the force of those whose business it was to take care of it. In consequence of the Rancocus's removal, several buildings had been constructed on the Reef, and one house of very respectable dimensions had been put up on the Summit. It is true, these houses were not very highly finished; but they were of great value to persons in the situation of the colonists. Most of the hogs, moreover, were still rooting and tearing up the thousand-acre prairie; where, indeed, they roamed very much in a state of nature. Socrates occasionally carried to them a boat-load of 'truck' from the crater, in order to keep up amicable relations with them; but they were little better than so many wild animals, in one sense, though there had not yet been time materially to change their natures. In the whole, including young and old, there must have been near two hundred of these animals altogether, their increase being very rapid. Then, a large amount of the stores sent from Canton, including most of the iron, was in store at the crater; all of which would lay at the mercy of Waally's men; for the resistance to be expected from the three in possession, could not amount to much.
The governor was prompt enough in his decision, as soon as he understood the facts of the case. The first thing was to bring the vessels close by the wind, and to pass as near as possible over the ground where the swimmers were to be found; for Mark could not bear the idea of abandoning a hundred of his fellow-creatures in the midst of the ocean, though they were enemies and savages. By making short stretches, and tacking two or three times, the colonists found themselves in the midst of the swimmers; not one in ten of whom would probably ever have reached the land, but for the humanity of their foe. Alongside of the Mermaid were three or four canoes; and these were cast adrift at the right moment, without any parleying. The Indians were quick enough at understanding the meaning of this, and swam to the canoes from all sides, though still anxious to get clear of the vessels. On board the last canoe the governor put all his prisoners, when he deemed himself happily quit of the whole gang.
There were three known channels by which the Rancocus could be carried quite up to the crater. Mark chose that which came in from the northward, both because it was the nearest, and because he could lay his course in it, without tacking, for most of the way. Acquainted now with his position, Mark had no difficulty in finding the entrance of this channel. Furnishing the Mermaid with a dozen hands, she was sent to the western roads, to intercept Waally's fleet, should it be coming out with the booty. In about an hour after the Rancocus altered her course, she made the land; and, just as the sun was setting, she got so close in as to be able to anchor in the northern roads, where there was not only a lee, but good holding-ground. Here the ship passed the night, the governor not liking to venture into the narrow passages in the dark.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
21 | None | "Fancy can charm and feeling bless With sweeter hours than fashion knows; There is no calmer quietness, Than home around the bosom throws."
Percival.
Although the governor deemed it prudent to anchor for the night, he did not neglect the precaution of reconnoitring. Betts was sent towards the Reef, in a boat well armed and manned, in order to ascertain the state of things in that quarter. His instructions directed him to push forward as far as he could, and if possible to hold some sort of communication with Socrates, who might now be considered as commander at the point assailed.
Fortunate was it that the governor bethought him of this measure. As Betts had the ship's launch, which carried two lugg-sails, his progress was both easy and rapid, and he actually got in sight of the Reef before midnight. To his astonishment, all seemed to be tranquil, and Betts at first believed that the savages had completed their work and departed. Being a bold fellow, however, a distant reconnoitring did not satisfy him; and on he went, until his boat fairly lay alongside of the natural quay of the Reef itself. Here he landed, and marched towards the entrance of the crater. The gate was negligently open, and on entering the spacious area, the men found all quiet, without any indications of recent violence. Betts knew that those who dwelt in this place, usually preferred the Summit for sleeping, and he ascended to one of the huts that had been erected there. Here he found the whole of the little garrison of the group, buried in sleep, and totally without any apprehension of the danger which menaced them. As it now appeared, Waally's men had not yet shown themselves, and Socrates knew nothing at all of what had happened to the brig. Glad enough was the negro to shake hands with Betts, and to hear that Master Mark was so near at hand, with a powerful reinforcement. The party already arrived might indeed be termed the last, for the governor had sent with his first officer, on this occasion, no less than five-and-twenty men, each completely armed. With such a garrison, Betts deemed the crater safe, and he sent back the launch, with four seamen in it, to report the condition in which he had found matters, and to communicate all else that he had learned. This done, he turned his attention to the defences of the place.
According to Socrates' account, no great loss in property would be likely to occur, could the colonists make good the Reef against their invaders. The Abraham was over at the Peak, safe enough in the cove, as was the Neshamony and several of the boats, only two or three of the smaller of the last being with him. The hogs and cows were most exposed, though nearly half of the stock was now habitually kept on the Peak. Still, a couple of hundred hogs were on the prairie, as were no less than eight horned cattle, including calves. The loss of the last would be greatly felt, and it was much to be feared, since the creatures were very gentle, and might be easily caught. Betts, however, had fewer apprehensions touching the cattle than for the hogs, since the latter might be slain with arrows, while he was aware that Waally wished to obtain the first alive.
Agreeably to the accounts of Socrates, the progress of vegetation had been very great throughout the entire group. Grass grew wherever the seed was sown, provided anything like soil existed, and the prairie was now a vast range, most of which was green, and all of which was firm enough to bear a hoof. The trees, of all sorts, were flourishing also, and Belts was assured he would not know the group again when he came to see it by daylight, All this was pleasant intelligence, at least, to the eager listeners among the new colonists, who had now been so long on board ship, that anything in the shape of _terra firma_, and of verdure appeared to them like paradise. But Betts had too many things to think of, just then, to give much heed to the eulogium of Socrates, and he soon bestowed all his attention on the means of defence.
As there was but one way of approaching the crater, unless by water, and that was along the hog pasture and across the plank bridge, Bob felt the prudence of immediately taking possession of the pass. He ordered Socrates to look to the gate, where he stationed a guard, and went himself, with ten men, to make sure of the bridge. It was true, Waally's men could swim, and would not be very apt to pause long at the basin; but, it would be an advantage to fight them while in the water, that ought not to be thrown away. The carronades were all loaded, moreover; and these precautions taken, and sentinels posted, Betts suffered his men to sleep on their arms, if sleep they could. Their situation was so novel, that few availed themselves of the privilege, though their commanding officer, himself, was soon snoring most musically.
As might have been, expected, Waally made his assault just as the day appeared. Before that time, however, the launch had got back to the ship, and the latter was under way, coming fast towards the crater. Unknown to all, though anticipated by Mark, the Mermaid had entered the western passage, and was beating up through it, closing fast also on Waally's rear. Such was the state of things, when the yell of the assailants was heard.
Waally made his first push for the bridge, expecting to find it unguarded, and hoping to cross it unresisted. He knew that the ship was gone, and no longer dreaded _her_ fire; but he was fully aware that the Summit had its guns, and he wished to seize them while his men were still impelled by the ardour of a first onset. Those formidable engines of war were held in the most profound respect by all his people, and Waally knew the importance of success in a rapid movement. He had gleaned so much information concerning the state of the Reef, that he expected no great resistance, fully believing that, now he had seized the Mermaid, his enemies would be reduced in numbers to less than half-a-dozen. In all this, he was right enough; and there can be no question that Socrates and his whole party, together with the Reef, and for that matter, the entire group, would have fallen into his hands, but for the timely arrival of the reinforcement. The yell arose when it was ascertained that the bridge was drawn in, and it was succeeded by a volley from the guard posted near it, on the Reef. This commenced the strife, which immediately raged with great fury, and with prodigious clamour. Waally had all his muskets fired, too, though as yet he saw no enemy, and did not know in what direction to aim, He could see men moving about on the Reef, it is true, but it was only at moments, as they mostly kept themselves behind the covers. After firing his muskets, the chief issued an order for a charge, and several hundreds of his warriors plunged into the basin, and began to swim towards the point to be assailed. This movement admonished Betts of the prudence of retiring towards the gate, which he did in good order, and somewhat deliberately. This time, Waally actually got his men upon the Reef without a panic and without loss. They landed in a crowd, and were soon rushing in all directions, eager for plunder, and thirsting for blood. Betts was enabled, notwithstanding to enter the gate, which he did without delay, perfectly satisfied that all efforts of his to resist the torrent without must be vain. As soon as his party had entered, the gate was closed, and Betts was at liberty to bestow all his care on the defence of the crater.
The great extent of the citadel, which contained an area of not less than a hundred acres, it will be remembered, rendered its garrison very insufficient for a siege. It is probable that no one there would have thought of defending it, but for the certainty of powerful support being at hand. This certainty encouraged the garrison, rendering their exertions more ready and cheerful. Betts divided his men into parties of two, scattering them along the Summit, with orders to be vigilant, and to support each other. It was well known that a man could not enter from without unless by the gate, or aided by ladders, or some other mechanical invention. The time necessary to provide the last would bring broad daylight, and enable the colonists to march such a force to the menaced point, as would be pretty certain to prove sufficient to resist the assailants. The gate itself was commanded by a carronade, and was watched by a guard.
Great was the disappointment of Waally when he ascertained, by personal examination, that the Summit could not be scaled, even by the most active of his party, without recourse to assistance, by means of artificial contrivances. He had the sagacity to collect all his men immediately beneath the natural walls, where they were alone safe from the fire of the guns, but where they were also useless. A large pile of iron, an article so coveted, was in plain sight, beneath a shed, but he did not dare to send a single hand to touch it, since it would have brought the adventurer under fire. A variety of other articles, almost as tempting, though not perhaps of the same intrinsic value, lay also in sight, but were tabooed by the magic of powder and balls. Eleven hundred warriors, as was afterwards ascertained, landed on the Reef that eventful morning, and assembled under the walls of the crater. A hundred more remained in the canoes, which lay about a league off, in the western passage, or to leeward, awaiting the result of the enterprise.
The first effort made by Waally was to throw a force upward, by rearing one man on another's shoulders. This scheme succeeded in part, but the fellow who first showed his head above the perpendicular part of the cliff, received a bullet in his brains. The musket was fired by the hands of Socrates. This one discharge brought down the whole fabric, several of those who fell sustaining serious injuries, in the way of broken bones. The completely isolated position of the crater, which stood, as it might be, aloof from all surrounding objects, added materially to its strength in a military sense, and Waally was puzzled how to overcome difficulties that might have embarrassed a more civilized soldier. For the first time in his life, that warrior had encountered a sort of fortress, which could be entered only by regular approaches, unless it might be carried by a _coup de main_. At the latter the savages were expert enough, and on it they had mainly relied; but, disappointed in this respect, they found themselves thrown back on resources that were far from being equal to the emergency.
Tired of inactivity, Waally finally decided on making a desperate effort. The ship-yard was still kept up as a place for the repairing of boats, &c., and it always had more or less lumber lying in, or near it. Selecting a party of a hundred resolute men, and placing them under the orders of one of his bravest chiefs, Waally sent them off, on the run, to bring as much timber, boards, planks, &c., as they could carry, within the cover of the cliffs. Now, Betts had foreseen the probability of this very sortie, and had levelled one of his carronades, loaded to the muzzle with canister, directly at the largest pile of the planks. No sooner did the adventurers appear, therefore, than he blew his match. The savages were collected around the planks in a crowd, when he fired his gun. A dozen of them fell, and the rest vanished like so much dust scattered by a whirlwind.
Just at that moment, the cry passed along the Summit that the Rancocus was in sight. The governor must have heard the report of the gun, for he discharged one in return, an encouraging signal of his approach. In a minute, a third came from the westward, and Betts saw the sails of the Mermaid over the low land. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the reports of the two guns from a distance, and the appearance of the two vessels, put an end at once to all Waally's schemes, and induced him to commence, with the least possible delay, a second retreat from the spot which, like Nelson's frigates, might almost be said to be imprinted on his heart.
Waally retired successfully, if not with much dignity. At a given signal his men rushed for the water, plunged in and swam across the basin again. It was in Betts's power to have killed many on the retreat, but he was averse to shedding blood unnecessarily. Fifty lives, more or less, could be of no great moment in the result, as soon as a retreat was decided on; and the savages were permitted to retire, and to carry off their killed and wounded without molestation. The last was done by wheeling forward the planks, and crossing at the bridge.
It was far easier, however, for Waally to gain his canoes, than to know which way to steer after he had reached them. The Mermaid cut off his retreat by the western passage, and the Rancocus was coming, fast along the northern. In order to reach either the eastern, or the southern, it would be necessary to pass within gun-shot of the Reef, and, what was more, to run the gauntlet between the crater and the Rancocus. To this danger Waally was compelled to submit, since he had no other means of withdrawing his fleet. It was true, that by paddling to windward, he greatly lessened the danger he ran from the two vessels, since it would not be in their power to overtake him in the narrow channels of the group, so long as he went in the wind's eye. It is probable that the savages understood this, and that the circumstance greatly encouraged them in the effort they immediately made to get into the eastern passage. Betts permitted them to pass the Reef, without firing at them again, though some of the canoes were at least half an hour within the range of his guns, while doing so. It was lucky for the Indians that the Rancocus did not arrive until the last of their party were as far to windward as the spot where the ship had anchored, when she was first brought up by artificial means into those waters.
Betts went off to meet the governor, in order to make in early report of his proceedings. It was apparent that the langer was over, and Woolston was not sorry to find that success was obtained without recourse to his batteries. The ship went immediately alongside of the natural quay, and her people poured ashore, in a crowd, the instant a plank could be run out, in order to enable them to do so. In an hour the cows were landed, and were grazing in the crater, where the grass was knee-high, and everything possessing life was out of the ship, the rats and cock-roaches perhaps excepted. As for the enemy, no one now cared for them. The man aloft said they could be seen, paddling away as if for life, and already too far for pursuit. It would have been easy enough for the vessels to cut off the fugitives by going into the offing again, but this was not the desire of any there, all being too happy to be rid of them, to take any steps to prolong the intercourse.
Great was the delight of the colonists to be once more on the land. Under ordinary circumstances, the immigrants might not have seen so many charms in the Reef and crater, and hog-lot; but five months at sea have a powerful influence in rendering the most barren spot beautiful. Barrenness, however, was a reproach that could no longer be justly applied to the group, and most especially to those portions of it which had received the attention of its people. Even trees were beginning to be numerous, thousands of them having been planted, some for their fruits, some for their wood, and-others merely for the shade. Of willows, alone, Socrates with his own hand had set out more than five thousand, the operation being simply that of thrusting the end of a branch into the mud. Of the rapidity of the growth, it is scarcely necessary to speak; though it quadrupled that known even to the most fertile regions of America.
Here, then, was Mark once more at home, after so long a passage. There was his ship, too, well freighted with a hundred things, all of which would contribute to the comfort and well-being of the colonists! It was a moment when the governor's heart was overflowing with gratitude, and could he then have taken Bridget and his children in his arms, the cup of happiness would have been full. Bridget was not forgotten, however, for in less than half an hour after the ship was secured Betts sailed in the Neshamony, for the Peak; he was to carry over the joyful tidings, and to bring the 'governor's lady' to the Reef. Ere the sun set, or about that time, his return might be expected, the Neshamony making the trip in much less time than one of the smaller boats. It was not necessary, however, for Betts to go so far, for when he had fairly cleared Cape South, and was in the strait, he fell in with the Abraham, bound over to the Reef. It appeared that some signs of the hostile canoes had been seen from the Peak, as Waally was crossing from Rancocus Island, and, after a council, it had been decided to send the Abraham across, to notify the people on the Reef of the impending danger, and to aid in repelling the enemy. Bridget and Martha had both come in the schooner; the first, to look after the many valuables he had left at the 'governor's house,' on the Summit, and the last, as her companion.
We leave the reader to imagine the joy that was exhibited, when those on board the Abraham ascertained the arrival of the Rancocus! Bridget was in ecstasies, and greatly did she exult in her own determination to cross on this occasion, and to bring her child with her. After the first burst of happiness, and the necessary explanations had been made, a consultation was had touching what was next to be done. Brown was in command of the Abraham, with a sufficient crew, and Betts sent him to windward, outside of everything, to look after the enemy. It was thought desirable not only to see Waally well clear of the group, but to force him to pass off to the northward, in order that he might not again approach the Reef, as well as to give him so much annoyance on his retreat, as to sicken him of these expeditions for the future. For such a service the schooner was much the handiest of all the vessels of the colonists, since she might be worked by a couple of hands, and her armament was quite sufficient for all that was required of her, on the occasion. Brown was every way competent to command, as Betts well knew, and he received the females on board the Neshamony, and put about, leaving the schooner to turn to windward.
Bridget reached the Reef before it was noon. All the proceedings of that day had commenced so early, that there had been time for this. The governor saw the Neshamony. as she approached, and great, uneasiness beset him He knew she had not been as far as the Peak, and supposed that Waally's fleet had intercepted her, Betts coming back for reinforcements. But, as the boat drew near, the fluttering of female dresses was seen, and then his unerring glass let him get a distant view of the sweet face of his young wife. From that moment the governor was incapable of giving a coherent or useful order, until Bridget had arrived. Vessels that came in from the southward were obliged to pass through the narrow entrance, between the Reef and the Hog Lot, where was the drawbridge so often mentioned. There was water enough to float a frigate, and it was possible to take a frigate through, the width being about fifty feet, though as yet nothing larger than the Friend Abraham White had made the trial. At this point, then, Woolston took his station, waiting the arrival of the Neshamony, with an impatience he was a little ashamed of exhibiting.
Betts saw the governor, in good time, and pointed him out to Bridget, who could hardly be kept on board the boat, so slow did the progress of the craft now seem. But the tender love which this young couple bore each other was soon to be rewarded; for Mark sprang on board the Neshamony as she went through the narrow pass, and immediately he had Bridget folded to his heart.
Foreigners are apt to say that we children of this western world do not submit to the tender emotions with the same self-abandonment as those who are born nearer to the rising sun; that our hearts are as cold and selfish as our manners; and that we live more for the lower and grovelling passions, than for sentiment and the affections. Most sincerely do we wish that every charge which European jealousy, and European superciliousness, have brought against the American character, was as false as this. That the people of this country are more restrained in the exhibition of all their emotions, than those across the great waters, we believe; but, that the last _feel_ the most, we shall be very unwilling to allow. Most of all shall we deny that the female form contains hearts more true to all its affections, spirits more devoted to the interests of its earthly head, or identity of existence more perfect than those with which the American wife clings to her husband. She is literally "bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh." It is seldom that her wishes cross the limits of the domestic circle, which to her is earth itself, and all that it contains which is most desirable. Her husband and children compose her little world, and beyond them and their sympathies, it is rare indeed that her truant affections ever wish to stray. A part of this concentration of the American wife's existence in these domestic interests, is doubtless owing to the simplicity of American life and the absence of temptation. Still, so devoted is the female heart, so true to its impulses, and so little apt to wander from home-feelings and home-duties, that the imputation to which there is allusion, is just that, of all others, to which the wives of the republic ought not to be subject.
It was even-tide before the governor was again seen among his people. By this time, the immigrants had taken their first survey of the Reef, and the nearest islands, which the least sanguine of their numbers admitted quite equalled the statements they had originally heard of the advantages of the place. It was, perhaps, fortunate that the fruits of the tropics were so abundant with Socrates and his companions. By this time, oranges abounded, more than a thousand trees having, from time to time, been planted in and around the crater, alone. Groves of them were also appearing in favourable spots, on the adjacent islands. It is true, these trees were yet too young to produce very bountifully; but they had begun to bear, and it was thought a very delightful thing, among the fresh arrivals from Pennsylvania, to be able to walk in an orange grove, and to pluck the fruit at pleasure!
As for figs, melons, limes, shaddocks, and even cocoa-nuts, all were now to be had, and in quantities quite sufficient for the population. In time, the colonists craved the apples of their own latitude, and the peach; those two fruits, so abundant and so delicious in their ancient homes; but the novelty was still on them, and it required time to learn the fact that we tire less of the apple, and the peach, and the potato, than of any other of the rarest gifts of nature. That which the potato has become among vegetables, is the apple among fruits; and when we rise into the mere luscious and temporary of the bountiful products of horticulture, the peach (in its perfection) occupies a place altogether apart, having no rival in its exquisite flavour, while it never produces satiety. The peach and the grape are the two most precious of the gifts of Providence, in the way of fruits.
That night, most of the immigrants slept in the ship; nearly all of them, however, for the last time. About ten in the forenoon, Brown came running down to the Reef, through the eastern passage, to report Waally well off, having quitted the group to windward, and made the best of his way towards his own islands, without turning aside to make a starting-point of Rancocus. It was a good deal questioned whether the chief would find his proper dominions, after a run of four hundred miles; for a very trifling deviation from the true course at starting, would be very apt to bring him out wide of his goal. This was a matter, however, that gave the colonists very little concern. The greater the embarrassments encountered by their enemies, the less likely would they be to repeat the visit; and should a few perish, it might be all the better for themselves. The governor greatly approved of Brown's course in not following the canoes, since the repulse was sufficient as it was, and there was very little probability that the colony would meet with any further difficulty from this quarter, now that it had got to be so strong.
That day and the next, the immigrants were busy in landing their effects, which consisted of furniture, tools and stores, of one sort and another. As the governor intended to send, at once, forty select families over to the Peak, the Abraham was brought alongside of the quay, and the property of those particular families was, as it came ashore, sent on board the schooner. Males and females were all employed in this duty, the Reef resembling a beehive just at that point. Bill Brown, who still commanded the Abraham, was of course present; and he made an occasion to get in company with the governor, with whom he held the following short dialogue: "A famous ship's company is this, sir, you've landed among us, and some on 'em is what I calls of the right sort!"
"I understand you, Bill," answered Mark, smiling. "Your commission has been duly executed; and Phoebe is here, ready to be spliced as soon as there shall be an opportunity." " _That_ is easily enough made, when people's so inclined," said Bill, fidgeting. "If you'd be so good, sir, as just to point out the young woman to me, I might be beginning to like her, in the meanwhile." " _Young? _ Nothing was said about that in the order, Bill. You wished a wife, invoiced and consigned to yourself; and one has been shipped, accordingly. You must consider the state of the market, and remember that the article is in demand precisely as it is youthful."
"Well, well, sir, I'll not throw her on your hands, if she's old enough to be my mother; though I do rather suppose, Mr. Woolston, you stood by an old shipmate in a foreign land, and that there is a companion suitable for a fellow of only two-and-thirty sent out?"
"Of that you shall judge for yourself, Bill. Here she comes, carrying a looking-glass, as if it were to look at her own pretty face; and if she prove to be only as good as she is good-looking, you will have every reason to be satisfied. What is more, Bill, your wife does not come empty-handed, having a great many articles that will help to set you up comfortably in housekeeping."
Brown was highly pleased with the governor's choice, which had been made with a due regard to the interests and tastes of the absent shipmate. Phoebe appeared well satisfied with her allotted husband; and that very day the couple was united in the cabin of the Abraham. On the same occasion, the ceremony was performed for Unus and Juno, as well as for Peters and his Indian wife; the governor considering it proper that regard to appearances and all decent observances, should be paid, as comported with their situation.
About sunset of the third day after the arrival of the Rancocus, the Abraham sailed for the Peak, having on board somewhat less than a hundred of the immigrants, including females and children. The Neshamony preceded her several hours, taking across the governor and his family. Mark longed to see his sister Anne, and his two brothers participated in this wish, if possible, in a still more lively manner.
The meeting of these members of the same family was of the most touching character. The young men found their sister much better established than they had anticipated, and in the enjoyment of very many more comforts than they had supposed it was in the power of any one to possess in a colony still so young. Heaton had erected a habitation for himself, in a charming grove, where there were water, fruits, and other conveniences, near at hand, and where his own family was separated from the rest of the community. This distinction had been conferred on him, by common consent, in virtue of his near affinity to the governor, whose substitute he then was, and out of respect to his education and original rank in life. Seamen are accustomed to defer to station and authority, and are all the happier for the same; and the thought of any jealousy on account of this privilege, which as yet was confined to Mark and Heaton, and their respective families, had not yet crossed the mind of any one on the island.
About twelve, or at midnight, the Abraham entered the cove. Late as was the hour, each immigrant assumed a load suited to his or her strength, and ascended the Stairs, favoured by the sweet light of a full moon. That night most of the new-comers passed in the groves, under tents or in an arbour that had been prepared for them; and sweet was the repose that attended happiness and security, in a climate so agreeable.
Next morning, when the immigrants came out of their temporary dwellings, and looked upon the fair scene before them, they could scarcely believe in its reality! It is true, nothing remarkable or unexpected met their eyes in the shape of artificial accessories; but the bountiful gifts of Providence, and the natural beauties of the spot, as much exceeded their anticipations as it did their power of imagining such glories! The admixture of softness and magnificence made a whole that they had never before beheld in any other portion of the globe; and there was not one among them all that did not, for the moment, feel and speak as if he or she had been suddenly transformed to an earthly paradise.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
22 | None | "You have said they are men; As such their hearts are something."
Byron.
The colony had now reached a point when it became necessary to proceed with method and caution. Certain great principles were to be established, on which the governor had long reflected, and he was fully prepared to set them up, and to defend them, though he knew that ideas prevailed among a few of his people, which might dispose them to cavil at his notions, if not absolutely to oppose him. Men are fond of change; half the time, for a reason no better than that it is change; and, not unfrequently, they permit this wayward feeling to unsettle interests that are of the last importance to them, and which find no small part of their virtue in their permanency.
Hitherto, with such slight exceptions as existed in deference to the station, not to say rights of the governor, everything of an agricultural character had been possessed in common among the colonists. But this was a state of things which the good sense of Mark told him could not, and ought not to last. The theories which have come into fashion in our own times, concerning the virtues of association, were then little known and less credited. Society, as it exists in a legal form, is association enough for all useful purposes, and sometimes too much; and the governor saw no use in forming a wheel within a wheel. If men have occasion for each other's assistance to effect a particular object, let them unite, in welcome, for that purpose; but Mark was fully determined that there should be but one government in his land, and that this government should be of a character to encourage and not to depress exertion. So long as a man toiled for himself and those nearest and dearest to him, society had a security for his doing much, that would be wanting where the proceeds of the entire community were to be shared in common; and, on the knowledge of this simple and obvious truth did our young legislator found his theory of government. Protect all in their rights equally, but, that done, let every man pursue his road to happiness in his own way; conceding no more of his natural rights than were necessary to the great ends of peace, security, and law. Such was Mark's theory. As for the modern crotchet that men yielded _no_ natural right to government, but were to receive all and return nothing, the governor, in plain language, was not fool enough to believe it. He was perfectly aware that when a man gives authority to society to compel him to attend court as a witness, for instance, he yields just so much of his natural rights to society, as might be necessary to empower him to stay away, if he saw fit; and, so on, through the whole of the very long catalogue of the claims which the most indulgent communities make upon the services of their citizens. Mark understood the great desideratum to be, not the setting up of theories to which every attendant fact gives the lie, but the ascertaining, as near as human infirmity will allow, the precise point at which concession to government ought to terminate, and that of uncontrolled individual freedom commence. He was not visionary enough to suppose that he was to be the first to make this great discovery; but he was conscious of entering on the task with the purest intentions. Our governor had no relish for power for power's sake, but only wielded it for the general good. By nature, he was more disposed to seek happiness in a very small circle, and would have been just as well satisfied to let another govern, as to rule himself, had there been another suited to such a station. But there was not. His own early habits of command, the peculiar circumstances which had first put him in possession of the territory, as if it were a special gift of Providence to himself, his past agency in bringing about the actual state of things, and his property, which amounted to more than that of all the rest of the colony put together, contributed to give him a title and authority to rule, which would have set the claims of any rival at defiance, had such a person existed. But there was no rival; not a being present desiring to see another in his place.
The first step of the governor was to appoint his brother, Abraham Woolston, the secretary of the colony. In that age America had very different notions of office, and of its dignity, of the respect due to authority, and of the men who wielded it, from what prevail at the present time. The colonists, coming as they did from America, brought with them the notions of the times, and treated their superiors accordingly. In the last century a governor was "_the_ governor," and not "_our_ governor," and a secretary "_the_ secretary," and not "_our_ secretary," men now taking more liberties with what they fancy their own, than was their wont with what they believed had been set over them for their good. Mr. Secretary Woolston soon became a personage, accordingly, as did all the other considerable functionaries appointed by the governor.
The very first act of Abraham Woolston, on being sworn into office, was to make a registry of the entire population. We shall give a synopsis of it, in order that the reader may understand the character of the materials with which the governor had room to work, viz:-- Males, 147 Male Adults, 113 Male Children, 34 Male Married 101 Females, 158 Female Adults, 121 Female Children, 37 Female Married, 101 Widowers 1 Widows, 4 Seamen, 38 Mechanics, 26 Physician, 1 Student in Medicine, 1 Lawyer, 1 Clergyman, 1 Population, 305 Here, then, was a community composed already of three hundred and five souls. The governor's policy was not to increase this number by further immigration, unless in special cases, and then only after due deliberation and inquiry. Great care had been taken with the characters of the present settlers, and careless infusions of new members might undo a great deal of good that had already been done. This matter was early laid before the new council, and the opinions of the governor met with a unanimous concurrence.
On the subject of the council, it may be well to say a word. It was increased to nine, and a new election was made, the incumbents holding their offices for life. This last provision was made to prevent the worst part, and the most corrupting influence of politics, viz., the elections, from getting too much sway over the public mind. The new council was composed as follows, viz:-- Messrs. Heaton, Pennock, Betts, C. Woolston, } A. Woolston, } the governor's brothers Charlton, Saunders, Wilmot, and Warrington.
These names belonged to the most intelligent men of the colony, Betts perhaps excepted; but his claims were too obvious to be slighted. Betts had good sense moreover, and a great deal of modesty. All the rest of the council had more or less claims to be gentlemen, but Bob never pretended to that character. He knew his own qualifications, and did not render himself ridiculous by aspiring to be more than he really was; still, his practical knowledge made him a very useful member of the council, where his opinions were always heard with attention and respect. Charlton and Wilmot were merchants, and intended to embark regularly in trade; while Warrington, who possessed more fortune than any of the other colonists, unless it might be the governor, called himself a farmer, though he had a respectable amount of general science, and was well read in most of the liberal studies.
Warrington was made judge, with a small salary, all of which he gave to the clergyman, the Rev. Mr. White. This was done because he had no need of the money himself, and there was no other provision for the parson than free contributions. John Woolston, who had read law, was named Attorney-General, or colony's Attorney, as the office was more modestly styled; to which duties he added those of surveyor-general. Charles received his salary, which was two hundred and fifty dollars, being in need of it. The question of salary, as respects the governor, was also settled. Mark had no occasion for the money, owning all the vessels, with most of the cargo of the Rancocus, as well as having brought out with him no less a sum than five thousand dollars, principally in change--halves, quarters, shillings and six-pences. Then a question might well arise, whether he did not own most of the stock; a large part of it was his beyond all dispute, though some doubts might exist as to the remainder. On this subject the governor came to a most wise decision. He was fully aware that nothing was more demoralizing to a people than to suffer them to get loose notions on the subject of property. Property of all kinds, he early determined, should be most rigidly respected, and a decision that he made shortly after his return from America, while acting in his capacity of chief magistrate, and before the new court went into regular operation, was of a character to show how he regarded this matter. The case was as follows:-- Two of the colonists, Warner and Harris, had bad blood between them. Warner had placed his family in an arbour within a grove, and to "aggravate" him, Harris came and walked before his door, strutting up and down like a turkey-cock, and in a way to show that it was intended to annoy Warner. The last brought his complaint before the governor. On the part of Harris, it was contended that no _injury_ had been done the property of Harris, and that, consequently, no damages could be claimed. The question of title was conceded, _ex necessitate rerum_. Governor Woolston decided, that a man's rights in his property were not to be limited by positive injuries to its market value. Although no grass or vegetables had been destroyed by Harris in his walks, he had _molested_ Warner in such an enjoyment of his dwelling; as, in intendment of law, every citizen was entitled to in his possessions. The trespass was an aggravated one, and damages were given accordingly. In delivering his judgment, the governor took occasion to state, that in the administration of the law, the rights of every man would be protected in the fullest extent, not only as connected with pecuniary considerations, but as connected with all those moral uses and feelings which contribute to human happiness. This decision met with applause, and was undoubtedly right in itself. It was approved, because the well-intentioned colonists had not learned to confound liberty with licentiousness; but understood the former to be the protection of the citizen in the enjoyment of all his innocent tastes, enjoyments and personal rights, after making such concessions to government as are necessary to its maintenance. Thrice happy would it be for all lands, whether they are termed despotisms or democracies, could they thoroughly feel the justice of this definition, and carry out its intention in practice.
The council was convened the day succeeding its election. After a few preliminary matters were disposed of, the great question was laid before it, of a division of property, and the grant of real estate. Warrington and Charles Woolston laid down the theory, that the fee of all the land was, by gift of Providence, in the governor, and that his patent, or sign-manual, was necessary for passing the title into other hands. This theory had an affinity to that of the Common Law, which made the prince the suzerain, and rendered him the heir of all escheated estates. But Mark's humility, not to say his justice, met this doctrine on the threshold. He admitted the sovereignty and its right, but placed it in the body of the colony, instead of in himself. As the party most interested took this view of the case, they who were disposed to regard his rights as more sweeping, were fain to submit. The land was therefore declared to be the property of the state. Ample grants, however, were made both to the governor and Betts, as original possessors, or discoverers, and it was held in law that their claims were thus compromised. The grants to Governor Woolston included quite a thousand acres on the Peak, which was computed to contain near thirty thousand, and an island of about the same extent in the group, which was beautifully situated near its centre, and less than a league from the crater. Betts had one hundred acres granted to him, near the crater also. He refused any other grant, as a right growing out of original possession. Nor was his reasoning bad on the occasion. When he was driven off, in the Neshamony, the Reef, Loam Island, Guano Island, and twenty or thirty rocks, composed all the dry land. He had never seen the Peak until Mark was in possession of it, and had no particular claim there. When the council came to make its general grants, he was willing to come in for his proper share with the rest of the people, and he wanted no more. Heaton had a special grant of two hundred acres made to him on the Peak, and another in the group of equal extent, as a reward for his early and important services. Patents were made out, at once, of these several grants, under the great seal of the colony; for the governor had provided parchment, and wax, and a common seal, in anticipation of their being all wanted. The rest of the grants of land were made on a general principle, giving fifty acres on the Peak, and one hundred in the group, to each male citizen of the age of twenty-one years; those who had not yet attained their majority being compelled to wait. A survey was made, and the different lots were numbered, and registered by those numbers. Then a lottery, was made, each man's name being put in one box, and the necessary numbers in another. The number drawn against any particular name was the lot of the person in question. A registration of the drawing was taken, and printed patents were made out, signed, sealed, and issued to the respective parties. We say printed, a press and types having been brought over in the Rancocus, as well as a printer. In this way, then, every male of full age, was put in possession of one hundred and fifty acres of land, in fee.
As the lottery did not regard the wishes of parties, many private bargains were made, previously to the issuing of the patents, in order that friends and connections might be placed near to each other. Some sold their rights, exchanging with a difference, while others sold altogether on the Peak, or in the group, willing to confine their possessions to one or the other of these places. In this manner Mr, Warrington, or Judge Warrington, as he was now called, bought three fifty-acre lots adjoining his own share on the Peak, and sold his hundred-acre lot in the group. The price established by these original sales, would seem to give a value of ten dollars an acre to land on the Peak, and of three dollars an acre to land in the group. Some lots, however, had a higher value than others, all these things being left to be determined by the estimate which the colonists placed on their respective valuations. As everything was conducted on a general and understood principle, and the drawing was made fairly and in public, there was no discontent; though some of the lots were certainly a good deal preferable to others. The greatest difference in value existed in the lots in the group, where soil and water were often wanted; though, on the wholes much more of both was found than had been at first expected. There were vast deposits of mud, and others of sand, and Heaton early suggested the expediency of mixing the two together, by way of producing fertility. An experiment of this nature had been tried, under his orders, during the absence of the governor, and the result was of the most satisfactory nature; the acre thus manured producing abundantly.
As it was the sand that was to be conveyed to the mud, the toil was much less than might have been imagined. This sand usually lay near the water, and the numberless channels admitted of its being transported in boats along a vast reach of shore. Each lot having a water front, every man might manure a few acres, by this process, without any great expense; and no sooner were the rights determined, and the decisions of the parties made as to their final settlements, than many went to work to render the cracked and baked mud left by the retiring ocean fertile and profitable. Lighters were constructed for the purpose, and the colonists formed themselves into gangs, labouring in common, and transporting so many loads of sand to each levee, as the banks were called, though not raised as on the Mississippi, and distributing it bountifully over the surface. The spade was employed to mix the two earths together.
Most of the allotments of land, in the group, were in the immediate neighbourhood of the Reef. As there were quite a hundred of them, more than ten thousand acres of the islands were thus taken up, at the start. By a rough calculation, however, the group extended east and west sixty-three miles, and north and south about fifty,--the Reef being a very little west and a very little south of its centre. Of this surface it was thought something like three-fourths was dry land, or naked rock. This would give rather more than a million and a half of acres of land; but, of this great extent of territory, not more than two-thirds could be rendered available for the purposes of husbandry, for want of soil, or the elements of soil. There were places where the deposit of mud seemed to be of vast depth, while in others it did not exceed a few inches. The same was true of the sands, though the last was rarely of as great depth as the mud, or alluvium.
A month was consumed in making the allotments, and in putting the different proprietors in possession of their respective estates. Then, indeed, were the results of the property-system made directly apparent. No sooner was an individual put in possession of his deed, and told that the lot it represented was absolutely his own, to do what he pleased with it, than he went to work with energy and filled with hopes, to turn his new domains to account. It is true that education and intelligence, if they will only acquit themselves of their tasks with disinterested probity, may enlighten and instruct the ignorant how to turn their means to account; but, all experience proves that each individual usually takes the best care of his own interests, and that the system is wisest which grants to him the amplest opportunity so to do.
To work all went, the men forming themselves into gangs, and aiding each other. The want of horses and neat cattle was much felt, more especially as Heaton's experience set every one at the sand, as the first step in a profitable husbandry: wheelbarrows, however, were made use of instead of carts, and it was found that a dozen pair of hands could do a good deal with that utensil, in the course of a day. All sorts of contrivances were resorted to in order to transport the sand, but the governor established a regular system, by which the lighter should deliver one load at each farm, in succession. By the end of a month it was found that a good deal had been done, the distances being short and the other facilities constantly increasing by the accession of new boats.
All sorts of habitations were invented. The scarcity of wood in the group was a serious evil, and it was found indispensable to import that material. Parts of Rancocus Island were well wooded, there growing among other trees a quantity of noble yellow pines. Bigelow was sent across in the Abraham to set up a mill, and to cut lumber. There being plenty of water-power, the mill was soon got at work, and a lot of excellent plank, boards, &c., was shipped in the schooner for the crater. Shingle-makers were also employed, the cedar abounding, as well as the pine. The transportation to the coast was the point of difficulty on Rancocus Island as well as elsewhere; none of the cattle being yet old enough to be used. Socrates had three pair of yearling steers, and one of two years old breaking, but it was too soon to set either at work. With the last, a little very light labour was done, but it was more to train the animals, than with any other object.
On Rancocus Island, however, Bigelow had made a very ingenious canal, that was of vast service in floating logs to the mill. The dam made a long narrow pond that penetrated two or three miles up a gorge in the mountains, and into this dam the logs were rolled down the declivities, which were steep enough to carry anything into the water. When cut into lumber, it was found that the stream below the mill, would carry small rafts down to the sea.
While all these projects were in the course of operation, the governor did not forget the high interests connected with his foreign relations; Waally was to be looked to, and Ooroony's son to be righted. The council was unanimously of opinion that sound policy required such an exhibition of force on the part of the colony, as should make a lasting impression on their turbulent neighbours. An expedition was accordingly fitted out, in which the Mermaid, the Abraham, and a new pilot-boat built schooner of fifty tons burthen, were employed. This new schooner was nearly ready for launching when the Rancocus returned, and was put into the water for the occasion. She had been laid down in the cove, where Bigelow had found room for a sufficient yard, and where timber was nearer at hand, than on the Reef. As Rancocus Island supplied the most accessible and the best lumber, the council had determined to make a permanent establishment on it, for the double purposes of occupation and building vessels. As the resources of that island were developed, it was found important on other accounts, also. Excellent clay for bricks was found, as was lime-stone, in endless quantities. For the purposes of agriculture, the place was nearly useless, there not being one thousand acres of good arable land in the whole island; but the mountains were perfect mines of treasure in the way of necessary supplies of the sorts mentioned.
A brick-yard was immediately cleared and formed, and a lime-kiln constructed. Among the colonists, it was easy to find men accustomed to work in all these familiar branches. The American can usually turn his hand to a dozen different pursuits; and, though he may not absolutely reach perfection in either, he is commonly found useful and reasonably expert in all. Before the governor sailed on his expedition against Waally, a brick-kiln and a lime-kiln were nearly built, and a vast quantity of lumber had been carried over to the Reef. As sandal-wood had been collecting for the twelve months of her late absence, the Rancocus had also been filled up, and had taken in a new cargo for Canton. It was not the intention of the governor to command his ship this voyage; but he gave her to Saunders, who was every way competent to the trust. When all was ready, the Rancocus, the Mermaid, the Abraham, and the Anne, as the new pilot-boat schooner was called, sailed for Betto's group: it being a part of the governor's plan to use the ship, in passing, with a view to intimidate his enemies. In consequence of the revolution that had put Waally up again, every one of the Kannakas who had gone out in the Rancocus on her last voyage, refused to go home, knowing that they would at once be impressed into Waally's service; and they all now cheerfully shipped anew, for a second voyage to foreign lands. By this time, these men were very useful; and the governor had a project for bringing up a number of the lads of the islands, and of making use of them in the public service. This scheme was connected with his contemplated success, and formed no small part of the policy of the day.
The appearance of so formidable a force as was now brought against Waally, reduced that turbulent chief to terms without a battle. About twenty of his canoes had got separated from the rest of the fleet in a squall, while returning from the unsuccessful attempt on the Reef, and they were never heard of more; or, if heard of, it was in uncertain rumours, which gave an account of the arrival of three or four canoes at some islands a long way to-leeward, with a handful of half-starved warriors on board. It is supposed that all the rest perished at sea. This disaster had rendered Waally unpopular among the friends of those who were lost; and that unpopularity was heightened by the want of success in the expedition itself. Success is all in all, with the common mind; and we daily see the vulgar shouting at the heels of those whom they are ready to crucify at the first turn of fortune. In this good land of ours, popularity adds to its more worthless properties the substantial result of power; and it is not surprising that so many forget their God in the endeavour to court the people. In time, however, all of these persons of mistaken ambition come to exclaim, with Shakspeare's Wolsey-- "Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies."
Waally's power, already tottering through the influence of evil fortune, crumbled entirely before the force Governor Woolston now brought against it. Although the latter had but forty whites with him, they came in ships, and provided with cannon; and not a chief dreamed of standing by the offender, in this his hour of need. Waally had the tact to comprehend his situation, and the wisdom to submit to his fortune. He sent a messenger to the governor with a palm-branch, offering to restore young Ooroony to all his father's authority, and to confine himself to his strictly inherited dominions. Such, in fact, was the basis of the treaty that was now made, though hostages were taken for its fulfilment. To each condition Waally consented; and everything was settled to the entire satisfaction of the whites and to the honour and credit of young Ooroony. The result was, in substance, as we shall now record.
In the first place, one hundred lads were selected and handed over to the governor, as so many apprentices to the sea. These young Kannakas were so many hostages for the good behaviour of their parents; while the parents, always within reach of the power of the colonists, were so many hostages for the good behaviour of the Kannakas. Touching the last, however, the governor had very few misgivings, since he believed it very possible so to treat, and so to train them, as to make them fast friends. In placing them on board the different vessels, therefore, rigid instructions were given to their officers to be kind to these youngsters; and each and all were to be taught to read, and instructed in the Christian religion. The Rev. Mr. Hornblower took great interest in this last arrangement, as did half the females of the colony. Justice and kind treatment, in fact, produced their usual results in the cases of these hundred youths; every one of whom got to be, in the end, far more attached to the Reef, and its customs, than to their own islands and their original habits. The sea, no doubt, contributed its share to this process of civilization; for it is ever found that the man who gets a thorough taste for that element, is loth to quit it again for _terra firma_.
One hundred able-bodied men were added to the recruits that the governor obtained in Betto's group. They were taken as hired labourers, and not as hostages. Beads and old iron were to be their pay, with fish-hooks, and such other trifles as had a value in their eyes; and their engagement was limited to two months. There was a disposition among a few of the colonists to make slaves of these men, and to work their lands by means of a physical force obtained in Betto's group; but to this scheme the council would not lend itself for a moment. The governor well knew that the usefulness, virtue, and moral condition of his people, depended on their being employed, and he had no wish to undermine the permanent prosperity of the colony, by resorting to an expedient that might do well enough for a short time, but which would certainly bring its own punishment in the end.
Still, an accession of physical force, properly directed, would be of great use in this early age of the colony. The labourers were accordingly engaged; but this was done by the government, which not only took the control of the men, but which also engaged to see them paid the promised remuneration. Another good was also anticipated from this arrangement. The two groups must exist as friends or as enemies. So long as young Ooroony reigned, it was thought there would be little difficulty in maintaining amicable relations; and it was hoped that the intercourse created by this arrangement, aided by the trade in sandal-wood, might have the effect to bind the natives to the whites by the tie of interest.
The vessels lay at Betto's group a fortnight, completing all the arrangements made; though the Rancocus sailed on her voyage as soon as the terms of the treaty were agreed on, and the Anne was sent back to the Reef with the news that the war had terminated. As for Waally, he was obliged to place his favourite son in the hands of young Ooroony, who held the youthful chief as a hostage for his father's good behaviour.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
23 | None | "Thou shalt seek the beach of sand Where the water bounds the elfin land; Thou shalt watch the oozy brine Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine, Then dart the glistening arch below, And catch a drop from his silver bow; The water-sprites will wield their arms, And dash around, with roar and rave, And vain are the woodland spirit's charms, They are the imps that rule the wave. Yet trust thee in thy single might; If thy heart be pure, and thy spirit right, Thou shalt win the warlike fight."
Drake.
A twelvemonth passed, after the return of the expedition against Betto's group, without the occurrence of any one very marked event. Within that time, Bridget made Mark the father of a fine boy, and Anne bore her fourth, child to Heaton. The propagation of the human species, indeed, flourished marvellously, no less than seventy-eight children having been born in the course of that single year. There were a few deaths, only one among the adults, the result of an accident, the health of the colony having been excellent. An enumeration, made near the close of the year, showed a total of three hundred and seventy-nine souls, including those absent in the Rancocus, and excluding the Kannakas.
As for these Kannakas, the results of their employment quite equalled the governor's expectations. They would not labour like civilized men, it is true, nor was it easy to make them use tools; but at lifts, and drags, and heavy work, they could be, and were, made to do a vast deal. The first great object of the governor had been to get his people all comfortably housed, beneath good roofs, and out of the way of the rains. Fortunately there were no decayed vegetable substances in the group, to produce fevers; and so long as the person could be kept dry, there was little danger to the health.
Four sorts, or classes, of houses were erected, each man being left to choose for himself, with the understanding that he was to receive a certain amount, in value, from the commonwealth, by contribution in labour, or in materials. All beyond that amount was to be paid for. To equalize advantages, a tariff was established, as to the value of labour and materials. These materials consisted of lumber, including shingles, stone, lime and bricks; bricks burned, as well as those which were unburned, or adobe. Nails were also delivered from the public store, free of charge.
Of course, no one at first thought of building very largely. Small kitchens were all that were got up, at the commencement, and they varied in size, according to the means of their owners, as much as they differed in materials. Some built of wood; some of stones; some of regular bricks; and some of adobe. All did very well, but the stone was found to be much the preferable material, especially where the plastering within was furred off from the walls. These stones came from Rancocus Island, where they were found in inexhaustible quantities, partaking of the character of tufa. The largest of them were landed at the Reef, the loading and unloading being principally done by the Kannakas, while the smallest were delivered at different points along the channel, according to the wishes of the owners of the land. More than a hundred dwellings were erected in the course of the few months immediately succeeding the arrival of the immigrants. About half were on the Peak, and the remainder were in the group. It is true, no one of all these dwellings was large; but each was comfortable, and fully answered the purpose of protection against the rain. A roof of cedar shingles was tight, as a matter of course, and what was more, it was lasting. Some of the buildings were sided with these shingles; though clap-boards were commonly used for that purpose. The adobe answered very well when securely roofed, though it was thought the unburnt brick absorbed more moisture than the brick which had been burned.
The largest of all the private dwellings thus erected, was thirty feet square, and the smallest was fifteen. The last had its cooking apartment under a shed, however, detached from the house. Most of the ovens were thus placed; and in many instances the chimneys stood entirely without the buildings, even when they were attached to them. There was but one house of two stories, and that was John Pennock's, who had sufficient means to construct such a building. As for the governor, he did not commence building at all, until nearly every one else was through, when he laid the corner-stones of two habitations; one on the Peak, which was his private property, standing on his estate; and the other on the Reef, which was strictly intended to be a Government, or Colony House. The first was of brick, and the last of stone, and of great solidity, being intended as a sort of fortress. The private dwelling was only a story and a half high, but large on the ground for that region, measuring sixty feet square. The. government building was much larger, measuring two hundred feet in length, by sixty feet in depth. This spacious edifice, however, was not altogether intended for a dwelling for the governor, but was so arranged as to contain great quantities of public property in its basement, and to accommodate the courts, and all the public offices on the first floor. It had an upper story, but that was left unfinished and untenanted for years, though fitted with arrangements for defence. Fortunately, cellars were little wanted in that climate, for it was not easy to have one in the group. It is true, that Pennock caused one to be blown out with gun-powder, under his dwelling, though every one prophesied that it would soon be full of water. It proved to be dry, notwithstanding; and a very good cellar it was, being exceedingly useful against the heats, though of cold there was none to guard against.
The Colony House stood directly opposite to the drawbridge, being placed there for the purposes of defence, as well as to have access to the spring. A want of water was rather an evil on the Reef; not that the sands did not furnish an ample supply, and that of the most delicious quality, but it had to be carried to inconvenient distances. In general, water was found in sufficient quantities and in suitable places, among the group; but, at the Reef, there was certainly this difficulty to contend with. As the governor caused his brother, the surveyor-general, to lay out a town on the Reef, it was early deemed necessary to make some provision against this evil. A suitable place was selected, and a cistern was blown out of the rock, into which all the water that fell on the roof of Colony House was led. This reservoir, when full, contained many thousand gallons; and when once full, it was found that the rains were sufficient to prevent its being very easily emptied.
But the greatest improvement that was made on the Reef, after all, was in the way of soil. As for the crater, that, by this time, was a mass of verdure, among which a thousand trees were not only growing, but flourishing. This was as true of its plain, as of its mounds; and of its mounds, as of its plain. But the crater was composed of materials very different from the base of the Reef. The former was of tufa, so far as it was rock at all; while the latter was, in the main, pure lava. Nevertheless, something like a soil began to form even on the Reef, purely by the accessions caused though its use by man. Great attention was paid to collecting everything that could contribute to the formation of earth, in piles; and these piles were regularly removed to such cavities, or inequalities in the surface of the rock, as would be most likely to retain their materials when spread. In this way many green patches had been formed, and, in a good many instances, trees had been set out, in spots where it was believed they could find sufficient nourishment. But, no sooner had the governor decided to build on the Reef, and to make his capital there, than he set about embellishing the place systematically. Whenever a suitable place could be found, in what was intended for Colony House grounds, a space of some ten acres in the rear of the building, he put in the drill, and blew out rock. The fragments of stone were used about the building; and the place soon presented a ragged, broken surface, of which one might well despair of making anything. By perseverance, however, and still more by skill and judgment, the whole area was lowered more than a foot, and in many places, where nature assisted the work, it was lowered several feet. It was a disputed question, indeed, whether stone for the building could not be obtained here, by blasting, cheaper and easier, than by transporting it from Rancocus Island. Enough was procured in this way not only to construct the building, but to enclose the grounds with a sufficient wall. When all was got off that was wanted, boat-loads of mud and sand were brought by Kannakas, and deposited in the cavity. This was a great work for such a community, though it proceeded faster than, at first, one might have supposed. The materials were very accessible, and the distances short, which greatly facilitated the labour, though unloading was a task of some gravity. The walls of the house were got up in about six months after the work was commenced, and the building was roofed; but, though the gardeners were set to work as soon as the stones were out of the cavities, they had not filled more than two acres at the end of the period mentioned.
Determined to make an end of this great work at once, the Abraham was sent over to young Ooroony to ask for assistance. Glad enough was that chief to grant what was demanded of him, and he came himself, at the head of five hundred men, to aid his friend in finishing this task. Even this strong body of labourers was busy two months longer, before the governor pronounced the great end accomplished. Then he dismissed his neighbours with such gifts and pay as sent away everybody contented. Many persons thought the experiment of bringing so many savages to the Reef somewhat hazardous; but no harm ever came of it. On the contrary, the intercourse had a good effect, by making the two people better acquainted with each other. The governor had a great faculty in the management of those wild beings. He not only kept them in good-humour, but what was far more difficult, he made them work. They were converted into a sort of Irish for his colony. It is true, one civilized man could do more than three of the Kannakas, but the number of the last was so large that they accomplished a great deal during their stay.
Nor would the governor have ventured to let such dangerous neighbours into the group, had there not been still more imposing mysteries connected with the Peak, into which they were not initiated. Even young Ooroony wag kept in ignorance of what was to be found on that dreaded island. He saw vessels going and coming, knew that the governor often went there, saw strange faces appearing occasionally on the Reef, that were understood to belong to the unknown land, and probably to a people who were much more powerful than those who were in direct communication with the natives.
The governor induced his Kannakas to work by interesting them in the explosions of the blasts, merely to enjoy the pleasure of seeing a cart-load of rock torn from its bed. One of these men would work at a drill all day, and then carry off the fragments to be placed in the walls, after he had had his sport in this operation of blasting. They seemed never to tire of the fun, and it was greatly questioned if half as much labour could have been got out of them at any other work, as at this.
A good deal of attention was paid to rendering the soil of the colony garden fertile, as well as deep. In its shallowest places it exceeded a foot in depth, and in the deepest, spots where natural fissures had aided the drill, it required four or five feet of materials to form the level. These deep places were all marked, and were reserved for the support of trees. Not only was sand freely mixed with the mud, or muck, but sea-weed in large quantities was laid near the surface, and finally covered with the soil. In this manner was a foundation made that could not fail to sustain a garden luxuriant in its products, aided by the genial heat and plentiful rains of the climate. Shrubs, flowers, grass, and ornamental trees, however, were all the governor aimed at in these public grounds; the plain of the crater furnishing fruit and vegetables in an abundance, as yet far exceeding the wants of the whole colony. The great danger, indeed, that the governor most apprehended, was that the beneficent products of the region would render his people indolent; an idle, nation becoming, almost infallibly, vicious as well as ignorant. It was with a view to keep the colony on the advance, and to maintain a spirit of improvement that so much attention was so early bestowed on what might otherwise be regarded as purely intellectual pursuits which, by creating new wants, might induce their subjects to devise the means of supplying them.
The governor judged right; for tastes are commonly acquired by imitation, and when thus acquired, they take the strongest hold of those who cultivate them. The effect produced by the Colony Garden, or public grounds, was such as twenty-fold to return the cost and labour bestowed on it. The sight of such an improvement set both men and women to work throughout the group, and not a dwelling was erected in the town, that the drill did not open the rock, and mud and sand form a garden. Nor did the governor himself confine his horticultural improvements to the gardens mentioned. Before he sent away his legion of five hundred, several hundred blasts were made in isolated spots on the Reef; places where the natural formation favoured such a project; and holes were formed that would receive a boat-load of soil each. In these places trees were set out, principally cocoa-nuts, and such other plants as were natural to the situation, due care being taken to see that each had sufficient nourishment.
The result of all this industry was to produce a great change in the state of things at the Reef. In addition to the buildings erected, and to the gardens made and planted, within the town itself, the whole surface of the island was more or less altered. Verdure soon made its appearance in places where, hitherto, nothing but naked rock had been seen, and trees began to cast their shades over the young and delicious grasses. As for the town itself, it was certainly no great matter; containing about twenty dwellings, and otherwise being of very modest pretensions. Those who dwelt there were principally such mechanics as found it convenient to be at the centre of the settlement, some half a dozen persons employed about the warehouses of the merchants, a few officials of the government, and the families of those who depended mainly on the sea for their support. Each and all of these heads of families had drawn their lots, both in the group and on the Peak, though some had sold their rights the better to get a good start in their particular occupations. The merchants, however, established themselves on the Reef, as a matter of necessity, each causing a warehouse to be constructed near the water, with tackles and all the usual conveniences for taking in and delivering goods. Each also had his dwelling near at hand. As these persons had come well provided for the Indian trade in particular, having large stocks of such cheap and coarse articles as took with the natives, they were already driving a profitable business, receiving considerable quantities of sandal-wood in exchange for their goods.
It is worthy of being mentioned, that the governor and council early passed a sort of navigation act, the effect of which was to secure the carrying trade to the colony. The motive, however, was more to keep the natives within safe limits, than to monopolize the profits of the seas. By the provisions of this law, no canoe could pass from Betto's group to either of the islands of the colony, without express permission from the governor. In order to carry on the trade, the parties met on specified days at Ooroony's village, and there made their exchanges; vessels being sent from the Reef to bring away the sandal-wood. With a view to the final transportation of the last to a market, Saunders had been instructed to purchase a suitable vessel, which was to return with the Rancocus, freighted with such heavy and cheap implements as were most wanted in the colony, including cows and mares in particular. Physical force, in the shape of domestic animals, was greatly wanted; and it was perhaps the most costly of all the supplies introduced into the settlements. Of horned cattle there were already about five-and-twenty head in the colony--enough to make sure of the breed; but they were either cows, steers too young to be yet of much use, and calves. Nothing was killed, of course; but so much time must, pass before the increase would give the succour wanted, that the governor went to unusual expense and trouble to make additions to the herd from abroad.
As for the horses, but three had been brought over, two of which were mares. The last had foaled twice; and there were four colts, all doing well, but wanting age to be useful. All the stock of this character was kept on the Peak, in order to secure it from invaders; and the old animals, even to the cows, were lightly worked there, doing a vast deal that would otherwise remain undone. It was so obviously advantageous to increase the amount of this sort of force, that Saunders had strict orders to purchase the vessel mentioned, and to bring over as many beasts as he could conveniently and safely stow. With this object in view, he was directed to call in, on the western side of Cape Horn, and to make his purchases in South America. The horned cattle might not be so good, coming from such a quarter, but the dangers of doubling the Cape would be avoided.
While making these general and desultory statements touching the progress of the colony, it may be well to say a word of Rancocus Island. The establishments necessary there, to carry on the mills, lime and brick kilns, and the stone-quarry, induced the governor to erect a small work, in which the persons employed in that out-colony might take refuge, in the event of an invasion. This was done accordingly; and two pieces of artillery were regularly mounted on it. Nor was the duty of fortifying neglected elsewhere. As for the Peak, it was not deemed necessary to do more than improve a little upon nature; the colony being now too numerous to suppose that it could not defend the cove against any enemy likely to land there, should the entrance of that secret haven be detected. On the Reef, however, it was a very different matter. That place was as accessible as the other was secure. The construction of so many stout stone edifices contributed largely to the defence of the town; but the governor saw the necessity of providing the means of commanding the approaches by water. Four distinct passages, each corresponding to a cardinal point of the compass, led from the crater out to sea. As the south passage terminated at the bridge, it was sufficiently commanded by the Colony House. But all the others were wider, more easy of approach, and less under the control of the adjacent islands. But the Summit had points whence each might be raked by guns properly planted, and batteries were accordingly constructed on these points; the twelve-pounder being used for their armaments. Each battery had two guns; and when all was completed, it was the opinion of the governor that the post was sufficiently well fortified. In order, however, to give additional security, the crater was tabooed to all the Kannakas; not one of whom was permitted ever to enter it, or even to go near it.
But defence, and building, and making soil, did not altogether occupy the attention of the colonists during these important twelve months. Both the brothers of the governor got married; the oldest, or the attorney-general, to the oldest sister of John Pennock, and the youngest to a sister of the Rev. Mr. Hornblower. It was in this simple colony, as it ever has been, and ever will be in civilized society, that, in forming matrimonial connections, like looks for like. There was no person, or family at the Reef which could be said to belong to the highest social class of America, if, indeed, any one could rank as high as a class immediately next to the highest; yet, distinctions existed which were maintained usefully, and without a thought of doing them away. The notion that money alone makes those divisions into castes which are everywhere to be found, and which will probably continue to be found as long as society itself exists, is a very vulgar and fallacious notion. It comes from the difficulty of appreciating those tastes and qualities which, not possessing ourselves, are so many unknown and mysterious influences. In marrying Sarah Pennock, John Woolston was slightly conscious of making a little sacrifice in these particulars, but she was a very pretty, modest girl, of a suitable age, and the circle to choose from, it will be remembered, was very limited. In America that connection might not have taken place; but, at the crater, it was all well enough, and it turned out to be a very happy union. Had the sacrifice of habits and tastes been greater, this might not have been the fact, for it is certain that our happiness depends more on the subordinate qualities and our cherished usages, than on principles themselves. It is difficult to suppose that any refined woman, for instance, can ever thoroughly overcome her disgust for a man who habitually blows his nose with his fingers, or that one bred a gentleman can absolutely overlook, even in a wife, the want of the thousand and one little lady-like habits, which render the sex perhaps more attractive than do their personal charms.
Several other marriages took place, the scarcity of subjects making it somewhat hazardous to delay: when Hobson's choice is placed before one, deliberation is of no great use. It was generally understood that the Rancocus was to bring out very few immigrants, though permission had been granted to Capt. Saunders to take letters to certain friends of some already settled in the colony, with the understanding that those friends were to be received, should they determine to come. That point, however, was soon to be decided, for just a year and one week after the Rancocus had sailed from Betto's group, the news reached the Reef that the good ship was coming into the northern roads, and preparing to anchor. The governor immediately went on board the Anne, taking Betts with him, and made sail for the point in question, with a view to bring the vessel through the passage to the Reef. The governor and Betts were the only two who, as it was believed, could carry so large a vessel through; though later soundings showed it was only necessary to keep clear of the points and the shores, in order to bring in a craft of any draught of water.
When the Anne ran out into the roads, there she found the Rancocus at anchor, sure enough. On nearing her, Capt. Saunders appeared on her poop, and in answer to a hail, gave the welcome answer of "all well." Those comprehensive words removed a great deal of anxiety from the mind of the governor; absence being, in one sense, the parent of uncertainty, and uncertainty of uneasiness. Everything about the ship, however, looked well, and to the surprise of those in the Anne, many heads belonging to others beside the crew were to be seen above the rail. A sail was in sight, moreover, standing in, and this vessel Capt. Saunders stated was the brig Henlopen, purchased on government account, and loaded with stock, and other property for the colony.
On going on board the Rancocus it was ascertained that, in all, one hundred and eleven new immigrants had been brought out! The circle of the affections had been set at work, and one friend had induced another to enter into the adventure, until it was found that less than the number mentioned could not be gotten rid of. That which could not be cured was to be endured, and the governor's dissatisfaction was a good deal appeased when he learned that the new-comers were of excellent materials; beings without exception, young, healthful, moral, and all possessed of more or less substance, in the way of worldly goods. This accession to the colony brought its population up to rather more than five hundred souls, of which number, however, near a hundred and fifty were children, or, under the age of fourteen years.
Glad enough were the new-comers to land at a little settlement which had been made on the island which lay abreast of the roads, and where, indeed, there was a very convenient harbour, did vessels choose to use it. The roads, however, had excellent anchorage, and were perfectly protected against the prevailing winds of that region. Only once, indeed, since the place was inhabited, had the wind been known to blow _on_ shore at that point; and then only during a brief squall. In general, the place was every way favourable for the arrival and departure of shipping, the trades making a leading breeze both in going and coming--as, indeed, they did all the way to and from the Reef. A long-headed emigrant, of the name of Dunks, had foreseen the probable, future, importance of this outer harbour, and had made such an arrangement with the council, as to obtain leave for himself and three or four of his connections to exchange the land they had drawn, against an equal quantity in this part of the group. The arrangement was made, and this little, out-lying colony had now been established an entire season. As the spot was a good deal exposed to an invasion, a stone dwelling had been erected, that was capable of accommodating the whole party, and pickets were placed around it in such a way as to prove an ample defence against any attempt to carry the work by assault. The governor had lent them a field-piece, and it was thought the whole disposition was favourable to the security of the colony, since no less than eleven combatants could be mustered here to repel invasion.
The immigrants, as usual, found everything charming, when their feet touched terra firma. The crops _did_ look well, and the island being covered with mud, the sand had done wonders for the vegetation. It is true that trees were wanting, though the pickets, or palisades, being of willow, had all sprouted, and promised soon to enclose the dwelling in a grove. Some fifty acres had been tilled, more or less thoroughly, and timothy was already growing that was breast-high. Clover looked well, too, as did everything else; the guano having lost none of its virtue since the late arrivals.
The governor sent back the Anne, with instructions to prepare room for the immigrants in the government dwelling, which, luckily, was large enough to receive them all. He waited with the Rancocus, however, for the Henlopen to come in and anchor. He then went on board this brig, and took a look at the stock. Saunders, a discreet, sensible man, so well understood the importance of adding to the physical force of the colony, in the way of brutes, that he had even strained the point to bring as many mares and cows as he could stow. He had put on board twenty-five of the last, and twenty of the first; all purchased at Valparaiso. The weather had been so mild, that no injury had happened to the beasts, but the length of the passage had so far exhausted the supplies that not a mouthful of food had the poor animals tasted for the twenty-four hours before they got in. The water, too, was scarce, and anything but sweet. For a month everything had been on short allowance, and the suffering creatures must have been enchanted to smell the land. Smell it they certainly did; for such a lowing, and neighing, and fretting did they keep up, when the governor got alongside of the brig, that he could not endure the sight of their misery, but determined at once to relieve it.
The brig was anchored within two hundred yards of a fine sandy beach, on which there were several runs of delicious water, and which communicated directly with a meadow of grass, as high as a man's breast. A bargain was soon made with Dunks; and the two crews, that of the Rancocus, as well as that of the brig, were set to work without delay to hoist out every creature having a hoof, that was on board the Henlopen. As slings were all ready, little delay was necessary, but a mare soon rose through the hatchway, was swung over the vessel's side, and was lowered into the water. A very simple contrivance released the creature from the slings, and off it swam, making the best of its way towards the land. In three minutes the poor thing was on the beach, though actually staggering from weakness, and from long use to the motion of the vessel. The water was its first aim. Dunks was there, however, to prevent it from drinking too much, when it made its way up to the grass, which it began to eat ravenously. All the rest went through the same process, and in a couple of hours the poor things were relieved from their misery, and the brig, which smelled like a stable, was well quit of them. Brooms and water were set to work immediately, but it was a month before the Henlopen lost the peculiar odour of the cattle.
Nor were the human beings much less rejoiced to go ashore than the brutes. Dunks gave them all a hearty welcome, and though he had little fruit to offer, he had plenty of vegetables, for which they were quite as thankful. Melons, however, he could and did give them, and the human part of the cargo had an ample feast on a sort of food to which they had now so long been strangers. The horses and cows were left on Dunks's Island, where they stayed until word was sent to the governor that they had eaten down all his grass, and would soon be on allowance again, unless taken away. Means, however, were soon found to relieve him of the stock, though his meadows, or pastures rather, having been seldom cut in that climate, were much improved by the visit paid them. As for the animals, they were parcelled out among the different farms, thus giving a little milk, and a little additional force to each neighbourhood. Fowls and pigs had been distributed some time previously, so that not a man in the group was without his breeding sow, and his brood of young chickens. These were species of stock that increased so rapidly, that a little care alone was wanting to make eggs and pork plenty. Corn, or maize, grew just for the planting; though it was all the better, certainly, for a little care.
After sufficient time had been allowed to make the necessary preparations, the vessels sailed with the immigrants for the Reef. There was many a glad meeting between friends and relatives. Those who had just arrived had a great deal to tell those who had preceded then by eighteen months, and those who now considered themselves old settlers, entertained the new ones with the wonders of their novel situations.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
24 | None | "Welter upon the waters, mighty one-- And stretch thee in the ocean's trough of brine; Turn thy wet scales up to the wind and sun, And toss the billow from thy flashing fin; Heave thy deep breathing to the ocean's din, And bound upon its ridges in thy pride, Or dive down to its lowest depths, and in The caverns where its unknown monsters hide Measure thy length beneath the gulf-stream's tide."
Brainard's _Sea-Serpent. _ The colony had now reached a point when its policy must have an eye to its future destinies. If it were intended to push it, like a new settlement, a very different course ought to be pursued from the one hitherto adopted. But the governor and council entertained more moderate views. They understood their real position better. It was true that the Peak, in one sense, or in that which related to soil and products, was now in a condition to receive immigrants as fast as they could come; but the Peak had its limits, and it could hold but a very circumscribed number. As to the group, land had to be formed for the reception of the husbandman, little more than the elements of soil existing over so much of its surface. Then, in the way of trade, there could not be any very great inducement for adventurers to come, since the sandal-wood was the only article possessed which would command a price in a foreign market. This sandal-wood, moreover, did not belong to the colony, but to a people who might, at any moment, become hostile, and who already began to complain that the article was getting to be very scarce. Under all the circumstances therefore, it was not deemed desirable to add to the population of the place faster than would now be done by natural means.
The cargoes of the two vessels just arrived were divided between the state and the governor, by a very just process. The governor had one-half the proceeds for his own private use, as owner of the Rancocus, without which vessel nothing could have been done; while the state received the other moiety, in virtue of the labour of its citizens as well as in that of its right to impose duties on imports and exports. Of the portion which went to the state, certain parts were equally divided between the colonists, for immediate use, while other parts of the cargo were placed in store, and held as a stock, to be drawn upon as occasion might arise.
The voyage, like most adventures in sandal-wood, teas, &c., in that day, had been exceedingly advantageous, and produced a most beneficent influence on the fortunes and comforts of the settlement. A well-selected cargo of the coarse, low-priced articles most needed in such a colony, could easily have been purchased with far less than the proceeds of the cargo of tea that had been obtained at Canton, in exchange for the sandal-wood carried out; and Saunders, accordingly, had filled the holds of both vessels with such articles, besides bringing home with him a considerable amount in specie, half of which went into the public coffers, and half into the private purse of governor Woolston. Money had been in circulation in the colony for the last twelve months; though a good deal of caution was used in suffering it to pass from hand to hand. The disposition was to hoard; but this fresh arrival of specie gave a certain degree of confidence, and the silver circulated a great deal more freely after it was known that so considerable an amount had been brought in.
It would scarcely be in our power to enumerate the articles that were received by these arrivals; they included everything in common use among civilized men, from a grind-stone to a cart. Groceries, too, had been brought in reasonable quantities, including teas, sugars, &c.; though these articles were not so much considered _necessaries_ in America fifty years ago as they are to-day. The groceries of the state as well as many other articles, were put into the hands of the merchants, who either purchased them out and out, to dispose of at retail, or who took them on commission with the same object. From this time, therefore, regular shops existed, there being three on the Reef and one on the Peak, where nearly everything in use could be bought, and that, too, at prices that were far from being exorbitant. The absence of import duties had a great influence on the cost of things, the state getting its receipts in kind, directly through the labour of its citizens, instead of looking to a customhouse in quest of its share for the general prosperity.
At that time very little was written about the great fallacy of the present day, Free Trade; which is an illusion about which men now talk, and dispute, and almost fight, while no living mortal can tell what it really is. It is wise for us in America, who never had anything but free trade, according to modern doctrines, to look a little closely into the sophisms that are getting to be so much in vogue; and which, whenever they come from our illustrious ancestors in Great Britain, have some such effect on the imaginations of a portion of our people, as purling rills and wooded cascades are known to posses over those of certain young ladies of fifteen.
Free trade, in its true signification, or in the only signification which is not a fallacy, can only mean a commerce that is _totally unfettered by duties, restrictions, prohibitions, and charges of all sorts_. Except among savages, the world never yet saw such a state of things, and probably never will. Even free trade ports have exactions that, in a degree, counteract their pretended principle of liberty; and no free port exists, that is anything more, in a strict interpretation of its uses, than a sort of bonded warehouse. So long as your goods remain there, on deposit and unappropriated, they are not taxed; but the instant they are taken to the _consumer_, the customary impositions must be paid.
_Freer_ trade--that is, a trade which is less encumbered than some admitted state of things which previously existed--is easily enough comprehended; but, instead of conveying to the mind any general theory, it merely shows that a lack of wisdom may have prevailed in the management of some particular interest; which lack of wisdom is now being tardily repaired. Prohibitions, whether direct, or in the form of impositions that the trade will not bear, may be removed without leaving trade _free_. This or that article may be thrown open to the general competition, without import duty or tax of any sort, and yet the great bulk of the commerce of a country be so fettered as to put an effectual check upon anything like liberal intercourse. Suppose, for instance, that Virginia were an independent country. Its exports would be tobacco, flour, and corn; the tobacco crop probably more than equalling in value those portions of the other crops which are sent out of the country. England is suffering for food, and she takes off everything like imposts on the eatables, while she taxes tobacco to the amount of many hundred per cent. Can that be called free trade?
There is another point of view in which we could wish to protest against the shouts and fallacies of the hour. Trade, perhaps the most corrupt and corrupting influence of life--or, if second to anything in evil, second only to politics--is proclaimed to be the great means of humanizing, enlightening, liberalizing, and improving the human race! Now, against this monstrous mistake in morals, we would fain raise our feeble voices in sober remonstrance. That the intercourse which is a consequence of commerce may, in certain ways, liberalize a man's views, we are willing to admit; though, at the same time, we shall insist that there are better modes of attaining the same ends. But it strikes us as profane to ascribe to this frail and mercenary influence a power which there is every reason to believe the Almighty has bestowed on the Christian church, and on that alone; a church which is opposed to most of the practices of trade, which rebukes them in nearly every line of its precepts, and which, carried out in its purity, can alone give the world that liberty and happiness which a grasping spirit of cupidity is so ready to impute to the desire to accumulate gold!
Fortunately, there was little occasion to dispute about the theories of commerce at the Reef. The little trade that did exist was truly unfettered; but no one supposed that any man was nearer to God on that account, except as he was farther removed from temptations to do wrong. Still, the governing principle was sound; not by canting about the beneficent and holy influences of commerce, but by leaving to each man his individuality, or restraining if only on those points which the public good demanded. Instead of monopolizing the trade of the colony, which his superior wealth and official power would have rendered very easy, governor Woolston acted in the most liberal spirit to all around him. With the exception of the Anne, which was built by the colony, the council had decided, in some measure contrary to his wishes, though in strict accordance with what was right, that all the vessels were the private property of Mark. After this decision, the governor formally conveyed the Mermaid and the Abraham to the state; the former to be retained principally as a cruiser and a packet, while the last was in daily use as a means of conveying articles and passengers, from one island to the other. The Neshamony was presented, out and out, to Betts, who turned many a penny with her, by keeping her running through the different passages, with freight, &c.; going from plantation to plantation, as these good people were in the practice of calling their farms. Indeed, Bob did little else, until the governor, seeing his propensity to stick by the water, and ascertaining that the intercourse would justify such an investment, determined to build him a sloop, in order that he might use her as a sort of packet and market-boat, united. A vessel of about forty-five tons was laid down accordingly, and put into the water at the end of six months, that was just the sort of craft suited to Bob's wishes and wants. In the mean time, the honest fellow had resigned his seat in the council, feeling that he was out of his place in such a body, among men of more or less education, and of habits so much superior and more refined than his own. Mark did not oppose this step in his friend, but rather encouraged it; being persuaded nothing was gained by forcing upon a man duties he was hardly fitted to discharge. Self-made men, he well knew, were sometimes very useful; but he also knew that they must be first _made_.
The name of this new sloop was the Martha, being thus called in compliment to her owner's sober-minded, industrious and careful wife. She (the sloop, and not Mrs. Betts) was nearly all cabin, having lockers forward and aft, and was fitted with benches in her wings, steamboat fashion. Her canvas was of light duck, there being very little heavy weather in that climate; so that assisted by a boy and a Kannaka, honest Bob could do anything he wished with his craft. He often went to the Peak and Rancocus Island in her, always doing something useful; and he even made several trips in her, within the first few months he had her running, as far as Betto's group. On these last voyages, he carried over Kannakas as passengers, as well as various small articles, such as fish-hooks, old iron, hatchets even, and now and then a little tobacco. These he exchanged for cocoa-nuts, which were yet scarce in the colony, on account of the number of mouths to consume them; baskets, Indian cloth, paddles which the islanders made very beautifully and with a great deal of care; bread-fruit, and other plants that abounded more at Betto's group than at the Reef, or even on the Peak.
But the greatest voyage Betts made that season was when he took a freight of melons. This was a fruit which now abounded in the colony; so much so as to be fed even to the hogs, while the natives knew nothing of it beyond the art of eating it. They were extraordinarily fond of melons, and Bob actually filled the cabin of the Martha with articles obtained in exchange for his cargo. Among other things obtained on this occasion, was a sufficiency of sandal-wood to purchase for the owner of the sloop as many groceries as he could consume in his family for twelve months; though groceries were high, as may well be supposed, in a place like the Reef. Betts always admitted that the first great turn in his fortune was the money made on this voyage, in which he embarked without the least apprehension of Waally, and his never-ceasing wiles and intrigues. Indeed, most of his sales were made to that subtle and active chief, who dealt very fairly by him.
All this time the Rancocus was laid up for want of something to freight her with. At one time the governor thought of sending her to pick up a cargo where she could; but a suggestion by a seaman of the name of Walker set him on a different track, and put on foot an adventure which soon attracted the attention of most of the sea-faring portion of the community.
It had been observed by the crew of the Rancocus, not only in her original run through those seas, but in her two subsequent passages from America, that the spermaceti whale abounded in all that part of the ocean which lay to windward of the group. Now Walker had once been second officer of a Nantucket craft, and was regularly brought up to the business of taking whales. Among the colonists were half a dozen others who had done more or less at the same business; and, at the suggestion of Walker, who had gone out in the Rancocus as her first officer, captain Saunders laid in a provision of such articles as were necessary to set up the business. These consisted of cordage, harpoons, spades, lances, and casks. Then no small part of the lower hold of the Henlopen was stowed with shook casks; iron for hoops, &c., being also provided.
As the sandal-wood was now obtained in only small quantities, all idea of sending the ship to Canton again, that year, was necessarily abandoned. At first this seemed to be a great loss; but when the governor came to reflect coolly on the subject, not only he, but the council generally, came to the conclusion that Providence was dealing more mercifully with them, by turning the people into this new channel of commerce, than to leave them to pursue their original track. Sandal-wood had a purely adventitious value, though it brought, particularly in that age, a most enormous profit; one so large, indeed, as to have a direct and quick tendency to demoralize those embarked in the trade. The whaling business, on the other hand, while it made large returns, demanded industry, courage, perseverance, and a fair amount of capital. Of vessels, the colonists had all they wanted; the forethought of Saunders and the suggestions of Walker furnished the particular means; and of provisions there was now a superabundance in the group.
It was exceedingly fortunate that such an occupation offered to interest and keep alive the spirit of the colonists. Man must have something to do; some main object to live for; or he is apt to degenerate in his ambition, and to fall off in his progress. No sooner was it announced that whales were to be taken, however, than even the women became alive to the results of the enterprise. This feeling was kept up by the governor's letting it be officially known that each colonist should have one share, or "lay," as it was termed, in the expected cargo; which share, or "lay," was to be paid for in provisions. Those actually engaged in the business had as many "lays" as it was thought they could earn; the colony in its collected capacity had a certain number more, in return for articles received from the public stores; and the governor, as owner of the vessels employed, received one-fifth of the whole cargo, or cargoes. This last was a very small return for the amount of capital employed; and it was so understood by those who reaped the advantages of the owner's liberality.
The Rancocus was not fitted out as a whaler, but was reserved as a ware-house to receive the oil, to store it until a cargo was collected, and then was to be used as a means to convey it to America. For this purpose she was stripped, had her rigging thoroughly overhauled, was cleaned out and smoked for rats, and otherwise was prepared for service. While in this state, she lay alongside of the natural quay, near and opposite to some extensive sheds which had been erected, as a protection against the heats of the climate.
The Henlopen, a compact clump of a brig, that was roomy on deck, and had stout masts and good rigging, was fitted out for the whaler; though the Anne was sent to cruise in company. Five whale-boats, with the necessary crews, were employed; two remaining with the Anne, and three in the brig. The Kannakas were found to be indefatigable at the oar, and a good number of them were used on this occasion. About twenty of the largest boys belonging to the colony were also sent out, in order to accustom them to the sea. These boys were between the ages of eight and sixteen, and were made useful in a variety of ways.
Great was the interest awakened in the colony when the Henlopen and the Anne sailed on this adventure. Many of the women, the wives, daughters, sisters, or sweethearts of the whalers, would gladly have gone along; and so intense did the feeling become, that the governor determined to make a festival of the occasion, and to offer to take out himself, in the Mermaid, as many of both sexes as might choose to make a trip of a few days at sea, and be witnesses of the success of their friends in this new undertaking. Betts also took a party in the Martha. The Abraham, too, was in company; while the Neshamony was sent to leeward, to keep a look-out in that quarter, lest the natives should take it into their heads to visit the group, while so many of its fighting-men, fully a hundred altogether, were absent. It is true, those who stayed at home were fully able to beat off Waally and his followers; but the governor thought it prudent to have a look-out. Such was the difference produced by habit. When the whole force of the colony consisted of less than twenty men, it was thought sufficient to protect itself, could it be brought to act together; whereas, now, when ten times twenty were left at home, unusual caution was deemed necessary, because the colony was weakened by this expedition of so many of its members. But everything is comparative with man.
When all was ready, the whaling expedition sailed; the governor leading on board the Mermaid, which had no less than forty females in her--Bridget and Anne being among them. The vessels went out by the southern channel, passing through the strait at the bridge in order to do so. This course was taken, as it would be easier to turn to windward in the open water between the south cape and the Peak, than to do it in the narrow passages between the islands of the group. The Mermaid led off handsomely, sparing the Henlopen her courses and royals. Even the Abraham could spare the last vessel her foresail, the new purchase turning out to be anything but a traveller. The women wondered how so slow a vessel could ever catch a whale!
The direction steered by the fleet carried it close under the weather side of the Peak, the summit of which was crowded by the population, to see so unusual and pleasing a sight. The Martha led, carrying rather more sail, in proportion to her size, than the Mermaid. It happened, by one of those vagaries of fortune which so often thwart the best calculations, that a spout was seen to windward of the cliffs, at a moment when the sloop was about a league nearer to it than any other vessel. Now, every vessel in the fleet had its whale-boat and whale-boat's crew: though the men of all but those who belonged to the Henlopen were altogether inexperienced. It is true, they had learned the theory of the art of taking a whale; but they were utterly wanting in the practice. Betts was not the man to have the game in view, however, and not make an effort to overcome it. His boat was manned in an instant, and away he went, with Socrates in the bows, to fasten to a huge creature that was rolling on the water in a species of sluggish enjoyment of its instincts. It often happens that very young soldiers, more especially when an _esprit de corps_ has been awakened in them, achieve things from which older troops would retire, under the consciousness of their hazards. So did it prove with the Martha's boat's crew on this occasion. Betts steered, and he put them directly on the whale; Socrates, who looked fairly green under the influence of alarm and eagerness to attack, both increased by the total novelty of his situation, making his dart of the harpoon when the bows of the fragile craft were literally over the huge body of the animal. All the energy of the negro was thrown into his blow, for he felt as if it were life or death with him; and the whale spouted blood immediately. It is deemed a great exploit with whalers, though it is not of very rare occurrence, to inflict a death-wound with the harpoon; that implement being intended to make fast with to the fish, which is subsequently slain with what is termed a lance. But Socrates actually killed the first whale he ever struck, with the harpoon; and from that moment he became an important personage in the fisheries of those seas. That blow was a sort of Palo Alto affair to him, and was the forerunner of many similar successes. Indeed, it soon got to be said, that "with Bob Betts to put the boat on, and old Soc to strike, a whale commonly has a hard time on't." It is true, that a good many boats were stove, and two Kannakas were drowned, that very summer, in consequence of these tactics; but the whales were killed, and Betts and the black escaped with whole skins.
On this, the first occasion, the whale made the water foam, half-filled the boat, and would have dragged it under, but for the vigour of the negro's arm, and the home character of the blow, which caused the fish to turn up and breathe his last, before he had time to run any great distance. The governor arrived on the spot, just as Bob had got a hawser to the whale and was ready to fill away for the South Cape channel again. The vessels passed each other cheering, and the governor admonished his friend not to carry the carcass too near the dwellings, lest it should render them uninhabitable. But Betts had his anchorage already in his eye, and away he went, with the wind on his quarter, towing his prize at the rate of four or five knots. It may be said, here, that the Martha went into the passage, and that the whale was floated into shallow water, where sinking was out of the question, and Bob and his Kannakas, about twenty in number, went to work to peel off the blubber in a very efficient, though not in a very scientific, or artistical manner. They got the creature stripped of its jacket of fat that very night, and next morning the Martha appeared with a set of kettles, in which the blubber was tried out. Casks were also brought in the sloop, and, when the work was done, it was found that that single whale yielded one hundred and eleven barrels of oil, of which thirty-three barrels were head-matter! This was a capital commencement for the new trade, and Betts conveyed the whole of his prize to the Reef, where the oil was started into the ground-tier of the Rancocus, the casks of which were newly repaired, and ready stowed to receive it.
A week later, as the governor in the Mermaid, cruising in company with the Henlopen and Abraham, was looking out for whales about a hundred miles to windward of the Peak, having met with no success, he was again joined by Betts in the Martha. Everything was reported right at the Reef. The Neshamony had come in for provisions and gone out again, and the Rancocus would stand up without watching, with her hundred and eleven barrels of oil in her lower hold. The governor expressed his sense of Betts' services, and reminding him of his old faculty of seeing farther and truer than most on board, he asked him to go up into the brig's cross-trees and take a look for whales. The keen-eyed fellow had not been aloft ten minutes, before the cry of "spouts--spouts!" was ringing through the vessel. The proper signal was made to the Henlopen and Abraham, when everybody made sail in the necessary direction. By sunset a great number of whales were fallen in with, and as Capt. Walker gave it as his opinion they were feeding in that place, no attempt was made on them until morning. The next day, however, with the return of light, six boats were in the water, and palling off towards the game.
On this occasion, Walker led on, as became his rank and experience. In less than an hour he was fast to a very large whale, a brother of that taken by Betts; and the females had the exciting spectacle, of a boat towed by an enormous fish, at a rate of no less than twenty knots in an hour. It is the practice among whalers for the vessel to keep working to windward, while the game is taking, in order to be in the most favourable position to close with the boats, after the whale is killed. So long, however, as the creature has life in it, it would be folly to aim at any other object than getting to windward, for the fish may be here at one moment, and a league off in a few minutes more. Sometimes, the alarmed animal goes fairly out of sight of the vessel, running in a straight line some fifteen or twenty miles, when the alternatives are to run the chances of missing the ship altogether, or to cut from the whale. By doing the last not only is a harpoon lost, but often several hundred fathoms of line; and it not unfrequently happens that whales are killed with harpoons in them, left by former assailants, and dragging after them a hundred, or two, fathoms of line.
It may be well, here, to explain to the uninitiated reader, that the harpoon is a barbed spear, with a small, but stout cord, or whale line fastened to it. The boat approaches the fish bow foremost, but is made sharp at both ends that it may "back off," if necessary; the whale being often dangerous to approach, and ordinarily starting, when struck, in a way to render his immediate neighbourhood somewhat ticklish. The fish usually goes down when harpooned, and the line must be permitted to "run-out," or he would drag the boat after him. But a whale must breathe as well as a man, and the faster he runs the sooner he must come up for a fresh stock of air. Now, the proper use of the harpoon and the line is merely to fasten to the fish; though it does sometimes happen that the creature is killed by the former. As soon as the whale re-appears on the surface, and becomes stationary, or even moderates his speed a little, the men begin to haul in line, gradually closing with their intended victim. It often happens that the whale starts afresh, when line must be permitted to run out anew; this process of "hauling in" and "letting run" being often renewed several times at the taking of a single fish. When the boat can be hauled near enough, the officer at its head darts his lance into the whale, aiming at a vital part. If the creature "spouts blood," it is well; but if not hit in the vitals, away it goes, and the whole business of "letting run," "towing," and "hauling in" has to be gone over again.
On the present occasion, Walker's harpooner, or boat-steerer, as he is called, had made a good "heave," and was well fast to his fish. The animal made a great circuit, running completely round the Mermaid, at a distance which enabled those on board her to see all that was passing. When nearest to the brig, and the water was curling off the bow of the boat in combs two feet higher than her gunwale, under the impulse given by the frantic career of the whale, Bridget pressed closer to her husband's side, and, for the first time in her life, mentally thanked Heaven that he was the governor, since that was an office which did not require him to go forth and kill whales. At that very moment, Mark was burning with the desire to have a hand in the sport, though he certainly had some doubts whether such an occupation would suitably accord with the dignity of his office.
Walker got alongside of his whale, within half a mile of the two brigs, and to-leeward of both. In consequence of this favourable circumstance, the Henlopen soon had its prize hooked on, and her people at work stripping off the blubber. This is done by hooking the lower block of a powerful purchase in a portion of the substance, and then cutting a strip of convenient size, and heaving on the fall at the windlass. The strip is cut by implements called spades, and the blubber is torn from the carcass by the strain, after the sides of the "blanket-piece," as the strip is termed, are separated from the other portions of the animal by the cutting process. The "blanket-pieces" are often raised as high as the lower mast-heads, or as far as the purchase will admit of its being carried, when a transverse cut is made, and the whole of the fragment is lowered on deck. This "blanket-piece" is then cut into pieces and put into the try-works, a large boiler erected on deck, in order to be "tryed-out," when the oil is cooled, and "started" below into casks. In this instance, the oil was taken on board the Abraham as fast as it was "tryed-out" on board the Henlopen, the weather admitting of the transfer.
But that single whale was far from being the only fruits of Betts' discovery. The honest old Delaware seaman took two more whales himself. Socrates making fast, and he killing the creatures. The boats of the Henlopen also took two more, and that of the Abraham, one. Betts in the Martha, and the governor in the Mermaid towed four of these whales into the southern channel, and into what now got the name of the Whaling Bight. This was the spot where Betts had tryed out the first fish taken, and it proved to be every way suitable for its business. The Bight formed a perfectly safe harbour, and there was not only a sandy shoal on which the whales could be floated and kept from sinking, a misfortune that sometimes occurs, but it had a natural quay quite near, where the Rancocus, herself, could lie. There was fresh water in abundance, and an island of sufficient size to hold the largest whaling establishment that ever existed. This island was incontinently named Blubber Island. The greatest disadvantage was the total absence of soil, and consequently of all sorts of herbage; but its surface was as smooth as that of an artificial quay, admitting of the rolling of casks with perfect ease. The governor no sooner ascertained the facilities of the place, which was far enough from the ordinary passage to and from the Peak to remove the nuisances, than he determined to make it his whaling haven.
The Abraham was sent across to Rancocus Island for a load of lumber, and extensive sheds were erected, in time to receive the Henlopen, when she came in with a thousand barrels of oil on board, and towing in three whales that she had actually taken in the passage between Cape South and the Peak. By that time, the Rancocus had been moved, being stiff enough to be brought from the Reef to Blubber Island, under some of her lower sails. This moving of vessels among the islands of the group was a very easy matter, so long as they were not to be carried to windward; and, a further acquaintance with the channels, had let the mariners into the secret of turning up, against the trades and within the islands, by keeping in such reaches as enabled them to go as near the wind as was necessary, while they were not compelled to go nearer than a craft could lie.
Such was the commencement of a trade that was destined to be of the last importance to our colonists. The oil that was brought in, from this first cruise, a cruise that lasted less than two months, and including that taken by all the boats, amounted to two thousand barrels, quite filling the lower hold of the Rancocus, and furnishing her with more than half of a full cargo. At the prices which then ruled in the markets of Europe and America, three thousand five hundred barrels of spermaceti, with a due proportion of head matter, was known to be worth near an hundred thousand dollars; and might be set down as large a return for labour, as men could obtain under the most advantageous circumstances.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
25 | None | "The forest reels beneath the stroke Of sturdy woodman's axe; The earth receives the white man's yoke, And pays her willing tax Of fruits, and flowers, and golden harvest fields, And all that nature to blithe labour yields."
Paulding.
Notwithstanding the great success which attended the beginning of the whaling, it was six months before the Rancocus was loaded, and ready to sail for Hamburgh with her cargo. This time the ship went east, at once, instead of sailing to the westward, as she had previously done--taking with her a crew composed partly of colonists and partly of Kannakas. Six boys, however, went in the ship, the children of reputable settlers; all of whom the governor intended should be officers, hereafter, on board of colony vessels. To prevent difficulties on the score of national character, on leaving America the last time, Saunders had cleared for the islands of the Pacific and a market; meaning to cover his vessel, let her go where she might, by the latter reservation. This question of nationality offered a good deal of embarrassment in the long run, and the council foresaw future embarrassments as connected with the subject; but, every one of the colonists being of American birth, and America being then neutral, and all the American-built vessels having American papers, it was thought most prudent to let things take their natural course, under the existing arrangement, until something occurred to render a more decided policy advisable.
As soon as the Rancocus got off, the Henlopen went out again, to cruise about two hundred leagues to windward; while the inshore fishery was carried on by Betts, in the Martha, with great spirit and most extraordinary success. So alive did the people get to be to the profit and sport of this sort of business, that boats were constructed, and crews formed all over the colony, there being often as many as a dozen different parties out, taking whales near the coasts. The _furor_ existed on the Peak, as well as in the low lands, and Bridget and Anne could not but marvel that men would quit the delicious coolness, the beautiful groves, and all the fruits and bountiful products of that most delightful plain, to go out on the ocean, in narrow quarters, and under a hot sun, to risk their lives in chase of the whale! This did the colonists, nevertheless, until the governor himself began to feel the necessity of striking a whale, if he would maintain his proper place in the public opinion.
As respects the governor, and the other high functionaries of the colony, some indulgence was entertained; it being the popular notion that men who lived so much within doors, and whose hands got to be so soft, were not exactly the sort of persons who would be most useful at the oar. Heaton, and the merchants, Pennock, and the two younger Woolstons, with the clergyman, were easily excused in the popular mind; but the governor was known to be a prime seaman, and a silent expectation appeared to prevail, that some day he would be seen in the bow of a boat, lancing a whale. Before the first season was over, this expectation was fully realized; Governor Woolston heading no less than four of what were called the colony boats, or boats that belonged to the state, and fished as much for honour as profit, taking a fine whale on each occasion. These exploits of the governor's capped the climax, in the way of giving a tone to the public mind, on the subject of taking whales. No man could any longer doubt of its being honourable, as well as useful, and even the boys petitioned to be allowed to go out. The Kannakas, more or less of whom were employed in each vessel, rose greatly in the public estimation, and no _young_ man could expect to escape animadversion, unless he had been present at least once at the taking of a whale. Those who had struck or lanced a fish were now held in a proportionate degree of repute. It was, in fact, in this group that the custom originally obtained, which prohibited a young man from standing at the head of the dance who had not struck his fish; and not at Nantucket, as has been erroneously supposed.
In a community where such a spirit was awakened, it is not surprising that great success attended the fisheries. The Henlopen did well, bringing in eight hundred barrels; but she found six hundred more in waiting for her, that had been taken by the in-shore fishermen; some using the Abraham, some the Martha, some the Anne, and others again nothing but the boats, in which they pursued their game. In the latter cases, however, when a fish was taken, one of the larger vessels was usually employed to take the creature into the Bight. In this way was the oil obtained, which went to make up a cargo for the Henlopen. The governor had his doubts about sending this brig on so distant a voyage, the vessel being so slow; but there was no choice, since she must go, or the cargo must remain a long time where it was. The brig was accordingly filled up, taking in seventeen hundred barrels; and she sailed for Hamburgh, under the command of a young man named Thomas. Walker remained behind, preferring to superintend the whaling affairs at home.
So high did the fever run, by this time, that it was determined to build a couple of vessels, each to measure about a hundred and eighty tons, with the sole object of using them to take the whale. Six months after laying their keels, these little brigs were launched; and lucky it was that the governor had ordered copper for a ship to be brought out, since it now came handy for using on these two craft. But, the whaling business had not been suffered to lag while the Jonas and the Dragon were on the stocks; the Anne, and the Martha, and the single boats, being out near half the time. Five hundred barrels were taken in this way; and Betts, in particular, had made so much money, or, what was the same thing, had got so much oil, that he came one morning to his friend the governor, when the following interesting dialogue took place between them, in the audience-chamber of the Colony House. It may as well be said here, that the accommodations for the chief magistrate had been materially enlarged, and that he now dwelt in a suite of apartments that would have been deemed respectable even in Philadelphia. Bridget had a taste for furniture, and the wood of Rancocus Island admitted of many articles being made that were really beautiful, and which might have adorned a palace. Fine mats had been brought from China, such as are, and long have been, in common use in America; neat and quaint chairs and settees had also been in the governor's invoices, to say nothing of large quantities of fine and massive earthenware. In a word, the governor was getting to be rich, and like all wealthy men, he had a disposition to possess, in a proportionate degree, the comforts and elegancies of civilized life. But to come to our dialogue-- "Walk in, Captain Betts--walk in, sir, and do me the favour to take a chair," said the governor, motioning to his old friend to be seated. "You are always welcome, here; for I do not forget old times, I can assure you, my friend."
"Thankee, governor; thankee, with all my heart. I _do_ find everything changed, now-a-days, if the truth must be said, but yourself. To me, _you_ be always, Mr. Mark, and Mr. Woolston, and we seem to sail along in company, much as we did the time you first went out a foremast-lad, and I teached you the difference between a flat-knot and a granny."
"No, no, Bob, everything is not so much changed as you pretend--I am not changed, in the first place."
"I confess it--_you_ be the same, governor, blow high, or blow low."
"Then Martha is not changed, or nothing worth mentioning. A little more matronly, perhaps, and not quite as much of a girl as when you first made her acquaintance; but Martha, nevertheless. And, as for her heart, I'll answer for it, that is just the colour it was at sixteen."
"Why, yes, governor; 'tis much as you say. Marthy is now the mother of four children, and that confarms a woman's appearance, depend on't. But, Marthy is Marthy; and, for that matter, Miss Bridget is Miss Bridget, as much as one pea is like another. Madam Woolston does full credit to the climate, governor, and looks more like eighteen than ever."
"My wife enjoys excellent health, Betts; and grateful am I to God that it is so. But I think all our women have a fresh and sea-air sort of look, a cheerful freshness about them, that I ascribe to the salt and the sea-breezes. Then we have mountain air, in addition, on the Peak."
"Ay, ay, sir--I dare say you've got it right, as you do most matters. Well, governor, I don't know which counts up the fastest in the colony, children or whales?"
"Both flourish," answered Mark, smiling, "as our reports show. Mr. Secretary tells me that there were, on the first of the last month, three hundred and eighteen children in the colony under the age of ten years; of whom no less than one hundred and ninety-seven are born here--pure Craterinos, including your children and mine, Betts."
"It's a fine beginning, governor--a most capital start; and, though the young 'uns can't do much at taking a whale, or securing the ile, just now, they'll come on in their turns, and be useful when we're in dock as hulks sir."
"Talking of oil, you must be getting rich, Captain Betts. I hear you got in another hundred-barrel gentleman last week!"
"Times is altered with me, governor; and times is altered with you, too, sir, since you and I rafted loam and sea-weed, to raise a few cucumbers, and squashes, and melons. _Then_, we should have been as happy as princes to have had a good roof over our heads."
"I trust we are both thankful, where thanks are due, for all this, Betts?"
"Why, yes, sir, I endivour so to be; though men is desperate apt to believe they desarve all they get but the ill luck. I and Marthy try to think of what is all in all to us, and I believe Marthy does make out pretty well, in that partic'lar, accordin' to Friends' ways; though I am often jammed in religion, and all for want of taking to it early as I sometimes think, sir."
"There is no doubt, Betts, that men grow in Christian character, as well as in evil; and the most natural growth, in all things, is that of the young. A great deal is to be undone and unlearned, if we put off the important hour to a late period in life."
"Well, as to unl'arnin', I suppose a fellow that had as little edication as myself will have an easy time of it," answered Betts, with perfect simplicity and good faith; "for most of my schoolin' was drowned in salt water by the time I was twelve."
"I am glad of one thing," put in the governor, half in a congratulating way, and half inquiringly; "and that is, that the Rev. Mr. Hornblower takes so well with the people. Everybody appears to be satisfied with his ministrations; and I do not see that any one is the worse for them, although he is an Episcopalian."
Betts twisted about on his chair, and seemed at first unwilling to answer; but his natural frankness, and his long habits of intimacy and confidence with Mark Woolston, both as man and boy, forbade his attempting anything seriously in the way of concealment.
"Well, governor, they _do_ say that 'many men, many minds,'" he replied, after a brief pause; "and I suppose it's as true about religion, as in a judgment of ships, or in a ch'ice of a wife. If all men took to the same woman, or all seamen shipped for the same craft, a troublesome household, and a crowded and onhealthy vessel, would be the upshot on't."
"We have a choice given us by Providence, both as to ships and as to wives, Captain Betts; but no choice is allowed any of us in what relates to religion. In that, we are to mind the sailor's maxim, 'to obey orders if we break owners.'"
"Little fear of 'breaking owners,' I fancy, governor. But, the difficulty is to know what orders is. Now, Friends doesn't hold, at all, to dressing and undressing in church time; and I think, myself, books is out of place in praying to God."
"And is there much said among the people, Captain Betts, about the parson's gown and surplice, and about his _reading_ his prayers, instead of writing them out, and getting them by heart?"
There was a little malice in the governor's question, for he was too much behind the curtain to be the dupe of any pretending claims to sudden inspirations, and well knew that every sect had its liturgy, though only half-a-dozen have the honesty to print them. The answer of his friend was, as usual, frank, and to the point.
"I cannot say but there is, Mr. Mark. As for the clothes, women will talk about _them_, as you well know, sir; it being their natur' to be dressing themselves out, so much. Then as to praying from the book, quite half of our people think it is not any better than no praying at all. A little worse, perhaps, if truth was spoken."
"I am sorry to hear this, Betts. From the manner in which they attend the services, I was in hopes that prejudices were abating, and that everybody was satisfied."
"I don't think, governor, that there is any great danger of a mutiny; though, many men, many minds, as I said before. But, my business here is forgotten all this time; and I know it isn't with your honour now as it used to be with us both, when we had nothing to think of but the means of getting away from this place, into some other that we fancied might be better. I wish you joy, sir, in having got the two new brigs into the water."
"Thank you, Captain Betts. Does your present visit relate to either of those brigs?"
"Why, to come to the p'int, it does, sir. I've taken a fancy to the Dragon, and should like to buy her."
"Buy her! Have you any notion what such a vessel will cost, Betts?"
"Not a great way from eight thousand dollars, I should think, governor, now that the copper is on. Some things is charged high, in this part of the world, about a wessel, and other some isn't. Take away the copper, and I should think a good deal less would buy either."
"And have you eight thousand dollars at command, my friend, with which to purchase the brig?"
"If ile is money, yes; if ile isn't money, no. I've got three hundred barrels on hand, one hundred of which is head-matter."
"I rejoice to hear this, Captain Betts, and the brig you shall have. I thought to have sold both to the merchants, for I did not suppose any one else, here, could purchase them; but I would greatly prefer to see one of them in the hands of an old friend. You shall have the Dragon, Betts, since you like her."
"Done and done between gentlemen, is enough, sir; not that I set myself up for a gentleman, governor, but I've lived too long and too much in your respected society not to have l'arn'd some of the ways. The brig's mine, if ile will pay for her. And now, sir, having completed the trade, I _should_ like to know if your judgment and mine be the same. I say the Dragon will beat the Jonas half a knot, the best day the Jonas ever seed."
"I do not know but you are right, Bob. In looking at the two craft, last evening, I gave the preference to the Dragon, though I kept my opinion to myself, lest I might mortify those who built the Jonas."
"Well, sir, I'm better pleased to hear this, than to be able to pay for the brig! It is something to a plain body like myself, to find his judgment upheld by them that know all about a matter."
In this friendly and perfectly confidential way did Mark Woolston still act with his old and long-tried friend, Robert Betts. The Dragon was cheap at the money mentioned, and the governor took all of the old seaman's 'ile' at the very top of the market. This purchase at once elevated Betts in the colony, to a rank but a little below that of the 'gentlemen,' if his modesty disposed him to decline being classed absolutely with them. What was more, it put him in the way of almost coining money. The brig he purchased turned out to be as fast as he expected, and what was more, the character of a lucky vessel, which she got the very first cruise, never left her, and gave her commander and owner, at all times, a choice of hands.
The governor sold the Jonas to the merchants, and took the Martha off Betts' hands, causing this latter craft to run regularly, and at stated hours, from point to point among the islands, in the character of a packet. Twice a week she passed from the Reef to the Cove at the Peak, and once a fortnight she went to Rancocus Island. In addition to her other duties, this sloop now carried the mail.
A post-office law was passed by the council, and was approved of by the governor. In that day, and in a community so simple and practical, new-fangled theories concerning human rights were not allowed to interfere with regulations that were obviously necessary to the comfort and convenience of the public.
Fortunately, there was yet no newspaper, a species of luxury, which, like the gallows, comes in only as society advances to the corrupt condition; or which, if it happen to precede it a little, is very certain soon to conduct it there. If every institution became no more than what it was designed to be, by those who originally framed it, the state of man on earth would be very different from what it is. The unchecked means of publicity, out of all question, are indispensable to the circulation of truths; and it is equally certain that the unrestrained means of publicity are equally favourable to the circulation of lies. If we cannot get along safely without the possession of one of these advantages, neither can we get along very safely while existing under the daily, hourly, increasing influence of the other--call it what you will. If truth is all-important, in one sense, falsehood is all-important too, in a contrary sense.
Had there been a newspaper at the Crater, under the control of some philosopher, who had neither native talent, nor its substitute education, but who had been struck out of a printer's devil by the rap of a composing-stick, as Minerva is reported to have been struck, full-grown, out of Jupiter's head by the hammer of Vulcan, it is probable that the wiseacre might have discovered that It was an inexcusable interference with the rights of the colonists, to enact that no one should carry letters for hire, but those connected with the regular post-office. But, no such person existing, the public mind was left to the enjoyment of its common-sense ignorance, which remained satisfied with the fact that, though it might be possible to get a letter carried from the Reef to the Cove, between which places the communications were constant and regular, for half the money charged by the office, yet it was not possible to get letters carried between some of the other points in the colony for twenty times the regulated postage. It is probable, therefore, that the people of the Crater and the Peak felt, that in supporting a general system, which embraced the good of all, they did more towards extending civilization, than if they killed the hen, at once, in order to come at the depository of the golden eggs, in the shortest way.
In the middle ages, he who wished to send a missive, was compelled, more than half the time, to be at the expense of a special messenger. The butchers, and a class of traders that corresponds, in part, to the modern English traveller, took charge of letters, on the glorious Free Trade principle; and sometimes public establishments hired messengers to go back and forth, for their own purposes. Then, the governments, perceiving the utility of such arrangements, imperfect as they were, had a sort of post-offices for their use, which have reached down to our own times, in the shape of government messengers. There can be little doubt that the man who found he could get a letter safely and promptly conveyed five hundred miles for a crown, after having been obliged previously to pay twenty for the same service, felt that he was the obliged party, and never fancied for a moment, that, in virtue of his _patronage_, he was entitled to give himself airs, and to stand upon his natural right to have a post-office of his own, at the reduced price. But, indulgence creates wantonness, and the very men who receive the highest favours from the post-offices of this country, in which a letter is carried five-and-twenty hundred miles for ten cents, penetrating, through some fourteen or fifteen thousand offices, into every cranny of a region large as half Europe, kicks and grows restive because he has not the liberty of doing a few favoured portions of the vast enterprise for himself; while he imposes on the public the office of doing that which is laborious and unprofitable! Such is man; such did he become when he fell from his first estate; and such is he likely to continue to be until some far better panacea shall be discovered for his selfishness and cupidity, than what is called 'self-government.'
But the Craterinos were thankful when they found that the Martha was set to running regularly, from place to place, carrying passengers and the mails. The two businesses were blended together for the sake of economy, and at the end of a twelvemonth it was found that the colony had nothing extra to pay. On the whole, the enterprise may be said to have succeeded; and as practice usually improves all such matters, in a few months it was ascertained that another very important step had been taken on the high-road of civilization. Certainly, the colonists could not be called a letter-writing people, considered as a whole, but the facilities offered a temptation to improve, and, in time, the character of the entire community received a beneficial impression from the introduction of the mails.
It was not long after the two brigs were sold, and just as the Martha came into government possession, that all the principal functionaries made a tour of the whole settlements, using the sloop for that purpose. One of the objects was to obtain statistical facts; though personal observation, with a view to future laws, was the principal motive. The governor, secretary, attorney-general, and most of the council were along; and pleasure and business being thus united, their wives were also of the party. There being no necessity for remaining in the Martha at night, that vessel was found amply sufficient for all other purposes, though the "progress" occupied fully a fortnight, As a brief relation of its details will give the reader a full idea of the present state of the "country," as the colonists now began to call their territories, we propose to accompany the travellers, day by day, and to give some short account of what they saw, and of what they did. The Martha sailed from the cove about eight in the morning, having on board seventeen passengers, in addition to two or three who were going over to Rancocus Island on their regular business. The sloop did not sail, however, directly for the last-named island, but made towards the volcano, which had of late ceased to be as active as formerly, and into the condition of which it was now deemed important to make some inquiries. The Martha was a very fast vessel, and was soon quietly anchored in a small bay, on the leeward side of the island, where landing was not only practicable but easy. For the first time since its existence the crater was ascended. All the gentlemen went up, and Heaton took its measurement by means of instruments. The accumulation of materials, principally ashes and scoriæ, though lava had begun to appear in one or two small streams, had been very great since the governor's first visit to the spot. The island now measured about two miles in diameter, and being nearly round, might be said to be somewhere near six in circumference. The crater itself was fully half a mile in diameter, and, at that moment, was quite a thousand feet in height above the sea. In the centre of this vast valley, were three smaller craters or chimneys, which served as outlets to the fires beneath. A plain had formed within the crater, some four hundred feet below its summit, and it already began to assume that sulphur-tinged and unearthly hue, that is so common in and about active volcanoes. Occasionally, a deep roaring would be succeeded by a hissing sound, not unlike that produced by a sudden escape of steam from a boiler, and then a report would follow, accompanied by smoke and stones; some of the latter of which were projected several hundred yards into the air, and fell on the plain of the crater. But these explosions were not one-tenth as frequent as formerly.
The result of all the observations was to create an impression that this outlet to the fires beneath was approaching a period when it would become inactive, and when, indeed, some other outlet for the pent forces might be made. After passing half-a-day on and around the volcano, even Bridget and Anne mustered courage and strength to ascend it, supported by the willing arms of their husbands. The females were rewarded for their trouble, though both declared that they should ever feel a most profound respect for the place after this near view of its terrors as well as of its beauties.
On quitting the volcano, the Martha proceeded directly to leeward, reaching Rancocus Island about sunset. Here the sloop anchored in the customary haven, and everybody but her crew landed. The fort was still kept up at this place, on account of the small number of the persons who dwelt there, though little apprehension now existed of a visit from the natives; with the exception of the Kannakas, who went back and forth constantly on board the different craft in which they were employed, not a native had been near either island of the colony since the public visit of young Ooroony, on the occasion of bringing over labourers to help to form the grounds of Colony House. The number and force of the different vessels would seem to have permanently settled the question of ascendency in those seas, and no one any longer believed it was a point to be controverted.
The population on Rancocus Island did not amount to more than fifty souls, and these included women and children. Of the latter, however, there were not yet many; though five or six were born annually, and scarcely one died. The men kept the mill going, cutting lumber of all sorts; and they made both bricks and lime, in sufficient quantities to supply the wants of the two other islands. At first, it had been found necessary to keep a greater force there, but, long before the moment of which we are writing, the people had all got into their regular dwellings, and the materials now required for building were merely such as were used in additions, or new constructions. The last, however, kept the men quite actively employed; but, as they got well paid for their work, everybody seemed contented. The Martha never arrived without bringing over quantities of fruits, as well as vegetables, the Rancocusers, lumber-men like, paying but little attention to gardening or husbandry. The island had its productions, and there was available land enough, perhaps, to support a few thousand people, but, after the group and the Peak, the place seemed so little tempting to the farmers, that no one yet thought of using it for the ordinary means of supporting life. The "visitors," as the party called themselves, had an inquiry made into the state of the animals that had been turned loose, on the pastures and mountain-sides of the island, to seek their own living. The hogs, as usual, had increased largely; it was supposed there might be near two hundred of these animals, near half of which, however, were still grunters. The labourers occasionally killed one, but the number grew so fast that it was foreseen it would be necessary to have an annual hunt, in order to keep it down. The goats did particularly well, though they remained so much on the highest peaks as to be seldom approached by any of the men. The cow had also increased her progeny, there being now no less than four younger animals, all of whom yielded milk to the people. The poultry flourished here, as it did in all that region, the great abundance of fruit, worms, insects, &c. rendering it unnecessary to feed them, though Indian-corn was almost to be had for the asking, throughout all the islands. This grain was rarely harvested, except as it was wanted, and the hogs that were fattened were usually turned in upon it in the fields.
It may be well to say, that practice and experience had taught the colonists something in the way of fattening their pork. The animals were kept in the group until they were about eighteen months old, when they were regularly transported to the cove, in large droves, and made to ascend the steps, passing the last two months of their lives amid the delightful groves of the Peak. Here they had acorns in abundance, though their principal food was Indian corn, being regularly attended by Kannakas who had been trained to the business. At killing-time, each man either came himself, or sent some one to claim his hogs; all of which were slaughtered on the Peak, and carried away in the form of pork. The effect of this change was to make much finer meat, by giving the animals a cooler atmosphere and purer food.
From Rancocus Island the Martha sailed for the group, which was visited and inspected in all its settlements by the governor and council. The policy adopted by the government of the colony was very much unlike that resorted to in America, in connection with the extension of the settlements. Here a vast extent of surface is loosely overrun, rendering the progress of civilization rapid, but very imperfect. Were the people of the United States confined to one-half the territory they now occupy, there can be little question that they would be happier, more powerful, more civilized, and less rude in manners and feelings; although it may be high treason to insinuate that they are not all, men, women and children, already at the _ne plus ultra_ of each of those attainments. But there is a just medium in the density of human population, as well as in other things; and that has not yet been reached, perhaps, even in the most thickly peopled of any one of the Old Thirteen. Now, Mark Woolston had seen enough of the fruits of a concentrated physical force, in Europe, to comprehend their value; and he early set his face against the purely skimming process. He was resolved that the settlements should not extend faster than was necessary, and that as much of civilization should go with them as was attainable. In consequence of this policy, the country soon obtained a polished aspect, as far as the settlements reached. There were four or five distinct points that formed exceptions to this rule, it having been considered convenient to make establishments there, principally on account of the whalers. One, and the largest of these isolated settlements, was in the Whaling Bight, quite near to Blubber Islano, where a village had sprung up, containing the houses and shops of coopers, rope-makers, boat-builders, carpenters, blacksmiths, &c.; men employed in making casks, whaling gear, and boats. There also were the dwellings of three or four masters and mates of vessels, as well as of sundry boat-steerers. In the whole, there might have been fifty habitations at this particular point; of which about two-thirds were in a straggling village, while the remainder composed so many farm-houses. Everything at this place denoted activity and a prosperous business; the merchants taking the oil as fast as it was ready, and returning for it, hoops, iron in bars, hemp, and such other articles as were wanted for the trade.
By this time, the Rancocus had returned, and had discharged her inward-bound cargo at the Reef, bringing excellent returns for the oils sent to Hamburgh. She now lay in Whaling Bight, being about to load anew with oil that had been taken during her absence. Saunders was as busy as a bee; and Mrs. Saunders, who had come across from her own residence on the Peak, in order to remain as long as possible with her husband, was as happy as the day was long; seeming never to tire of exhibiting her presents to the other women at the Bight.
At the Reef itself, an exceedingly well-built little town was springing up. Since the removal of the whaling operations to the Bight, all nuisances were abated, and the streets, quays, and public walks were as neat as could be desired. The trees had grown wonderfully, and the gardens appeared as verdant and fresh as if they had a hundred feet of loam beneath them, instead of resting on solid lava, as was the fact. These gardens had increased in numbers and extent, so that the whole town was embedded in verdure and young trees. That spot, on which the sun had once beaten so fiercely as to render it often too hot to be supported by the naked foot, was now verdant, cool, and refreshing, equally to the eye and to the feelings. The streets were narrow, as is desirable in warm climates--thus creating shade, as well as increasing the draughts of air through them; it being in the rear that the houses obtained space for ventilation as well as for vegetation. The whole number of dwellings on the Reef now amounted to sixty-four; while the warehouses, public buildings, ships, offices, and other constructions, brought the number of the roofs up to one hundred. These buildings, Colony House and the warehouses excepted, were not very large certainly, but they were of respectable dimensions, and neat and well put together. Colony House was large, as has been mentioned; and though plain, certain ornaments had been completed, which contributed much to its appearance. Every building, without exception, had some sort of verandah to it; and as most of these additions were now embowered in shrubs or vines, they formed delightful places of retreat during the heat of the day.
By a very simple process, water was pumped up from the largest spring by means of wind-sails, and conveyed in wooden logs to every building in the place. The logs were laid through the gardens, for the double purpose of getting soil to cover them, and to put them out of the way. Without the town, a regular system had been adopted, by which to continue to increase the soil. The rock was blown out, as stone was wanted; leaving, however, a quay around the margin of the island. As soon as low enough, the cavities became the receptacles of everything that could contribute to form soil; and one day in each month was set apart for a "bee;" during which little was done but to transport earth from Loam Island, which was far from being exhausted yet, or even levelled, and scattering it on those hollow spots. In this manner, a considerable extent of surface, nearest to the town, had already been covered, and seeded, and planted, so that it was now possible to walk from the town to the crater, a distance of a quarter of a mile, and be the whole time amid flowering shrubs, young trees, and rich grasses!
As for the crater itself, it was now quite a gem in the way of vegetation. Its cocoa-nut trees bore profusely; and its figs, oranges, limes, shaddocks, &c. &c., were not only abundant, but rich and large. The Summit was in spots covered with delicious groves, and the openings were of as dark a verdure, the year round, as if the place lay twenty degrees farther from the equator than was actually the case. Here Kitty, followed by a flock of descendants, was permitted still to rove at large, the governor deeming her rights in the place equal to his own. The plain of the crater was mostly under tillage, being used as a common garden for all who dwelt in the town. Each person was taxed so many days, in work, or in money, agreeably to a village ordinance, and by such means was the spot tilled; in return, each person, according, to a scale that was regulated by the amount of the contribution, was allowed to come or send daily, and dig and carry away a stated quantity of fruits and vegetables. All this was strictly regulated by a town law, and the gardener had charge of the execution of the ordinance; but the governor had privately intimated to him that there was no necessity for his being very particular, so long as the people were so few, and the products so abundant. The entire population of the Reef proper amounted, at this visitation, to just three hundred and twenty-six persons, of whom near a hundred were under twelve years of age. This, however, was exclusively of Kannakas, but included the absent seamen, whose families dwelt there permanently.
The settlement at Dunks' Cove has been mentioned, and nothing need be said of it, beyond the fact that its agriculture had improved and been extended, its trees had grown, and its population increased. There was another similar settlement at East Cove--or Bay would be the better name--which was at the place where Mark Woolston had found his way out to sea, by passing through a narrow and half-concealed inlet. This entrance to the group was now much used by the whalers, who fell in with a great many fish in the offing, and who found it very convenient to tow them into this large basin, and cut them up. Thence the blubber was sent down in lighters to Whaling Bight, to be tryed out. This arrangement saved a tow of some five-and-twenty miles, and often prevented a loss of the fish, as sometimes occurred in the outside passage, by having it blown on an iron-bound coast. In consequence of these uses of the place, a settlement had grown up near it, and it already began to look like a spot to be civilized. As yet, however, it was the least advanced of all the settlements in the group.
At the West Bay, there was a sort of naval station and look-out port, to watch the people of the neighbouring islands. The improvements did not amount to much, however, being limited to one farm, a small battery that commanded the roads, and a fortified house, which was also a tavern.
The agricultural, or strictly rural population of the group, were seated along the different channels nearest to the Reef. Some attention had been paid, in the choice, to the condition of the soil; but, on the whole, few unoccupied spots could now be found within a league of the Reef, and on any of the principal passages that communicated with the different islands. There were foot-paths, which might be used by horses, leading from farm to farm, along the margins of the channels; but the channels themselves were the ordinary means of communicating between neighbours. Boats of all sorts abounded, and were constantly passing and repassing. Here, as elsewhere, the vegetation was luxuriant and marvellous. Trees were to be seen around the houses, that elsewhere might have required three times the number of years that these had existed, to attain the same height.
The visitation terminated at the Peak. This place, so aptly likened to the garden of Eden, and frequently so called, could receive very little addition to its picturesque beauties from the hand of man. Parts of it were cultivated, it is true; enough to supply its population (rather more than three hundred souls) with food; but much the greater portion of its surface was in pasture. The buildings were principally of stones quarried out of the cliffs, and were cool as well as solid edifices. They were low, however, and of no great size on the ground. At the governor's farm, his private property, there was a dwelling of some pretension; low, like all the rest, but of considerable extent. Here Bridget now passed much of her time; for here it was thought best to keep the children. So cool and salubrious was the air on the Peak, that two schools were formed here; and a large portion of the children of the colony, of a suitable age, were kept in them constantly. The governor encouraged this plan, not only on account of the health of the children, but because great care was taken to teach nothing but what the children ought to learn. The art of reading may be made an instrument of evil, as well as of good; and if a people imbibe false principles--if they are taught, for instance, that this or that religious sect should be tolerated, or the reverse, because it was most or least in conformity with certain political institutions, thus rendering an institution of God's subservient to the institutions of men, instead of making the last subservient to the first--why, the less they know of letters, the better. Everything false was carefully avoided, and, with no great pretensions in the way of acquisitions, the schools of the Peak were made to be useful, and at least innocent. One thing the governor strictly enjoined; and that was, to teach these young creatures that they were fallible beings, carefully avoiding the modern fallacy of supposing that an infallible whole could be formed of fallible parts.
Such is an outline of the condition of the colony at the period which we have now reached. Everything appeared to be going on well. The Henlopen arrived, discharged, loaded, and went out again, carrying with her the last barrel of oil in the Bight. The whalers had a jubilee, for their adventures made large returns; and the business was carried on with renewed spirit. In a word, the colony had reached a point where every interest was said to be prosperous--a state of things with communities, as with individuals, when they are, perhaps, in the greatest danger of meeting with reverses, by means of their own abuses.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
26 | None | "Cruel of heart, and strong of arm, Proud in his sport, and keen for spoil, He little reck'd of good or harm, Fierce both in mirth and toil; Yet like a dog could fawn, if need there were; Speak mildly when he would, or look in fear."
Dana--_The Buccaneer. _ After the visitation, the governor passed a week at the Peak, with Bridget and his children. It was the habit of the wife to divide her time between the two dwellings; though Mark was so necessary to her as a companion, intellectually, and she was so necessary to Mark, for the same reason, that they were never very long separated. Bridget was all heart, and she had the sweetest temper imaginable; two qualities that endeared her to her husband, far more than her beauty. Her wishes were centred in her little family, though her kindness and benevolence could extend themselves to all around her. Anne she loved as a sister and as a friend; but it would not have been impossible for Bridget to be happy, had her fortune been cast on the Reef, with no one else but Mark and her two little ones.
The Peak, proper, had got to be a sort of public promenade for all who dwelt near it. Here the governor, in particular, was much accustomed to walk, early in the day, before the sun got to be too warm, and to look out upon the ocean as he pondered on his several duties. The spot had always been pleasant, on account of the beauty and extent of the view; but a new interest was given to it since the commencement of the whaling operations in the neighbourhood. Often had Bridget and Anne gone there to see a whale taken; it being no uncommon thing for one of the boys to come shouting down from the Peak, with the cry of "a fish--a fish!" It was by no means a rare occurrence for the shore-boats to take whales immediately beneath the cliffs, and the vessels could frequently be seen to windward, working up to their game. All this movement gave life and variety to the scene, and contributed largely to the spot's becoming a favourite place of resort. The very morning of the day that he intended to cross over to the Reef, on his return from the "progress," the governor and his wife ascended to the Peak just as the sun was rising. The morning was perfectly lovely; and never had the hearts of our married couple expanded more in love to their fellows, or been more profoundly filled with gratitude to God for all his goodness to them, than at that moment. Young Mark held by his mother's hand, while the father led his little daughter. This was the way they were accustomed to divide themselves in their daily excursions, it probably appearing to each parent that the child thus led was a miniature image of the other. On that morning, the governor and Bridget were talking of the bounties that Providence had bestowed on them, and of the numberless delights of their situation. Abundance reigned on every side; in addition to the productions of the island, in themselves so ample and generous, commerce had brought its acquisitions, and, as yet, trade occupied the place a wise discrimination would give it. All such interests are excellent as _incidents_ in the great scheme of human happiness; but woe betide the people among whom they get to be _principals! _ As the man who lives only to accumulate, is certain to have all his nobler and better feelings blunted by the grasping of cupidity, and to lose sight of the great objects of his existence, so do whole communities degenerate into masses of corruption, venality, and cupidity, when they set up the idol of commerce to worship in lieu of the ever-living God. So far from denoting a healthful prosperity, as is too apt to be supposed, no worse signs of the condition of a people can be given, than when all other interests are made to yield to those of the mere money-getting sort. Among our colonists, as yet, commerce occupied its proper place; it was only an incident in their state of society, and it was so regarded. Men did not search for every means of increasing it, whether its fruits were wanted or not, or live in a constant fever about its results. The articles brought in were all necessary to the comfort and civilization of the settlements, and those taken away were obtained by means of a healthful industry.
As they ascended the height, following an easy path that led to the Summit, the governor and his wife conversed about the late visitation, and of what each had seen that was striking and worthy of comment. Mark had a council to consult, in matters of state, but most did he love to compare opinions with the sweet matronly young creature at his side. Bridget was so true in all her feelings, so just in her inferences, and so kindly disposed, that a better counsellor could not have been found at the elbow of one intrusted with power.
"I am more uneasy on the subject of religion than on any other," observed the governor, as he helped his little companion up a difficult part of the ascent. "While out, I took great pains to sound the people on the subject, and I found a much greater variety of opinions, or rather of feelings, among them than I could have believed possible, after the quiet time we have hitherto had."
"After all, religion is, and ought to be, more a matter of feeling, than of reason, Mark."
"That is true, in one sense, certainly; but, it should be feeling subject to prudence and discretion."
"Everything should be subject to those two qualities, though so very few are. I have all along known that the ministrations of Mr. Hornblower were only tolerated by a good number of our people. You, as an Episcopalian, have not been so much in the way of observing this; for others have been guarded before _you_; but, my family is known not to have been of that sect, and I have been treated more frankly."
"And you have not let me know this important fact, Bridget!" said the governor, a little reproachfully.
"Why should I have added to your other cares, by heaping this on your shoulder, dear Mark? The thing could not easily be prevented; though I may as well tell you, now, what cannot much longer be kept a secret--the Henlopen will bring a Methodist and a Presbyterian clergyman in her, this voyage, if any be found willing to emigrate; and I have heard, lately, that Friends expect a preacher."
"The law against the admission of an immigrant, without the consent of the governor and council, is very clear and precise," answered the husband, looking grave.
"That may be true, my love, but it would hardly do to tell the people they are not to worship God in the manner that may best satisfy their own consciences."
"It is extraordinary that, as there is but one God, and one Saviour, there should be more than one mode of worshipping them!"
"Not at all extraordinary, my dear Mark, when you come to consider the great diversity of opinion which exists among men, in other matters. But, Mr. Hornblower has a fault, which is a very great fault, in one situated as he is, without a competitor in the field. He lays too much stress on his particular mission; talking too much, and preaching too much of his apostolic authority, as a divine."
"Men should never blink the truth, Bridget; and least of all, in a matter as grave as religion."
"Quite right, Mark, when it is necessary to say anything on the subject, at all. But, after all, the apostolic succession is but a _means_, and if the end be attainable without dwelling on these means, it seems to me to be better not to conflict with the prejudices of those we wish to influence. Remember, that there are not fifty real Episcopalians in all this colony, where there is only clergyman, and he of that sect."
"Very true; but, Mr. Hornblower naturally wishes to make them all churchmen."
"It really seems to me, that he ought to be content with making them all Christians."
"Perhaps he thinks the two identical--necessary to each other," added the governor, smiling on his charming young wife, who, in her own person, had quietly consented to the priestly control of her husband's clergyman, though but half converted to the peculiar distinctions of his sect, herself.
"He should remember, more especially in his situation, that others may not be of the same way of thinking. Very few persons, I believe, inquire into the reasons of what they have been taught on the subject of religion, but take things as they find them."
"And here they find an Episcopalian, and they ought to receive him confidingly."
"That might do with children, but most of our people came here with their opinions formed. I wish Mr. Hornblower were less set in his opinions, for I am content to be an Episcopalian, with you, my dear husband; certain, if the authority be not absolutely necessary, it can, at least, do no harm."
This ended the conversation at that time, for just then the party reached the Peak. Little, however, did the governor, or his pretty wife, imagine how much the future was connected with the interest of which they had just been speaking, or dream of the form in which the serpent of old was about to visit this Eden of modern times. But occurrences of another character almost immediately attracted their attention, and absorbed all the care and energy of the colony for some time. Scarcely was the party on the Peak, when the keen, lively eyes of the younger Bridget caught sight of a strange sail; and, presently, another and another came into view. In a word, no less than three vessels were in sight, the first that had ever been seen in those seas, with the exception of the regular and well-known craft of the colony. These strangers were a ship and two brigs; evidently vessels of some size, particularly the first; and they were consorts, keeping in company, and sailing in a sort of line, which would seem to denote more of order and concert than it was usual to find among merchantmen. They were all on a wind, standing to the southward and eastward, and were now, when first seen, fairly within the strait between the Peak and the group, unquestionably in full sight of both, and distant from each some five or six leagues. With the wind as it was, nothing would have been easier for them all, than to fetch far enough to windward to pass directly beneath the western cliffs, and, consequently, directly in front of the cove.
Luckily, there were several lads on the Peak, early as was the hour, who had ascended in quest of the berries of certain plants that flourished there. The governor instantly despatched one of these lads, with a note to Heaton, written in pencil, in which he desired that functionary to send a messenger down to the cove, to prevent any of the fishermen from going out; it being the practice of many of the boys to fish in the shade of the cliffs, to leeward, ere the sun rose high enough to make the heat oppressive. Hitherto, the existence of the cove, as it was believed, remained unknown even to the Kannakas, and a stringent order existed, that no boat should ever enter it so long as craft was in sight, which might have any of those men on board it. Indeed, the whole Peak was just as much a place of mystery, to all but the colonists, as it was the day when Waally and his followers were driven away by their superstitious dread.
Having taken this precaution, and kept the other lads to send down with any farther message he might deem necessary, the governor now gave all his attention to the strangers. A couple of glasses were always kept on the Peak, and the best of these was soon in his hand, and levelled at the ship. Bridget stood at her husband's side, eager to hear his opinion, but waiting with woman's patience for the moment it might be given with safety. At length that instant came, and the half-terrified wife questioned the husband on the subject of his discoveries.
"What is it, Mark'?" said Bridget, almost afraid of the answer she was so desirous of obtaining. "Is it the Rancocus?"
"If the Rancocus, love, be certain she would not be coming hither. The ship is of some size, and appears to be armed; though I cannot make out her nation."
"It is not surprising that she should be armed, Mark. You know that the papers Captain Saunders brought us were filled with accounts of battles fought in Europe."
"It is very true that the whole world is in arms, though that does not explain the singular appearance of these three vessels, in this remote corner of the earth. It is possible they may be discovery ships, for wars do not always put a stop to such enterprises. They appear to be steering for the Peak, which is some proof that they do not know of the existence of the settlements in the group. There they might anchor; but here, they cannot without entering the cove, of which they can know nothing."
"If discovery vessels, would they not naturally come first to the Peak, as the most striking object?"
"In that you are probably right, Bridget, though I think the commodore would be apt to divide his force, having three ships, and send one, at least, towards the group, even if he came hither with the others. No nation but England, however, would be likely to have vessels of that character out, in such a war, and these do not look like English craft, at all. Besides, we should have heard something of such an expedition, by means of the papers, were there one out. It would be bad enough to be visited by explorers; yet, I fear these are worse than explorers."
Bridget very well understood her husband's apprehensions on the subject of exploring parties. As yet, the colony had got on very well, without having the question of nationality called into the account; but it had now become so far important, as, in a small way, to be a nursery for seamen; and there was much reason to fear that the ruthless policy of the strong would, in the event of a discovery, make it share the usual fortunes of the weak. It was on account of this dread of foreign interference, that so much pains had been taken to conceal the history and state of the little community, the strongest inducements being placed before all the seamen who went to Europe, to be discreet and silent. As for the Kannakas, they did not know enough to be very dangerous, and could not, at all, give any accurate idea of the position of the islands, had they been better acquainted than they were with their relation to other communities, and desirous of betraying them.
The governor now sent another note down to Heaton, with a request that orders might be forwarded along the cliffs, for every one to keep out of sight; as well as directions that care should be taken not to let any smoke even be seen to rise from the plain. This message was speedily followed by another, directing that all the men should be assembled, and the usual preparations made for defence. He also asked if it were not possible to send a whale-boat out, by keeping immediately under the cliffs, and going well to windward, in such a manner as to get a communication across to the Reef, in order to put the people on their guard in that quarter. One or two whale-boats were always in the cove, and there were several crews of capital oarsmen among the people of the Peak. If such a boat could be prepared, it was to be held in readiness, as the governor himself might deem it expedient to cross the strait.
All this time the strange vessels were not idle, but drew nearer to the Peak, at a swift rate of sailing. It was not usual for mere merchantmen to be as weatherly, or to make as much way through the water, as did all these craft. On account of the great elevation at which the governor stood, they appeared small, but he was too much accustomed to his situation not to know how to make the necessary allowances. After examining her well, when she was within a league of the cliffs, he came to the opinion that the ship was a vessel of about six hundred tons, and that she was both armed and strongly manned. So far as he could judge, by the bird's-eye view he got, he fancied she was even frigate-built, and had a regular gundeck. In that age such craft were very common, sloops of war having that construction quite as often as that of the more modern deep-waisted vessel. As for the brigs, they were much smaller than their consort, being of less than two hundred tons each, apparently, but also armed and strongly manned. The armaments were now easily to be seen, as indeed were the crews, each and all the vessels showing a great many men aloft, to shorten sail as they drew nearer to the island.
One thing gave the governor great satisfaction. The strangers headed well up, as if disposed to pass to windward of the cliffs, from which he inferred that none on board them knew anything of the existence or position of the cove. So much care had been taken, indeed, to conceal this spot from, even the Kannakas, that no great apprehension existed of its being known to any beyond the circle of the regular colonists. As the ship drew still nearer, and came more under the cliffs, the governor was enabled to get a better view of her construction, and of the nature of her armament. That she was frigate-built was now certain, and the strength of her crew became still more evident, as the men were employed in shortening and making sail almost immediately under his eye.
Great care was taken that no one should be visible on the Peak. Of the whole island, that was the only spot where there was much danger of a man's being seen from the ocean; for the fringe of wood had been religiously preserved all around the cliffs. But, with the exception of the single tree already mentioned, the Peak was entirely naked; and, in that clear atmosphere, the form of a man might readily be distinguished even at a much greater elevation. But the glasses were levelled at the strangers from covers long before prepared for that purpose, and no fear was entertained of the look-outs, who had their instructions, and well understood the importance of caution.
At length, the vessels got so near, as to allow of the glasses being pointed directly down upon the upper deck of the ship, in particular. The strangers had a little difficulty in weathering the northern extremity of the island, and they came much closer to the cliffs than they otherwise would, in order to do so. While endeavouring to ascertain the country of the ship, by examining her people, the governor fancied he saw some natives on board her. At first, he supposed there might be Kannakas, or Mowrees, among the crew; but, a better look assured him that the Indians present were not acting in the character of sailors at all. They appeared to be chiefs, and chiefs in their war-dresses. This fact induced a still closer examination, until the governor believed that he could trace the person of Waally among them. The distance itself was not such as to render it difficult to recognize a form, or a face, when assisted by the glass; but the inverted position of all on board the ship did make a view less certain than might otherwise have been the case. Still the governor grew, at each instant, more and more assured that Waally was there, as indeed he believed his son to be, also. By this time, one of the men who knew the chief had come up to the Peak, with a message from Heaton, and he was of the same opinion as the governor, after taking a good look through the best glass. Bridget, too, had seen the formidable Waally, and _she_ gave it as her opinion that he was certainly on board the ship. This was considered as a most important discovery. If Waally were there, it was for no purpose that was friendly to the colonists. The grudge he owed the last, was enduring and deadly. Nothing but the strong arm of power could suppress its outbreakings, or had kept him in subjection, for the last five years. Of late, the intercourse between the two groups had not been great; and it was now several months since any craft had been across to Ooroony's islands, from the Reef. There had been sufficient time, consequently, for great events to have been planned and executed, and, yet, that the colonists should know nothing of them.
But, it was impossible to penetrate further into this singular mystery, so long as the strangers kept off the land. This they did of course, the three vessels passing to windward of the Peak, in a line ahead, going to the southward, and standing along the cliffs, on an easy bowline. The governor now sent a whale-boat out of the cove, under her sails, with orders to stand directly across to the Reef, carrying the tidings, and bearing a letter of instructions to Pennock and such members of the council as might be present. The letter was short, but it rather assumed the probability of hostilities, while it admitted that there was a doubt of the issue. A good look-out was to be kept, at all events, and the forces of the colony were to be assembled. The governor promised to cross himself, as soon as the strangers quitted the neighbourhood of the Peak.
In the mean time, Heaton mounted a horse, and kept company with the squadron as it circled the island. From time to time, he sent messages to the governor, in order to let him know the movements of the strangers. While this was going on, the men were all called in from their several occupations, and the prescribed arrangements were made for defence. As a circuit of the island required several hours, there was time for everything; and the whale-boat was fairly out of sight from even the Peak, when Heaton despatched a messenger to say that the squadron had reached the southern extremity of the island, and was standing off south-east, evidently steering towards the volcano.
Doubts now began to be felt whether the colonists would see anything more of the strangers. It was natural that navigators should examine unknown islands, cursorily at least; but it did not follow that, if trade was their object, they should delay their voyage in order to push their investigations beyond a very moderate limit. Had it not been for the undoubted presence of savages in the ship, and the strong probability that Waally was one of them, the governor would now have had hopes that he had seen the last of his visitors. Nevertheless, there was the chance that these vessels would run down to Rancocus Island, where not only might a landing be easily effected, but where the mills, the brick-yards, and indeed the principal cluster of houses, were all plainly to be seen from the offing. No sooner was it certain, therefore, that the strangers had stood away to the southward and eastward, than another boat was sent across to let the millers, brickmakers, stone-quarriers, and lumbermen know that they might receive guests who would require much discretion in their reception.
The great policy of secrecy was obviously in serious danger of being defeated. How the existence of the colony was to be concealed, should the vessels remain any time in the group, it was not easy to see; and that advantage the governor and Heaton, both of whom attached the highest importance to it, were now nearly ready to abandon in despair. Still, neither thought of yielding even this policy until the last moment, and circumstances rendered it indispensable; for so much reflection had been bestowed on that, as well as on every other interest of the colony, that it was not easy to unsettle any part of their plans--in the opinion of its rulers, at least.
A sharp look-out for the squadron was kept, not only from the Peak, but from the southern end of the cliffs, all that day. The vessels were seen until they were quite near to the volcano, when their sudden disappearance was ascribed to the circumstance of their shortening sail. Perhaps they anchored. This could only be conjecture, however, as no boat could be trusted out to watch them, near by. Although there was no anchorage near the Peak, it was possible for a vessel to anchor anywhere in the vicinity of the volcano. The island of Vulcan's Peak appears to have been projected upwards, out of the depths of the ocean, in one solid, perpendicular wall, leaving no shallow water near it; but, as respects the other islands, the coast shoaled gradually in most places; though the eastern edge of the group was an exception to the rule. Still, vessels could anchor in any or all the coves and roadsteads of the group; and _there_ the holding ground was unusually good, being commonly mud and sand, and these without rocks.
The remainder of the day, and the whole of the succeeding night, were passed with much anxiety, by the governor and his friends. Time was given to receive an answer to the messages sent across to the Reef, but nothing was seen of the strangers, when day returned. The boat that came in from the Reef, reported that the coast was clear to the northward. It also brought a letter, stating that notices had been sent to all the different settlements, and that the Anne had sailed to windward, to call in all the fishermen, and to go off to the nearest whaling-ground, in order to communicate the state of things in the colony to Captain Betts and his companions, who were out. The Dragon and the Jonas, when last heard from, were cruising only about a hundred miles to windward of the group, and it was thought important, on various accounts, that they should be at once apprised of the arrival of the strangers.
The governor was perfectly satisfied with the report of what had been done, and this so much the more because it superseded the necessity of his quitting the Peak, just at the moment. The elevation of the mountain was of so much use as a look-out, that it was every way desirable to profit by it, until the time for observing was passed, and that for action had succeeded, in its stead. Of course, some trusty person was kept constantly on the Peak, looking out for the strangers, though the day passed without one of them being seen. Early next morning, however, a whale-boat arrived from Rancocus, with four stout oarsmen in it. They had left the station, after dark, and had been pulling up against the trades most of the intervening time. The news they brought was not only alarming, but it occasioned a great deal of surprise.
It seemed that the three strange vessels appeared off the point, at Rancocus Island, early on the morning of the preceding day. It was supposed that they had run across from the volcano in the darkness, after having been lost sight of from the Peak. Much prudence was observed by the colonists, as soon as light let them into the secret of their having such unknown neighbours. Bigelow happening to be there, and being now a man of a good deal of consideration with his fellow-citizens, he assumed the direction of matters. All the women and children ascended into the mountains, where secret places had long been provided for such an emergency, by clearing out and rendering two or three caves habitable, and where food and water were at hand. Thither most of the light articles of value were also transported. Luckily, Bigelow had caused all the saws at the mill, to be taken down and secreted. A saw was an article not to be replaced, short of a voyage to Europe, even; for in that day saws were not manufactured in America; nor, indeed, was scarcely anything else.
When he had given his directions, Bigelow went alone to the point, to meet the strangers, who had anchored their vessels, and had landed in considerable force. On approaching the place, he found about a hundred men ashore, all well armed, and seemingly governed by a sort of military authority. On presenting himself before this party, Bigelow was seized, and taken to its leader, who was a sea-faring man, by his appearance, of a fierce aspect and most severe disposition. This man could speak no English. Bigelow tried him in Spanish, but could get no answer out of him in that tongue either; though he suspected that what he said was understood. At length, one was brought forward who _could_ speak English, and that so well as to leave little doubt in Bigelow's mind about the stranger's being either an Englishman or an American. Communications between the parties were commenced through this interpreter.
Bigelow was closely questioned touching the number of people in the different islands, the number of vessels they possessed, the present situation and employments of those vessels, the nature of their cargoes, the places where the property transported in the vessels was kept, and, in short, everything that bore directly on the wealth and movable possessions of the people. From the nature of these questions as well as from the appearance of the strangers, Bigelow had, at once, taken up the notion that they were pirates. In the eastern seas, piracies were often committed on a large scale, and there was nothing violent in this supposition. The agitated state of the world, moreover, rendered piracies much more likely to go unpunished then than would be the case to-day, and it was well known that several vessels often cruised together, when engaged in these lawless pursuits, in those distant quarters of the world. Then the men were evidently of different races, though Bigelow was of opinion that most of them came from the East Indies, the coasts, or the islands. The officers were mostly Europeans by birth, or the descendants of Europeans; but two-thirds of the people whom he saw were persons of eastern extraction; some appeared to be Lascars, and others what sailors call Chinamen.
Bigelow was very guarded in his answers; so much so, indeed, as to give great dissatisfaction to his interrogators. About the Peak he assumed an air of great mystery, and said none but birds could get on it; thunder was sometimes heard coming out of its cliffs, but man could not get up to see what the place contained. This account was received with marked interest, and to Bigelow's surprise, it did not appear to awaken the distrust he had secretly apprehended it might. On the contrary, he was asked to repeat his account, and all who heard it, though a good deal embellished this time, appeared disposed to believe what he said. Encouraged by this success, the poor fellow undertook to mystify a little concerning the Reef; but here he soon found himself met with plump denials. In order to convince him that deception would be of no use, he was now taken a short distance and confronted with Waally!
Bigelow no sooner saw the dark countenance of the chief than he knew he was in bad hands. From that moment, he abandoned all attempts at concealment, the condition of the Peak excepted, and had recourse to an opposite policy. He now exaggerated everything; the number and force of the vessels, giving a long list of names that were accurate enough, though the fact was concealed that they mostly belonged to boats; and swelling the force of the colony to something more than two thousand fighting men. The piratical commander, who went by the name of 'the admiral' among his followers, was a good deal startled by this information, appealing to Waally to know whether it might be relied on for truth. Waally could not say yes or no to this question. He had heard that the colonists were much more numerous than they were formerly; but how many fighting men they could now muster was more than he could say. He knew that they were enormously rich, and among other articles of value, possessed materials sufficient for fitting out as many ships as they pleased. It was this last information that had brought the strangers to the group; for they were greatly in want of naval stores of almost all sorts.
The admiral did not deem it necessary to push his inquiries any further at that moment; apparently, he did not expect to find much at Rancocus Island, Waally having, most probably, let him into the secret of its uses. The houses and mills were visited and plundered; a few hogs and one steer were shot; but luckily, most of the animals had been driven into a retired valley. The saw-mill was set on fire in pure wantonness, and it was burned to the ground. A new grist-mill escaped, merely because its position was not known. A great deal of injury was inflicted on the settlement merely for the love of mischief, and a brick-kiln was actually blown up in order to enjoy the fun of seeing the bricks scattered in the air. In short, the place was almost destroyed in one sense, though no attempt was made to injure Bigelow. On the contrary, he was scarcely watched, and it was no sooner dark than he collected a crew, got into his own whale-boat, and came to windward to report what was going on to the governor.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
27 | None | "All gone! 'tis ours the goodly land-- Look round--the heritage behold; Go forth--upon the mountains stand; Then, if ye can, be cold."
Sprague.
Little doubt remained in the mind of the governor, after he had heard and weighed the whole of Bigelow's story, that he had to deal with one of those piratical squadrons that formerly infested the eastern seas, a sort of successor of the old buccaneers. The men engaged in such pursuits, were usually of different nations, and they were always of the most desperate and ruthless characters. The fact that Waally was with this party, indicated pretty plainly the manner in which they had heard of the colony, and, out of all question, that truculent chief had made his own bargain to come in for a share of the profits.
It was highly probable that the original object of these freebooters had been to plunder the pearl-fishing vessels, and, hearing at their haunts, of Betto's group, they had found their way across to it, where, meeting with Waally, they had been incited to their present enterprise.
Little apprehension was felt for the Peak. A vessel might hover about it a month, and never find the cove; and should the pirates even make the discovery, such were the natural advantages of the islanders, that the chances were as twenty to one, they would drive off their assailants. Under all the circumstances, therefore, and on the most mature reflection, the governor determined to cross over to the Reef, and assume the charge of the defence of that most important position. Should the Reef fall into the hands of the enemy, it might require years to repair the loss; or, what would be still more afflicting, the freebooters might hold the place, and use it as a general rendezvous, in their nefarious pursuits. Accordingly, after taking a most tender leave of his wife and children, Governor Woolston left the cove, in the course of the forenoon, crossing in a whale-boat rigged with a sail. Bridget wished greatly to accompany her husband, but to this the latter would, on no account, consent; for he expected serious service, and thought it highly probable that most of the females would have to be sent over to the Peak, for security. Finding that her request could not be granted, and feeling fully the propriety of her husband's decision, Mrs. Woolston so far commanded her feelings as to set a good example to other wives, as became her station.
When about mid-channel, the whale-boat made a sail coming down before the wind, and apparently steering for South Cape, as well as herself. This turned out to be the Anne, which had gone to windward to give the alarm to the fishermen, and was now on her return. She had warned so many boats as to be certain they would spread the notice, and she had spoken the Dragon, which had gone in quest of the Jonas and the Abraham, both of which were a few leagues to windward. Capt. Betts, however, had come on board the Anne, and now joined his old friend, the governor, when about four leagues from the cape. Glad enough was Mark Woolston to meet with the Anne, and to find so good an assistant on board her. That schooner, which was regularly pilot-boat built, was the fastest craft about the islands, and it was a great matter to put head-quarters on board her. The Martha came next, and the whale-boat was sent in to find that sloop, which was up at the Reef, and to order her out immediately to join the governor. Pennock was the highest in authority, in the group, after the governor, and a letter was sent to him, apprising him of all that was known, and exhorting him to vigilance and activity; pointing out, somewhat in detail, the different steps he was to take, in order that no time might be lost. This done, the governor stood in towards Whaling Bight, in order to ascertain the state of things at that point.
The alarm had been given all over the group, and when the Anne reached her place of destination, it was ascertained that the men had been assembled under arms, and every precaution taken. But Whaling Bight was the great place of resort of the Kannakas, and there were no less than forty of those men there at that moment, engaged in trying out oil, or in fitting craft for the fisheries. No one could say which side these fellows would take, should it appear that their proper chiefs were engaged with the strangers; though, otherwise, the colonists counted on their assistance with a good deal of confidence. On all ordinary occasions, a reasonably fair understanding existed between the colonists and the Kannakas. It is true, that the former were a little too fond of getting as much work as possible, for rather small compensations, out of these semi-savages; but, as articles of small intrinsic value still went a great way in these bargains, no serious difficulty had yet arisen out of the different transactions. Some persons thought that the Kannakas had risen in their demands, and put less value on a scrap of old iron, than had been their original way of thinking, now that so many of their countrymen had been back and forth a few times, between the group and other parts of the world; a circumstance that was very naturally to be expected. But the governor knew mankind too well not to understand that all unequal associations lead to discontent. Men may get to be so far accustomed to inferior stations, and to their duties and feelings, as to consider their condition the result of natural laws; but the least taste of liberty begets a jealousy and distrust that commonly raises a barrier between the master and servant, that has a never-dying tendency to keep them more or less alienated in feeling. When the colonists began to cast about them, and to reflect on the chances of their being sustained by these hirelings in the coming strife, very few of them could be sufficiently assured that the very men who had now eaten of their bread and salt, in some instances, for years, were to be relied on in a crisis. Indeed, the number of these Kannakas was a cause of serious embarrassment with the governor, when he came to reflect on his strength, and on the means, of employing it.
Fully two hundred of the savages, or semi-savages, were at that moment either scattered about among the farm-houses; or working in the different places where shipping lay, or were out whaling to windward. Now, the whole force of the colony, confining it to fighting-men, and including those who were absent, was just three hundred and sixty-three. Of these, three hundred might, possibly, on an emergency, be brought to act on any given point, leaving the remainder in garrisons. But a straggling body of a hundred and fifty of these Kannakas, left in the settlements, or on the Reef, or about the crater, while the troops were gone to meet the enemy, presented no very pleasing picture to the mind of the governor. He saw the necessity of collecting these men together, and of employing them actively in the service of the colony, as the most effectual mode of preventing their getting within the control of Waally. This duty was confided to Bigelow, who was sent to the Reef without delay, taking with him all the Kannakas at Whaling Bight, with orders to put them on board the shipping at the Reef--schooners, sloops, lighters, &c., of which there were now, ordinarily, some eight or ten to be found there--and to carry them all to windward; using the inner channels of the group. Here was a twenty-four hours' job, and one that would not only keep everybody quite busy, but which might have the effect to save all the property in the event of a visit to the Reef by the pirates. Bigelow was to call every Kannaka he saw to his assistance, in the hope of thus getting most of them out of harm's way.
Notwithstanding this procedure, which denoted a wise distrust of these Indian allies, the governor manifested a certain degree of confidence towards a portion of them, that was probably just as discreet in another way. A part of the crew of every vessel, with the exception of those that went to the Peak, was composed of Kannakas; and no less than ten of them were habitually employed in the Anne, which carried two whale-boats for emergencies. None of these men were sent away, or were in any manner taken from their customary employments. So much confidence had the governor in his own authority, and in his power to influence these particular individuals, that he did not hesitate about keeping them near himself, and, in a measure, of entrusting the safety of his person to their care. It is true, that the Kannakas of both the Anne and the Martha were a sort of confidential seamen, having now been employed in the colony several years, and got a taste for the habits of the settlers.
When all his arrangements were made, the governor came out of Whaling Bight in the Anne, meeting Betts in the Martha off South Cape. Both vessels then stood down along the shores of the group, keeping a bright look-out in the direction of Rancocus Island, or towards the southward and westward. Two or three smaller crafts were in company, each under the direction of some one on whom reliance could be placed. The old Neshamony had the honour of being thus employed, among others. The south-western angle of the group formed a long, low point, or cape of rock, making a very tolerable roadstead on its north-western side, or to leeward. This cape was known among the colonists by the name of Rancocus _Needle_, from the circumstance that it pointed with mathematical precision to the island in question. Thus, it was a practice with the coasters to run for the extremity of this cape, and then to stand away on a due south-west course, certain of seeing the mountains for which they were steering in the next few hours. Among those who plied to and fro in this manner, were many who had no very accurate notions of navigation; and, to them, this simple process was found to be quite useful.
Off Rancocus Needle, the governor had appointed a rendezvous for the whole of his little fleet. In collecting these vessels, six in all, including four boats, his object had not been resistance--for the armaments of the whole amounted to but six swivels, together with a few muskets--but vigilance. He was confident that Waally would lead his new friends up towards the Western Roads, the point where he had made all his own attacks, and where he was most acquainted; and the position under the Needle was the best station for observing the approach of the strangers, coming as they must, if they came at all, from the south-west.
The Anne was the first craft to arrive off the point of the Needle, and she found the coast clear. As yet, no signs of invaders were to be seen; and the Martha being within a very convenient distance to the eastward, a signal was made to Captain Betts to stand over towards the Peak, and have a search in that quarter. Should the strangers take it into their heads to beat up under the cliffs again, and thence stretch across to the group, it would bring them in with the land to windward of the observing squadron, and give them an advantage the governor was very far from wishing them to obtain. The rest of the craft came down to the place of rendezvous, and kept standing off and on, under short sail, close in with the rocks, so as to keep in the smoothest of the water. Such was the state of things when the sun went down in the ocean.
All night the little fleet of the colonists remained in the same uncertainty as to the movements of their suspicious visitors. About twelve the Martha came round the Needle, and reported the coast clear to the southward. She had been quite to the cove, and had communicated with the shore. Nothing had been seen of the ship and her consorts since the governor left, nor had any further tidings been brought up from to leeward, since the arrival of Bigelow. On receiving this information, the governor ordered his command to run off, in diverging lines, for seven leagues each, and then to wait for day. This was accordingly done; the Anne and Martha, as a matter of course, outstripping the others. At the usual hour day re-appeared, when the look-out aloft, on board the Anne, reported the Martha about two leagues to the northward, the Neshamony about as far to the southward, though a league farther to windward. The other craft were known to be to the northward of the Martha, but could not be seen. As for the Neshamony, she was coming down with a flowing sheet, to speak the governor.
The sun had fairly risen, when the Neshamony came down on the Anne's weather-quarter, both craft then standing to the northward. The Neshamony had seen nothing. The governor now directed her commander to stand directly down towards Rancocus Island. If she saw nothing, she was to go in and land, in order to get the news from the people ashore. Unless the information obtained in this way was of a nature that demanded a different course, she was to beat up to the volcano, reconnoitre there, then stand across to the cove, and go in; whence she was to sail for the Reef, unless she could hear of the governor at some other point, when she was to make the best of her way to _him_.
The Anne now made sail towards the Martha, which sloop was standing to the northward, rather edging from the group, under short canvass. No land was in sight, though its haze could be discovered all along the eastern board, where the group was known to lie; but neither the Peak, nor the Volcano, nor Rancocus heights could now be seen from the vessels. About ten the governor spoke Captain Betts, to ask the news. The Martha had seen nothing; and, shortly after, the three boats to the northward joined, and made the same report. Nothing had been seen of the strangers, who seemed, most unaccountably, to be suddenly lost!
This uncertainty rendered all the more reflecting portion of the colonists exceedingly uneasy. Should the pirates get into the group by either of its weather channels, they would not only find all the property and vessels that had been taken in that direction, at their mercy, but they would assail the settlements in their weakest parts, render succour more difficult, and put themselves in a position whence it would be easiest to approach or to avoid their foes. Any one understanding the place, its facilities for attacking, or its defences, would naturally endeavour to enter the group as well to windward as possible; but Waally had never attempted anything of the sort; and, as he knew little of the inner passages, it was not probable he had thought of suggesting a course different from his own to his new friends. The very circumstance that he had always approached by the same route, was against it; for, if his sagacity had not pointed out a preferable course for himself, it was not to be expected it would do it for others. Still, it was not unreasonable to suppose that practised seamen might see the advantages which the savage had overlooked, and a very serious apprehension arose in the minds of the governor and Betts, in particular, touching this point. All that could be done, however, was to despatch two of the boats, with orders to enter the group by the northern road, and proceed as far as the Reef. The third boat was left to cruise off the Needle, in order to communicate with anything that, should go to that place of rendezvous with a report, and, at the same time, to keep a look-out for the pirates. With the person in charge of this boat, was left the course to be steered by those who were to search for the governor, as they arrived off the Needle, from time to time.
The Anne and Martha bore up, in company, as soon as these arrangements were completed, it being the plan now to go and look for the strangers. Once in view, the governor determined not to lose sight of the pirates, again, but to remain so near them, as to make sure of knowing what they were about, In such cases, a close look-out should always be kept on the enemy, since an advantage in time is gained by so doing, as well as a great deal of uncertainty and indecision avoided.
For seven hours the Anne and Martha stood towards Rancocus Island, running off about two leagues from each other, thereby 'spreading a clew,' as sailors call it, that would command the view of a good bit of water. The tops of the mountains were soon seen, and by the end of the time mentioned, most of the lower land became visible. Nevertheless, the strangers did not come in sight. Greatly at a loss how to proceed, the governor now sent the Martha down for information, with orders for her to beat up to the Needle, as soon as she could, the Anne intending to rendezvous there, next morning, agreeably to previous arrangements. As the Martha went off before the wind, the Anne hauled up sharp towards the Peak, under the impression that something might have been seen of the strangers from the high land there. About four in the morning the Anne went into the cove, and the governor ascended to the plain to have an interview with Heaton. He found everything tranquil in that quarter. Nothing had been seen of the strange squadron, since it went out of sight, under the volcano; nor had even the Neshamony come in. The governor's arrival was soon known, early as it was, and he had visits from half the women on the island, to inquire after their absent husbands. Each wife was told all the governor knew, and this short intercourse relieved the minds of a great many.
At eight, the Anne sailed again, and at ten she had the Needle in sight, with three boats off it, on the look-out. Here, then, were tidings at last; but, the impatience of the governor was restrained, in order to make out the character of a sail that had been seen coming down through the straits, under a cloud of canvas. In a short time, this vessel was made out to be the Abraham, and the Anne hauled up to get her news. The two schooners spoke each other about twelve o'clock, but the Abraham had no intelligence to impart. She had been sent, or rather carried by Bigelow, out by the eastern passage, and had stood along the whole of the weather-side of the group, to give notice to the whalers where to go; and she had notified the two brigs to go in to-windward, and to remain in Weather Bay, where all the rest of the dull crafts had been taken for safety; and then had come to-leeward to look for the governor. As the Abraham was barely a respectable sailer, it was not deemed prudent to take her too near the strangers; but, she might see how matters were situated to the eastward. By keeping on the weather-coast, and so near the land as not to be cut off from it, she would be of particular service; since no enemy could approach in that quarter, without being seen; and Bigelow's familiarity with the channels would enable him, not only to save his schooner by running in, but would put it in his power to give notice throughout the whole group, of the position and apparent intentions of the strangers. The Abraham, accordingly, hauled by the wind, to beat back to her station, while the Anne kept off for the Needle.
At the rendezvous, the governor found most of his craft waiting for him. The Neshamony was still behind; but all the rest had executed their orders, and were standing off and on, near the cape, ready to report. Nothing had been seen of the strangers! It was certain they had not approached the group, for two of the boats had just come out of it, having left the colonists busy with the preparations for defence, but totally undisturbed in other respects. This information gave the governor increased uneasiness. His hope of hearing from the pirates, in time to be ready to meet them, now depended on his reports from to leeward. The Neshamony ought soon to be in; nor could it be long before the Martha would return. The great source of apprehension now came from a suspicion that some of the Kannakas might be acting as pirates, along with Waally. For Waally himself no great distrust was felt, since he had never been allowed to see much of the channels of the group; but it was very different with the sea-going Kannakas, who had been employed by the colonists. Some of these men were familiar with all the windings and turnings of the channels, knew how much water could be taken through a passage, and, though not absolutely safe pilots, perhaps, were men who might enable skilful seamen to handle their vessels with tolerable security within the islands. Should it turn out that one or two of these fellows had undertaken to carry the strangers up to windward, and to take them into one of the passages in that quarter of the group, they might be down upon the different fortified points before they were expected, and sweep all before them. It is true, this danger had been in a measure foreseen, and persons had been sent to look out for it; but it never had appeared so formidable to the governor, as now that he found himself completely at fault where to look for his enemy. At length, a prospect of fresh reports appeared. The Neshamony was seen in the southern board, standing across from the Peak; and about the same time, the Martha was made out in the south-western, beating up from Rancocus Island direct. As the first had been ordered to land, and had also been round by the volcano, the Anne hauled up for her, the governor being impatient to get her tidings first. In half an hour, the two vessels were alongside of each other. But the Neshamony had very little that was new to tell! The pirates had remained on the island but a short time after Bigelow and his companions got away, doing all the damage they could, however, in that brief space. When they left, it was night, and nothing very certain could be told of their movements. When last seen, however, they were on a wind, and heading to the southward a little westerly; which looked like beating up towards the volcano, the trades now blowing due south-east. But the Neshamony had been quite round the volcano, without obtaining a sight of the strangers. Thence she proceeded to the Peak, where she arrived only a few hours after the governor had sailed, going into the cove and finding all quiet. Of course, the Martha could have no more to say than this, if as much; and the governor was once more left to the pain of deep suspense. As was expected, when Betts joined, he had nothing at all to tell. He had been ashore at Rancocus Point, heard the complaints of the people touching their losses, but had obtained no other tidings of the wrong-doers. Unwilling to lose time, he staid but an hour, and had been beating back to the rendezvous the rest of the period of his absence. Was it possible that the strangers had gone back to Betto's group, satisfied with the trifling injuries they had inflicted? This could hardly be; yet it was not easy to say where else they had been. After a consultation, it was decided that the Martha should stand over in that direction, in the hope that she might pick up some intelligence, by meeting with fishing canoes that often came out to a large cluster of rocks, that lay several leagues to windward of the territories of Ooroony and Waally. Captain Betts had taken his leave of the governor, and had actually got on board his own vessel, in order to make sail, when, a signal was seen flying on board one of the boats that was kept cruising well out in the straits, intimating that strange vessels were seen to windward. This induced the governor to recall the Martha, and the whole of the look-out vessels stood off into the straits.
In less than an hour, all doubts were removed. There were the strangers, sure enough, and what was more, there was the Abraham ahead of them, pushing for Cape South passage, might and main; for the strangers were on her heels, going four feet to her three. It appeared, afterwards, that the pirates, on quitting Rancocus Island, had stood off to the southward, until they reached to windward of the volcano, passing however a good bit to leeward of the island, on their first stretch, when, finding the Peak just dipping, they tacked to the northward and westward, and stood off towards the ordinary whaling-ground of the colony, ever which they swept in the expectation of capturing the brigs. The pirates had no occasion for oil, which they probably would have destroyed in pure wantonness, but they were much in want of naval stores, cordage in particular, and the whaling gear of the two brigs would have been very acceptable to them. While running in for the group, after an unsuccessful search, they made the Abraham, and gave chase. That schooner steered for the straits, in the hope of finding the governor; but was so hard pressed by her pursuers, as to be glad to edge in for Cape South roads, intending to enter the group, and run for the Reef, if she could do no better.
Luckily, the discovery of the look-out boat prevented the execution of the Abraham's project, which would have led the pirates directly up to the capital. But, no sooner did the governor see how things were situated, than he boldly luffed up towards the strangers, intending to divert them from the chase of the Abraham; or, at least, to separate them, in chase of himself. In this design he was handsomely seconded by Betts, in the Martha, who hauled his wind in the wake of the Anne, and carried everything that would draw, in order to keep his station. This decision and show of spirit had its effect. The two brigs, which were most to the southward, altered their course, and edged away for the Anne and Martha, leaving the ship to follow the Abraham alone. The governor was greatly rejoiced at this, for he had a notion a vessel as large as the strange ship would hesitate about entering the narrow waters, on account of her draught; she being much larger than any craft that had ever been in before, as the Kannakas must know, and would not fail to report to the pirates. The governor supposed this ship to be a vessel of between six and seven hundred tons measurement. Her armament appeared to be twelve guns of a side, below, and some eight or ten guns on her quarter-deck and forecastle. This was a formidable craft in those days, making what was called in the English service, an eight-and-twenty gun frigate, a class of cruisers that were then found to be very useful. It is true, that the first class modern sloop-of-war would blow one of those little frigates out of water, being several hundred tons larger, with armaments, crews and spars in proportion; but an eight-and-twenty gun frigate offered a very formidable force to a community like that of the crater, and no one knew it better than the governor.
The three strangers all sailed like witches. It was well for the Abraham that she had a port so close under her lee, or the ship would have had her, beyond the smallest doubt. As it was she caught it, as she rounded the cape, as close in as she could go, the frigate letting slip at her the whole of her starboard broadside, which cut away the schooner's gaff, jib-stay, and main-topmast, besides killing, a Kannaka, who was in the main-cross-trees at the time. This last occurrence turned out to be fortunate, in the main, however, since it induced all the Kannakas to believe that the strangers were their enemies, in particular; else why kill one of their number, when there were just as many colonists as Kannakas to shoot at!
As the governor expected, the ship did not venture to follow the Abraham in. That particular passage, in fact, was utterly unknown to Waally, and those with him, and he could not give such an account of it as would encourage the admiral to stand on. Determined not to lose time unnecessarily, the latter hauled short off shore, and made sail in chase of the Anne and Martha, which, by this time, were about mid-channel, heading across to the Peak. It was not the wish of the governor, however, to lead the strangers any nearer to the cove than was necessary, and, no sooner did he see the Abraham well within the islands, her sails concealed by the trees, of which there was now a little forest on this part of the coast, and the ship drawing well off the land in hot pursuit of himself, than he kept away in the direction of Rancocus Island, bringing the wind on his larboard quarter. The strangers followed, and in half an hour they were all so far to leeward of Cape South, as to remove any apprehension of their going in there very soon.
Thus far, the plan of the governor had succeeded to admiration. He had his enemies in plain sight, within a league of him, and in chase of his two fastest craft. The best sailing of the Anne and Martha was on a wind, and, as a matter of course, they could do better, comparatively, in smooth water, than larger craft. No sooner, therefore, had he got his pursuers far enough off the land, and far enough to leeward, than the governor wore, or jibed would be the better word, running off northwest, with the wind on his starboard quarter. This gave the strangers a little the advantage, in one sense, though they lost it in another. It brought them on his weather-beam; pretty well forward of it, too; but the Needle was directly ahead of the schooner and sloop, and the governor foresaw that his pursuers would have to keep off to double that, which he was reasonably certain of reaching first.
Everything turned out as the governor anticipated. The pirates had near a league of water more to pass over, before they could double the Needle, than the Anne and the Martha had; and, though those two crafts were obliged to haul up close to the rocks, under a distant fire from all three of their pursuers, no harm was done, and they were soon covered by the land, and were close-hauled in smooth water, to leeward of the group. Twenty minutes later, the strangers came round the cape, also, bearing up sharp, and following their chase. This was placing the enemy just where the colonists could have wished. They were now to-leeward of every point in the settlements, looking up towards the roads, which opened on the western passage, or that best known to Waally, and which he would be most likely to enter, should he attempt to pilot the strangers in. This was getting the invaders precisely where the governor wished them to be, if they were to attack him at all. They could not reach the Reef in less than twenty-four hours, with their knowledge of the channel; would have to approach it in face of the heaviest and strongest batteries, those provided for Waally; and, if successful in reaching the inner harbour, would enter it under the fire of the long twelves mounted on the crater, which was, rightly enough, deemed to be the citadel of the entire colony--unless, indeed, the Peak might better deserve that name.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
28 | None | "It scares the sea-birds from their nests; They dart and wheel with deafening screams; Now dark--and now their wings and breasts Flash back amid disastrous gleams. O, sin! what hast thou done on this fair earth? The world, O man! is wailing o'er thy birth."
Dana.
It was the policy of the colonists to lead their pursuers directly up to the Western Roads. On the small island, under which vessels were accustomed to anchor, was a dwelling or two, and a battery of two guns--nine-pounders. These guns were to command the anchorage. The island lay directly in front of the mouth of the passage, making a very beautiful harbour within it; though the water was so smooth in the roads, and the last were so much the most convenient for getting under-way in, that this more sheltered haven was very little used. On the present occasion, however, all the colony craft beat up past the island, and anchored inside of it. The crews were then landed, and they repaired to the battery, which they found ready for service in consequence of orders previously sent.
Here, then, was the point where hostilities would be likely to commence, should hostilities commence at all. One of the boats was sent across to the nearest island inland, where a messenger was landed, with directions to carry a letter to Pennock, at the Reef. This messenger was compelled to walk about six miles, the whole distance in a grove of young palms and bread-fruit trees; great pains having been taken to cultivate both of these plants throughout the group, in spots favourable to their growth. After getting through the grove, the path came out on a plantation, where a horse was kept for this especial object; and here the man mounted and galloped off to the Reef, soon finding himself amid a line of some of the most flourishing plantations in the colony. Fortunately, however, as things then threatened, these plantations were not on the main channel, but stood along the margin of a passage which was deep enough to receive any craft that floated, but which was a _cul-de-sac_, that could be entered only from the eastward. Along the margin of the ship-channel, there was not yet soil of the right quality for cultivation, though it was slowly forming, as the sands that lay thick on the adjacent rocks received other substances by exposure to the atmosphere.
The Anne and her consorts had been anchored about an hour, when the strangers hove-to in the roads, distant about half a mile from the battery. Here they all hoisted white flags, as if desirous of having a parley. The governor did not well know how to act. He could not tell whether or not it would do to trust such men; and he as little liked to place Betts, or any other confidential friend, in their power, as he did to place himself there. Nevertheless, prudence required that some notice should be taken of the flag of truce; and he determined to go off a short distance from the shore in one of his own boats, and hoist a white flag, which would be as much as to say that he was waiting there to receive any communication that the strangers might chose to send him.
It was not long after the governor's boat had reached her station, which was fairly within the short range of the two guns in the battery, ere a boat shoved off from the ship, showing the white flag, too. In a few minutes, the two boats were within the lengths of each other's oars, riding peacefully side by side.
On board the stranger's boat, in addition to the six men who were at the oars, were three persons in the stern-sheets. One of these men, as was afterwards ascertained, was the admiral himself; a second was an interpreter, who spoke English with a foreign accent, but otherwise perfectly well; and the third was no other than Waally! The governor thought a fierce satisfaction was gleaming in the countenance of the savage when they met, though the latter said nothing. The interpreter opened the communications.
"Is any one in that boat," demanded this person, "who is empowered to speak for the authorities ashore?"
"There is," answered the governor, who did not deem it wise, nevertheless, exactly to proclaim his rank. "I have full powers, being directly authorized by the chief-magistrate of this colony."
"To what nation does your colony belong?"
This was an awkward question, and one that had not been at all anticipated, and which the governor was not fully prepared to answer.
"Before interrogatories are thus put, it might be as well for me to know by what authority I am questioned at all," returned Mr. Woolston. "What are the vessels which have anchored in our waters, and under what flag do they sail?"
"A man-of-war never answers a hail, unless it comes from another man-of-war," answered the interpreter, smiling.
"Do you, then, claim to be vessels of war?"
"If compelled to use our _force_, you will find us so. We have not come here to answer questions, however, but to ask them. Does your colony claim to belong to any particular nation, or not?"
"We are all natives of the United States of America, and our vessels sail under her flag."
"The United States of America!" repeated the interpreter, with an ill-concealed expression of contempt. "There is good picking among the vessels of that nation, as the great European belligerents well know; and while so many are profiting by it, _we_ may as well come in for our share."
It may be necessary to remind a portion of our readers, that this dialogue occurred more than forty years ago, and long before the republic sent out its fleets and armies to conquer adjacent states; when, indeed, it had scarce a fleet and army to protect its own coasts and frontiers from insults and depredations. It is said that when the late Emperor of Austria, the good and kind-hearted Francis II., was shown the ruins of the little castle of Habsburg, which is still to be seen crowning a low height, in the canton of Aarraw, Switzerland, he observed, "I now see that we have not _always_ been a great family." The governor cared very little for the fling at his native land, but he did not relish the sneer, as it indicated the treatment likely to be bestowed on his adopted country. Still, the case was not to be remedied except by the use of the means already provided, should his visitors see fit to resort to force.
A desultory conversation now ensued, in which the strangers pretty plainly let their designs be seen. In the first place they demanded a surrender of all the craft belonging to the colony, big and little, together with all the naval stores. This condition complied with, the strangers intimated that it was possible their conquests would not be pushed much further. Of provisions, they stood in need of pork, and they understood that the colony had hogs without number. If they would bring down to the island a hundred fat hogs, with barrels and salt, within twenty-four hours, it was probable, however, no further demand for provisions would be made. They had obtained fifty barrels of very excellent flour at Rancocus Island, and could not conveniently stow more than that number, in addition to the demanded hundred barrels of pork. The admiral also required that hostages should be sent on board his ship, and that he should be provided with proper pilots, in order that he, and a party of suitable size, might take the Anne and the Martha, and go up to the town, which he understood lay some twenty or thirty miles within the group. Failing of an acquiescence in these terms, war, and war of the most ruthless character, was to be immediately proclaimed. All attempts to obtain an announcement of any national character, on the part of the strangers was evaded; though, from the appearance of everything he saw, the governor could not now have the smallest doubt that he had to do with pirates.
After getting all out of the strangers that he could, and it was but little at the best, the governor quietly, but steadily refused to accede to any one of the demands, and put the issue on the appeal to force. The strangers were obviously disappointed at this answer, for the thoughtful, simple manner of Mark Woolston had misled them, and they had actually flattered themselves with obtaining all they wanted without a struggle. At first, the anger of the admiral threatened some treacherous violence on the spot, but the crews of the two boats were so nearly equal, that prudence, if not good faith, admonished him of the necessity of respecting the truce. The parties separated, however, with denunciations, nay maledictions, on the part of the strangers, the colonists remaining quiet in demeanor, but firm.
The time taken for the two boats to return to their respective points of departure was but short; and scarcely was that of the stranger arrived alongside of its vessel, ere the ship fired a gun. This was the signal of war, the shot of that first gun falling directly in the battery, where it took off the hand of a Kannaka, besides doing some other damage. This was not a very favourable omen, but the governor encouraged his people, and to work both sides went, trying who could do the other the most harm. The cannonading was lively and well sustained, though it was not like one of the present time, when shot are hollow, and a gun is chambered and, not unfrequently, has a muzzle almost as large as the open end of a flour-barrel, and a breech as big as a hogshead. At the commencement-of this century a long twelve-pounder was considered a smart piece, and was thought very capable of doing a good deal of mischief. The main battery of the ship was composed of guns of that description, while one of the brigs carried eight nines, and the other fourteen sixes. As the ship mounted altogether thirty, if not thirty-two, guns, this left the governor to contend with batteries that had in them at least twenty-six pieces, as opposed to his own two. A couple of lively guns, nevertheless, well-served and properly mounted, behind good earthen banks, are quite equal to several times their number on board ship. Notwithstanding the success of the first shot of the pirates, this truth soon became sufficiently apparent, and the vessels found themselves getting the worst of it. The governor, himself, or Captain Betts pointed every gun that was fired in the battery, and they seldom failed to make their marks on the hulls of the enemy. On the other hand, the shot of the shipping was either buried in the mounds of the battery, or passed over its low parapets. Not a man was hurt ashore, at the end of an hour's struggle, with the exception of the Kannaka first wounded, while seven of the pirates were actually killed, and near twenty wounded.
Had the combat continued in the manner in which it was commenced, the result would have been a speedy and signal triumph in favour of the colony. But, by this time, the pirate admiral became convinced that he had gone the wrong way to work, and that he must have recourse to some management, in order to prevail against such stubborn foes. Neither of the vessels was anchored, but all kept under way, manoeuvring about in front of the battery, but one brig hauled out of the line to the northward, and making a stretch or two clear of the line of fire, she came down on the north end of the battery, in a position to rake it. Now, this battery had been constructed for plain, straightforward cannonading in front, with no embrasures to command the roads on either flank. Curtains of earth had been thrown up on the flanks, to protect the men, it is true, but this passive sort of resistance could do very little good in a protracted contest. While this particular brig was gaining that favourable position, the ship and the other brig fell off to leeward, and were soon at so long a shot, as to be out of harm's way. This was throwing the battery entirely out of the combat, as to anything aggressive, and compelled a prompt decision on the part of the colonists. No sooner did the nearest brig open her fire, and that within short canister range, than the ship and her consort hauled in again on the southern flank of the battery, the smallest vessel leading, and feeling her way with the lead. Perceiving the utter uselessness of remaining, and the great danger he ran of being cut off, the governor now commenced a retreat to his boats. This movement was not without danger, one colonist being killed in effecting it, and two more of the Kannakas wounded. It succeeded, notwithstanding, and the whole party got off to the Anne and Martha.
This retreat, of course, left the island and the battery at the mercy of the pirates. The latter landed, set fire to the buildings, blew up the magazine, dismounted the guns, and did all the other damage to the place that could be accomplished in the course of a short visit. They then went on board their vessels, again, and began to beat up into the Western Passage, following the colonists who preceded them, keeping just out of gun-shot.
The Western Passage was somewhat crooked, and different reaches were of very frequent occurrence. This sometimes aided a vessel in ascending, or going to windward, and sometimes offered obstacles. As there were many other passages, so many false channels, some of which were _culs-de-sacs,_ it was quite possible for one ignorant of the true direction to miss his way; and this circumstance suggested to the governor an expedient which was highly approved of by His friend and counsellor, captain Betts, when it was laid before that plain, but experienced, seaman. There was one false passage, about a league within the group, which led off to the northward, and far from all the settlements, that offered several inducements to enter it. In the first place, it had more of the appearance of a main channel, at its point of junction, than the main channel itself, and might easily be mistaken for it; then, it turned right into the wind's eye, after beating up it for a league; and at the end of a long reach that ran due-south-east, it narrowed so much as to render it questionable whether the Anne and Martha could pass between the rocks, into a wide bay beyond. This bay was the true _cul-de-sac,_ having no other outlet or inlet than the narrow pass just mentioned; though it was very large, was dotted with islands, and reached quite to the vicinity of Loam Island, or within a mile, or two, of the Reef.
The main question was whether the schooner and the sloop could pass through the opening which communicated between the reach and the bay. If not, they must inevitably fall into the hands of the pirates, should they enter the false channel, and be followed in. Then, even admitting that the Anne and Martha got through the narrow passage, should the pirates follow them in their boats, there would be very little probability of their escaping; though they might elude their pursuers for a time among the islands. Captain Betts was of opinion that the two vessels _could_ get through, and was strongly in favour of endeavouring to lead the enemy off the true course to the Reef, by entangling them in this _cul-de-sac. _ If nothing but delay was gained, delay would be something. It was always an advantage to the assailed to have time to recover from their first alarm, and to complete their arrangements. The governor listened to his friend's arguments with favour, but he sent the Neshamony on direct to the Reef, with a letter to Pennock, acquainting that functionary with the state of things, the intended plan, and a request that a twelve-pounder, that was mounted on a travelling carriage, might be put on board the boat, and sent to a landing, whence it might easily be dragged by hand to the narrow passage so often mentioned. This done, he took the way into the false channel himself.
The governor, as a matter of course, kept at a safe distance ahead of the pirates in the Anne and the Martha. This he was enabled to do quite easily, since fore-and-aft vessels make much quicker tacks than those that are square-rigged. As respects water, there was enough of that almost everywhere; it being rather a peculiarity of the group, that nearly every one of its passages had good channels and bold shores. There was one shoal, however, and that of some extent, in the long reach of the false channel named; and when the governor resolved to venture in there, it was not without the hope of leading the pirate ship on it. The water on this shoal was about sixteen feet deep, and there was scarce a hope of either of the brigs fetching up on it; but, could the ship be enticed there, and did she only strike with good way on her, and on a falling tide, her berth might be made very uncomfortable. Although this hope appeared faintly in the background of the governor's project, his principal expectation was that of being able to decoy the strangers into a _cul-de-sac_, and to embarrass them with delays and losses. As soon as the Neshamony was out of sight, the Anne and Martha, therefore, accompanied by the other boats, stood into the false channel, and went off to the northward merrily, with a leading wind. When the enemy reached the point, they did not hesitate to follow, actually setting studding sails in their eagerness not to be left too far behind. It is probable, that Waally was of but little service to his allies just then, for, after all, the knowledge of that chief was limited to a very imperfect acquaintance with such channels as would admit of the passage of even canoes. The distances were by no means trifling in these crooked passages. By the true channel, it was rather more than seven and twenty miles from the western roads to the Reef; but, it was fully ten more by this false channel, even deducting the half league where there was no passage at all, or the bottom of the _bag_. Now, it required time to beat up such a distance, and the sun was setting when the governor reached the shoal already mentioned, about which he kept working for some time, in the hope of enticing the ship on it in the dark. But the pirates were too wary to be misled, in this fashion. The light no sooner left them than they took in all their canvas and anchored. It is probable, that they believed themselves on their certain way to the Reef, and felt indisposed to risk anything by adventuring in the obscurity. Both parties, consequently, prepared to pass the night at their anchors. The Anne and Martha were now within less than a mile of the all-important passage, through which they were to make their escape, if they escaped at all. The opportunity of ascertaining the fact was not to be neglected, and it was no sooner so dark as to veil his movements than the governor went on board the Martha, which was a vessel of more beam than the Anne, and beat her up to the rocks, in order to make a trial of its capacity. It was just possible to take the sloop through in several places; but, in one spot, the rocks came too near together to admit of her being hauled between them. The circumstances would not allow of delay, and to work everybody went, with such implements as offered, to pick away the rock and to open a passage. By midnight, this was done; and the Martha was carried through into the bay beyond. Here she stood off a short distance and anchored. The governor went back to his own craft and moved her about a mile, being apprehensive of a boat attack in the darkness, should he remain where he was. This precaution was timely, for, in the morning, after day had dawned, no less than seven boats were seen pulling down to the pirates, which had, no doubt, been looking for the schooner and the sloop in vain. The governor got great credit for this piece of management; more even than might have been expected, the vulgar usually bestowing their applause on acts of a glittering character, rather than on those which denote calculation and forethought.
As the day advanced the pirates re-commenced their operations. The delay, however, had given the colonists a great advantage. There had been time to communicate with the Reef, and to receive the gun sent for. It had greatly encouraged the people up at the town, to hear that their enemies were in the false channel; and they redoubled their efforts, as one multiplies his blows on a retreating enemy. Pennock sent the governor most encouraging reports, and gave him to understand that he had ordered nearly all the men in from the out-posts, leaving just enough to have a look-out, and to keep the Kannakas in order. As it was now understood that the attack must be on the capital, there was every reason for taking this course.
All the vessels were soon under way again. The pirates missed the Martha, which they rightly enough supposed had gone ahead. They were evidently a good deal puzzled about the channel, but supposed it must be somewhere to windward. In the mean time, the governor kept the Anne manoeuvring around the shoal, in the hope of luring the ship on it. Nor was he without rational hopes of success, for the brigs separated, one going close to each side of the sound, to look for the outlet, while the ship kept beating up directly in its centre, making a sinuous course towards the schooner, which was always near the shallow water. At length the governor was fully rewarded for his temerity; the admiral had made a stretch that carried him laterally past the lee side of the shoal, and when he went about, he looked directly for the Anne, which was standing back and forth near its weather margin. Here the governor held on, until he had the satisfaction of seeing the ship just verging on the weather side of the shoal, when he up helm, and stood off to leeward, as if intending to pass out of the _cul-de-sac_ by the way he had entered, giving his pursuers the slip. This bold manoeuvre took the pirate admiral by surprise, and being in the vessel that was much the nearest to the Anne, he up helm, and was plumped on the shoal with strong way on him, in less than five minutes! The instant the governor saw this, he hauled his wind and beat back again, passing the broadside of the ship with perfect impunity, her people being too much occupied with their own situation, to think of their guns, or of molesting him.
The strange ship had run aground within half a mile of the spot where the twelve-pounder was planted, and that gun now opened on her with great effect. She lay quartering to this new enemy, and the range was no sooner obtained, than every shot hulled her. The governor now landed, and went to work seriously, first ordering the Anne carried through the pass, to place her beyond the reach of the brigs. A forge happened to be in the Anne, to make some repairs to her iron work, and this forge, a small one it was true, was taken ashore, and an attempt was made to heat some shot in it. The shot had been put into the forge an hour or two before, but a fair trial was not made until the whole apparatus was landed. For the next hour the efforts of both sides were unremitted. One of the brigs went to the assistance of the admiral, while the other endeavoured to silence the gun, which was too securely placed, however, to mind her broadsides. One shot hulling her, soon drove her to leeward; after which, all the attention of the pirates was bestowed on their ship.
The admiral, beyond all doubt, was very awkwardly placed. He had the whole width of the shoal to leeward of him, could only get off by working directly in the face of the fire, and had gone on with seven knots way on his ship. The bottom was a soft mud; and the colonists knew that nothing but anchors laid to windward, with a heavy strain and a good deal of lightening, would ever take that vessel out of her soft berth. Of this fact the pirates themselves soon began to be convinced, for they were seen pumping out their water. As for the brigs, they were by no means well handled. Instead of closing with the battery, and silencing the gun, as they might have done, they kept aloof, and even rendered less assistance to the ship than was in their power. In point of fact, they were in confusion, and manifested that want of order and submission to authority, as well as self-devotion, that would have been shown among men in an honest service: guilt paralysed their efforts, rendering them timid and distrustful.
After near two hours of cannonading, during which the colonists had done the pirates a good deal of damage, and the pirates literally had not injured the colonists at all, the governor was ready with his hot shot, which he had brought to something more than a red heat. The gun was loaded with great care, and fired, after having been deliberately pointed by the governor himself. The ship was hulled, and a trifling explosion followed on board. That shot materially added to the confusion among the pirates, and it was immediately followed by another, which struck, also. It was now so apparent that confusion prevailed among the pirates, that the governor would not take the time necessary to put in the other hot shot, but he loaded and fired as fast as he could, in the ordinary way.
In less than a quarter of an hour after the first hot shot was fired, smoke poured out of the admiral's main-deck ports; and, two minutes later, it was succeeded by flames.
From that moment the result of the conflict was no longer doubtful. The pirates, among whom great confusion prevailed, even previously to this disaster, now lost all subordination, and it was soon seen that each man worked for himself, striving to save as much as he could of his ill-gotten plunder. The governor understood the state of the enemy, and, though prudence could scarcely justify his course, he determined to press him to the utmost. The Anne and Martha were both brought back through the pass, and the twelve-pounder was taken on board the former, there being room to fight it between her masts. As soon as this was done, the two craft bore down on the brigs, which were, by this time, a league to leeward of the burning ship, their commanders having carried them there to avoid the effects of the expected explosion. The admiral and his crew saved themselves in the boats, abandoning nearly all their property, and losing a good many men. Indeed, when the last boat left the ship, there were several of her people below, so far overcome by liquor, as to be totally helpless. These men were abandoned too, as were all the wounded, including Waally, who had lost an arm by the fire of the battery.
Neither did the governor like the idea of passing very near the ship, which had now been burning fully an hour. In going to leeward, he gave her a berth, and it was well he did, for she blew up while the Anne and Martha, as it was, were considerably within a quarter of a mile of her. The colonists ever afterwards considered an incident connected with this explosion, as a sort of Providential manifestation of the favour of Heaven. The Martha was nearest to the ship, at the instant of her final disaster, and very many fragments were thrown around her; a few even on her decks. Among the last was a human body, which was cast a great distance in the air, and fell, like a heavy clod, across the gunwale of the sloop. This proved to be the body of Waally, one of the arms having been cut away by a shot, three hours before! Thus perished a constant and most wily enemy of the colony, and who had, more than once, brought it to the verge of destruction, by his cupidity and artifices.
From this moment, the pirates thought little of anything but of effecting their retreat, and of getting out into open water again. The governor saw this, and pressed them hard. The twelve-pounder opened on the nearest brig, as soon as her shot would tell; and even the Martha's swivel was heard, like the bark of a cur that joins in the clamour when a strange dog is set upon by the pack of a village. The colonists on shore flew into the settlements, to let it be known that the enemy was retreating, when every dwelling poured out its inmates in pursuit. Even the females now appeared in arms; there being no such incentive to patriotism, on occasions of the kind, as the cry that the battle has been won. Those whom it might have been hard to get within the sound of a gun, a few hours before, now became valiant, and pressed into the van, which bore a very different aspect, before a retreating foe, from that which it presented on their advance.
In losing Waally, the strangers lost the only person among them who had any pretension to be thought a pilot. He knew very little of the channels to the Reef, at the best, though he had been there thrice; but, now he was gone, no one left among them knew anything about them at all. Under all the circumstances, therefore, it is not surprising that the admiral should think more of extricating his two brigs from the narrow waters, than of pursuing his original plan of conquest. It was not difficult to find his way back by the road he had come; and that road he travelled as fast as a leading breeze would carry him along it. But retreat, as it now appeared, was not the only difficulty with which this freebooter had to contend. It happened that no kind feeling existed between the admiral and the officers of the largest of the brigs. So far had their animosity extended, that the admiral had deemed it expedient to take a large sum of money, which had fallen to the share of the vessel in question, out of that brig, and keep it on board the ship, as a guaranty that they would not run away with their craft. This proceeding had not strengthened the bond between the parties; and nothing had kept down the strife but the expectation of the large amount of plunder that was to be obtained from the colony. That hope was now disappointed; and, the whole time the two vessels were retiring before the Anne and the Martha, preparations were making on board one of the brigs to reclaim this ill-gotten treasure, and on board the other to retain it. By a species of freemasonry peculiar to their pursuits, the respective crews were aware of each other's designs; and when they issued nearly abreast out of the passage, into the inner bay of the Western Roads, one passed to the southward of the island, and the other to the northward; the Anne and Martha keeping close in their wakes.
As the two vessels cleared the island and got into open water, the struggle commenced in earnest; the disaffected brig firing into the admiral. The broadside was returned, and the two vessels gradually neared each other, until the canopies of smoke which accompanied their respective movements became one. The combat now raged, and with a savage warmth, for hours; both brigs running off the land under short canvas. At length the firing ceased, and the smoke so far cleared away as to enable the governor to take a look at the damages done. In this respect, there was little to choose; each vessel having suffered, and seemingly each about as much as the other. After consuming an hour or two in repairing damages, the combat was renewed; when the two colony craft, seeing no prospects of its soon terminating, and being now several leagues to leeward of the group, hauled up for the roads again. The brigs continued their fight, always running off before the wind, and went out of sight, canopied by smoke, long after the reports of their guns had become inaudible. This was the last the governor ever saw or heard of these dangerous enemies.
| {
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29 | VOX POPULI, VOX DEI. | _Venerable Axiom. _ After this unlooked-for termination of what the colonists called the 'Pirate-War,' the colony enjoyed a long period of peace and prosperity. The whaling business was carried on with great success, and many connected with it actually got rich. Among these was the governor, who, in addition to his other means, soon found himself in possession of more money than he could profitably dispose of in that young colony. By his orders, no less than one hundred thousand dollars were invested in his name, in the United States six per cents, his friends in America being empowered to draw the dividends, and, after using a due proportion in the way of commissions, to re-invest the remainder to his credit.
Nature did quite as much as art, in bringing on the colony; the bounty of God, as the industry of man. It is our duty, however, to allow that the colonists did not so regard the matter. A great change came over their feelings, after the success of the 'Pirate-War,' inducing them to take a more exalted view of themselves and their condition than had been their wont. The ancient humility seemed suddenly to disappear; and in its place a vainglorious estimate of themselves and of their prowess arose among the people. The word "people," too, was in everybody's mouth, as if the colonists themselves had made those lovely islands, endowed them with fertility, and rendered them what they were now fast becoming--scenes of the most exquisite rural beauty, as well as granaries of abundance. By this time, the palm-tree covered more or less of every island; and the orange, lime, shaddock and other similar plants, filled the air with the fragrance of their flowers, or rendered it bright with the golden hues of their fruits. In short, everything adapted to the climate was flourishing in the plantations, and plenty reigned even in the humblest dwelling.
This was a perilous condition for the healthful humility of human beings. Two dangers beset them; both coloured and magnified by a common tendency. One was that of dropping into luxurious idleness--the certain precursor, in such a climate, of sensual indulgences; and the other was that of "waxing fat, and kicking." The tendency common to both, was to place self before God, and not only to believe that they merited all they received, but that they actually created a good share of it.
Of luxurious idleness, it was perhaps too soon to dread its worst fruits. The men and women retained too many of their early habits and impressions to drop easily into such a chasm; on the contrary, they rather looked forward to producing results greater than any which had yet attended their exertions. An exaggerated view of self, however, and an almost total forgetfulness of God, took the place of the colonial humility with which they had commenced their career in this new region. These feelings were greatly heightened by three agents, that men ordinarily suppose might have a very different effect--religion, law, and the press.
When the Rancocus returned, a few months after the repulse of the pirates, she had on board of her some fifty emigrants; the council still finding itself obliged to admit the friends of families already settled in the colony, on due application. Unhappily, among these emigrants were a printer, a lawyer, and no less than four persons who might be named divines. Of the last, one was a presbyterian, one a methodist,--the third was a baptist, and the fourth a quaker. Not long after the arrival of this importation, its consequences became visible. The sectaries commenced with a thousand professions of brotherly love, and a great parade of Christian charity; indeed they pretended that they had emigrated in order to enjoy a higher degree of religious liberty than was now to be found in America, where men were divided into sects, thinking more of their distinguishing tenets than of the Being whom they professed to serve. Forgetting the reasons which brought them from home, or quite possibly carrying out the impulses which led them to resist their former neighbours, these men set to work, immediately, to collect followers, and believers after their own peculiar notions. Parson Hornblower, who had hitherto occupied the ground by himself, but who was always a good deal inclined to what are termed "distinctive opinions," buckled on his armour, and took the field in earnest. In order that the sheep of one flock should not be mistaken for the sheep of another, great care was taken to mark each and all with the brand of sect. One clipped an ear, another smeared the wool (or drew it over the eyes) and a third, as was the case with Friend Stephen Dighton, the quaker, put on an entire covering, so that his sheep might be known by their outward symbols, far as they could be seen. In a word, on those remote and sweet islands, which, basking in the sun and cooled by the trades, seemed designed by providence to sing hymns daily and hourly to their maker's praise, the subtleties of sectarian faith smothered that humble submission to the divine law by trusting solely to the mediation, substituting in its place immaterial observances and theories which were much more strenuously urged than clearly understood. The devil, in the form of a "professor," once again entered Eden; and the Peak, with so much to raise the soul above the grosser strife of men, was soon ringing with discussions on "free grace," "immersion," "spiritual baptism," and the "apostolical succession." The birds sang as sweetly as ever, and their morning and evening songs hymned the praises of their creator as of old; but, not so was it with the morning and evening devotions of men. These last began to pray _at_ each other, and if Mr. Hornblower was an exception, it was because his admirable liturgy did not furnish him with the means of making these forays into the enemy's camp.
Nor did the accession of law and intelligence help the matter much. Shortly after the lawyer made his appearance, men began to discover that they were wronged by their neighbours, in a hundred ways which they had never before discovered. Law, which had hitherto been used for the purpose of justice, and of justice only, now began to be used for those of speculation and revenge. A virtue was found in it that had never before been suspected of existing in the colony; it being discovered that men could make not only very comfortable livings, but, in some cases, get rich, by the law; not by its practice, but by its practices. Now came into existence an entire new class of philanthropists; men who were ever ready to lend their money to such of the needy as possessed property, taking judgment bonds, mortgages, and other innocent securities, which were received because the lender always _acted on a principle_ of not lending without them, or had taken a vow, or made their wives promises; the end of all being a transfer of title, by which the friendly assistant commonly relieved his dupe of the future care of all his property. The governor soon observed that one of these philanthropists rarely extended his saving hand, that the borrower did not come out as naked as the ear of the corn that has been through the sheller, or nothing but cob; and that, too, in a sort of patent-right time. Then there were the labourers of the press to add to the influence of those of religion and the law. The press took up the cause of human rights, endeavouring, to transfer the power of the state from the public departments to its own printing-office; and aiming at establishing all the equality that can flourish when one man has a monopoly of the means of making his facts to suit himself, leaving his neighbours to get along under such circumstances as they can. But the private advantage secured to himself by this advocate of the rights of all, was the smallest part of the injury he did, though his own interests were never lost sight of, and coloured all he did; the people were soon convinced that they had hitherto been living under an unheard-of tyranny, and were invoked weekly to arouse in their might, and be true to themselves and their posterity. In the first place, not a tenth of them had ever been consulted on the subject of the institutions at all, but had been compelled to take them as they found them. Nor had the present incumbents of office been placed in power by a vote of a majority, the original colonists having saved those who came later to the island all trouble in the premises. In these facts was an unceasing theme of declamation and complaint to be found. It was surprising how little the people really knew of the oppression under which they laboured, until this stranger came amongst them to enlighten their understandings. Nor was it less wonderful how many sources of wrong he exposed, that no one had ever dreamed of having an existence. Although there was not a tax of any sort laid in the colony, not a shilling ever collected in the way of import duties, he boldly pronounced the citizens of the islands to be the most overburthened people in Christendom! The taxation of England was nothing to it, and he did not hesitate to proclaim a general bankruptcy as the consequence, unless some of his own expedients were resorted to, in order to arrest the evil. Our limits will not admit of a description of the process by which this person demonstrated that a people who literally contributed nothing at all, were overtaxed; but any one who has paid attention to the opposing sides of a discussion on such a subject, can readily imagine how easily such an apparent contradiction can be reconciled, and the proposition demonstrated.
In the age of which we are writing, a majority of man kind fancied that a statement made in print was far more likely to be true than one made orally. Then he who stood up in his proper person and uttered his facts on the responsibility of his personal character, was far less likely to gain credit than the anonymous scribbler, who recorded his lie on paper, though he made his record behind a screen, and half the time as much without personal identity as he would be found to be without personal character, were he actually seen and recognised. In our time, the press has pretty effectually cured all observant persons at least of giving faith to a statement merely because it is in print, and has become so far alive to its own great inferiority as publicly to talk of conventions to purify itself, and otherwise to do something to regain its credit; but such was not the fact, even in America, forty years since. The theory of an unrestrained press has fully developed itself within the last quarter of a century, so that even the elderly ladies, who once said with marvellous unction, "It must be true, for it's in print," are now very apt to say, "Oh! it's only a newspaper _account_!" The foulest pool has been furnished by a beneficent Providence with the means of cleansing its own waters.
But the "Crater Truth-Teller" could utter its lies, as a privileged publication, at the period of this narrative. Types still had a sanctity; and it is surprising how much they deceived, and how many were their dupes. The journal did not even take the ordinary pains to mystify its readers, and to conceal its own cupidity, as are practised in communities more advanced in civilization. We dare say that journals _are_ to be found in London and Paris, that take just as great liberties with the fact as the Crater Truth-Teller; but they treat their readers with a little more outward respect, however much they may mislead them with falsehoods. Your London and Paris publics are not to be dealt with as if composed of credulous old women, but require something like a plausible mystification to throw dust in their eyes. They have a remarkable proneness to believe that which they wish, it is true; but, beyond that weakness, some limits are placed to their faith and appearances must be a good deal consulted.
But at the crater no such precaution seemed to be necessary. It is true that the editor did use the pronoun "we," in speaking of himself; but he took all other occasions to assert his individuality, and to use his journal diligently in its behalf. Thus, whenever he got into the law, his columns were devoted to publicly maintaining his own side of the question, although such a course was not only opposed to every man's sense of propriety, but was directly flying into the teeth of the laws of the land; but little did he care for that. He was a public servant, and of course all he did was right. To be sure, other public servants were in the same category, all they did being wrong; but he had the means of telling his own story, and a large number of gaping dunces were ever ready to believe him. His manner of filling his larder is particularly worthy of being mentioned. Quite as often as once a week, his journal had some such elegant article as this, viz:--"Our esteemed friend, Peter Snooks"--perhaps it was Peter Snooks, _Esquire_--"has just brought us a fair specimen of his cocoa-nuts, which we do not hesitate in recommending to the housekeepers of the crater, as among the choicest of the group." Of course, Squire Snooks was grateful for this puff, and often brought _more_ cocoa-nuts. The same great supervision was extended to the bananas, the bread-fruit, the cucumbers, the melons, and even the squashes, and always with the same results to the editorial larder. Once, however, this worthy did get himself in a quandary with his use of the imperial pronoun. A mate of one of the vessels inflicted personal chastisement on him, for some impertinent comments he saw fit to make on the honest tar's vessel; and, this being matter of intense interest to the public mind, he went into a detail of all the evolutions of the combat. Other men may pull each other's noses, and inflict kicks and blows, without the world's caring a straw about it; but the editorial interest is too intense to be overlooked in this manner. A bulletin of the battle was published; the editor speaking of himself always in the plural, out of excess of modesty, and to avoid egotism(!) in three columns which were all about himself, using such expressions as these:--"_We_ now struck _our_ antagonist a blow with _our_ fist, and followed this up with a kick of _our_ foot, and otherwise _we_ made an assault on him that he will have reason to remember to his dying day." Now, these expressions, for a time, set all the old women in the colony against the editor, until he went into an elaborate explanation, showing that his modesty was so painfully sensitive that he could not say _I_ on any account, though he occupied three more columns of his paper in explaining the state of _our_ feelings. But, at first, the cry went forth that the battle had been of _two_ against _one_; and _that_ even the simple-minded colonists set down as somewhat cowardly. So much for talking about _we_ in the bulletin of a single combat!
The political, effects produced by this paper, however, were much the most material part of its results. Whenever it offended and disgusted its readers by its dishonesty, selfishness, vulgarity, and lies--and it did this every week, being a hebdomadal--it recovered the ground it had lost by beginning to talk of 'the people' and their rights. This the colonists could not withstand. All their sympathies were enlisted in behalf of him who thought so much of their rights; and, at the very moment he was trampling on these rights, to advance his own personal views, and even treating them with contempt by uttering the trash he did, they imagined that he and his paper in particular, and its doctrines in general, were a sort of gift from Heaven to form the palladium of their precious liberties!
The great theory advanced by this editorial tyro, was, that a majority of any community had a right to do as it pleased. The governor early saw, not only the fallacies, but the danger of this doctrine; and he wrote several communications himself, in order to prove that it was false. If true, he contended it was true altogether; and that it must be taken, if taken as an axiom at all, with its largest consequences. Now, if a majority has a right to rule, in this arbitrary manner, it has a right to set its dogmas above the commandments, and to legalize theft, murder, adultery, and all the other sins denounced in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. This was a poser to the demagogue, but he made an effort to get rid of it, by excepting the laws of God, which he allowed that even majorities were bound to respect. Thereupon, the governor replied that the laws of God were nothing but the great principles which ought to govern human conduct, and that his concession was an avowal that there was a power to which majorities should defer. Now, this was just as true of minorities as it was of majorities, and the amount of it all was that men, in establishing governments, merely set up a standard of principles which they pledged themselves to respect; and that, even in the most democratical communities, all that majorities could legally effect was to decide certain minor questions which, being necessarily referred to some tribunal for decision, was of preference referred to them. If there was a power superior to the will of the majority, in the management of human affairs, then majorities were not supreme; and it behooved the citizen to regard the last as only what they really are, and what they were probably designed to be--tribunals subject to the control of certain just principles.
Constitutions, or the fundamental law, the governor went on to say, were meant to be the expression of those just and general principles which should control human society, and as such should prevail over majorities. Constitutions were expressly intended to defend the rights of minorities; since without them, each question, or interest, might be settled by the majority, as it arose. It was but a truism to say that the oppression of the majority was the worst sort of oppression; since the parties injured not only endured the burthen imposed by many, but were cut off from the sympathy of their kind, which can alleviate much suffering, by the inherent character of the tyranny.
There was a great deal of good sense, and much truth in what the governor wrote, on this occasion; but of what avail could it prove with the ignorant and short-sighted, who put more trust in one honeyed phrase of the journal, that flourished about the 'people' and their 'rights,' than in all the arguments that reason, sustained even by revelation, could offer to show the fallacies and dangers of this new doctrine, As a matter of course, the wiles of the demagogue were not without fruits. Although every man in the colony, either in his own person, or in that of his parent or guardian, had directly entered into the covenants of the fundamental law, as that law then existed, they now began to quarrel with its provisions, and to advance doctrines that would subvert everything as established, in order to put something new and untried in its place. _Progress_ was the great desideratum; and _change_ was the hand-maiden of progress. A sort of 'puss in the corner' game was started, which was to enable those who had no places to run into the seats of those who had. This is a favourite pursuit of man, all over the world, in monarchies as well as in democracies; for, after all that institutions can effect, there is little change in men by putting on, or in taking off ermine and robes, or in wearing 'republican simplicity,' in office or out of office; but the demagogue is nothing but the courtier, pouring out his homage in the gutters, instead of in an ante-chamber.
Nor did the governor run into extremes in his attempts to restrain the false reasoning and exaggerations of the demagogue and his deluded, or selfish followers. Nothing would be easier than to demonstrate that their notions of the rights of numbers was wrong, to demonstrate that were their theories carried out in practice, there could be, and would be nothing permanent or settled in human affairs; yet not only did each lustrum, but each year, each month, each week, each hour, each minute demand its reform. Society must be periodically reduced to its elements, in order to redress grievances. The governor did not deny that men had their natural rights, at the very moment he insisted that these rights were just as much a portion of the minority as of the majority. He was perfectly willing that equal laws should prevail, as equal laws did prevail in the colony, though he was not disposed to throw everything into confusion merely to satisfy a theory. For a long time, therefore, he opposed the designs of the new-school, and insisted on his vested rights, as established in the fundamental law, which had made him ruler for life. But "it is hard to kick against the pricks." Although the claim of the governor was in every sense connected with justice, perfectly sacred, it could not resist the throes of cupidity, selfishness, and envy. By this time, the newspaper, that palladium of liberty, had worked the minds of the masses to a state in which the naked pretension of possessing rights that were not common to everybody else was, to the last degree, "tolerable and not to be endured." To such a height did the fever of liberty rise, that men assumed a right to quarrel with the private habits of the governor and his family, some pronouncing him proud because he did not neglect his teeth, as the majority did, eat when they ate, and otherwise presumed to be of different habits from those around him. Some even objected to him because he spat in his pocket-handkerchief, and did not blow his nose with his fingers.
All this time, religion was running riot, as well as politics. The next-door neighbours hated each other most sincerely, because they took different views of regeneration, justification, predestination and all the other subtleties of doctrine. What was remarkable, they who had the most clouded notions of such subjects were the loudest in their denunciations. Unhappily, the Rev. Mr. Hornblower, who had possession of the ground, took a course which had a tendency to aggravate instead of lessening this strife among the sects. Had he been prudent, he would have proclaimed louder than ever "Christ, and him crucified;" but, he made the capital mistake of going up and down, crying with the mob, "the church, the church!" This kept constantly before the eyes and ears of the dissenting part of the population--dissenting from his opinions if not from an establishment--the very features that were the most offensive to them. By "the church" they did not understand the same divine institution as that recognised by Mr. Hornblower himself, but surplices, and standing up and sitting down, and gowns, and reading prayers out of a book, and a great many other similar observances, which were deemed by most of the people relics of the "scarlet woman." It is wonderful, about what insignificant matters men can quarrel, when they wish to fall out. Perhaps religion, under these influences, had quite as much to do with the downfall of the governor, which shortly after occurred, as politics, and the newspaper, and the new lawyer, all of which and whom did everything that was in their power to destroy him.
At length, the demagogues thought they had made sufficient progress to spring their mine. The journal came out with a proposal to call a convention, to alter and improve the fundamental law. That law contained a clause already pointing out the mode by which amendments were to be made in the constitution; but this mode required the consent of the governor, of the council, and finally, of the people. It was a slow, deliberative process, too, one by which men had time to reflect on what they were doing, and so far protected vested rights as to render it certain that no very great revolution could be effected under its shadow. Now, the disaffected aimed at revolution--at carrying out, completely the game of "puss in the corner," and it became necessary to set up some new principle by which they could circumvent the old fundamental law.
This was very easily accomplished in the actual state of the public mind; it was only to carry out the doctrine of the sway of the majority to a practical result; and this was so cleverly done as actually to put the balance of power in the hands of the minority. There is nothing new in this, however, as any cool-headed man may see in this enlightened republic of our own, daily examples in which the majority-principle works purely for the aggrandizement of a minority clique. It makes very little difference how men are ruled; they will be cheated; for, failing of rogues at head-quarters to perform that office for them, they are quite certain to set to work to devise some means of cheating themselves. At the crater this last trouble was spared them, the opposition performing that office in the following ingenious manner.
The whole colony was divided into parishes, which exercised in themselves a few of the minor functions of government. They had a limited legislative power, like the American town meetings. In these parishes, laws were passed, to require the people to vote 'yes' or 'no,' in order to ascertain whether there should, or should not be, a convention to amend the constitution. About one-fourth of the electors attended these primary meetings, and of the ten meetings which were held, in six "yes" prevailed by average majorities of about two votes in each parish. This was held to be demonstration of the wishes of the majority of the people to have a convention, though most of those who staid away did so because they believed the whole procedure not only illegal, but dangerous. Your hungry demagogue, however, is not to be defeated by any scruples so delicate. To work these _élites_ of the colony went, to organise an election for members of the convention. At this election about a third of the electors appeared, the candidates succeeding by handsome majorities, the rest staying away because they believed the whole proceedings illegal. Thus fortified by the sacred principle of the sway of majorities, these representatives of a minority, met in convention, and formed an entirely new fundamental law; one, indeed, that completely subverted the old one, not only in fact, but in theory. In order to get rid of the governor to a perfect certainty, for it was known that he could still command more votes for the office than any other man in the colony, one article provided that no person should hold the office of governor, either prospectively, or perspectively, more than five years, consecutively. This placed Mr. Mark Woolston on the shelf at the next election. Two legislative bodies were formed, the old council was annihilated, and everything was done that cunning could devise, to cause power and influence to pass into new hands. This was the one great object of the whole procedure, and, of course, it was not neglected.
When the new constitution was completed, it was referred back to the people for approval. At this third appeal to the popular voice, rather less than half of all the electors voted, the constitution being adopted by a majority of one-third of those who did. By this simple, and exquisite republican process, was the principle of the sway of majorities vindicated, a new fundamental law for the colony provided, and all the old incumbents turned out of office. 'Silence gives consent,' cried the demagogues, who forgot they had no right to put their questions!
Religion had a word to say in these changes. The circumstance that the governor was an Episcopalian reconciled many devout Christians to the palpable wrong that was done him; and it was loudly argued that a church government of bishops, was opposed to republicanism, and consequently ought not to be entertained by republicans. This charming argument, which renders religious faith secondary to human institutions, instead of human institutions secondary to religious faith, thus completely putting the cart before the horse, has survived that distant revolution, and is already flourishing in more eastern climes. It is as near an approach to an idolatrous worship of self, as human conceit has recently tolerated.
As a matter of course, elections followed the adoption of the new constitution. Pennock was chosen governor for two years; the new lawyer was made judge, the editor, secretary of state and treasurer; and other similar changes were effected. All the Woolston connection were completely laid on the shelf. This was not done so much by the electors, with whom they were still popular, as by means of the nominating committees. These nominating committees were expedients devised to place the power in the hands of a few, in a government of the many. The rule of the majority is so very sacred a thing that it is found necessary to regulate it by legerdemain. No good republican ever disputes the principle, while no sagacious one ever submits to it. There are various modes, however, of defeating all 'sacred principles,' and this particular 'sacred principle' among the rest. The simplest is that of caucus nominations. The process is a singular illustration of the theory of a majority-government. Primary meetings are called, at which no one is ever present, but the wire-pullers and their puppets. Here very fierce conflicts occur between the wire-pullers themselves, and these are frequently decided by votes as close as majorities of one, or two. Making the whole calculation, it follows that nominations are usually made by about a tenth, or even a twentieth of the body of the electors; and this, too, on the supposition that they who vote actually have opinions of their own, as usually they have not, merely wagging their tongues as the wires are pulled. Now, these nominations are conclusive, when made by the ruling party, since there are no concerted means of opposing them. A man must have a flagrantly bad character not to succeed under a regular nomination, or he must be too honest for the body of the electors; one fault being quite as likely to defeat him as the other.
In this way was a great revolution effected in the colony of the crater. At one time, the governor thought of knocking the whole thing in the head, by the strong arm; as he might have done, and would have been perfectly justified in doing. The Kannakas were now at his command, and, in truth, a majority of the electors were with him; but political jugglery held them in duress. A majority of the electors of the state of New York are, at this moment, opposed to universal suffrage, especially as it is exercised in the town and village governments, but moral cowardice holds them in subjection. Afraid of their own shadows, each politician hesitates to 'bell the cat.' What is more, the select aristocrats and monarchists are the least bold in acting frankly, and in saying openly what they think; leaving that office to be discharged, as it ever will be, by the men who--_true_ democrats, and not canting democrats--willing to give the people just as much control as they know how to use, or which circumstances will allow them to use beneficially to themselves, do not hesitate to speak with the candour and manliness of their principles. These men call things by their right names, equally eschewing the absurdity of believing that nature intended rulers to descend from male to male, according to the order of primogeniture, or the still greater nonsense of supposing it necessary to obtain the most thrifty plants from the hotbeds of the people, that they may be transplanted into the beds of state, reeking with the manure of the gutters.
The governor submitted to the changes, through a love of peace, and ceased to be anything more than a private citizen, when he had so many claims to be first, and when, in fact, he had so long been first. No sovereign on his throne, could write _Gratia Dei_ before his titles with stricter conformity to truth, than Mark Woolston; but his right did not preserve him from the ruthless plunder of the demagogue. To his surprise, as well as to his grief, Pennock was seduced by ambition, and he assumed the functions of the executive with quite as little visible hesitation, as the heir apparent succeeds to his father's crown.
It would be untrue to say that Mark did not feel the change; but it is just to add that he felt more concern for the future fate of the colony, than he did for himself or his children. Nor, when he came to reflect on the matter, was he so much surprised that he could be supplanted in this way, under a system in which the sway of the majority was so much lauded, when he did not entertain a doubt that considerably more than half of the colony preferred the old system to the new, and that the same proportion of the people would rather see him in the Colony House, than to see John Pennock in his stead. But Mark--we must call him the governor no longer--had watched the progress of events closely, and began to comprehend them. He had learned the great and all-important political truth, THAT THE MORE A PEOPLE ATTEMPT TO EXTEND THEIR POWER DIRECTLY OVER STATE AFFAIRS, THE LESS THEY, IN FACT, CONTROL THEM, AFTER HAVING ONCE PASSED THE POINT OF NAMING LAWGIVERS AS THEIR REPRESENTATIVES; MERELY BESTOWING ON A FEW ARTFUL MANAGERS THE INFLUENCE THEY VAINLY IMAGINE TO HAVE SECURED TO THEMSELVES. This truth should be written in letters of gold, at every corner of the streets and highways in a republic; for truth it is, and truth, those who press the foremost on another path will the soonest discover it to be. The mass _may_ select their representatives, _may_ know them, and _may_ in a good measure so far sway them, as to keep them to their duties; but when a constituency assumes to enact the part of executive and judiciary, they not only get beyond their depth, but into the mire. What _can_, what _does_ the best-informed layman, for instance, know of the qualifications of this or that candidate to fill a seat on the bench! He has to take another's judgment for his guide; and a popular appointment of this nature, is merely transferring the nomination from an enlightened, and, what is everything, a RESPONSIBLE authority, to one that is unavoidably at the mercy of second persons for its means of judging, and is as IRRESPONSIBLE AS AIR.
At one time, Mark Woolston regretted that he had not established an opposition paper, in order to supply an antidote for the bane; but reflection satisfied him it would have been useless. Everything human follows its law, until checked by abuses that create resistance. This is true of the monarch, who misuses power until it becomes tyranny; of the nobles, who combine to restrain the monarch, until the throes of an aristocracy-ridden country proclaim that it has merely changed places with the prince; of the people, who wax fat and kick! Everything human is abused; and it would seem that the only period of tolerable condition is the transition state, when the new force is gathering to a head, and before the storm has time to break. In the mean time, the earth revolves, men are born, live their time, and die; communities are formed and are dissolved; dynasties appear and disappear; good contends with evil, and evil still has its day; the whole, however, advancing slowly but unerringly towards that great consummation, which was designed from the beginning, and which is as certain to arrive in the end, as that the sun sets at night and rises in the morning. The supreme folly of the hour is to imagine that perfection will come before its stated time.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
30 | None | "This is thy lesson, mighty sea! Man calls the dimpled earth his own, The flowery vale, the golden lea; And on the wild gray mountain-stone Claims nature's temple for his throne! But where thy many voices sing Their endless song, the deep, deep tone Calls back his spirit's airy wing, He shrinks into himself, when God is king!"
Lunt.
For some months after the change of government, Mark Woolston was occupied in attending to the arrangement of his affairs, preparatory to an absence of some length. Bridget had expressed a strong wish to visit America once more, and her two eldest children were now of an age when their education had got to be a matter of some solicitude. It was the intention of their father to send them to Pennsylvania for that purpose, when the proper time arrived, and to place them under the care of his friends there, who would gladly take the charge. Recent events probably quickened this intention, both as to feeling and time, for Mark was naturally much mortified at the turn things had taken.
There was an obvious falling-off in the affairs of the colony from the time it became transcendantly free. In religion, the sects ever had fair-play, or ever since the arrival of the parsons, and that had been running down, from the moment it began to run into excesses and exaggerations. As soon as a man begins to _shout_ in religion, he may be pretty sure that he is "hallooing before he is out of the woods." It is true that all our feelings exhibit themselves, more or less, in conformity to habits and manners, but there is something profane in the idea that the spirit of God manifests it presence in yells and clamour, even when in possession of those who have not been trained to the more subdued deportment of reason and propriety. The shouting and declamatory parts of religion may be the evil spirits growling and yelling before they are expelled, but these must not be mistaken for the voice of the Ancient of Days.
The morals decayed as religion obtained its false directions. Self-righteousness, the inseparable companion of the quarrels of sects, took the place of humility, and thus became prevalent that most dangerous condition of the soul of man, when he imagines that _he_ sanctifies what he does; a frame of mind, by the way, that is by no means strange to very many who ought to be conscious of their unworthiness. With the morals of the colony, its prosperity, even in worldly interests, began to lose ground. The merchants, as usual, had behaved badly in the political struggle. The intense selfishness of the caste kept them occupied with the pursuit of gain, at the most critical moments of the struggle, or when their influence might have been of use; and when the mischief was done, and they began to feel its consequences, or, what to them was the same thing, to fancy that the low price of oil in Europe was owing to the change of constitution at the Crater, they started up in convulsed and mercenary efforts to counteract the evil, referring all to money, and not manifesting any particular notions of principles concerning the manner in which it was used. As the cooler heads of the minority--perhaps we ought to say of the majority, for, oddly enough, the minority now actually ruled in Craterdom, by carrying out fully the principle of the sway of the majority--but, as the cooler heads of the colony well understood that nothing material was to follow from such spasmodic and ill-directed efforts, the merchants were not backed in their rising, and, as commonly happens with the slave, the shaking of their chains only bound them so much the tighter.
At length the Rancocus returned from the voyage on which she had sailed just previously to the change in the constitution, and her owner announced his intention to go in her to America, the next trip, himself. His brothers, Heaton, Anne, their children, and, finally, Captain Betts, Friend Martha, and their issue, all, sooner or later, joined the party; a desire to visit the low shores of the Delaware once more, uniting with the mortification of the recent changes, to induce them all to wish to see the land of their fathers before they died. All the oil in the colony was purchased by Woolston, at rather favourable prices, the last quotations from abroad being low: the ex-governor disposed of most of his movables, in order to effect so large an operation. He also procured a glorious collection of shells, and some other light articles of the sort, filling the ship as full as she could be stowed. It was then that the necessity of having a second vessel became apparent, and Betts determined to withdraw his brig from the fishery, and to go to America in her. The whales had been driven off the original fishing-ground, and the pursuit was no longer as profitable as it had been, three fish having been taken formerly to one now; a circumstance the hierarchy of the Crater did not fail to ascribe to the changes in the constitution, while the journal attributed it to certain aristocratical tendencies which, as that paper averred, had crept into the management of the business.
The vessels were loaded, the passengers disposing of as many of their movables as they could, and to good advantage, intending to lay in fresh supplies in Philadelphia, and using the funds thus obtained to procure a freight for the brig. At the end of a month, both vessels were ready; the different dwellings were transferred to new occupants, some by lease and others by sales, and all those who contemplated a voyage to America were assembled at the crater. Previously to taking leave of a place that had become endeared to him by so many associations and interests, Mr. Woolston determined to take the Anne, hiring her of the government for that purpose--Governor Pennock condescendingly deciding that the public interests would not suffer by the arrangement--and going in her once more through the colony, on a tour of private, if not of official inspection. Bridget, Heaton, Anne, and Captain Betts, were of the party; the children being left at the crater, in proper custody.
The first visit was paid to Rancocus Island. Here the damage done by the pirates had long been repaired; and the mills, kilns and other works, were in a state of prosperous industry. The wild hogs and goats were now so numerous as to be a little troublesome, particularly the former; but, a good many being shot, the inhabitants did not despair of successfully contending with them for the possession of the place. There were cattle, also, on this island; but they were still tame, the cows giving milk, and the oxen being used in the yoke. These were the descendants of the single pair Woolston had sent across, less than twelve years before, which had increased in an arithmetical proportion, care having been taken not to destroy any. They now exceeded a hundred, of whom quite half were cows; and the islanders occasionally treated themselves to fresh beef. As cows had been brought into the colony in every vessel that arrived, they were now in tolerably good numbers, Mark Woolston himself disposing of no less than six when he broke up his farming establishment for a visit to America. There were horses, too, though not in as great numbers as there were cows and oxen. Boats were so much used, that roadsters were very little needed; and this so much the less, on account of the great steadiness of the trades. By this time, everybody understood the last; and the different channels of the group were worked through with almost the same facility as would have been the case with so many highways. Nevertheless, horses were to be found in the colony, and some of the husbandmen preferred them to the horned cattle in working their lands.
A week was passed in visiting the group. Something like a consciousness of having ill-treated Mark was to be traced among the people; and this feeling was manifested under a well-known law of our nature, which rendered those the most vindictive and morose, who had acted the worst. Those who had little more to accuse themselves of than a compliant submission to the wrong-doing of others, in political matters everywhere the most numerous class of all, received their visiters well enough, and in many instances they treated their guests with delicacy and distinction. On the whole, however, the late governor derived but little pleasure from the intercourse, so much mouthing imbecility being blended with the expressions of regret and sympathy, as to cause him to mourn over the compliance of his fellow-creatures, more than to rejoice at their testimony in his own favour.
But, notwithstanding all these errors of man, nature and time had done their work magnificently since the last "progress" of Woolston among the islands. The channels were in nearly every instance lined with trees, and the husbandry had assumed the aspect of an advanced civilization. Hedges, beautiful in their luxuriance and flowers, divided the fields; and the buildings which contribute to the comforts of a population were to be found on every side. The broad plains of soft mud, by the aid of the sun, the rains, the guano, and the plough, had now been some years converted into meadows and arable lands; and those which still lay remote from the peopled parts of the group, still nine-tenths of its surface, were fast getting the character of rich pastures, where cattle, and horses, and hogs were allowed to roam at pleasure. As the cock crowed from the midst of his attendant party of hens and chickens, the ex-governor in passing would smile sadly, his thoughts reverting to the time when its predecessor raised its shrill notes on the naked rocks of the Reef!
That Reef itself had undergone more changes than any other spot in the colony, as the Peak had undergone fewer. The town by this time contained more than two hundred buildings, of one sort and another, and the population exceeded five hundred souls. This was a small population for so many tenements; but the children, as yet, did not bear a just proportion to the adults. The crater was the subject of what to Mark Woolston was a most painful law-suit. From the first, he had claimed that spot as his private property; though he had conceded its use to the public, under a lease, since it was so well adapted, by natural formation, to be a place of refuge when invasions were apprehended. But the crater he had found barren, and had rendered fertile; the crater had even seemed to him to be an especial gift of Providence bestowed on him in his misery; and the crater was his by possession, as well as by other rights, when he received strangers into his association. None of the older inhabitants denied this claim. It is the last comers who are ever the most anxious to dispute ancient rights. As they can possess none of these established privileges themselves, they dislike that others should enjoy them; and association places no restraints on their cupidity. Pennock, once in the hands of "the people," was obliged to maintain their rights, or what some among them chose to call their rights; and he authorized the attorney-general to bring an action of ejectment against the party in possession. Some pretty hard-faced trickery was attempted in the way of legislation, in order to help along the claim of the public; for, if the truth must be said, the public is just as wont to resort to such unworthy means to effect its purposes as private individuals, when it is deemed necessary. But there was little fear of the "people's" failing; they made the law, and they administered it, through their agents; the power being now so completely in their hands that it required twice the usual stock of human virtue to be able to say them nay, as had formerly been the case. God help the man whose rights are to be maintained against the masses, when the immediate and dependent nominees of those masses are to sit in judgment! If the public, by any inadvertency, have had the weakness to select servants that are superior to human infirmities, and who prefer to do right rather than to do as their masters would have them, it is a weakness that experience will be sure to correct, and which will not be often repeated.
The trial of this cause kept the Woolstons at the crater a week longer than they would have remained. When the cause was submitted to the jury, Mr. Attorney-General had a great deal to say about aristocracy and privileged orders, as well as about the sacred rights of the people. To hear him, one might have imagined that the Woolstons were princes in the full possession of their hereditary states, and who were dangerous to the liberties or the mass, instead of being what they really were, citizens without one right more than the meanest man in the colony, and with even fewer chances of maintaining their share of these common rights, in consequence of the prejudice, and jealousy, and most of all, the _envy_, of the majority. Woolston argued his own cause, making a clear, forcible and manly appeal to the justice and good sense of the jury, in vindication of his claims; which, on every legal as well as equitable principle, was out of all question such as every civilized community should have maintained. But the great and most powerful foe of justice, in cases of this sort, is SLANG; and SLANG in this instance came very near being too much for law. The jury were divided, ten going for the 'people,' and two for the right; one of the last being Bigelow, who was a fearless, independent fellow, and cared no more for the bug-bear called the 'people,' by the slang-whangers of politics, than he did for the Emperor of Japan.
The day after this fruitless trial, which left Mark's claim in abeyance until the next court, a period of six months, the intended travellers repaired on board ship, and the brig, with her party, went to sea, under her owner, captain Betts, who had provided himself with a good navigator in the person of his mate. The Rancocus, however, crossed over to the Peak, and the passengers all ascended to the plain, to take leave of that earthly paradise. Nature had done so much for this place, that it had been the settled policy of Mark Woolston to suffer its native charms to be marred as little as possible. But the Peak had ever been deemed a sort of West-End of the Colony; and, though the distribution of it had been made very fairly, those who parted with their shares receiving very ample compensations for them, a certain distinction became attached to the residence on the Peak. Some fancied it was on account of its climate; some, because it was a mountain, and was more raised up in the world than the low islands near it; some, because it had most edible birds, and the best figs; but none of those who now coveted residences there for their families, or the name of residences there, would allow even to themselves, what was the simple fact, that the place received it highest distinction on account of the more distinguished individuals who dwelt on it. At first, the _name_ was given to several settlements in the group, just as the Manhattanese have their East and West Broadway; and, just for the very same reasons that have made them so rich in Broadways, they will have ere long, first-fifth, second-fifth, and third-fifth avenue, unless common sense begins to resume its almost forgotten sway among the aldermen. But this demonstration in the way of names, did not satisfy the minor-majority, after they got into the ascendant; and a law was passed authorizing a new survey, and a new subdivision of the public lands on the Peak, among the citizens of the colony. On some pretence of justice, that is not very easily to be understood, those who had property there already were not to have shares in the new lottery; a lottery, by the way, in which the prizes were about twice as large as those which had originally been distributed among the colonists.
But, Mark and Bridget endeavoured to forget everything unpleasant in this visit to their much-loved home. They regarded the place as a boon from Providence, that demanded all their gratitude, in spite of the abuses of which it was the subject; and never did it seem to them more exquisitely beautiful, perhaps it never had been more perfectly lovely, than it appeared the hour they left it. Mark remembered it as he found it, a paradise in the midst of the waters, wanting only in man to erect the last great altar in his heart, in honour of its divine creator. As yet, its beauties had not been much marred; though the new irruption menaced them, with serious injuries.
Mr. and Mrs. Woolston took leave of their friends, and tore themselves away from the charming scenery of the Peak, with heavy hearts. The Rancocus was waiting for them, under the lee of the island, and everybody was soon on board her. The sails were filled, and the ship passed out from among the islands, by steering south, and hauling up between the Peak and the volcano. The latter now seemed to be totally extinct. No more smoke arose from it, or had indeed risen from it, for a twelvemonth. It was an island, and in time it might become habitable, like the others near it.
Off Cape Horn the Rancocus spoke the Dragon; Captain Betts and his passengers being all well. The two vessels saw no more of each other until the ship was coming out of the Bay of Rio, as the brig was going in. Notwithstanding this advantage, and the general superiority of the sailing of the Rancocus, such was the nature of the winds that the last encountered, that when she passed Cape May lights the brig was actually in the bay, and ahead of her; This circumstance, however, afforded pleasure rather than anything else, and the two vessels landed their passengers on the wharves of Philadelphia within an hour of each other.
Great was the commotion in the little town of Bristol at the return of all the Woolstons, who had gone off, no one knew exactly whither; some saying to New Holland; others to China; and a few even to Japan. The excitement extended across the river to the little city of Burlington, and there was danger of the whole history of the colony's getting into the newspapers. The colonists, however, were still discreet, and in a week something else occurred to draw the attention of the multitude, and the unexpected visit was soon regarded like any other visit.
Glad enough, notwithstanding, were the near relatives of Bridget and Anne, in particular, to see those two fine young women again. Neither appeared much more than a twelvemonth older than when she went away. This was owing to the delicious, yet not enervating climate, in which both had lived. They were mothers, and a little more matronly in appearance, but none the less lovely; their children, like themselves, were objects of great interest, in their respective families, and happy indeed were the households which received them. It in no degree lessened the satisfaction of any of the parties, that the travellers had all returned much better off in their circumstances than when they went away. Even the two younger Woolstons were now comfortable, and early announced an intention not to return to the islands. As for the ex-governor, he might be said to be rich; but his heart was still in the colony, over the weaknesses of which his spirit yearned, as the indulgent parent feels for the failings of a backsliding child. Nevertheless, Bridget was persuaded to remain with her father a twelvemonth longer than her husband, for the health of the old gentleman had become infirm, and he could not bear to part with his only child so soon again, after she had once been restored to his arms. It was, therefore, decided, that Mr. Mark Woolston should fill the Rancocus with such articles as were deemed the most useful to the colony, and go back in that vessel, leaving his wife and children at Bristol, with the understanding he would return and seek them the succeeding summer. A similar arrangement was made for the wife and children of Captain Betts, Friend Martha Betts being much in the practice of regulating her conduct by that of Friend Bridget Woolston. Betts sold his brig, and consented to go in the Rancocus as a passenger, having no scruples, now he had become comparatively wealthy, about eating with his old shipmate, and otherwise associating with him, though it was always as a sort of humble companion.
The Heatons determined to remain in America, for a time at least. Mr. Heaton felt the ingratitude of the colonists even more keenly than his brother-in-law; for he knew how much had been done for them, and how completely they had forgotten it all. Anne regretted the Peak, and its delicious climate; but her heart was mainly concentred in her family, and she could not be otherwise than happy, while permitted to dwell with her husband and children.
When the Rancocus sailed, therefore, she had no one on board her but Mark Woolston and Betts, with the exception of her proper crew. Her cargo was of no great intrinsic value, though it consisted in articles much used, and consequently in great demand, in the colony. As the vessel had lain some months at Philadelphia, where she had been thoroughly repaired and new-coppered, she sailed well, and made an excellent run to Rio, nor was her passage bad as far as the straits of La Maire. Here she encountered westerly gales, and the Cape may be said to have been doubled in a tempest. After beating about for six weeks in that stormy ocean, the ship finally got into the Pacific, and went into Valparaiso, Here Mark Woolston received very favourable offers for most of his cargo, but, still feeling desirous to serve his colony, he refused them all, setting sail for the islands as soon as he had made a few repairs, and had a little refreshed his crew.
The passages between Valparaiso and the Crater had usually consumed about five weeks, though somewhat dependent on the state of the trades. On this occasion the run was rather long, it having been attempted to find a new course. Formerly, the vessels had fallen in with the Crater, between Betto's group and the Reef, which was bringing them somewhat to leeward, and Mr. Woolston now thought he would try a more southern route, and see if he could not make the Peak, which would not only bring him to windward, but which place was certainly giving him a more striking object to fall in with than the lower islands of the group.
It was on the morning of one of the most brilliant days of those seas, that Captain Saunders met the ex-governor on the quarter-deck, as the latter appeared there for the first time since quitting his berth, and announced that he had just sent look-outs aloft to have a search for the land. By his reckoning they must be within twelve leagues of the Peak, and he was rather surprised that it was not yet visible from the deck. Make it they must very shortly; for he was quite certain of his latitude, and did not believe that he could be much out of the way, as respected his longitude. The cross-trees were next hailed, and the inquiry was made if the Peak could not be seen ahead. The answer was, that no land was in sight, in any part of the ocean!
For several hours the ship ran down before the wind, and the same extraordinary vacancy existed on the waters! At length an island was seen, and the news was sent down on deck. Towards that island the ship steered, and about two in the afternoon, she came up close under its lee, and backed her topsail. This island was a stranger to all on board! The navigators were confident they must be within a few leagues of the Peak, as well as of the volcano; yet nothing could be seen of either, while here was an unknown island in their places! This strange land was of very small dimensions, rising out of the sea about three hundred feet. Its extent was no great matter, half a mile in diameter perhaps, and its form nearly circular. A boat was lowered, and a party pulled towards it.
As Mr. Woolston approached this as yet strange spot, something in its outlines recurred to his memory. The boat moved a little further north, and he beheld a solitary tree. Then a cry escaped him, and the whole of the terrible truth flashed on his mind. He beheld the summit of the Peak, and the solitary tree was that which he had himself preserved as a signal. The remainder of his paradise had sunk beneath the ocean!
On landing, and examining more minutely, this awful catastrophe was fully confirmed. No part of Vulcan's Peak remained above water but its rocky summit, and its venerable deposit of guano. All the rest was submerged; and when soundings were made, the plain, that spot which had almost as much of Heaven as of earth about it, according to the unenlightened minds of its inhabitants, was found to be nearly a hundred fathoms deep in the ocean!
It is scarcely possible to describe the sickening awe which came over the party, when they had assured themselves of the fatal facts by further observation. Everything, however, went to confirm the existence of the dire catastrophe. These internal fires had wrought a new convulsion, and the labours and hopes of years had vanished in a moment. The crust of the earth had again been broken; and this time it was to destroy, instead of to create. The lead gave fearful confirmation of the nature of the disaster, the soundings answering accurately to the known formation of the land in the neighbourhood of the Peak. But, in the Peak itself, it was not possible to be mistaken: there it was in its familiar outline, just as it had stood in its more elevated position, when it crowned its charming mountain, and overlooked the whole of that enchanting plain which had so lately stretched beneath. It might be said to resemble, in this respect, that sublime rock, which is recognised as a part of the "everlasting hills," in Cole's series of noble landscapes that is called "the March of Empire;" ever the same amid the changes of time, and civilization, and decay, there it was the apex of the Peak; naked, storm-beaten, and familiar to the eye, though surrounded no longer by the many delightful objects which had once been seen in its neighbourhood.
Saddened, and chastened in spirit, by these proofs of what had befallen the colony, the party returned to the ship. That night, they remained near the little islet; next day they edged away in the direction of the place where the volcano had formerly risen up out of the waves. After running the proper distance, the ship was hove to, and her people sounded; two hundred fathoms of line were out, but no bottom was found. Then the Rancocus bore up for the island which had borne her own name. The spot was ascertained, but the mountain had also sunk into the ocean. In one place, soundings were had in ten fathoms water, and here the vessel was anchored. Next day, when the ship was again got under way, the anchor brought up with it, a portion of the skeleton of a goat. It had doubtless fallen upon the remains of such an animal, and hooking it with its flukes thus unexpectedly brought once more to the light of day, the remains of a creature that may have been on the very summit of the island, when the earthquake in which it was swallowed, occurred.
The Rancocus next shaped her course in the direction of the group. Soundings were struck near the western roads, and it was easy enough to carry the vessel towards what had formerly been the centre of those pleasant isles. The lead was kept going, and a good look-out was had for shoals; for, by this time, Mr. Woolston was satisfied that the greatest changes had occurred at the southward, as in the former convulsion, the group having sunk but a trifle compared with the Peak; nevertheless, every person, as well as thing, would seem to have been engulfed. Towards evening, however, as the ship was feeling her way to windward with great caution, and when the ex-governor believed himself to be at no great distance from the centre of the group, the look-outs proclaimed shoal-water, and even small breakers, about half a mile on their larboard beam. The vessel was hove-to, and a boat went to examine the place, Woolston and his friend Betts going in her.
The shoal was made by the summit of the crater; breakers appearing in one or two places where the hill had been highest. The boat met with no difficulty, however, in passing over the spot, merely avoiding the white water. When the lead was dropped into the centre of the crater, it took out just twenty fathoms of line. That distance, then, below the surface of the sea, had the crater, and its town, and its people sunk! If any object had floated, as many must have done, it had long before drifted off in the currents of the ocean, leaving no traces behind to mark a place that had so lately been tenanted by human beings. The Rancocus anchored in twenty-three fathoms, it being thought she lay nearly over the Colony House, and for eight-and-forty hours the exploration was continued. The sites of many a familiar spot were ascertained, but nothing could be found on which even a spar might be anchored, to buoy out a lost community.
At the end of the time mentioned, the ship bore up for Betto's group. There young Ooroony was found, peacefully ruling as of old. Nothing was known of the fate of the colonists, though surprise had been felt at not receiving any visits from their vessels. The intercourse had not been great of late, and most of the Kannakas had come away. Soon after the Woolstons had left, the especial friends of humanity, and the almost exclusive lovers of the "people" having begun to oppress them by exacting more work than was usual, and forgetting to pay for it. These men could say but little about the condition of the colony beyond this fact. Not only they, but all in the group, however, could render some account of the awful earthquake of the last season, which, by their descriptions, greatly exceeded n violence anything formerly known in those regions. It was in that earthquake, doubtless, that the colony of the crater perished to a man.
Leaving handsome and useful presents with his friend, young Ooroony, and putting ashore two or three Kannakas who were in the vessel, Woolston now sailed for Valparaiso. Here he disposed of his cargo to great advantage, and purchased copper in pigs at almost as great. With this new cargo he reached Philadelphia, after an absence of rather more than nine months.
Of the colony of the crater and its fortunes, little was ever said among its survivors. It came into existence in a manner that was most extraordinary, and went out of it in one that was awful. Mark and Bridget, however, pondered deeply on these things; the influence of which coloured and chastened their future lives. The husband often went over, in his mind, all the events connected with his knowledge of the Reef. He would thus recall his shipwreck and desolate condition when suffered first to reach the rocks; the manner in which he was the instrument in causing vegetation to spring up in the barren places; the earthquake, and the upheaving of the islands from out of the waters: the arrival of his wife and other friends: the commencement and progress of the colony; its blessings, so long as it pursued the right, and its curses, when it began to pursue the wrong; his departure, leaving it still a settlement surrounded with a sort of earthly paradise, and his return, to find all buried beneath the ocean. Of such is the world and its much-coveted advantages. For a time our efforts seem to create, and to adorn, and to perfect, until we forget our origin and destination, substituting self for that divine hand which alone can unite the elements of worlds as they float in gasses, equally from His mysterious laboratory, and scatter them again into thin air when the works of His hand cease to find favour in His view.
Let those who would substitute the voice of the created for that of the Creator, who shout "the people, the people," instead of hymning the praises of their God, who vainly imagine that the masses are sufficient for all things, remember their insignificance and tremble. They are but mites amid millions of other mites, that the goodness of providence has produced for its own wise ends; their boasted countries, with their vaunted climates and productions, have temporary possessions of but small portions of a globe that floats, a point, in space, following the course pointed out by an invisible finger, and which will one day be suddenly struck out of its orbit, as it was originally put there, by the hand that made it. Let that dread Being, then, be never made to act a second part in human affairs, or the rebellious vanity of our race imagine that either numbers, or capacity, or success, or power in arms, is aught more than a short-lived gift of His beneficence, to be resumed when His purposes are accomplished.
| {
"id": "11573"
} |
1 | None | Folking Perhaps it was more the fault of Daniel Caldigate the father than of his son John Caldigate, that they two could not live together in comfort in the days of the young man's early youth. And yet it would have been much for both of them that such comfortable association should have been possible to them. Wherever the fault lay, or the chief fault--for probably there was some on both sides--the misfortune was so great as to bring crushing troubles upon each of them.
There were but the two of which to make a household. When John was fifteen, and had been about a year at Harrow, he lost his mother and his two little sisters almost at a blow. The two girls went first, and the poor mother, who had kept herself alive to see them die, followed them almost instantly. Then Daniel Caldigate had been alone.
And he was a man who knew how to live alone,--a just, hard, unsympathetic man,--of whom his neighbours said, with something of implied reproach, that he bore up strangely when he lost his wife and girls. This they said, because he was to be seen riding about the country, and because he was to be heard talking to the farmers and labourers as though nothing special had happened to him. It was rumoured of him, too, that he was as constant with his books as before; and he had been a man always constant with his books; and also that he had never been seen to shed a tear, or been heard to speak of those who had been taken from him.
He was, in truth, a stout, self-constraining man, silent unless when he had something to say. Then he could become loud enough, or perhaps it might be said, eloquent. To his wife he had been inwardly affectionate, but outwardly almost stern. To his daughters he had been the same,--always anxious for every good thing on their behalf, but never able to make the children conscious of this anxiety. When they were taken from him, he suffered in silence, as such men do suffer; and he suffered the more because he knew well how little of gentleness there had been in his manners with them.
But he had hoped, as he sat alone in his desolate house, that it would be different with him and his only son,--with his son who was now the only thing left to him. But the son was a boy, and he had to look forward to what years might bring him rather than to present happiness from that source. When the boy came home for his holidays, the father would sometimes walk with him, and discourse on certain chosen subjects,--on the politics of the day, in regard to which Mr. Caldigate was an advanced Liberal, on the abomination of the Game Laws, on the folly of Protection, on the antiquated absurdity of a State Church;--as to all which matters his son John lent him a very inattentive ear. Then the lad would escape and kill rabbits, or rats, or even take birds' nests, with a zest for such pursuits which was disgusting to the father, though he would not absolutely forbid them. Then John would be allured to go to his uncle Babington's house, where there was a pony on which he could hunt, and fishing-rods, and a lake with a boat, and three fine bouncing girl-cousins, who made much of him, and called him Jack; so that he soon preferred his uncle Babington's house, and would spend much of his holidays at Babington House.
Mr. Caldigate was a country squire with a moderate income, living in a moderate house called Folking, in the parish of Utterden, about ten miles from Cambridge. Here he owned nearly the entire parish, and some portion of Netherden, which lay next to it, having the reputation of an income of £3,000 a-year. It probably amounted to about two-thirds of that. Early in life he had been a very poor man, owing to the improvidence of his father; but he had soon quarrelled with his father,--as he had with almost everyone else,--and had for some ten years earned his own bread in the metropolis among the magazines and newspapers. Then, when his father died, the property was his own, with such encumbrances as the old squire had been able to impose upon it. Daniel Caldigate had married when he was a poor man, but did not go to Folking to live till the estate was clear, at which time he was forty years old. When he was endeavouring to inculcate good Liberal principles into that son of his, who was burning the while to get off to a battle of rats among the corn-stacks, he was not yet fifty. There might therefore be some time left to him for the promised joys of companionship if he could only convince the boy that politics were better than rats.
But he did not long make himself any such promise. It seemed to him that his son's mind was of a nature very different from his own; and much like to that of his grandfather. The lad could be awakened to no enthusiasm in the abuse of Conservative leaders. And those Babingtons were such fools! He despised the whole race of them,--especially those thick-legged, romping, cherry-cheeked damsels, of whom, no doubt, his son would marry one. They were all of the earth earthy, without an idea among them. And yet he did not dare to forbid his son to go to the house, lest people should say of him that his sternness was unendurable.
Folking is not a place having many attractions of its own, beyond the rats. It lies in the middle of the Cambridgeshire fens, between St. Ives, Cambridge, and Ely. In the two parishes of Utterden and Netherden there is no rise of ground which can by any stretch of complaisance be called a hill. The property is bisected by an immense straight dike, which is called the Middle Wash, and which is so sluggish, so straight, so ugly, and so deep, as to impress the mind of a stranger with the ideas of suicide. And there are straight roads and straight dikes, with ugly names on all sides, and passages through the country called droves, also with ugly appellations of their own, which certainly are not worthy of the name of roads. The Folking Causeway possesses a bridge across the Wash, and is said to be the remains of an old Roman Way which ran in a perfectly direct line from St. Neots to Ely. When you have crossed the bridge going northward,--or north-westward,--there is a lodge at your right hand, and a private road running, as straight as a line can be drawn, through pollard poplars, up to Mr. Caldigate's house. Round the house there are meadows, and a large old-fashioned kitchen garden, and a small dark flower-garden, with clipt hedges and straight walks, quite in the old fashion. The house itself is dark, picturesque, well-built, low, and uncomfortable. Part of it is as old as the time of Charles II., and part dates from Queen Anne. Something was added at a later date,--perhaps early in the Georges; but it was all done with good materials, and no stint of labour. Shoddy had not been received among building materials when any portion of Folking was erected. But then neither had modern ideas of comfort become in vogue. Just behind the kitchen-garden a great cross ditch, called Foul-water Drain, runs, or rather creeps, down to the Wash, looking on that side as though it had been made to act as a moat to the house; and on the other side of the drain there is Twopenny Drove, at the end of which Twopenny Ferry leads to Twopenny Hall, a farmhouse across the Wash belonging to Mr. Caldigate. The fields around are all square and all flat, all mostly arable, and are often so deep in mud that a stranger wonders that a plough should be able to be dragged through the soil. The farming is, however, good of its kind, and the ploughing is mostly done by steam.
Such is and has been for some years the house at Folking in which Mr. Caldigate has lived quite alone. For five years after his wife's death he had only on rare occasions received visitors there. Twice his brother had come to Folking, and had brought a son with him. The brother had been a fellow of a college at Cambridge, and had taken a living, and married late in life. The living was far away in Dorsetshire, and the son, at the time of these visits, was being educated at a private school. Twice they had both been at Folking together, and the uncle had, in his silent way, liked the boy. The lad had preferred, or had pretended to prefer, books to rats; had understood or seemed to understand, something of the advantages of cheap food for the people, and had been commended by the father for general good conduct. But when they had last taken their departure from Folking, no one had entertained any idea of any peculiar relations between the nephew and the uncle. It was not till a year or two more had run by, that Mr. Daniel Caldigate thought of making his nephew George the heir to the property.
The property indeed was entailed upon John, as it had been entailed upon John's father. There were many institutions of his country which Mr. Caldigate hated with almost an inhuman hatred; but there were none more odious to him than that of entails, which institution he was wont to prove by many arguments to be the source of all the ignorance and all the poverty and all the troubles by which his country was inflicted. He had got his own property by an entail, and certainly never would have had an acre had his father been able to consume more than a life-interest. But he had denied that the property had done him any good, and was loud in declaring that the entail had done the property and those who lived on it very much harm. In his hearts of hearts he did feel a desire that when he was gone the acres should still belong to a Caldigate. There was so much in him of the leaven of the old English squirarchic aristocracy as to create a pride in the fact that the Caldigates had been at Folking for three hundred years, and a wish that they might remain there; and no doubt he knew that without repeated entails they would not have remained there. But still he had hated the thing, and as years rolled on he came to think that the entail now existing would do an especial evil.
His son on leaving school spent almost the whole four months between that time and the beginning of his first term at Cambridge with the Babingtons. This period included the month of September, and afforded therefore much partridge shooting,--than which nothing was meaner in the opinion of the Squire of Folking. When a short visit was made to Folking, the father was sarcastic and disagreeable; and then, for the first time, John Caldigate showed himself to be possessed of a power of reply which was peculiarly disagreeable to the old man. This had the effect of cutting down the intended allowance of £250 to £220 per annum, for which sum the father had been told that his son could live like a gentleman at the University. This parsimony so disgusted uncle Babington, who lived on the other side of the county, within the borders of Suffolk, that he insisted on giving his nephew a hunter, and an undertaking to bear the expense of the animal as long as John should remain at the University. No arrangement could have been more foolish. And that last visit made by John to Babington House for the two days previous to his Cambridge career was in itself most indiscreet. The angry father would not take upon himself to forbid it, but was worked up by it to perilous jealousy. He did not scruple to declare aloud that old Humphrey Babington was a thick-headed fool; nor did Humphrey Babington, who, with his ten or twelve thousand a-year, was considerably involved, scruple to say that he hated such cheese-paring ways. John Caldigate felt more distaste to the cheese-paring ways than he did to his uncle's want of literature.
Such was the beginning of the rupture which took place before the time had come for John to take his degree. When that time came he had a couple of hunters at Cambridge, played in the Cambridge eleven, and rowed in one of the Trinity boats. He also owed something over £800 to the regular tradesmen of the University, and a good deal more to other creditors who were not 'regular.' During the whole of this time his visits to Folking had been short and few. The old squire had become more and more angry, and not the less so because he was sensible of a non-performance of duty on his own part. Though he was close to Cambridge he never went to see his son; nor would he even press the lad to come out to Folking. Nor when, on rare occasions, a visit was made, did he endeavour to make the house pleasant. He was jealous, jealous to hot anger, at being neglected, but could not bring himself to make advances to his own son. Then when he heard from his son's tutor that his son could not pass his degree without the payment of £800 for recognised debts,--then his anger boiled over, and he told John Caldigate that he was expelled from his father's heart and his father's house.
The money was paid and the degree was taken: and there arose the question as to what was to be done. John, of course, took himself to Babington House, and was condoled with by his uncle and cousins. His troubles at this time were numerous enough. That £800 by no means summed up his whole indebtedness;--covered indeed but a small part of it. He had been at Newmarket; and there was a pleasant gentleman, named Davis, who frequented that place and Cambridge, who had been very civil to him when he lost a little money, and who now held his acceptances for, alas! much more than £800. Even uncle Babington knew nothing of this when the degree was taken. And then there came a terrible blow to him. Aunt Babington,--aunt Polly as she was called,--got him into her own closet upstairs, where she kept her linen and her jams and favourite liqueurs, and told him that his cousin Julia was dying in love for him. After all that had passed, of course it was expected he would engage himself to his cousin Julia. Now Julia was the eldest, the thickest-ankled, and the cherry-cheekedest of the lot. To him up to that time the Babington folk had always been a unit. No one else had been so good-natured to him, had so petted him, and so freely administered to all his wants. He would kiss them all round whenever he went to Babington; but he had not kissed Julia more than her sisters. There were three sons, whom he never specially liked, and who certainly were fools. One was the heir, and, of course, did nothing; the second was struggling for a degree at Oxford with an eye to the family living; the third was in a fair way to become the family gamekeeper. He certainly did not wish to marry into the family;--and yet they had all been so kind to him!
'I should have nothing to marry on, aunt Polly,' he said.
Then he was reminded that he was his father's heir, and that his father's house was sadly in want of a mistress. They could live at Babington till Folking should be ready. The prospect was awful!
What is a young man to say in such a position? 'I do not love the young lady after that fashion, and therefore I must decline.' It requires a hero, and a cold-blooded hero, to do that. And aunt Polly was very much in earnest, for she brought Julia into the room, and absolutely delivered her up into the young man's arms.
'I am so much in debt,' he said, 'that I don't care to think of it.'
Aunt Polly declared that such debts did not signify in the least. Folking was not embarrassed. Folking did not owe a shilling. Every one knew that. And there was Julia in his arms! He never said that he would marry her; but when he left the linen-closet the two ladies understood that the thing was arranged.
Luckily for him aunt Polly had postponed this scene till the moment before his departure from the house. He was at this time going to Cambridge, where he was to be the guest, for one night, of a certain Mr. Bolton, who was one of the very few friends to whom his father was still attached. Mr. Bolton was a banker, living close to Cambridge, an old man now, with four sons and one daughter; and to his house John Caldigate was going in order that he might there discuss with Mr. Bolton certain propositions which had been made between him and his father respecting the Folking property. The father had now realised the idea of buying his son out; and John himself, who had all the world and all his life before him, and was terribly conscious of the obligations which he owed to his friend Davis, had got into his head a notion that he would prefer to face his fortune with a sum of ready money, than to wait in absolute poverty for the reversion of the family estate. He had his own ideas, and in furtherance of them he had made certain inquiries. There was gold being found at this moment among the mountains of New South Wales, in quantities which captivated his imagination. And this was being done in a most lovely spot, among circumstances which were in all respects romantic. His friend, Richard Shand, who was also a Trinity man, was quite resolved to go out, and he was minded to accompany his friend. In this way, and, as he thought, in this way only, could a final settlement be made with that most assiduous of attendants, Mr. Davis. His mind was fully set upon New South Wales, and his little interview with his cousin Julia did not tend to bind him more closely to his own country, or to Babington, or to Folking.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
2 | None | Puritan Grange Perhaps there had been a little treachery on the part of Mr. Davis, for he had, in a gently insinuating way, made known to the Squire the fact of those acceptances, and the additional fact that he was, through unforeseen circumstances, lamentably in want of ready money. The Squire became eloquent, and assured Mr. Davis that he would not pay a penny to save either Mr. Davis or his son from instant imprisonment,--or even from absolute starvation. Then Mr. Davis shrugged his shoulders, and whispered the word, 'Post-obits.' The Squire, thereupon threatened to kick him out of the house, and, on the next day, paid a visit to his friend Mr. Bolton. There had, after that, been a long correspondence between the father, the son, and Mr. Bolton, as to which John Caldigate said not a word to the Babingtons. Had he been more communicative, he might have perhaps saved himself from that scene in the linen-closet. As it was, when he started for Cambridge, nothing was known at Babington either of Mr. Davis or of the New South Wales scheme.
Mr. Bolton lived in a large red-brick house, in the village of Chesterton, near to Cambridge, which, with a large garden, was surrounded by an old, high, dark-coloured brick-wall. He rarely saw any company; and there were probably not many of the more recently imported inhabitants of the town who had ever been inside the elaborate iron gates by which the place was to be approached. He had been a banker all his life, and was still reported to be the senior partner in Bolton's bank. But the management of the concern had, in truth, been given up to his two elder sons. His third son was a barrister in London, and a fourth was settled in Cambridge as a solicitor. These men were all married, and were doing well in the world, living in houses better than their father's, and spending a great deal more money. Mr. Bolton had the name of being a hard man, because, having begun life in small circumstances, he had never learned to chuck his shillings about easily; but he had, in a most liberal manner, made over the bulk of his fortune to his sons; and though he himself could rarely be got to sit at their tables, he took delight in hearing that they lived bounteously with their friends. He had been twice married, and there now lived with him his second wife and a daughter, Hester,--a girl about sixteen years of age at the period of John Caldigate's visit to Puritan Grange, as Mr. Bolton's house was called. At this time Puritan Grange was not badly named; for Mrs. Bolton was a lady of stern life, and Hester Bolton was brought up with more of seclusion and religious observances than are now common in our houses.
Mr. Bolton was probably ten years older than the Squire of Folking; but circumstances had, in early life, made them fast friends. The old Squire had owed a large sum of money to the bank, and Mr. Bolton had then been attracted by the manner in which the son had set himself to work, so that he might not be a burden on the estate. They had been fast friends for a quarter of a century, and now the arrangement of terms between the present Squire and his son had been left to Mr. Bolton.
Mr. Bolton had, no doubt, received a very unfavourable account of the young man. Men, such as was Mr. Bolton, who make their money by lending it out at recognised rates of interest,--and who are generally very keen in looking after their principal,--have no mercy whatsoever for the Davises of creation, and very little for their customers. To have had dealings with a Davis is condemnation in their eyes. Mr. Bolton would not, therefore, have opened his gates to this spendthrift had not his feelings for the father been very strong. He had thought much upon the matter, and had tried hard to dissuade the Squire. He, the banker, was not particularly attached to the theory of primogeniture. He had divided his wealth equally between his own sons. But he had a strong idea as to property and its rights. The young man's claim to Folking after his father's death was as valid as the father's claim during his life. No doubt, the severance of the entail, if made at all, would be made in accordance with the young man's wishes, and on certain terms which should be declared to be just by persons able to compute the value of such rights. No doubt, also,--so Mr. Bolton thought,--the property would be utterly squandered if left in its present condition. It would be ruined by incumbrances in the shape of post-obits. All this had been deeply considered, and at last Mr. Bolton had consented to act between the father and the son.
When John Caldigate was driven up through the iron gates to Mr. Bolton's door, his mind was not quite at ease within him. He had seen Mr. Bolton on two or three occasions during his University career, and had called at the house; but he had never entered it, and had never seen the ladies; and now it was necessary that he should discuss his own follies, and own all his faults. Of course, that which he was going to do would, in the eyes of the British world, be considered very unwise. The British world regards the position of heirship to acres as the most desirable which a young man could hold. That he was about to abandon. But, as he told himself, without abandoning it he could not rid himself from the horror of Davis. He was quite prepared to acknowledge his own vice and childish stupidity in regard to Davis. He had looked all round that now, and was sure that he would do nothing of the kind again. But how could he get rid of Davis in any other way than this? And then Folking had no charms for him. He hated Folking. He was certain that any life would suit him better than a life to be passed as squire of Folking. And he was quite alive to the fact that, though there was at home the prospect of future position and future income, for the present, there would be nothing. Were he to submit himself humbly to his father, he might probably be allowed to vegetate at the old family home. But there was no career for him. No profession had as yet been even proposed. His father was fifty-five, a very healthy man,--likely to live for the next twenty years. And then it would be impossible that he should dwell in peace under the same roof with his father. And Davis! Life would be miserable to him if he could not free himself from that thraldom. The sum of money which was to be offered to him, and which was to be raised on the Folking property, would enable him to pay Davis, and to start upon his career with plentiful means in his pocket. He would, too, be wise and not risk all his capital. Shand had a couple of thousand pounds, and he would start with a like sum of his own. Should he fail in New South Wales, there would still be something on which to begin again. With his mind thus fixed, he entered Mr. Bolton's gates.
He was to stay one night at Puritan Grange; and then, if the matter were arranged, he would go over to Folking for a day or two, and endeavour to part from his father on friendly terms. In that case he would be able to pay Davis himself, and there need be no ground for quarrelling on that score.
Before dinner the matter was settled at the Grange. The stern old man bade his visitor sit down, and then explained to him at full length that which it was proposed to do. So much money the Squire had himself put by; so much more Mr. Bolton himself would advance; the value had been properly computed; and, should the arrangement be completed, he, John Caldigate, would sell his inheritance at its proper price. Over and over again the young man endeavoured to interrupt the speaker, but was told to postpone his words till the other should have done. Such interruptions came from the too evident fact that Mr. Bolton thoroughly despised his guest. Caldigate, though he had been very foolish, though he had loved to slaughter rats and rabbits, and to romp with the girls at Babington, was by no means a fool. He was possessed of good natural abilities, of great activity, and of a high spirit. His appreciation was quicker than that of the old banker, who, as he soon saw, had altogether failed to understand him. In every word that the banker spoke, it was evident that he thought that these thousands would be squandered instantly. The banker spoke as though this terrible severance was to be made because the natural heir had shown himself to be irrevocably bad. What could be expected from a youth who was deep in the books of a Davis before he had left his college? 'I do not recommend this,' he said at last. 'I have never recommended it. The disruption is so great as to be awful. But when your father has asked what better step he could take, I have been unable to advise him.' It was as though the old man were telling the young one that he was too bad for hope, and that, therefore, he must be consigned for ever to perdition.
Caldigate, conscious of the mistake which the banker was making, full of hope as to himself, intending to acknowledge the follies of which he had been guilty, and, at the same time, not to promise,--for he would not condescend so far,--but to profess that they were things of the past, and impatient of the judgment expressed against him, endeavoured to stop the old man in his severity, so that the tone in which the business was being done might be altered. But when he found that he could not do this without offence, he leaned back in his chair, and heard the indictment to the end. 'Now, Mr. Bolton,' he said, when at length his time came, 'you shall hear my view of the matter.' And Mr. Bolton did hear him, listening very patiently. Caldigate first asserted, that in coming there, to Puritan Grange, his object had been to learn what were the terms proposed,--as to which he was now willing to give his assent. He had already quite made up his mind to sell what property he had on the estate, and therefore, though he was much indebted to Mr. Bolton for his disinterested and kind friendship, he was hardly in want of counsel on that matter. Mr. Bolton raised his eyebrows, but still listened patiently. Caldigate then went on to explain his views as to life, declaring that under no circumstances--had there been no Davis--would he have consented to remain at Folking as a deputy-squire, waiting to take up his position some twenty years hence at his father's death. Nor, even were Folking his own at this moment, would he live there! He must do something; and, upon the whole, he thought that gold-mining in the colonies was the most congenial pursuit to which he could put his hand. Then he made a frank acknowledgment as to Davis and his gambling follies, and ended by saying that the matter might be regarded as settled.
He had certainly been successful in changing the old man's opinion. Mr. Bolton did not say as much, nor was he a man likely to make such acknowledgment; but when he led John Caldigate away to be introduced to his wife in the drawing-room, he felt less of disdain for his guest than he had done half an hour before. Mr. Bolton was a silent, cautious man, even in his own family, and had said nothing of this business to his wife, and nothing, of course, to his daughter. Mrs. Bolton asked after the Squire, and expressed a hope that her guest would not find the house very dull for one night. She had heard that John Caldigate was a fast young man, and of course regarded him as a lost sinner. Hester, who was with her mother, looked at him with all her young big eyes, but did not speak a word. It was very seldom that she saw any young man, or indeed young people of either sex. But when this stranger spoke freely to her mother about this subject and the other, she listened to him and was interested.
John Caldigate, without being absolutely handsome, was a youth sure to find favour in a woman's eyes. He was about five feet ten in height, strong and very active, with bright dark eyes which were full of life and intelligence. His forehead was square and showed the angles of his brow; his hair was dark and thick and cut somewhat short; his mouth was large, but full of expression and generally, also, of good-humour. His nose would have been well formed, but that it was a little snubbed at the end. Altogether his face gave you the idea of will, intellect, and a kindly nature; but there was in it a promise, too, of occasional anger, and a physiognomist might perhaps have expected from it that vacillation in conduct which had hitherto led him from better things into wretched faults.
As he was talking to Mrs. Bolton he had observed the girl, who sat apart, with her fingers busy on her work, and who had hardly spoken a word since his entrance. She was, he thought, the most lovely human being that he had ever beheld; and yet she was hardly more than a child. But how different from those girls at Babington! Her bright brown hair was simply brushed from off her forehead and tied in a knot behind her head. Her dress was as plain as a child's,--as though it was intended that she should still be regarded as a child. Her face was very fair, with large, grey, thoughtful eyes, and a mouth which, though as Caldigate watched her it was never opened, seemed always as if it was just about to pour forth words. And he could see that though her eyes were intent upon her work, from time to time she looked across at him; and he thought that if only they two were alone together, he could teach her to speak.
But no such opportunity was given to him now, or during his short sojourn at the Grange. After a while the old man returned to the room and took him up to his bed-chamber. It was then about half-past four, and he was told that they were to dine at six. It was early in November,--not cold enough for bedroom fires among thrifty people, and there he was left, apparently to spend an hour with nothing to do. Rebelling against this, declaring that even at Puritan Grange he would be master of his own actions, he rushed down into the hall, took his hat, and walked off into the town. He would go and take one last look at the old college.
He went in through the great gate and across the yard, and passing by the well-known buttery-hatches, looked into the old hall for the last time. The men were all seated at dinner, and he could see the fellows up at the high table. Three years ago it had been his fixed resolve to earn for himself the right to sit upon that dais. He had then been sure of himself,--that he would do well, and take honours, and win a fellowship. There had been moments in which he had thought that a college life would suit him till he came into his own property. But how had all that faded away! Everybody had congratulated him on the ease with which he did his work,--and the result had been Newmarket, Davis, and a long score in the ephemeral records of a cricket match. As he stood there, with his slouched hat over his eyes, one of the college servants recognised him, and called him by his name. Then he passed on quickly, and made his way out to the gravel-walk by the river-side. It was not yet closed for the night, and he went on, that he might take one last turn up and down the old avenue.
He had certainly made a failure of his life so far. He did acknowledge to himself that there was something nobler in these classic shades than in the ore-laden dirt of an Australian gold-gully. He knew as much of the world as that. He had not hitherto chosen the better part, and now something of regret, even as to Folking,--poor old Folking,--came upon him. He was, as it were, being kicked out and repudiated by his own family as worthless. And what was he to do about Julia Babington? After that scene in the linen-closet, he could not leave his country without a word either to Julia or to aunt Polly. But the idea of Julia was doubly distasteful to him since that lovely vision of young female simplicity had shone upon him from the corner of Mrs. Bolton's drawing-room. Romping with the Babington girls was all very well; but if he could only feel the tips of that girl's fingers come within the grasp of his hand! Then he thought that it would lend a fine romance to his life if he could resolve to come back, when he should be laden with gold, and make Hester Bolton his wife. It should be his romance, and he swore that he would cling to it.
He turned back, and came down to dinner five minutes after the time. At ten minutes before dinner-time Mr. Bolton heard that he was gone out and was offended,--thinking it quite possible that he would not return at all. What might not be expected from a young man who could so easily abandon his inheritance! But he was there, only five minutes after the time, and the dinner was eaten almost in silence. In the evening there was tea, and the coldest shivering attempt at conversation for half an hour, during which he could still at moments catch the glance of Hester's eyes, and see the moving curve of her lips. Then there was a reading of the Bible, and prayer, and before ten he was in his bed-room.
On the next morning as he took his departure, Mr. Bolton said a word intended to be gracious. 'I hope you may succeed in your enterprise, Mr. Caldigate.'
'Why should I not as well as another?' said John, cheerily.
'If you are steady, sober, industrious, self-denying and honest, you probably will,' replied the banker.
'To promise all that would be to promise too much,' said John. 'But I mean to make an effort.'
Then at that moment he made one effort which was successful. For an instant he held Hester's fingers within his hand.
| {
"id": "11643"
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3 | None | Daniel Caldigate That piece of business was done. It was one of the disagreeable things which he had had to do before he could get away to the gold-diggings, and it was done. Now he had to say farewell to his father, and that would be a harder task. As the moment was coming in which he must bid adieu to his father, perhaps for ever, and bid adieu to the old place which, though he despised it, he still loved, his heart was heavy within him. He felt sure that his father had no special regard for him;--in which he was, of course, altogether wrong, and the old man was equally wrong in supposing that his son was unnaturally deficient in filial affection. But they had never known each other, and were so different that neither had understood the other. The son, however, was ready to confess to himself that the chief fault had been with himself. It was natural, he thought, that a father's regard should be deadened by such conduct as his had been, and natural that an old man should not believe in the quick repentance and improvement of a young one.
He hired a gig and drove himself over from Cambridge to Folking. As he got near to the place, and passed along the dikes, and looked to the right and left down the droves, and trotted at last over the Folking bridge across the Middle Wash, the country did not seem to him to be so unattractive as of yore; and when he recognised the faces of the neighbours, when one of the tenants spoke to him kindly, and the girls dropped a curtsey as he passed, certain soft regrets began to crop up in his mind. After all, there is a comfort in the feeling of property--not simply its money comfort, but in the stability and reputation of a recognised home. Six months ago there had seemed to him to be something ridiculous in the idea of a permanent connection between the names of Caldigate and Folking. It was absurd that, with so wild and beautiful a world around him, he should be called upon to live in a washy fen because his father and grandfather had been unfortunate enough to do so. And then, at that time, all sympathy with bricks and mortar, any affection for special trees or well-known home-haunts, was absurd in his eyes. And as his father had been harsh to him, and did not like him, would it not be better that they should be far apart? It was thus that he had reasoned. But now all that was changed. An unwonted tenderness had come upon his spirit. The very sallows by the brook seemed to appeal to him. As he saw the house chimneys through the trees, he remembered that they had carried smoke from the hearths of many generations of Caldigates. He remembered, too, that his father would soon be old, and would be alone. It seemed to himself that his very mind and spirit were altered.
But all that was too late. He had agreed to the terms proposed; and even were he now to repudiate them, what could he do with Davis, and how could he live for the present? Not for a moment did he entertain such an idea, but he had lost that alacrity of spirit which had been his when he first found the way out of his difficulties.
His father did not come forth to meet him. He went in across the hall and through the library, into a little closet beyond, in which Mr. Caldigate was wont to sit. 'Well, John,' said the old man, 'how have you and Mr. Bolton got on together?'
There seemed to be something terribly cold in this. It might be better that they should part,--better even, though the parting should be for ever. It might be right;--nay, he knew that it was right that he should be thrust out of the inheritance. He had spent money that was not his own, and, of course, he must pay the debt. But that his father should sit there in his chair on his entrance, not even rising to greet him, and should refer at once to Mr. Bolton and that business arrangement, as though that, and that alone, need now be discussed, did seem to him to be almost cruel. Of all that his father had suffered in constraining himself to this conduct, he understood nothing. 'Mr. Bolton made himself very plain, sir.'
'He would be sure to do so. He is a man of business and intelligent. But as to the terms proposed, were they what you had expected?'
'Quite as good as I had expected.'
'Whether good or bad, of course you will understand that I have had nothing to do with them. The matter has been referred to two gentlemen conversant with such subjects; and, after due inquiry, they told Mr. Bolton what was the money value of your rights. It is a question to be settled as easily as the price of a ton of coals or a joint of beef. But you must understand that I have not interfered.'
'I am quite aware of that, sir.'
'As for the money, something over a third of it is in my own hands. I have not been extravagant myself, and have saved so much. The remainder will come out of Mr. Bolton's bank, and will be lent on mortgage. I certainly shall not have cause for extravagance now, living here alone; and shall endeavour to free the estate from the burden by degrees. When I die, it will, in accordance with my present purpose, go to your cousin George.' As this was said, John thought he perceived something like a quiver in his father's voice, which, up to that point, had been hard, clear, and unshaken. 'As to that, however, I do not intend to pledge myself,' he continued. 'The estate will now be my own, subject to the claim from Messrs. Bolton's bank. I don't know that there is anything else to be said.'
'Not about business, sir.'
'And it is business, I suppose, that has brought you here,--and to Cambridge. I do not know what little things you have of your own in the house.'
'Not much, sir.'
'If there be anything that you wish to take, take it. But with you now, I suppose, money is the only possession that has any value.'
'I should like to have the small portrait of you,--the miniature.'
'The miniature of me,' said the father, almost scoffingly, looking up at his son's face, suspiciously. And yet, though he would not show it, he was touched. Only if this were a ruse on the part of the young man, a mock sentiment, a little got-up theatrical pretence,--then,--then how disgraced he would be in his own estimation at having been moved by such mockery!
The son stood square before his father, disdaining any attempt to evince a supplicating tenderness either by his voice or by his features. 'But, perhaps, you have a special value for it,' he said.
'No, indeed. It is others, not oneself, that ought to have such trifles,--that is, if they are of value at all.'
'There is none but myself that can care much for it.'
'There is no one to care at all. No one else that is,' he added, wishing to avoid any further declaration. 'Take that or anything else you want in the house. There will be things left, I suppose,--clothes and books and suchlike.'
'Hardly anything, sir. Going so far, I had better give them away. A few books I shall take.' Then the conversation was over; and in a few minutes John Caldigate found himself roaming alone about the place.
It was so probable that he might never see it again! Indeed it seemed to him now that were he to return to England with a fortune made, he would hardly come to Folking. Years and years must roll by before that could be done. If he could only come back to Cambridge and fetch that wife away with him, then he thought it would be better for him to live far from England, whether he were rich or whether he were poor. It was quite evident that his father's heart was turned from him altogether. Of course he had himself to blame,--himself only; but still it was strange to him that a father should feel no tenderness at parting with an only son. While he had been in the room he had constrained himself manfully; not a drop of moisture had glittered in his eye; not a tone of feeling had thrilled in his voice; his features had never failed him. There had always been that look of audacity on his brow joined to a certain manliness of good-humour in his mouth, as though he had been thoroughly master of himself and the situation. But now, as he pushed his hat from off his forehead, he rubbed his hand across his eyes to dash away the tears. He felt almost inclined to rush back to the house and fall on his knees before his father, and kiss the old man's hands, and beg the old man's blessing. But though he was potent for much he was not potent for that. Such expression of tenderness would have been true; but he knew that he would so break down in the attempt as to make it seem to be false.
He got out upon Twopenny Drove and passed over the ferry, meaning to walk across the farm and so out on to the Causeway, and round home by the bridge. But on the other side of the Wash he encountered Mr. Ralph Holt, the occupier of Twopenny farm, whose father also and grandfather had lived upon the same acres. 'And so thou be'est going away from us, Mr. John,' said the farmer, with real tenderness, almost with solemnity, in his voice, although there was at the same time something ridiculous in the far-fetched sadness of his tone and gait.
'Yes, indeed, Holt, I want to travel and see the world at a distance from here.'
'If it was no more than that, Mr. John, there would be nothing about it. Zeeing the world! You young collegers allays does that. But be'est thou to come back and be Squoire o'Folking?'
'I think not, Holt, I think not. My father, I hope, will be Squire for many a year.'
'Like enough. And we all hope that, for there aren't nowhere a juster man nor the Squoire, and he's hale and hearty. But in course of things his time'll run out. And it be so, Mr. John, that thou be'est going for ever and allays?'
'I rather think I am.'
'It's wrong, Mr. John. Though maybe I'm making over-free to talk of what don't concern me. Yet I say it's wrong. Sons should come arter fathers, specially where there's land. We don't none of us like it;--none of us! It's worse nor going, any one of ourselves. For what's a lease? But when a man has a freehold he should stick to it for ever and aye. It's just as though the old place was a-tumbling about all our ears.' Caldigate was good-natured with the man, trying to make him understand that everything was being done for the best. And at last he bade him good-bye affectionately, shaking hands with him, and going into the farmhouse to perform the same ceremony with his wife and daughters. But to the last Ralph Holt was uncomfortable and dismal, foretelling miseries. It was clear that, to his thinking, the stability of this world was undermined and destroyed by the very contemplation of such a proceeding as this.
Caldigate pursued his walk, and in the course of it bade farewell to more than one old friend. None of them were so expressive as Holt, but he could perceive that he was regarded by all of them as a person who, by his conduct, was bringing misfortune, not only on himself, but on the whole parishes of Utterden and Netherden.
At dinner the Squire conversed upon various subjects if not easily to himself, at least with affected ease. Had he applied himself to subjects altogether indifferent,--to the state of politics, or the Game Laws, or the absurdities of a State Church, the unfitness of such matters for the occasion would have been too apparent. Both he and his son would have broken down in the attempt. But he could talk about Babington,--abusing the old family,--and even about himself, and about New South Wales, and gold, and the coming voyage, without touching points which had been, and would be, specially painful. Not a word had ever been spoken between them as to Davis. There had, of course, been letters, very angry letters; but the usurer's name had never been mentioned. Nor was there any need that it should be mentioned now. It was John's affair,--not in any way his. So he asked and listened to much about Richard Shand, and the mode of gold-finding practised among the diggings in New South Wales.
When the old butler had gone he was even more free, speaking of things that were past, not only without anger, but, as far as possible, without chagrin,--treating his son as a person altogether free from any control of his. 'I dare say it is all for the best,' he said.
'It is well at any rate to try to think so, sir,' replied John, conscience-stricken as to his own faults.
'I doubt whether there would have been anything for you to do here,--or at least anything that you would have done. You would have had too much ambition to manage this little estate under me, and not enough of industry, I fear, to carry you to the front in any of the professions. I used to think of the bar.'
'And so did I.' 'But when I found that the Babingtons had got hold of you, and that you liked horses and guns, better than words and arguments----' 'I never did, sir.'
'It seemed so.'
'Of course I have been weak.'
'Do not suppose for a moment that I am finding fault. It would be of no avail, and I would not thus embitter our last hours together. But when I saw how your tastes seemed to lead you, I began to fear that there could be no career for you here. On such a property as Babington an eldest son may vegetate like his father before him, and may succeed to it in due time, before he has wasted everything, and may die as he had lived, useless, but having to the end all the enjoyments of a swine.'
'You are severe upon my cousins, sir.'
'I say what I think. But you would not have done that. And though you are not industrious, you are far too active and too clever for such a life. Now you are probably in earnest as to the future.'
'Yes, I am certainly in earnest.'
'And though you are going to risk your capital in a precarious business, you will only be doing what is done daily by enterprising men. I could wish that your position were more secure;--but that now cannot be helped.'
'My bed is as I have made it. I quite understand that, sir.'
'Thinking of all this, I have endeavoured to reconcile myself to your going.' Then he paused a moment, considering what he should next say. And his son was silent, knowing that something further was to come. 'Had you remained in England we could hardly have lived together as father and son should live. You would have been dependent on me, and would have rebelled against that submission which a state of dependence demands. There would have been nothing for you but to have waited,--and almost to have wished, for my death.'
'No, sir; never; never that.'
'It would have been no more than natural. I shall hear from you sometimes?'
'Certainly, sir.'
'It will give an interest to my life if you will write occasionally. Whither do you go to-morrow?'
It had certainly been presumed, though never said, that this last visit to the old home was to be only for one day. The hired gig had been kept; and in his letter the son had asked whether he could be taken in for Thursday night. But now the proposition that he should go so soon seemed to imply a cold-blooded want of feeling on his part. 'I need not be in such a hurry, sir,' he said.
'Of course, it shall be as you please, but I do not know that you will do any good by staying. A last month may be pleasant enough, or even a last week, but a last day is purgatory. The melancholy of the occasion cannot be shaken off. It is only the prolonged wail of a last farewell.' All this was said in the old man's ordinary voice, but it seemed to betoken if not feeling itself, a recognition of feeling which the son had not expected.
'It is very sad,' said the son.
'Therefore, why prolong it? Stand not upon the order of your going but go at once,--seeing that it is necessary that you should go. Will you take any more wine? No? Then let us go into the other room. As they are making company of you and have lighted another fire, we will do as they would have us.' Then for the rest of the evening there was some talk about books, and the father, who was greatly given to reading, explained to his son what kind of literature would, as he thought, fit in best with the life of a gold-digger.
After what had passed, Caldigate, of course, took his departure on the following morning. Good-bye said the old man, as the son grasped his hand, 'Good-bye.' He made no overture to come even as far as the hall in making this his final adieu.
'I trust I may return to see you in health.'
'It may be so. As to that we can say nothing. Good-bye.' Then, when the son had turned his back, the father recalled him, by a murmur rather than by a word,--but in that moment he had resolved to give way a little to the demands of nature. Good-bye my son,' he said, in a low voice, very solemnly; 'May God bless you and preserve you.' Then he turned back at once to his own closet.
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} |
4 | None | The Shands John Caldigate had promised to go direct from Folking to the house of his friend Richard Shand, or rather, to the house in which lived Richard Shand's father and family. The two young men had much to arrange together, and this had been thought to be expedient. When Caldigate, remembering how affairs were at his own home, had suggested that at so sad a moment he might be found to be in the way, Shand had assured him that there would be no sadness at all. 'We are not a sentimental race,' he had said. 'There are a dozen of us, and the sooner some of us disperse ourselves, the more room will there be in the nest for the others.'
Shand had been Caldigate's most intimate friend at college through the whole period of their residence, and now he was to be his companion in a still more intimate alliance. And yet, though he liked the man, he did not altogether approve of him. Shand had also got into debt at Cambridge, but had not paid his debts; and had dealings also with Davis, as to which he was now quite indifferent. He had left the University without taking a degree, and had seemed to bear all these adversities with perfect equanimity. There had not been hitherto much of veneration in Caldigate's character, but even he had, on occasions, been almost shocked at the want of respect evinced by his friend for conventional rules. All college discipline, all college authorities, all university traditions had been despised by Shand, who even in his dress had departed as far from recognised customs and fashions among the men as from the requisitions of the statutes and the milder requirements of the dignitaries of the day. Now, though he could not pay his debts,--and intended, indeed, to run away from them,--he was going to try his fortune with a certain small capital which his father had agreed to give him as his share of what there might be of the good things of the world among the Shands generally. As Shand himself said of both of them, he was about to go forth as a prodigal son, with a perfect assurance that, should he come back empty-handed, no calf would be killed for him. But he was an active man, with a dash of fun, and perhaps a sprinkling of wit, quick and brave, to whom life was apparently a joke, and who boasted of himself that, though he was very fond of beef and beer, he could live on bread and water, if put to it, without complaining. Caldigate almost feared that the man was a dangerous companion, but still there was a certain fitness about him for the thing contemplated; and, for such a venture, where could he find any other companion who would be fit?
Dr. Shand, the father, was a physician enjoying a considerable amount of provincial eminence in a small town in Essex. Here he had certainly been a succesful man; for, with all the weight of such a family on his back, he had managed to save some money. There had been small legacies from other Shands, and trifles of portion had come to them from the Potters, of whom Mrs. Shand had been one,--Shand and Potter having been wholesale druggists in Smithfield. The young Shands had generally lived a pleasant life; had gone to school,--the eldest son, as we have seen, to the university also,--and had had governesses, and ponies to ride, and had been great at dancing, and had shot arrows, and played Badminton, and been subject to but little domestic discipline. They had lived crowded together in a great red-brick house, plenteously, roughly, quarrelling continually, but very fond of each other in their own way, and were known throughout that side of the country as a happy family. The girls had always gloves and shoes for dancing, and the boys had enjoyed a considerable amount of shooting and hunting without owning either guns or horses of their own. Now Dick was to go in quest of a fortune, and all the girls were stitching shirts for him, and were as happy as possible. Not a word was said about his debts, and no one threw it in his teeth that he had failed to take a degree. It was known of the Shands that they always made the best of everything.
When Caldigate got out of the railway carriage at Pollington, he was still melancholy with the remembrance of all that he had done and all that he had lost, and he expected to find something of the same feeling at his friend's house. But before he had been there an hour he was laughing with the girls as though such an enterprise as theirs was the best joke in the world. And when a day and a night had passed, Mrs. Shand was deep among his shirts and socks, and had already given him much advice about flannel and soft soap. 'I know Maria would like to go out with you,' said the youngest daughter on the third day, a girl of twelve years old, who ought to have known better, and who, nevertheless, knew more than she ought to have done.
'Indeed Maria would like nothing of the kind,' said the young lady in question.
'Only, Mr. Caldigate, of course you would have to marry her.' Then the child was cuffed, and Maria declared that the proposed arrangement would suit neither her nor Mr. Caldigate in the least. The eldest daughter, Harriet, was engaged to marry a young clergyman in the neighbourhood, which event, however, was to be postponed till he had got a living; and the second, Matilda, was under a cloud because she would persist in being in love with Lieutenant Postlethwaite, of the Dragoons, whose regiment was quartered in the town. Maria was the third. All these family secrets were told to him quite openly as well as the fact that Josh, the third son, was to become a farmer because he could not be got to learn the multiplication table.
Between Pollington and London, Caldigate remained for six weeks, during which time he fitted himself out, took his passage, and executed the necessary deeds as to the estate. It might have been pleasant enough,--this little interval before his voyage,--as the Shands, though rough and coarse, were kind to him and good-humoured, had it not been that a great trouble befell him through over conscientiousness as to a certain matter. After what had passed at Babington House, it was expedient that he should, before he started for New South Wales, give some notice to his relatives there, so that Julia might know that destiny did not intend her to become Mrs. Caldigate of Folking. Aunt Polly had, no doubt, been too forward in that matter, and in wishing to dispose of her daughter had put herself in the way of merited rebuke and disappointment. It was, however, not the less necessary that she should be told of the altered circumstances of her wished-for son-in-law. But, had he been wise, he would so have written his letter that no answer should reach him before he had left the shores of England. His conscience, however, pinched him, and before he had even settled the day on which he would start, he wrote to his aunt a long letter in which he told her everything,--how he had disposed of his inheritance,--how he had become so indebted to Davis as to have to seek a new fortune out of England,--how he had bade farewell to Folking for ever,--and how impossible it was under all these circumstances that he should aspire to the hand of his cousin Julia.
It was as though a thunderbolt had fallen among them at Babington. Mr. Babington himself was certainly not a clever man, but he knew enough of his own position, as an owner of acres, to be very proud of it, and he was affectionate enough towards his nephew to feel the full weight of this terrible disruption. It seemed to him that his brother-in-law, Daniel Caldigate, was doing a very wicked thing, and he hurried across the country, to Folking, that he might say so. 'You have not sense enough to understand the matter,' said Daniel Caldigate. 'You have no heart in your bowels if you can disinherit an only son,' said the big squire. 'Never mind where I carry my heart,' said the smaller squire; 'but it is a pity you should carry so small an amount of brain.' No good could be done by such a meeting as that, nor by the journey which aunt Polly took to Pollington. The Caldigates, both father and son, were gifted with too strong a will to be turned from their purpose by such interference. But a great deal of confusion was occasioned; and aunt Polly among the Shands was regarded as a very wonderful woman indeed. 'Oh, my son, my darling son!' she said, weeping on John Caldigate's shoulder. Now John Caldigate was certainly not her son, in the usual acceptation of the word, nor did Maria Shand believe that he was so even in that limited sense in which a daughter's husband may be so designated. It was altogether very disagreeable, and made our hero almost resolve to get on board the ship a week before it started from the Thames instead of going down to Plymouth and catching it at the last moment. Of course it would have been necessary that the Babingtons should know all about it sooner or later, but John very much regretted that he had not delayed his letter till the day before his departure.
There is something jovial when you are young in preparing for a long voyage and for totally altered circumstances in life, especially when the surroundings are in themselves not melancholy. A mother weeping over a banished child may be sad enough,--going as an exile when there is no hope of a return. But here among the Shands, with whom sons and daughters were plentiful, and with whom the feelings were of a useful kind, and likely to wear well, rather than of a romantic nature, the bustle, the purchasings, the arrangements, and the packings generally had in them a pleasantness of activity with no disagreeable accompaniments.
'I do hope you will wear them, Dick,' the mother said with something like a sob in her voice; but the tenderness came not from the approaching departure, but from her fear that the thick woollen drawers on which she was re-sewing all the buttons, should be neglected,--after Dick's usual fashion. 'Mr. Caldigate I hope you will see that he wears them. He looks strong, but indeed he is not.' Our hero who had always regarded his friend as a bull for strength of constitution generally, promised that he would be attentive to Dick's drawers.
'You may be sure that I shall wear them,' said Dick; 'but the time will come when I shall probably wear nothing else, so you had better make the buttons firm.'
Everything was to be done with strict economy, but yet there was plenty of money for purchases. There always is at such occasions. The quantity of clothes got together seemed to be more than any two men could ever wear; and among it all there were no dress-coats and no dress-trousers: or, if either of them had such articles, they were smuggled. The two young men were going out as miners, and took a delight in preparing themselves to be rough. Caldigate was at first somewhat modest in submitting his own belongings to the females of the establishment but that feeling soon wore off, and the markings and mendings, and buttonings and hemmings went on in a strictly impartial manner as though he himself were a chick out of the same brood.
'What will you do?' said the doctor, 'if you spend your capital and make nothing?'
'Work for wages,' said Dick. 'We shall have got, at any rate, enough experience out of our money to be able to do that. Men are getting 10s. a-day.'
'But you'd have to go on doing that always,' said the mother.
'Not at all. Of course it's a life of ups and downs. A man working for wages can put half what he earns into a claim, so that when a thing does come up trumps at last, he will have his chance. I have read a good deal about it now. There is plenty to be got if a man only knows how to keep it.'
'Drinking is the worst,' said the doctor.
'I think I can trust myself for that,' said Dick, whose hand at the moment was on a bottle of whisky, and who had been by no means averse to jollifications at Cambridge. 'A miner when he's at work should never drink.'
'Nor when he's not at work, if he wants to keep what he earns.'
'I'm not going to take the pledge, or anything of that kind,' continued the son, 'but I think I know enough of it all, not to fall into that pit.' During this discussion, Caldigate sat silent, for he had already had various conversations on this subject with his friend. He had entertained some fears, which were not, perhaps, quite removed by Dick's manly assurances.
A cabin had been taken for the joint use of the young men on board the Goldfinder, a large steamer which was running at the time from London to Melbourne, doing the voyage generally in about two months. But they were going as second-class passengers and their accommodation therefore was limited. Dick had insisted on this economy, which was hardly necessary to Caldigate, and which was not absolutely pressed upon the other. But Dick had insisted. 'Let us begin as we mean to go on,' he had said; 'of course we've got to rough it. We shall come across something a good deal harder than second-class fare before we have made our fortunes, and worked probably with mates more uncouth than second-class passengers.' It was impossible to oppose counsel such as this, and therefore second-class tickets were taken on board the Goldfinder.
A terrible struggle was made during the last fortnight to prevent the going of John Caldigate. Mr. Babington was so shocked that he did not cease to stir himself. Allow a son to disinherit himself, merely because he had fallen into the hands of a money-lending Jew before he had left college! To have the whole condition of a property changed by such a simple accident! It was shocking to him; and he moved himself in the matter with much more energy than old Mr. Caldigate had expected from him. He wrote heartrending letters to Folking, in spite of the hard words which had been said to him there. He made a second journey to Cambridge, and endeavoured to frighten Mr. Bolton. Descent of acres from father to son was to him so holy a thing, that he was roused to unexpected energies. He was so far successful that Mr. Daniel Caldigate did write a long letter to his son, in which he offered to annul the whole proceeding. 'Your uncle accuses me of injustice,' he said. 'I have not been unjust. But there is no reason whatever why the arrangement should stand. Even if the money has been paid to Davis I will bear that loss rather than you should think that I have taken advantage of you in your troubles.' But John Caldigate was too firm and too determined for such retrogression. The money had been paid to Davis, and other monies had been used in other directions. He was quite contented with the bargain, and would certainly adhere to it.
Then came the last night before their departure; the evening before the day on which they were to go from Pollington to London, and from London to Plymouth. All the heavy packages, and all the clothes had, of course, been put on board the Goldfinder in the London docks. The pleasant task of preparation was at an end, and they were now to go forth upon their hard labours. Caldigate had become so intimate with the family, that it seemed as though a new life had sprung up for him, and that as he had parted from all that he then had of a family at Folking, he was now to break away from new ties under the doctor's roof. They had dined early, and at ten o'clock there was what Mrs. Shand called a little bit of supper. They were all of them high in heart, and very happy,--testifying their affection to the departing ones by helping them to the nicest bits, and by filling their tumblers the fullest. How it happened, no one could have said, but it did happen that, before the evening was over, Maria and Caldigate were together in a little room behind the front parlour. What still remained of their luggage was collected there, and this last visit had probably been made in order that the packages might be once more counted.
'It does seem so odd that you should be going,' she said.
'It is so odd to me that I should ever have come.'
'We had always heard of you since Dick went to Cambridge.'
'I knew that there were so many of you, and that was all. Brothers never talk of their sisters, I suppose. But I seem to know you now so well! You have been so kind to me!'
'Because you are Dick's friend.'
'I didn't suppose that it was anything else.'
'That's not nice of you, Mr. Caldigate. You know that we are all very fond of you. We shall be so anxious to hear. You will be good to him, won't you?'
'And he to me, I hope.'
'I think you are steadier than he is, and can do more for him than he can for you. I wonder, shall we ever see each other again, Mr. Caldigate?'
'Why not?'
'New South Wales is so far, and you will both marry there, and then you will not want to come back. I hope I may live to see dear Dick again some day.'
'But only Dick?'
'And you too, if you would care about it.'
'Of course I should care about it,' he said. And as he said so, of course he put his arm round her waist and kissed her. It did not mean much. She did not think it meant much. But it gave a little colouring of romance to that special moment of her life. He, when he went up to his bed, declared to himself that it meant nothing at all. He still had those large eyes clear before him, and was still fixed in his resolution to come back for them when some undefined point of his life should have passed by.
'Now,' said Dick Shand, as they were seated together in a third-class railway carriage on the following morning, 'now I feel that I am beginning life.'
'With proper resolutions, I hope, as to honesty, sobriety, and industry.'
'With a fixed determination to make a fortune, and come back, and be _facile princeps_ among all the Shands. I have already made up my mind as to the sum I will give each of the girls, and the way I will start the two younger boys in business. In the meantime let us light a pipe.'
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
5 | None | The Goldfinder There is no peculiar life more thoroughly apart from life in general, more unlike our usual life, more completely a life of itself, governed by its own rules and having its own roughnesses and amenities, than life on board ship. What tender friendship it produces, and what bitter enmities! How completely the society has formed itself into separate sets after the three or four first days! How thoroughly it is acknowledged that this is the aristocratic set, and that the plebeian! How determined are the aristocrats to admit no intrusion, and how anxious are the plebeians to intrude! Then there arises the great demagogue, who heads a party, having probably been disappointed in early life,--that is, in his first endeavours on board the ship. And the women have to acknowledge all their weaknesses, and to exercise all their strength. It is a bad time for them on board ship if they cannot secure the attention of the men,--as it is in the other world; but in order that they may secure it, they assume indifference. They assume indifference, but are hard at work with their usual weapons. The men can do very well by themselves. For them there is drinking, smoking, cards, and various games; but the potency of female spells soon works upon them, and all who are worth anything are more or less in love by the end of the first week. Of course it must all come to an end when the port is reached. That is understood, though there may sometimes be mistakes. Most pathetic secrets are told with the consciousness that they will be forgotten as soon as the ship is left. And there is the whole day for these occupations. No work is required from any one. The lawyer does not go to his court, nor the merchant to his desk. Pater-familias receives no bills; mater-familias orders no dinners. The daughter has no household linen to disturb her. The son is never recalled to his books. There is no parliament, no municipality, no vestry. There are neither rates nor taxes nor rents to be paid. The government is the softest despotism under which subjects were ever allowed to do almost just as they please. That the captain has a power is known, but hardly felt. He smiles on all, is responsible for everything, really rules the world submitted to him, from the setting of the sails down to the frying of the chops, and makes one fancy that there must be something wrong with men on shore because first-class nations cannot be governed like first-class ships.
The Goldfinder had on board her over a hundred first-class passengers, and nearly as many of the second class. The life among them was much of the same kind, though in the second class there was less of idleness, less of pleasure, and something more of an attempt to continue the ordinary industry of life. The women worked more and the men read more than their richer neighbours. But the love-making, and the fashion, and the mutiny against the fashion, were the same in one set as in the other. Our friends were at first subjected to an inconvenience which is always felt in such a position. They were known to have had saloon rather than second-class antecedents. Everybody had heard that they had been at Cambridge, and therefore they were at first avoided. And as they themselves were determined not to seek associates among their more aristocratic neighbours, they were left to themselves and solitary for some few days. But this was a condition not at all suited to Dick Shand's temperament, and it was not long before he had made both male and female acquaintances.
'Have you observed that woman in the brown straw hat?' Dick said to Caldigate, one morning, as they were leaning together on the forepart of the vessel against one of the pens in which the fowls were kept. They were both dressed according to the parts they were acting, and which they intended to act, as second-class passengers and future working miners. Any one knowing in such matters would have seen that they were over-dressed; for the real miner, when he is away from his work, puts on his best clothes, and endeavours to look as little rough as possible. And all this had no doubt been seen and felt, and discounted among our friends' fellow-passengers.
'I have seen her every day, of course,' said Caldigate, 'and have been looking at her for the last half hour.'
'She is looking at us now.'
'She seems to me to be very attentive to the stocking she is mending.'
'Just a woman's wiles. At this moment she can't hear us, but she knows pretty nearly what we are saying by the way our lips are going. Have you spoken to her?'
'I did say a word or two to her yesterday.'
'What did she say?'
'I don't recollect especially. She struck me as talking better than her gown, if you know what I mean.'
'She talks a great deal better than her gown,' said Dick. 'I don't quite know what to make of her. She says that she is going out to earn her bread; but when I asked her how, she either couldn't or wouldn't answer me. She is a mystery, and mysteries are always worth unravelling. I shall go to work and unravel her.'
At that moment the female of whom they were speaking got up from her seat on one of the spars which was bound upon the deck, folded up her work, and walked away. She was a remarkable woman, and certainly looked to be better than her gown, which was old and common enough. Caldigate had observed her frequently, and had been much struck by the word or two she had spoken to him on the preceding day. 'I should like ship-life well enough,' she had said, in answer to some ordinary question, 'if it led to nothing else.'
'You would not remain here for ever?'
'Certainly, if I could. There is plenty to eat, and a bed to sleep on, and no one to be afraid of. And though nobody knows me, everybody knows enough of me not to think that I ought to be taken to a police office because I have not gloves to my hands.'
'Don't you think it wearisome?' he had asked.
'Everything is wearisome; but here I have a proud feeling of having paid my way. To have settled in advance for your dinner for six weeks to come is a magnificent thing. If I get too tired of it I can throw myself overboard. You can't even do that in London without the police being down upon you. The only horror to me here is that there will so soon be an end to it.'
At that time he had not even heard her name, or known whether she were alone or joined to others. Then he had inquired, and a female fellow-passenger had informed him that she was a Mrs. Smith,--that she had seen better days, but had been married to a ne'er-do-well husband, who had drank himself to death within a year of their marriage, and that she was now going out to the colony, probably,--so the old lady said who was the informant,--in search of a second husband. She was to some extent, the old lady said, in charge of a distant relative, who was then on board, with a respectable husband and children, and who was very much ashamed of her poor connection. So much John Caldigate had heard.
Though he had heard this he did not feel inclined to tell it all to Dick Shand. Dick had professed his intention of unravelling the mystery, but Caldigate almost thought that he would like to unravel it himself. The woman was so constantly alone! And then, though she was ill-dressed, untidy, almost unkempt on occasions, still, through it all, there was something attractive about her. There was a brightness in her eye, and a courage about her mouth, which had made him think that, in spite of her appearance, she would be worth his attention--just for the voyage. When he had been speaking to herself they had been on the deck together, and it had been dusk and he had not been able to look her in the face; but while Shand had been speaking to him he had observed that she was very comely. And this was the more remarkable because it seemed to him to be so evident that she made the worst rather than the best of herself. She was quite a young woman;--probably, he thought, not more than three or four and twenty; and she was there, with many young men round her, and yet she made no effort to attract attention. When his eye had fallen upon her she had generally been quite alone, doing some piece of coarse and ordinary work.
'I have had another conversation with her,' said Shand to him that night.
'Have you unravelled the mystery?'
'Not quite; but I have got the fact that there is a mystery. She told me that you and I and she herself ought not to be here. When I asked her why, she said that you and I ought to be gentlemen and that she ought to be a lady. I told her that you and I were gentlemen, in spite of our trousers. "Ah," she said, "there comes the difference; I'm not a lady any longer!" When I contradicted her she snubbed me, and said that I hadn't seen enough of the world to know anything about it. But I'll have it all out of her before I've done.'
For some days after that Caldigate kept himself aloof from Mrs. Smith, not at all because he had ceased to notice her or to think about her, but from a feeling of dislike to exhibit rivalry with his friend. Shand was making himself very particular, and he thought that Shand was a fool for his pains. He was becoming angry with Shand, and had serious thoughts of speaking to him with solemn severity. What could such a woman be to him? But at the bottom of all this there was something akin to jealousy. The woman was good-looking, and certainly clever, and was very interesting. Shand, for two or three evenings running, related his success; how Mrs. Smith had communicated to him the fact that she utterly despised those Cromptons, who were distant cousins of her late husband's, and with whom she had come on board; how she preferred to be alone to having aught to do with them; how she had one or two books with her, and passed some hours in reading; and how she was poor, very poor, but still had something on which to live for a few weeks after landing. But Caldigate fancied that there must be a betrayal of trust in these revelations, and though he was in truth interested about the woman, did not give much encouragement to his friend.
'Upon my word,' he said, 'I don't seem to care so very much about Mrs. Smith's affairs.'
'I do,' said Shand, who was thick-skinned and irrepressible. 'I declared my intention of unravelling the mystery, and I mean to do it.'
'I hope you are not too inquisitive?'
'Of course she likes to have some one to whom she can talk. And what can people talk about on board ship except themselves? A woman who has a mystery always likes to have it unravelled. What else is the good of a mystery?'
He was thick-skinned and irrepressible, but Caldigate endeavoured to show his displeasure. He felt that the poor woman was in coarse hands; and he thought that, had matters gone otherwise, he might have accepted, in a more delicate manner, so much confidence as she chose to vouchsafe.
So it was when they had been a fortnight at sea. They had left home in mid-winter; but now they were in the tropics, near the line, and everything was sultry, sleepy, and warm. Flying-fishes were jumping from the waves on to the deck, and when the dusk of night was come, the passengers would stand by the hour together watching the phosphorus on the water. The Southern Cross had shown itself plainly, and possessed the heavens in conjunction with the Bear. The thick woollen drawers which had been so carefully prepared, were no longer in use, and men were going about in light pantaloons and linen jackets,--those on the quarter-deck at first beautifully clean and white, while our friends of the second cabin were less careful. The women, too, had got quit of their wraps, and lounged about the deck in light attire. During the bright hours of the day the aristocrats, in the stern, were shrouded from the sun by a delightful awning; but, forward, the passengers sought the shade of the loose idle sails, or screened themselves from the fierce rays as best they might among the hatchways and woodwork. But it was when the burning sun had hidden himself, when the short twilight had disappeared, and the heavens were alive and alight with stars, that all the world of the ship would be crowded on the upper deck. There they would remain, long after the lamps below had been extinguished, some of them sleeping through the whole night in the comparative coolness of the air. But it was from eight, when tea would be over, till midnight, that the hum of voices would be thickest, and the tread of those who walked for their exercise the most frequent.
At such times Caldigate would be often alone; for though he had made acquaintances, and had become indeed intimate with some of those around him, he had never thrust himself into the life of the ship as Shand had done. Charades were acted in the second cabin, in which Shand always took part,--and there were penny readings, at which Shand was often the reader. And he smoked much and drank somewhat with those who smoked and drank. The awe at first inspired by his university superiority and supposed rank in the world had faded almost into nothing, but by Caldigate, unconsciously, much of this had been preserved. I am not sure that he did not envy his friend, but at any rate he stood aloof. And, in regard to Mrs. Smith, when he saw her walking one evening with Shand in the sweetly dim light of the evening, with her hand upon Shand's arm, he made up his mind that he would think no more about her.
They had been at sea just a fortnight when this happened. And in about a quarter of an hour after this resolve had been formed Mrs. Smith was standing by him and talking to him. A ball was being held on the quarter-deck, or rather, as there was in truth no quarter-deck to the Goldfinder, on that clean, large, luxurious expanse devoted to the aristocracy in the after-part of the vessel. From among the second-class passengers, two fiddlers and a flute player had been procured, who formed the band. At sea you have always to look for your musicians among the second-class passengers. And now under the awning young and old were standing up, and making themselves happy beneath the starlight and the glimmer of the dozen ship-lamps which had been hung around. On board ship there are many sources of joy of which the land knows nothing. You may flirt and dance at sixty; and if you are awkward in the turn of a valse, you may put it down to the motion of the ship. You need wear no gloves, and may drink your soda-and-brandy without being ashamed of it.
It was not for John Caldigate to join the mazes of that dance, though he would have liked it well, and was well fitted by skill and taste for such exercise. But the ground was hallowed on which they trod, and forbidden to him; and though there was probably not a girl or a dancing married woman there who would not have been proud to stand up with Mr. Caldigate of Folking, there was not one who would have dared to take the hand of a second-class passenger. So he stood, just within his own boundary, and looked and longed. Then there was a voice in his ear. 'Do you dance, Mr. Caldigate?'
It was a very pleasant voice, low, but distinct and silvery, infinitely better again than the gown; a voice so distinct and well-managed that it would have been noticed for its peculiar sweetness if coming from any high-bred lady. He turned round and found her face close to his. Why had she come to speak to him when she must have perceived that he had intentionally avoided her.
'I used to be very fond of dancing,' he said, 'but it is one of the things that have gone away.'
'I, too, was fond of dancing; but, as you say, it has gone away. It will come back to you, in half-a-dozen years, perhaps. It can never come back to me. Things do come back to men.'
'Why more than to women?'
'You have a resurrection;--I mean here upon earth. We never have. Though we live as long as you, the pleasure-seeking years of our lives are much shorter. We burst out into full flowering early in our spring, but long before the summer is over, we are no more than huddled leaves and thick stalks.'
'Are you a thick stalk, Mrs. Smith?'
'Unfortunately, not. My flowers are gone while my stalk is still thin and sensitive. And then women can't recuperate.'
'I don't quite know what that means.'
'Yes, you do. It is good English enough even for Cambridge by this time. If you had made a false step, got into debt and ran away, or mistaken another man's wife for your own, or disappeared altogether under a cloud for a while, you could retrieve your honour, and, sinking at twenty-five or thirty, could come up from out of the waters at thirty-five as capable of enjoyment and almost as fresh as ever. But a woman does not bear submersion. She is draggled ever afterwards. She must hide everything by a life of lies, or she will get no admittance anywhere. The man is rather the better liked because he has sown his wild oats broadly. Of all these ladies dancing there, which dances the best? There is not one who really knows how to dance.'
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
6 | None | Mrs. Smith She had changed the conversation so suddenly, rushing off from that great question as to the condition of women generally to the very unimportant matter of the dancing powers of the ladies who were manoeuvring before them, that Caldigate hardly knew how to travel with her so quickly. 'They all dance well enough for ship dancing,' he replied; 'but as to what you were saying about women----' 'No, Mr. Caldigate; they don't dance well enough for ship dancing. Dancing, wherever it be done, should be graceful. A woman may at any rate move her feet in accordance with time, and she need not skip, nor prance, nor jump, even on board ship. Look at that stout lady.'
'Mrs. Callander?'
Everybody by this time knew everybody's name.
'If she is Mrs. Callander?'
Mrs. Smith, no doubt, knew very well that it was Mrs. Callander.
'Does not your ear catch separately the thud of her footfall every time she comes to the ground?'
'She is fat, fair, and forty.'
'Fat enough;--and what she lacks in fairness may be added on to the forty; but if she were less ambitious and had a glimmer of taste, she might do better than that. You see that girl with the green scarf round her? She is young and good-looking. Why should she spring about like a bear on a hot iron?'
'You should go and teach them.'
'It is just what I should like; only they would not be taught; and I should be stern, and tell them the truth.'
'Why don't you go and dance with them yourself?'
'I!'
'Why not? There is one second-class lady there?' This was true. For though none of the men would have been admitted from the inferior rank to join the superior, the rule of demarcation had so far been broken that a pretty girl who was known to some of the first-class passengers had been invited to come over the line and join the amusements of the evening. 'She dances about as well as any of them.'
'If you were among them would you dare to come out and ask me to join them? That is a question which you won't even dare to answer.'
'It is a little personal.' ' "No," you ought to say. "I could not do that because your clothes are so poor, and because of your ragged old hat, and I am not quite sure that your shoes are fit to be seen." Is not that what you would say, if you said what you thought?'
'Perhaps it is.'
'And if you said all that you thought, perhaps you would remind me that a woman of whom nobody knows anything is always held to be disreputable. That girl, no doubt, has her decent belongings. I have nobody.'
'You have your friends on board.'
'No, I have not. I have not a single friend on board. Those Cromptons were very unwillingly persuaded to take a sort of interest in me, though they really know nothing about me. And I have already lost any good which might come from their protection. She told me yesterday, that I ought not to walk about with Mr. Shand.'
'And what did you say?'
'Of course I told her to mind her own business. I had no alternative. A woman has to show a little spirit or she will be trodden absolutely into the dirt. It was something to have a woman to speak to, even though I had not a thought in common with her;--though she was to my feeling as inferior to myself as I no doubt am thought to be by that fat prancing woman to herself. Even Mrs. Crompton's countenance was of value. But if I had yielded she would have taken it out in tyranny. So now we don't speak.'
'That is a pity.'
'It is a pity. You watch them all and see how they look at me,--the women, I mean. They know that Mr. Shand speaks to me, and that you and Mr. Shand are the two gentlemen we have among us. There are, no doubt, a dozen of them watching me now, somewhere, and denouncing me for the impropriety of my behaviour.'
'Is it improper?'
'What do you think?'
'Why may we not talk as well as others?'
'Exactly. But there are people who are tabooed. Look at that Miss Green and the ship doctor.' At that moment the ship's doctor and the young lady in question came close to them in the dance. 'There is no harm in Miss Green talking by the hour together with the doctor, because she is comfortably placed. She has got an old father and mother on board who don't look after her, and everything is respectable. But if I show any of the same propensities I ought almost to be put into irons.'
'Has anybody else been harsh to you?'
'The Captain has been making inquiries,--no doubt with the idea that he may at last be driven to harsh measures. Have you got a sister?'
'No.'
'Or a mother?'
'No.'
'Or a housemaid?'
'Not even a housemaid. I have no female belongings whatever.'
'Don't you know that if you had a sister, and a mother, and a housemaid, your mother would quite expect that your sister should in time have a lover, but that she would be horrified at the idea of the housemaid having a follower?'
'I did not know that. I thought housemaids got married sometimes.'
'Human nature is stronger than tyranny.'
'But what does all this mean? You are not a housemaid, and you have not got a mistress?'
'Not exactly. But at present;--if I say my outward woman you'll know what I mean perhaps.'
'I think I shall.'
'Well; my present outward woman stands to me in lieu of the housemaid's broom, and the united authority of the Captain and Mrs. Crompton make up the mistress between them. And the worst of it all is, that though I have to endure the tyranny, I have not got the follower. It is as hard upon Mr. Shand as it is upon me.'
'Shand, I suppose, can take care of himself.'
'No doubt;--and so in real truth can I. I can stand apart and defy them all; and as I look at them looking at me, and almost know with what words they are maligning me, I can tell myself that they are beneath me, and that I care nothing for them. I shall do nothing which will enable any one to interfere with me. But it seems hard that all this should be so because I am a widow,--and because I am alone,--and because I am poorly clothed.'
As she said this there were tears in her eyes, true ones, and something of the sound of a broken sob in her voice. And Caldigate was moved. The woman's condition was to be pitied, whether it had been produced with or without fault on her own part. To be alone is always sad,--even for a man; but for a woman, and for a young woman, it is doubly melancholy. Of a sudden the dancing was done and the lamps were taken away.
'If you do not want to go to bed,' he said, 'let us take a turn.'
'I never go to bed. I mean here, on board ship. I linger up on deck, half hiding myself about the place, till I see some quartermaster eying me suspiciously and then I creep down into the little hole which I occupy with three of Mrs. Crompton's children and then I cry myself to sleep. But I don't call that going to bed.'
'Take a turn now.'
'I shall feel like the housemaid talking to her follower through the area-gate. But she is brave, and why should I be a coward?' Then she put her hand upon his arm. 'And you,' she said, 'why are not you dancing in the other part of the ship with Mrs. Callander and Miss Green, instead of picking your way among the hencoops here with me?'
'This suited my pocket best,--and my future prospects.'
'You are making a delightful experiment in roughing it,--as people eat pic-nic dinners out in the woods occasionally, so that there may be a break in the monotony of chairs and tables.'
While Shand had been unravelling her mystery, she, perhaps, had been more successful in unravelling his.
'We intend to be miners.'
'And to return home before long with some vast treasure. I hope you may be successful.'
'You seem to doubt it.'
'Of course it is doubtful. If not, the thing would be common and hardly worth the doing. Will Mr. Shand be very persistent as a working miner?'
'I hope so.'
'He seems to me to have great gifts of idleness, which on board ship are a blessing. How I do envy men when I see them smoking! It seems to me that nothing is wanting to them. Women have their needlework; but though they hate it less than idleness, they do hate it. But you really like your tobacco.'
'I don't like being idle. I read a good deal. Do you read?'
'I have but few books here. I have read more perhaps than most young women of my age. I came away in such a hurry that I have almost nothing with me.'
'Can I lend you books?'
'If you will. I will promise to take care of them.'
'I have "The Heartbroken One," by Spratt, you know. It is very absurd, but full of life from beginning to end. All that Spratt writes is very lively.'
'I don't think I care for Spratt. He may be lively, but he's not life-like.'
'And "Michael Bamfold." It is hard work, perhaps but very thoughtful, if you can digest that sort of thing.'
'I hate thought.'
'What do you say to Miss Bouverie's last;--"Ridden to a Standstill;" a little loud, perhaps, but very interesting? Or "Green Grow the Rushes O," by Mrs. Tremaine? None of Mrs. Tremaine's people do anything that anybody would do, but they all talk well.'
'I hate novels written by women. Their girls are so unlovely, and their men such absurdly fine fellows!'
'I have William Coxe's "Lock picked at Last," of which I will defy you to find the secret till you have got to the end of it.'
'I am a great deal too impatient.'
'And Thompson's "Four Marquises." That won't give you any trouble, because you will know it all from the first chapter.'
'And never have a moment of excitement from the beginning to the end. I don't think I care very much for novels. Have you nothing else?'
Caldigate had many other books, a Shakespeare, some lighter poetry, and sundry heavier works of which he did not wish specially to speak, lest he should seem to be boasting of his own literary taste; but at last it was settled that on the next morning he should supply her with what choice he had among the poets. Then at about midnight they parted, and Caldigate, as he found his way down to his cabin, saw the quartermaster with his eye fixed upon Mrs. Smith. There is no so stern guardian of morality and propriety as your old quartermaster on board a first-class ship.
'You have been having a grand time of it with Mrs. Smith,' said Shand as soon as Caldigate was in their cabin.
'Pretty well,--as far as fine times go on board ship. Is there anything against it?'
'Oh, no, not that I know of. I started the hare; if you choose to run it I have no right to complain, I suppose.'
'I don't know anything about the hare, but you certainly have no right to complain because I have been talking to Mrs. Smith;--unless indeed you tell me that you are going to make her Mrs. Shand.'
'You are much more likely to make her Mrs. Caldigate.'
'I don't know that I should have any objection;--that is, if I wanted a wife. She is good-looking, clever, well-educated, and would be well-mannered were it not that she bristles up against the ill-usage of the world too roughly.'
'I didn't know it had gone so far as that,' said Shand, angrily.
'Nor did I, till you suggested it to me. Now I think I'll go to sleep, if you please, and dream about it.'
He did not go to sleep, but lay awake half thinking and half dreaming. He certainly liked Mrs. Smith; but then, as he had begun to find out of himself he liked women's society generally. He was almost jealous of the doctor, because the doctor was allowed to talk to Miss Green and waltz with Miss Green, whereas he could not approach her. Then he thought of Maria Shand and that kiss in the little back parlour,--the kiss which had not meant much, but which had meant something; and then of Julia Babington, to whom he was not quite sure that he ought not to feel himself engaged. But the face that was clearest to him of all,--and which became the dearer the nearer that he approached to a state of dozing,--was that of Hester Bolton, whose voice he had hardly heard, who had barely spoken to him;--the tips of whose fingers he had only just touched. If there was any one thing fixed on his mind it was that, as soon as he had put together a large lump of gold, he would go back to Cambridge and win Hester Bolton to be his wife. But yet what a singular woman was this Mrs. Smith! As to marrying her, that of course had been a joke produced by the petulance of his snoring friend. He began to dislike Shand, because he did snore so loudly, and drank so much bottled ale, and smelt so strongly of cavendish tobacco. Mrs. Smith was at any rate much too good for Shand. Surely she must have been a lady, or her voice would not have been sweet and silvery? And though she did bristle roughly against the ill-usage of the world, and say strong things, she was never absolutely indelicate or even loud. And she was certainly very interesting. How did it come to pass that she was so completely alone, so poor, so unfriended and yet possessed of such gifts? There certainly was a mystery, and it would certainly be his fate, and not the fate of Dick Shand, to unravel it. The puzzle was much too delicate and too intricate for Dick Shand's rough hands. Then, giving his last waking thoughts for a moment to Hester Bolton, he went to sleep in spite of the snoring.
On the next morning, as soon as he was out of bed, he opened a small portmanteau in which he had put up some volumes the day before he left Pollington and to which he had not yet had recourse since the beginning of the voyage. From these he would select one or two for the use of his new friend. So he dragged out the valise from beneath the berth, while Shand abused him for the disturbance he made. On the top, lying on the other volumes, which were as he had placed them, was a little book, prettily bound, by no means new, which he was sure had never been placed there by himself. He took it up, and, standing in the centre of the cabin, between the light of the porthole and Dick's bed, he examined it. It was a copy of Thomson's 'Seasons', and on the flyleaf was written in a girl's hand the name of its late owner,--Maria Shand. The truth flashed upon him at once. She must have gone down on that last night after he was in bed, and thus have made her little offering in silence, knowing that it would be hidden from him till he was far away from her.
'What book is that?' said Shand suddenly, emerging with his head and shoulders from the low berth.
'A book of mine,' said Caldigate, disconcerted for the moment.
'What are you going to do with it?'
'I am looking for something to lend to Mrs. Smith.'
'That is Molly's Thomson's "Seasons,"' said the brother, remembering, as we are so apt to remember the old thing that had met his eye so often in the old house. 'Where did you get it?'
'I didn't steal it, Dick.'
'I don't suppose you did; but I'm sure it's the book I say.'
'No doubt it is. If you think it is in bad hands, shall I give it back to you?'
'I don't want it. If she gave it you, she was a fool for her pains.'
'I don't see that.'
'I would rather, at any rate, that you would not lend a book with my sister's name in it to Mrs. Smith.'
'I was not thinking of doing so. She wants a Shakespeare that I have got here, and a volume of Tennyson.' Then Dick retreated back into his berth, and snored again, while Caldigate dressed himself. When that operation was completed,--which, including his lavations, occupied about five minutes,--he went up on the deck with the books for Mrs. Smith in his hand, and with Thomson's 'Seasons' in his pocket. So the poor girl had absolutely stolen down-stairs in the middle of the cold night, and had opened the case and re-fastened it, in order that he, when in strange lands, might find himself in possession of something that had been hers!
He had not been alone a minute or two, and was looking about to see if Mrs. Smith was there, when he was accosted by the Captain. The Captain was a pleasant-looking, handsome man, about forty-five years of age, who had the good word of almost everybody on board, but who had not before spoken specially to Caldigate.
'Good morning, Mr. Caldigate. I hope you find yourself fairly comfortable where you are.'
'Pretty well, thank you, Captain.'
'If there is anything I can do.'
'We have all that we have a right to expect.'
'I wish, Mr. Caldigate, I could invite you and your friends to come astern among us sometimes, but it would be contrary to rule.'
'I can quite understand that, Captain.'
'You are doing a bit of roughing,--no doubt for the sake of experience. If you only knew the sort of roughing I've had in my time!'
'I dare say.'
'Salt pork and hard biscuit, and only half enough of that. You find yourself among some queer fellow-passengers I dare say, Mr. Caldigate.'
'Everybody is very civil.'
'They're sure to be that to a gentleman. But one has to be careful. The women are the most dangerous.' Then the Captain laughed, as though it had only been a joke,--this allusion to the women. But Caldigate knew that there was more than a joke in it. The Captain had intended to warn him against Mrs. Smith.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
7 | None | The Three Attempts Something more than a month had gone by, and John Caldigate and Mrs. Smith were very close companions. This had not been effected without considerable opposition, partly on the part of Shand, and partly by the ship's inhabitants generally. The inhabitants of the ship were inimical to Mrs. Smith. She was a woman who had no friends; and the very female who had first appeared as a friend was now the readiest to say hard things of her. And Caldigate was a handsome well-mannered young man. By this time all the ladies in the first-class knew very well who he was, and some of them had spoken to him. On one or two occasions the stern law of the vessel had been broken; and he had been absolutely invited to sit on those august after-benches. He was known to be a gentleman, and believed, on the evidence of Dick Shand, to be possessed of considerable means. It was therefore a thing horrible to all of them, and particularly to Miss Green, that he should allow himself to be enticed into difficulties by such a creature as that Mrs. Smith. Miss Green had already been a little cold to the doctor in consequence of a pleasant half-hour spent by her in Caldigate's company, as they looked over the side of the vessel at the flying-fish. Mrs. Callander had been with them, and everything had been quite proper. But what a pity it was that he should devote so much of his time to that woman! 'Fancy his condition if he should be induced to marry her!' said Miss Green, holding up her hands in horror. The idea was so terrible that Mrs. Callander declared that she would speak to him. 'Nobody ever disliked interfering so much as I do,' said Mrs. Callander; 'but sometimes a word from a lady will go so far with a young man!' Mrs. Callander was a most respectable woman, whose father had begun life as a cattle drover in the colonies, but had succeeded in amassing a considerable fortune. 'Oh, I do wish that something may be done to save him!' said Miss Green.
Among the second-class passengers the same feeling existed quite as strongly. The woman herself had not only been able but had been foolish enough to show that in spite of her gown she considered herself superior to them all. When it was found that she was, in truth, handsome to look upon,--that her words were soft and well chosen,--that she could sit apart and read,--and that she could trample upon Mrs. Crompton in her scorn,--then, for a while, there were some who made little efforts to get into her good graces. She might even have made an ally of good-natured Mrs. Bones, the wife of the butcher who was going out with his large family to try his fortune at Melbourne. Mrs. Bones had been injured, after some ship fashion, by Mrs. Crompton, and would have made herself pleasant. But Mrs. Smith had despised them all, and had shown her contempt, and was now as deeply suspected by Mrs. Bones as by Mrs. Crompton or Mrs. Callander.
But of all the foes to this intimacy Dick Shand was for a time the most bitter and the most determined. No doubt this arose at first from jealousy. He had declared his purpose of unravelling the mystery; but the task had been taken out of his hands, and the unravelling was being done by another. And the more that the woman was abused, and the more intent were all the people in regard to her wicked determination to be intimate with Caldigate, the more interesting she became. Dick, who was himself the very imp of imprudence,--who had never been deterred from doing anything he fancied by any glimmer of control,--would have been delighted to be the hero of all the little stories that were being told. But as that morsel of bread had been taken, as it were, from between his very teeth by the unjustifiable interference of his friend, he had become more alive than any one else to the danger of the whole proceeding. He acknowledged to the Captain that his friend was making a fool of himself; and, though he was a little afraid of Caldigate, he resolved upon interfering.
'Don't you think you are making an ass of yourself about this woman?' he said.
'I daresay I am.'
'Well!'
'All the wise men, from David downwards, have made asses of themselves about women; and why should I be wiser than the rest?'
'That's nonsense, you know.'
'Very likely.'
'I am trying to talk to you in earnest.'
'You make such a failure of it, old boy, that I am compelled to talk nonsense in return. The idea of your preaching! Here I am with nothing special to do, and I like to amuse myself. Ought not that to be enough for you?'
'But what is to be the end of it?' Dick Shand asked, very solemnly.
'How can I tell? But the absurdity is that such a man as you should talk about the end of anything. Did you ever look before you leaped in your life?'
'We are to be together, you know, and it won't do for us to be hampered with that woman.'
'Won't it? Then let me tell you that, if I choose to hamper myself with that woman, or with a whole harem of women, and am not deterred by any consideration for myself, I certainly shall not be deterred by any consideration for you. Do you understand me?'
'That is not being a true partner,' said Shand.
'I'm quite sure of this,--that I'm likely to be as true as you are. I'm not aware that I have entered into any terms with you by which I have bound myself to any special mode of living. I have left England, as I fancy you have done also, because I desired more conventional freedom than one can find among the folk at home. And now, on the first outset, I am to be cautioned and threatened by you because I have made acquaintance with a young woman. Of all the moral pastors and masters that one might come across in the world, you, Dick Shand, appear to me to be the most absurd. But you are so far right as this, that if my conduct is shocking to you, you had better leave me to my wickedness.'
'You are always so d---- upsetting,' said Dick, 'that no one can speak to you.' Then Dick turned away, and there was nothing more said about Mrs. Smith on that occasion.
The next to try her hand was Mrs. Callander. By this time the passengers had become familiar with the ship, and knew what they might and what they might not do. The second-class passengers were not often found intruding across the bar, but the first-class frequently made visits to their friends amidships. In this way Mrs. Callander had become acquainted with our two gold-seekers, and often found herself in conversation with one or the other. Even Miss Green, as has been stated before, would come and gaze upon the waves from the inferior part of the deck.
'What a very nice voyage we are having, Mr. Caldigate,' Mrs. Callander said one afternoon.
'Yes, indeed. It is getting a little cold now, but we shall enjoy that after all the heat.'
'Quite so; only I suppose it will be very cold when we get quite south. You still find yourself tolerably comfortable.'
'I shall be glad to have it over,' said Caldigate, who had in truth become disgusted with Dick's snoring.
'I daresay,--I am sure we shall. My young people are getting very tired of it. Children, when they are accustomed to every comfort on shore, of course feel it grievously. I suppose you are rather crowded?'
'Of course we are crowded. One can't have a twenty-foot square room on board ship.'
'No, indeed. But then you are with your friend, and that is much pleasanter than a stranger.'
'That would depend on whether the stranger snored, Mrs. Callander.'
'Don't talk of snoring, Mr. Caldigate. If you only heard Mr. Callander! But, as I was saying, you must have some very queer characters down there.' She had not been saying anything of the kind, but she found a difficulty in introducing her subject.
'Take them altogether, they are a very decent, pleasant, well-mannered set of people, and all of them in earnest about their future lives.'
'Poor creatures! But I dare say they're very good.' Then she paused a moment, and looked into his face. She had undertaken a duty, and she was not the woman to shrink from it. So she told herself at that moment. And yet she was very much afraid of him as she saw the squareness of his forehead, and the set of his mouth. And there was a frown across his brow, as though he were preparing himself to fight. 'You must have found it hard to accommodate yourselves to them, Mr. Caldigate?'
'Not at all.'
'Of course we all know that you are a gentleman.'
'I am much obliged to you; but I do not know any word that requires a definition so much as that. I am going to work hard to earn my bread; and I suppose these people are going to do the same.'
'There always will be some danger in such society,' said Mrs. Callander.
'I hope I may escape any great evil.'
'I hope so too, Mr. Caldigate. You probably have had a long roll of ancestors before you?'
'We all have that;--back to Adam.'
'Ah! but I mean a family roll, of which you ought to be proud;--all ladies and gentlemen.'
'Upon my word I don't know.'
'So I hear, and I have no doubt it is true.' Then she paused, looking again into his face. It was very square, and his lips were hard, and there was a gleam of anger in his eyes. She wished herself back again in her own part of the ship; but she had boasted to Miss Green that she was not the woman to give up a duty when she had undertaken it. Though she was frightened, still she must go on. 'I hope you will excuse me, Mr. Caldigate.'
'I am sure you will not say anything that I cannot excuse.'
'Don't you think--' Then she paused. She had looked into his face again, and was so little satisfied that she did not dare to go on. He would not help her in the least, but stood there looking at her, with something of a smile stealing over the hardness of his face, but with such an expression that the smile was even worse than the hardness.
'Were you going to speak to me about another lady, Mrs. Callander?'
'I was. That is what I was going to speak of--' She was anxious to remonstrate against that word lady, but her courage failed her.
'Then don't you think that perhaps you had better leave it alone. I am very much obliged to you, and all that kind of thing; and as to myself, I really shouldn't care what you said. Any good advice would be taken most gratefully,--if it didn't affect any one else. But you might say things of the lady in question which I shouldn't bear patiently.'
'She can't be your equal.'
'I won't hear even that patiently. You know nothing about her, except that she is a second-class passenger,--in which matter she is exactly my equal. If you come to that, don't you think that you are degrading yourself in coming here and talking to me? I am not your equal.'
'But you are.'
'And so is she, then. We shan't arrive at anything, Mrs. Callander, and so you had better give it up.' Whereupon she did give it up and retreat to her own part of the ship, but not with a very good grace.
They had certainly become very intimate,--John Caldigate and Mrs. Smith; and there could be no doubt that, in the ordinary language of the world, he was making a fool of himself. He did in fact know nothing about her but what she told herself, and this amounted to little more than three statements, which might or might not be true,--that she had gone on the stage in opposition to her friends,--that she had married an actor, who had treated her with great cruelty,--and that he had died of drink. And with each of these stories there had been an accompaniment of mystery. She had not told him her maiden name, nor what had been the condition of her parents, nor whether they were living, nor at what theatres she and her husband had acted, nor when he had died. She had expressed a hope that she might get an engagement in the colonies, but she had not spoken of any recommendation or letters of introduction. He simply knew of her that her name was Euphemia Smith.
In that matter of her clothes there had been a great improvement, but made very gradually. She had laughed at her own precautions, saying, that in her poverty she had wished to save everything that could be saved, and that she had only intended to make herself look like others in the same class. 'And I had wanted to avoid all attention,--at first,' she said, smiling, as she looked up at him.
'In which you have been altogether unsuccessful he replied, 'as you are certainly more talked about than any one in the ship.'
'Has it been my fault?' she asked.
Then he comforted her, saying that it certainly had not been her fault; that she had been reticent and reserved till she had been either provoked or invited to come forth; and, in fact, that her conduct had been in all respects feminine, pretty, and decorous;--as to all which he was not perhaps the best judge in the world.
But she was certainly much pleasanter to look at, and even to talk to, now that she had put on a small, clean, black felt hat instead of the broken straw, and had got out from her trunks a pretty warm shawl, and placed a ribbon or two about her in some indescribable manner, and was no longer ashamed of showing her shoes as she sat about upon the deck. There could be no doubt, as she was seen now, that she was the most attractive female on board the ship; but it may be doubted whether the anger of the Mrs. Cromptons, Mrs. Callanders, and Miss Greens was mitigated by the change. The battle against her became stronger, and the duty of rescuing that infatuated young man from her sorceries was more clear than ever;--if only anything could be done to rescue him!
What could be done? Mrs. Smith could not be locked up. No one,--not even the Captain,--could send her down to her own wretched little cabin because she would talk with a gentleman. Talking is allowed on board ship, and even flirting, to a certain extent. Mrs. Smith's conduct with Mr. Caldigate was not more peculiar than that of Miss Green and the doctor. Only it pleased certain people to think that Miss Green might be fond of the doctor if she chose, and that Mrs. Smith had no right to be fond of any man. There was a stubbornness about both the sinners which resolved to set public opinion at defiance. The very fact that others wished to interfere with him made Caldigate determined to resent all interference; and the woman, with perhaps a deeper insight into her own advantages, was brave enough to be able to set opposition at defiance.
They were about a week from their port when the captain,--Captain Munday,--was induced to take the matter into his own hands. It is hardly too much to say that he was pressed to do so by the united efforts of the first-class passengers. It was dreadful to think that this unfortunate young man should go on shore merely to become the prey of such a woman as that. So Captain Munday, who at heart was not afraid of his passenger,--but who persisted in saying that no good could be done, and who had, as may be remembered, already made a slight attempt,--was induced to take the matter in hand. He came up to Caldigate on the deck one afternoon, and without any preface began his business. 'Mr. Caldigate,' he said, 'I am afraid you are getting into a scrape with one of your fellow-passengers.'
'What do you call a scrape, Captain Munday?'
'I should call it a scrape if a young gentleman of your position and your prospects were to find himself engaged on board ship to marry a woman he knew nothing about.'
'Do you know anything about my position and prospects, Captain Munday?'
'I know you are a gentleman.'
'And I think you know less about the lady.'
'I know nothing;--but I will tell you what I hear.'
'I really would rather that you did not. Of course, Captain Munday, on board your own ship you are a despot, and I must say that you have made everything very pleasant for us. But I don't think even your position entitles you to talk to me about my private affairs,--or about hers. You say you know nothing. Is it manly to repeat what one hears about a poor forlorn woman?' Then the Captain retreated without another word, owning to himself that he was beaten. If this foolish young man chose to make for himself a bed of that kind he must lie upon it. Captain Munday went away shrugging his shoulders, and spoke no further word to John Caldigate on that or any other subject during the voyage.
Caldigate had driven off his persecutors valiantly, and had taught them all to think that he was resolute in his purposes in regard to Mrs. Smith, let those purposes be what they might; but nothing could be further from the truth; for he had no purposes and was, within his own mind, conscious of his lack of all purpose, and very conscious of his folly. And though he could repel Mrs. Callander and the Captain,--as he had always repelled those who had attempted to control him,--still he knew that they had been right. Such an intimacy as this could not be wise, and its want of wisdom became the more strongly impressed upon him the nearer he got to shore, and the more he felt that when he had got ashore he should not know how to act in regard to her.
The intimacy had certainly become very close. He had expressed his great admiration, and she had replied that, 'had things not been as they were,' she could have returned the feeling. But she did not say what the things were which might have been otherwise. Nor did she seem to attempt to lead him on to further and more definite proposals. And she never spoke of any joint action between them when on shore, though she gave herself up to his society here on board the ship. She seemed to think that they were then to part, as though one would be going one way, and one the other;--but he felt that after so close an intimacy they could not part like that.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
8 | None | Reaching Melbourne Things went on in the same way till the night before the morning on which they were to enter Hobson's Bay. Hobson's Bay, as every one knows, is the inlet of the sea into which the little river runs on which Melbourne is built. After leaving the tropics they had gone down south, and had encountered showers and wind, and cold weather, but now they had come up again into warm latitudes and fine autumn weather,--for it was the beginning of March, and the world out there is upside down. Before that evening nothing had been said between Mrs. Smith and John Caldigate as to any future; not a word to indicate that when the journey should be over, there would or that there would not be further intercourse between them. She had purposely avoided any reference to a world after this world of the ship, even refusing, in her half-sad but half-joking manner, to discuss matters so far ahead. But he felt that he could not leave her on board, as he would the other passengers, without a word spoken as to some future meeting. There will arrive on occasions a certain pitch of intimacy,--which cannot be defined as may a degree of cousinship, but which is perfectly understood by the persons concerned;--so close as to forbid such mere shaking of the hands. There are many men, and perhaps more women, cautious enough and wise enough to think of this beforehand, and, thinking of it, to guard themselves from the dangerous attractions of casual companions by a composed manner and unenthusiastic conversation. Who does not know the sagacious lady who, after sitting at table with the same gentleman for a month, can say, 'Good-bye, Mr. Jones,' just as though Mr. Jones had been a stranger under her notice but for a day. But others gush out, and when Mr. Jones takes his departure, hardly know how not to throw themselves into his arms. The intercourse between our hero and Mrs. Smith had been such that, as a gentleman, he could not leave her without some allusion to future meetings. That was all up to the evening before their arrival. The whole ship's company, captain, officers, quarter-masters, passengers, and all, were quite sure that she had succeeded in getting a promise of marriage from him. But there had been nothing of the kind.
Among others, Dick Shand was sure that there was some entanglement. Entanglement was the word he always used in discussing the matter with Mrs. Callander. Between Dick and his friend there had been very little confidential communication of late. Caldigate had forbidden Shand to talk to him about Mrs. Smith, and thus had naturally closed the man's mouth on other matters. And then they had fallen into different sets. Dick, at least, had fallen into a set, while Caldigate had hardly associated with any but the one dangerous friend. Dick had lived much with a bevy of noisy young men who had been given to games and smoking, and to a good deal of drink. Caldigate had said not a word, even when on one occasion Dick had stumbled down into the cabin very much the worse for what he had taken. How could he find fault with Dick's folly when he would not allow Dick to say a word to him as to his own? But on this last day at sea it became necessary that they should understand each other.
'What do you mean to do when you land?' Caldigate asked.
All that had been settled between them very exactly long since. At a town called Nobble, about three hundred miles west of Sydney, there lived a man, supposed to be knowing in gold, named Crinkett, with whom they had corresponded, and to whom they intended, in the first instance, to apply. And about twenty miles beyond Nobble were the new and now much reputed Ahalala diggings, at which they purposed to make their first debut. It had been decided that they would go direct from Melbourne to Nobble,--not round by Sydney so as to see more of the world, and thus spend more money,--but by the direct route, taking the railway to Albury and the coaches, which they were informed were running between Albury and Nobble. And it had also been determined that they would spend but two nights in Melbourne,--'just to get their things washed,'--so keen had they been in their determination to begin their work. But on all these matters there had been no discussion now for a month, nor even an allusion to them.
'What do you mean to do when we land?' Caldigate asked on that last day.
'I thought all that was settled. But I suppose you are going to change everything?'
'I am going to change nothing. Only you seem to have got into such a way of life that I didn't know whether you would be prepared for serious work.'
'I shall be as well prepared as you are, I don't doubt,' said Dick. 'I have no impediment of any kind.'
'I certainly have none. Then we will start by the first train on Wednesday morning for Albury. We must have our heavy things sent round by sea to Sydney, and get them from there as best we can. When we are a little fixed, one of us can run down to Sydney.'
And so it was settled, without any real confidence between them, but in conformity with their previous arrangements.
It was on the evening of the same day, after they had sighted Cape Otway, that Mrs. Smith and Caldigate began their last conversation on board the Goldfinder,--a conversation which lasted, with one or two interruptions, late into the night.
'So we have come to the end of it,' she said.
'To the end of what?'
'To the end of all that is pleasant and easy and safe. Don't you remember my telling you how I dreaded the finish? Here I have been fairly comfortable and have in many respects enjoyed it. I have had you to talk to; and there has been a flavour of old days about it. What shall I be doing this time to-morrow?'
'I don't know your plans.'
'Exactly;--and I have not told you, because I would not have you bothered with me when I land. You have enough on your own hands; and if I were to be a burden to you now it might be a serious trouble. I am afraid poor Mr. Shand objects to me.'
'You don't think that would stand in my way?'
'It stands in mine. Of course, with your pride and your obstinacy you would tell Mr. Shand to go to--the devil if he ventured to object to any little delay that might be occasioned by looking after me. Then Mr. Shand would go--there, or elsewhere; and all your plans would be broken up, and you would be without a companion.'
'Unless I had you.' Of all the words which he could have spoken in such an emergency these were the most foolish; and yet, at so tender a moment, how were they to be repressed?
'I do think that Dick Shand is dangerous,' she answered, laughing; 'but I should be worse. I am afraid Dick Shand will--drink.'
'If so, we must part. And what would you do?'
'What would I do? What could I do?' Then there was a pause. 'Perhaps I should want you to--marry me, which would be worse than Dick Shand's drinking. Eh?'
There is an obligation on a man to persevere when a woman has encouraged him in love-making. It is like riding at a fence. When once you have set your horse at it you must go on, however impracticable it may appear as you draw close to it. If you have never looked at the fence at all,--if you have ridden quite the other way, making for some safe gate or clinging to the dull lane,--then there will be no excitement, but also there will be no danger and no disgrace. Caldigate had ridden hard at the fence, and could not crane at it now that it was so close to him. He could only trust to his good fortune to carry him safe over. 'I don't suppose you would want it,' he said, 'but I might.'
'You would want me, but you would not want me for always. I should be a burden less easy to shake off than Dick Shand.'
'Is that the way a man is always to look at a woman?'
'It is the way in which they do, I think. I often wonder that any man is ever fool enough to marry. A poor man may want some one to serve him, and may be able to get service in no other way; or a man, poor in another way, may find an heiress convenient;--but otherwise I think men only marry when they are caught. Women are prehensile things, which have to cling to something for nourishment and support. When I come across such a one as you I naturally put out my feelers.'
'I have not been aware of it.'
'Yes, you are; and I do not doubt that your mind is vacillating about me. I am sure you like me.'
'Certainly, I like you.'
'And you know that I love you.'
'I did not know it.'
'Yes, you did. You are not the man to be diffident of yourself in such a matter. You must either think that I love you, or that I have been a great hypocrite in pretending to do so. Love you!' They were sitting together on a large spar which was lashed on to the deck, and which had served throughout all the voyage for a seat for second-class passengers There were others now on the farther end of it; but there was a feeling that when Caldigate and Mrs. Smith were together it would not be civil to intrude upon their privacy. At this time it was dark; but their eyes had become used to the gloom, and each could see the other's face. 'Love you!' she repeated, looking up at him, speaking in a very low voice, but yet, oh so clearly, so that not a fraction of a sound was lost to his ears, with no special emotion in her face, with no contortion, no grimace, but with her eyes fixed upon his. 'How should it be possible that I should not love you? For two months we have been together as people seldom are in the world,--as they never can be without hating each other or loving each other thoroughly. You have been very good to me who am all alone and desolate. And you are clever, educated,--and a man. How should I not love you? And I know from the touch of your hand, from your breath when I feel it on my face, from the fire of your eye, and from the tenderness of your mouth, that you, too, love me.'
'I do,' he said.
'But as there may be marriage without love, so there may be love without marriage. You cannot but feel how little you know of me, and ignorant as you are of so much, that to marry me might be--ruin.' It was just what he had told himself over and over again, when he had been trying to resolve what he would do in regard to her. 'Don't you know that?'
'I know that it might have been so among the connections of home life.'
'And to you the connections of home life may all come back. That woman talked about your "roll of ancestors." Coming from her it was absurd. But there was some truth in it. You know that were you to marry me, say to-morrow, in Melbourne, it would shut you out from--well, not the possibility but the probability of return.'
'I do not want to go back.'
'Nor do I want to hinder you from doing so. If we were alike desolate, alike alone, alike cast out, oh then, what a heaven of happiness I should think had been opened to me by the idea of joining myself to you! There is nothing I could not do for you. But I will not be a millstone round your neck.'
She had taken so much the more prominent part in all this that he felt himself compelled by his manliness to say something in contradiction to it--something that should have the same flavour about it as had her self-abnegation and declared passion. He also must be unselfish and enthusiastic. 'I do not deny that there is truth in what you say.'
'It is true.'
'Of course I love you.'
'It ought to be of course,--now.'
'And of course I do not mean to part from you now, as though we were never to see each other again.'
'I hope not quite that.'
'Certainly not. I shall therefore hold you as engaged to me, and myself as engaged to you,--unless something should occur to separate us.' It was a foolish thing to say, but he did not know how to speak without being foolish. It is not usual that a gentleman should ask a lady to be engaged to him '--unless something should occur to separate them!' 'You will consent to that,' he said.
'What I will consent to is this, that I will be yours, all yours, whenever you may choose to send for me. At any moment I will be your wife for the asking. But you shall go away first, and shall think of it, and reflect upon it,--so that I may not have to reproach myself with having caught you.'
'Caught me?'
'Well, yes, caught you. I do feel that I have caught you,--almost. I do feel,--almost,--that I ought to have had nothing to do with you. From the beginning of it all I knew that I ought to have nothing to say to you. You are too good for me.' Then she rose from her place as though to leave him. 'I will go down now,' she said, 'because I know you will have many things to do. To-morrow, when we get up, we shall be in the harbour, and you will be on shore quite early. There will be no time for a word of farewell then. I will meet you again here just before we go to bed,--say at half-past ten. Then we will arrange, if we can arrange, how we may meet again.'
And so she glided away from him, and he was left alone, sitting on the spar. Now, at any rate, he had engaged himself. There could not be any doubt about that. He certainly could not be justified in regarding himself as free because she had told him that she would give him time to think of it. Of course he was engaged to marry her. When a man has been successful in his wooing he is supposed to be happy. He asked himself whether he was proud of the result of this intimacy. She had told him,--she herself,--that she had 'caught him', meaning thereby that he had been taken as a rabbit with a snare or a fish with a baited hook. If it had been so, surely she would not herself have said so. And yet he was aware how common it is for a delinquent to cover his own delinquency by declaring it. 'Of course I am idle,' says the idle one, escaping the disgrace of his idleness by his honesty. 'I have caught you!' There is something soothing to the vanity in such a declaration from a pretty woman. That she should have wished to catch you is something;--something that the net should itself be so pleasant, with its silken meshes! But the declaration may not the less be true and the fact unpleasant. In the matter of matrimony a man does not wish to be caught; and Caldigate, fond as he was of her, acknowledged that what she said was true.
He leant back in a corner that was made by the hatchway, and endeavoured to think over his life and prospects. If this were a true engagement, then must he cease altogether to think of Hester Bolton. Then must that dream be abandoned. It is of no use to the most fervid imagination to have a castle projected in Spain from which all possible foundation has been taken away. In his dreams of life a man should never dream that which is altogether impossible. There had been something in the thought of Hester Bolton which had taken him back from the roughnesses of his new life, from the doubtful respectability of Mrs. Smith, from the squalor of the second-class from the whisky-laden snores of Dick Shand, to a sweeter, brighter, cleaner world. Till this engagement had been absolutely spoken he could still indulge in that romance, distant and unreal as it was. But now,--now it seemed to be brought in upon him very forcibly that he must rid his thoughts of Hester Bolton,--or else rid his life of Mrs. Smith.
But he was engaged to marry Mrs. Smith. Then he got up, and walked backwards and forwards along the deck, asking himself whether this could really be the truth. Was he bound to this woman for his life? And if so, had he done a thing of which he already repented himself? He tried to persuade himself that she was admirably fitted for the life which he was fated to lead. She was handsome, intellectual, a most delightful companion, and yet capable of enduring the hardships of an adventurous uncertain career. Ought he not to think himself peculiarly lucky in having found for himself so eligible a companion? But there is something so solemn, so sacred, in the name of wife. A man brought up among soft things is so imbued with the feeling that his wife should be something better, cleaner, sweeter, holier than himself that he could not but be awe-struck when he thought that he was bound to marry this all but nameless widow of some drunken player,--this woman who, among other women, had been thought unfit for all companionship!
But things arrange themselves. How probable it was that he would never be married to her. After all, this might be but an incident, and not an unpleasant incident, in his life. He had had his amusement out of it, and she had had hers. Perhaps they would part to meet no more. But when he thought that there might be comfort in this direction, he felt that he was a scoundrel for thinking so.
'And this is to say good-bye?' 'Twas thus she greeted him again that night. 'Good-bye--' 'Good-bye, my love.'
'My love! my love! And now remember this; my address will be, Post-office, Melbourne. It will be for you to write to me. You will not hear from me unless you do. Indeed I shall know nothing of you. Let me have a line before a month is over.' This he promised, and then they parted.
At break of day on the following morning the Goldfinder rode over the Rip into Hobson's Bay. There were still four hours before the ship lay at her moorings; but during all that time Mrs. Smith was not seen by Caldigate. As he got into the boat which took him and Shand from the ship to the pier at Sandridge she kissed her hand to him over the side of the vessel. Before eleven o'clock Dick Shand and his companion were comfortably put up at the Miners' Home in Flinders Lane.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
9 | None | Nobble During the two days which Dick and Caldigate spent together in Melbourne Mrs. Smith's name was not mentioned between them. They were particularly civil each to the other and went to work together, making arrangements at a bank as to their money, taking their places, despatching their luggage, and sorting their belongings as though there had been no such woman as Mrs. Smith on board the Goldfinder. Dick, though he had been inclined to grumble when his mystery had been taken out of his hands,--who had, of course, been jealous when he saw that the lady had discarded her old hat and put on new ribbons, not for him, but for another,--was too conscious of the desolation to which he would be subjected by quarrelling with his friend. He felt himself unable to go alone, and was therefore willing that the bygones of the ship should be bygones. Caldigate, on the other hand, acknowledged to himself that he owed some reparation to his companion. Of course he had not bound himself to any special mode of life;--but had he, in his present condition, allied himself more closely to Mrs. Smith, he would, to some extent, have thrown Dick over. And then, as soon as he was on shore, he did feel somewhat ashamed of himself in regard to Mrs. Smith. Was it not manifest that any closer alliance, let the alliance be what it might, must be ruinous to him? As it was, had he not made an absolute fool of himself with Mrs. Smith? Had he not got himself already into a mess from which there was no escape? Of course he must write to her when the month was over. The very weight of his thoughts on this matter made him tamer with Dick and more observant than he would otherwise have been.
They were during those two days frequently about the town, looking at the various streets and buildings, at the banks and churches and gardens,--as is usual with young men when they visit a new town; but, during it all, Caldigate's mind was more intent on Mrs. Smith than he was on the sights of the place. Melbourne is not so big but that she might easily have thrown herself in his way had she pleased. Strangers residing in such a town are almost sure to see each other before twenty-four hours are gone. But Mrs. Smith was not seen. Two or three times he went up and down Collins Street alone, without his friend, not wishing to see her,--aware that he had better not see her,--but made restless by a nervous feeling that he ought to wish to see her, that he should, at any rate, not keep out of her way. But Mrs. Smith did not show herself. Whatever might be her future views, she did not now take steps to present herself to him. 'I shall be so much the more bound to present myself to her,' he said to himself. 'But perhaps she knows all that,' he added in the same soliloquy.
On the Wednesday morning they left Melbourne by the 6 A.M. train for Albury, which latter place they reached the same day, about 2 P.M., having then crossed the Murray river, and passed into the colony of New South Wales. Here they stayed but a few hours and then went on by coach on their journey to Nobble. From one wretched vehicle they were handed on to another, never stopping anywhere long enough to go to bed,--three hours at one wretched place and five at another,--travelling at the rate of six miles an hour, bumping through the mud and slush of the bush roads, and still going on for three days and three nights. This was roughing it indeed. Even Dick complained, and said that, of all the torments prepared for wicked mortals on earth, this Australian coaching was the worst. They went through Wagga-Wagga and Murrumburra, and other places with similar names, till at last they were told that they had reached Nobble. Nobble they thought was the foulest place which they had ever seen. It was a gold-digging town, as such places are called, and had been built with great rapidity to supply the necessities of adjacent miners. It was constructed altogether of wood, but no two houses had been constructed alike. They generally had gable ends opening on to the street, but were so different in breadth, altitude, and form, that it was easy to see that each enterprising proprietor had been his own architect. But they were all alike in having enormous advertisement-boards, some high, some broad, some sloping, on which were declared the merits of the tradesmen who administered within to the wants of mining humanity. And they had generally assumed most singular names for themselves: 'The Old Stick-in-the-Mud Soft Goods Store,' 'The Polyeuka Stout Depot,' 'Number Nine Flour Mills,' and so on,--all of which were very unintelligible to our friends till they learned that these were the names belonging to certain gold-mining claims which had been opened in the neighbourhood of Nobble. The street itself was almost more perilous to vehicles than the slush of the forest-tracks, so deep were the holes and so uncertain the surface. When Caldigate informed the driver that they wanted to be taken as far as Henniker's hotel, the man said that he had given up going so far as that for the last two months, the journey being too perilous. So they shouldered their portmanteaus and struggled forth down the street. Here and there a short bit of wooden causeway, perhaps for the length of three houses, would assist them; and then, again, they would have to descend into the roadway and plunge along through the mud.
'It is not quite as nice walking as the old Quad at Trinity,' said Caldigate.
'It is the beastliest hole I ever put my foot in since I was born,' said Dick, who had just stumbled and nearly came to the ground with his burden. 'They told us that Nobble was a fine town.'
Henniker's hotel was a long, low wooden shanty, divided into various very small partitions by thin planks, in most of which two or more dirty-looking beds had been packed very closely. But between these little compartments there was a long chamber containing a long and very dirty table, and two long benches. Here were sitting a crowd of miners, drinking, when our friends were ushered in through the bar or counter which faced to the street. At the bar they were received by a dirty old woman who said that she was Mrs. Henniker. Then they were told, while the convivial crowd were looking on and listening, that they could have the use of one of the partitions and their 'grub' for 7s. 6d. a-day each. When they asked for a partition apiece, they were told that if they didn't like what was offered to them they might go elsewhere. Upon that they agreed to Mrs. Henniker's terms, and sitting down on one of the benches looked desolately into each others faces.
Yes;--it was different from Trinity College, different from Babington, very different even from the less luxurious comfort of the house at Pollington. The deck, even the second-class cabin, of the Goldfinder had been better than this. And then they had no friend, not even an acquaintance, within some hundred miles. The men around them were not uncivil. Australian miners never are so. But they were inquisitive, familiar, and with their half-drunken good-humour, almost repulsive. It was about noon when our friends reached Henniker's, and they were told that there would be dinner at one. There was always 'grub' at one, and 'grub' at seven, and 'grub' at eight in the morning. So one of the men informed them. The same gentleman hoped that the strangers were not very particular, as the 'grub,' though plentiful was apt to be rough of its kind.
'You'll have it a deal worse before you've done if you're going on to Ahalala,' said another. Then Caldigate said that they did intend to go on to Ahalala. 'We're going to have a spell at gold-digging,' said he. What was the use of making any secret of the matter? 'We knowed that ready enough,' said one of the men. 'Chaps like you don't come much to Nobble for nothing else. Have you got any money to start with?'
'A few half-crowns,' said Dick, cautiously.
'Half-crowns don't go very far here, my mate. If you can spend four or five pounds a-week each for the next month, so as to get help till you know where you are, it may be you'll turn up gold at Ahalala;--but if not, you'd better go elsewhere. You needn't be afraid. We ain't a-going to rob you of nothing.'
'Nor yet we don't want nothing to drink,' said another.
'Speak for yourself, Jack,' said a third. 'But come;--as these are regular new chums, I don't care if I shout for the lot myself.' Then the dirty old woman was summoned, and everybody had whisky all round. When that was done, another generous man came to the front, and there was more whisky, till Caldigate was frightened as to the result.
Evil might have come from it, had not the old woman opportunely brought the 'grub' into the room. This she chucked down on the table in such a way that the grease out of the dish spattered itself all around. There was no tablecloth, nor had any preparation been made; but in the middle of the table there was a heap of dirty knives and forks, with which the men at once armed themselves; and each took a plate out of a heap that had been placed on a shelf against the wall. Caldigate and Shand, when they saw how the matter was to be arranged, did as the other men. The 'grub' consisted of an enormous lump of boiled beef, and a bowl of potatoes, which was moderate enough in size considering that there were in all about a dozen men to be fed. But there was meat enough for double the number, and bread in plenty, but so ill-made as to be rejected by most of the men. The potatoes were evidently the luxury; and, guided by that feeling, the man who had told the strangers that they need not be afraid of being robbed, at once selected six out of the bowl, and deposited three each before Dick and Caldigate. He helped the others all round to one each, and then was left without any for himself. 'I don't care a damn for that sort of tucker,' he said, as though he despised potatoes from the bottom of his heart. Of all the crew he was the dirtiest, and was certainly half drunk. Another man holloaed to 'Mother Henniker' for pickles; but Mother Henniker, without leaving her seat at the bar, told them to 'pickle themselves.' Whereupon one of the party, making some allusion to Jack Brien's swag,--Jack Brien being absent at the moment,--rose from his seat and undid a great roll lying in one of the corners. Every miner has his swag,--consisting of a large blanket which is rolled up, and contains all his personal luggage. Out of Jack Brien's swag were extracted two large square bottles of pickles. These were straightway divided among the men, care being taken that Dick and Caldigate should have ample shares. Then every man helped himself to beef, as much as he would, passing the dish round from one to the other. When the meal was half finished, Mrs. Henniker brought in an enormous jorum of tea, which she served out to all the guests in tin pannikins, giving to every man a fixed and ample allowance of brown sugar, without at all consulting his taste. Milk there was none. In the midst of this Jack Brien came in, and with a clamour of mirth the empty pickle jars were shown him. Jack, who was a silent man, and somewhat melancholy, merely shook his head and ate his beef. It may be presumed that he was fond of pickles, having taken so much trouble to provide them; but he said not a word of the injury to which he had been subjected.
'Them's a-going to Ahalala, Jack,' said the distributor of the potatoes, nodding his head to indicate the two new adventurers.
'Then they're a-going to the most infernal, mean, ----, ---- break-heartedest place as God Almighty ever put on this 'arth for the perplexment of poor unfortunate ---- ---- miners.' This was Jack Brien's eloquence, and his description of Ahalala. Before this he had not spoken a word, nor did he speak again till he had consumed three or four pounds of beef, and had swallowed two pannikins of tea. Then he repeated his speech: 'There isn't so ---- ---- an infernal, mean, break-hearted a place as Ahalala,--not nowhere; no, not nowhere. And so them chums'll find for theirselves if they go there.' Then his neighbour whispered into Caldigate's ear that Jack had gone to Ahalala with fifty sovereigns in his pocket, and that he wasn't now worth a red cent.
'But there is gold there?' asked Caldigate.
'It's my belief there's gold pretty much everywhere, and you may find it, or you mayn't. That's where it is;--and the mayn'ts are a deal oftener turning up than the mays.'
'A man can get work for wages,' suggested Dick.
'Wages! What's the use of that? A man as knows mining can earn wages. But Ahalala aint a place for wages. If you want wages, go to one of the old-fashioned places,--Bendigo, or the like of that. I've worked for wages, but what comes of it? A man goes to Ahalala because he wants to run his chance, and get a big haul. It's every one on his own bottom pretty much at Ahalala.'
'Wages be ----!' said Jack Brien, rising from the seat and hitching up his trousers as he left the room. It was very evident that Jack Brien was a gambler.
After dinner there was a smoke, and after the smoke Dick Shand 'shouted' for the company. Dick had quite learned by this time the mystery of shouting. When one man 'stands' drinks all round, he shouts; and then it is no more than reciprocal that another man should do the same. And, in this way, when the reciprocal feeling is spread over a good many drinkers, a good deal of liquor is consumed.
While Dick Shand's 'shout' was being consumed, Caldigate asked one of his new friends where Mr. Crinkett lived. Was Mr. Crinkett known in Nobble? It seemed that Crinkett was very well known in Nobble indeed. If anybody had done well at Nobble, Mr. Crinkett had done well. He was the 'swell' of the place. This informant did not think that Mr. Crinkett had himself gone very deep at Ahalala. Mr. Crinkett had risen high enough in his profession to be able to achieve more certainty than could be found at such a place as Ahalala. By this time they were on the road to Mr. Crinkett's house, this new friend having undertaken to show them the way.
'He can put you up to a thing or two, if he likes,' said the new friend. 'Perhaps he's a pal of yourn?'
Caldigate explained that he had never seen Mr. Crinkett, but that he had come to Nobble armed with a letter from a gentleman in England who had once been concerned in gold-digging.
'He's a civil enough gent, is Crinkett,' said the miner;--'but he do like making money. They say of him there's nothing he wouldn't sell,--not even his grandmother's bones. I like trade, myself,' added the miner; 'but some of 'em's too sharp. That's where Crinkett lives. He's a swell; ain't he?'
They had walked about half a mile from the town, turning down a lane at the back of the house, and had made their way through yawning pit-holes and heaps of dirt and pools of yellow water,--where everything was disorderly and apparently deserted,--till they came to a cluster of heaps so large as to look like little hills; and here there were signs of mining vitality. On their way they had not come across a single shred of vegetation, though here and there stood the bare trunks of a few dead and headless trees, the ghosts of the forest which had occupied the place six or seven years previously. On the tops of these artificial hills there were sundry rickety-looking erections, and around them were troughs and sheds and rude water-works. These, as the miner explained were the outward and visible signs of the world-famous 'Old Stick-in-the-Mud' claim, which was now giving two ounces of gold to the ton of quartz, and which was at present the exclusive property of Mr. Crinkett, who had bought out the tribute shareholders and was working the thing altogether on his own bottom. As they ascended one of those mounds of upcast stones and rubble, they could see on the other side the crushing-mills, and the engine-house, and could hear the thud, thud, thud of the great iron hammers as they fell on the quartz,--and then, close beyond, but still among the hillocks, and surrounded on all sides by the dirt and filth of the mining operations, was Mr. Crinkett's mansion. 'And there's his very self a-standing at the gate a-counting how many times the hammer falls a minute, and how much gold is a-coming from every blow as it falls.' With this little observation as to Mr. Crinkett's personal character, the miner made his way back to his companions.
| {
"id": "11643"
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10 | None | Polyeuka Hall The house which they saw certainly surprised them much, and seemed to justify the assertion just before made to them that Mr. Crinkett was a swell. It was marvellous that any man should have contemplated the building of such a mansion in a place so little attractive, with so many houses within view. The house and little attempted garden, together with the stables and appurtenances, may have occupied half an acre. All around it were those hideous signs of mining operations which make a country rich in metals look as though the devil had walked over it, dragging behind him an enormous rake. There was not a blade of grass to be seen. As far as the eye could reach there stood those ghost-like skeletons of trees in all spots where the soil had not been turned up; but on none of them was there a leaf left, or even a branch. Everywhere the ground was thrown about in hideous uncovered hillocks, all of which seemed to have been deserted except those in the immediate neighbourhood of Mr. Crinkett's house. But close around him one could see wheels turning and long ropes moving, and water running in little wooden conduits, all of which were signs of the activity going on under ground. And then there was the never-ceasing thud, thud, thud of the crushing-mill, which from twelve o'clock on Sunday night to twelve o'clock on Saturday night, never paused for a moment, having the effect, on that vacant day, of creating a painful strain of silence upon the ears of those who were compelled to remain on the spot during the unoccupied time. It was said that in Mr. Crinkett's mansion every sleeper would wake from his sleep as soon as the engine was stopped, disturbed by the unwonted quiescence.
But the house which had been built in this unpromising spot was quite entitled to be called a mansion. It was of red brick, three storeys high, with white stone facings to all the windows and all the corners, which glittered uncomfortably in the hot sun. There was a sweep up to it, the road having been made from the débris of the stone out of which the gold had been crushed; but though there was the sweep up to the door carefully made for the length of a few dozen yards, there was nothing that could be called a road outside, though there were tracks here and there through the hillocks, along which the waggons employed about the place struggled through the mud. The house itself was built with a large hall in the middle, and three large windows on each side. On the floor there were four large rooms, with kitchens opening out behind, and above there were, of course, chambers in proportion and in the little garden there was a pond and a big bath-house, and there were coach-houses and stables;--so that it was quite a mansion. It was called Polyeuka Hall, because while it was being built Mr. Crinkett was drawing large gains from the Polyeuka mine, about three miles distant on the other side of Nobble. For the building of his mansion on this special site, no one could imagine any other reason than that love which a brave man has of overcoming difficulties. To endeavour to create a paradise in such a Pandemonium required all the energies of a Crinkett. Whether or not he had been successful depended of course on his own idiosyncrasies. He had a wife who, it is to be hoped, liked her residence. They had no children, and he spent the greater part of his time away in other mining districts in which he had ventures. When thus absent, he would live as Jack Brien and his friends were living at Mrs. Henniker's, and was supposed to enjoy the ease of his inn more thoroughly than he did the constraint of his grand establishment.
At the present moment he was at home, and was standing at the gate of his domain all alone, with a pipe in his mouth,--perhaps listening, as the man had said, to the noise of his own crushing-machine. He was dressed in black, with a chimney-pot on his head,--and certainly did not look like a miner, though he looked as little like a gentleman. Our friends were in what they conceived to be proper miners' costume, but Mr. Crinkett knew at a glance that there was something uncommon about them. As they approached he did not attempt to open the gate, but awaited them, looking over the top of it from the inside. 'Well, my mates, what can I do for you?' he said, still remaining on his side, and apparently intending that they should remain on theirs. Then Caldigate brought forth his letter, and handed it to the owner of the place across the top of the gate. 'I think Mr. Jones wrote to you about us before,' said Caldigate.
Crinkett read the letter very deliberately. Perhaps he required time to meditate what his conduct should be. Perhaps he was not quick at reading written letters. But at last he got to the end of the very few words which the note contained. 'Jones!' he said, 'Jones wasn't much account when he was out here.'
'We don't know a great deal about him,' said Dick.
'But when he heard that we were coming, he offered us a letter to you,' said Caldigate. 'I believe him to be an honest man.'
'Honest! Well, yes; I daresay he's honest enough. He never robbed me of nothing. And shall I tell you why? Because I know how to take care that he don't, nor yet nobody else.' As he said this, he looked at them as though he intended that they were included among the numbers against whom he was perfectly on his guard.
'That's the way to live,' said Dick.
'That's the way I live, my friend. He did write before. I remember saying to myself what a pair of simpletons you must be if you was thinking of going to Ahalala.'
'We do think of going there,' said Caldigate.
'The road's open to you. Nobody won't prevent you. You can get beef and mutton there, and damper, and tea no doubt, and what they call brandy, as long as you've got the money to pay for it. One won't say anything about what price they'll charge you. Have you got any money?' Then Caldigate made a lengthened speech, in which he explained so much of their circumstances as seemed necessary. He did not name the exact sum which had been left at the bank in Melbourne, but he did make Mr. Crinkett understand that they were not paupers. They were anxious to do something in the way of mining, and particularly anxious to make money. But they did not quite know how to begin. Could he give them a hint? They meant to work with their own hands, but perhaps it might be well for them at first to hire the services of some one to set them a-going.
Crinkett listened very patiently, still maintaining his position on his own side of the gate. Then he spoke words of such wisdom as was in him. 'Ahalala is just the place to ease you of a little money. Mind I tell you. Gold! of course there's been gold to be got there. But what's been the cost of it? What's been the return? If sixteen hundred men, among 'em, can sell fifteen hundred pounds' worth of gold a week, how is each man to have twenty shillings on Saturday night? That's about what it is at Ahalala. Of course there's gold. And where there's gold chucked about in that way, just on the surface, one gets it and ten don't. Who is to say you mayn't be the one. As to hiring a man to show you the way,--you can hire a dozen. As long as you'll pay 'em ten shillings a-day to loaf about, you may have men enough. But whether they'll show you the way to anything except the liquor store, that's another thing. Now shall I tell you what you two gents had better do?' Dick declared that the two gents would be very much obliged to him if he would take that trouble. 'Of course you've heard of the "Old Stick-in-the-Mud"?' Dick told him that they had heard of that very successful mining enterprise since their arrival at Nobble. 'You ask on the veranda at Melbourne, or at Ballarat, or at Sydney. If they don't tell you about it, my name's not Crinkett. You put your money, what you've got, into ten-shilling shares. I'll accommodate you, as you're friends of Jones, with any reasonable number. We're getting two ounces to the ton. The books'll show you that.'
'We thought you'd purchased out all the shareholders said Caldigate.
'So I did, and now I'm redividing it. I'd rather have a company. It's pleasanter. If you can put in a couple of thousand pounds or so between you, you can travel about and see the country, and your money'll be working for you all the time. Did you ever see a gold mine?'
They owned that they never yet had been a yard below ground. Then he opened his gate preparatory to taking them down the 'Old Stick-in-the-Mud,' and brought them with him into one of the front rooms. It was a large parlour, only half furnished, not yet papered, without a carpet, in which it appeared that Mr. Crinkett kept his own belongings. Here he divested himself of his black clothes and put on a suit of miner's garments,--real miner's garments, very dirty, with a slouch hat, on the top of which there was a lump of mud in which to stick a candle-end. Any one learned in the matter would immediately have known the real miner. 'Now if you like to see a mine we will go down, and then you can do as you like about your money.'
They started forth, Crinkett leading the way, and entered the engine-house. As they went he said not a word, being aware that gold, gold that they could see with their eyes in its raw condition, would tempt them more surely than all his eloquence. In the engine-house the three of them got into a box or truck that was suspended over the mouth of a deep shaft, and soon found themselves descending through the bowels of the earth. They went down about four hundred feet, and as they were reaching the bottom Crinkett remarked that it was 'a goodish deep hole all to belong to one man.' 'Yes,' he added as Caldigate extricated himself from the truck, 'and there's a precious lot more gold to come out of it yet, I can tell you.'
In all the sights to be seen about the world there is no sight in which there is less to be seen than in a gold-mine. The two young men were made to follow their conductor along a very dirty underground gallery for about a quarter of a mile, and then they came to four men working with picks in a rough sort of chamber, and four others driving holes in the walls. They were simply picking down the rock, in doing which they were assisted by gunpowder. With keen eyes Crinkett searched along the roof and sides, and at last showed to his companions one or two little specks which he pronounced to be gold. 'When it shows itself like that all about, you may guess whether it's a paying concern! Two ounces to the ton, my boys!' As Dick and Caldigate hitherto knew nothing about ounces and tons in reference to gold, and as they had heard of nuggets, and lumps of gold nearly as big as their fist, they were not much exalted by what they saw down the 'Old Stick-in-the-Mud.' Nor did they like the darkness and dampness and dirt and dreariness of the place. They had both resolved to work, as they had often said, with their own hands;--but in thinking over it their imagination had not pictured to them so uncomfortable a workshop as this. When they had returned to the light, the owner of the place took them through the crushing-mill attached, showed them the stone or mulloch, as it was thrust into the jaws of the devouring animal, and then brought them in triumph round to the place where the gold was eliminated from the débris of mud and water. The gold did not seem to them to be very much; but still there it was. 'Two ounces to the ton, my boys!' said Crinkett, as he brought them back to his house. 'You'll find that a 10s. share'll give you about 6d. a month. That's about 60 per cent, I guess. You can have your money monthly. What comes out of that there mine in a March, you can have in a April, and so on. There ain't nothing like it anywhere else,--not as I knows on. And instead of working your hearts out, you can be just amusing yourselves about the country. Don't go to Ahalala;--unless it is for dropping your money. If that's what you want, I won't say but Ahalala is as good a place as you'll find in the colony.' Then he brought a bottle of whisky out of a cupboard, and treated them to a glass of grog apiece. Beyond that his hospitality did not go.
Dick looked as though he liked the idea of having a venture in the 'Old Stick-in-the-Mud.' Caldigate, without actually disbelieving all that had been said to him, did not relish the proposal. It was not the kind of thing which they had intended. After they had learned their trade as miners it might be very well for them to have shares in some established concern;--but in that case he would wish to be one of the managers himself, and not to trust everything to any Crinkett, however honest. That suggestion of travelling about and amusing themselves, did not commend itself to him. New South Wales might, he thought, be a good country for work, but did not seem to offer much amusement beyond sheer idleness, and brandy-and-water.
'I rather think we should like to do a little in the rough first,' he said.
'A very little'll go a long way with you, I'm thinking.'
'I don't see that at all,' said Dick, stoutly.
'You go down there and take one of them picks in your hand for a week,--eight hours at a time, with five minutes' spell allowed for a smoke, and see how you'll feel at the end of the week.'
'We'll try it on, if you'll give us 10s. a-day for the week,' said Caldigate, rubbing his hands together.
'I wouldn't give you half-a-crown for the whole time between you, and you wouldn't earn it. Ten shillings a day! I suppose you think a man has only just to say the word and become a miner out of hand. You've a deal to learn before you'll be worth half the money. I never knew chaps like you come to any good at working. If you've got a little money, you know, I've shown you what you can do with it. But perhaps you haven't.'
The conversation was ended by a declaration on the part of Caldigate that they would take a week to think over Mr. Crinkett's kind proposition, and that they might as well occupy the time by taking a look at Ahalala. A place that had been so much praised and so much abused must be worth seeing. 'Who's been a-praising it,' asked Crinkett, angrily, 'unless it's that fool Jones? And as for waiting, I don't say that you'll have the shares at that price next week.' In this way he waxed angry; but, nevertheless, he condescended to recommend a man to them, when Caldigate declared that they would like to hire some practical miner to accompany them. 'There's Mick Maggott,' said he, 'knows mining a'most as well as anybody. You'll hear of him, may be, up at Henniker's. He's honest; and if you can keep him off the drink he'll do as well as anybody. But neither Mick nor nobody else can do you no good at Ahalala.' With that he led them out of the gate, and nodding his head at them by way of farewell, left them to go back to Mrs. Henniker's.
To Mrs. Henniker's they went, and there, stretched out at length on the wooden veranda before the house, they found the hero of the potatoes,--the man who had taken them down to Crinkett's house. He seemed to be fast asleep, but as they came up on the boards, he turned himself on his elbow, and looked at them. 'Well, mates,' he said, 'what do you think of Tom Crinkett now you've seen him?'
'He doesn't seem to approve of Ahalala,' said Dick.
'In course he don't. When a new rush is opened like that, and takes away half the hands a man has about him, and raises the wages of them who remain, in course he don't like it. You see the difference. The Old Stick-in-the-Mud is an established kind of thing.'
'It's a paying concern, I suppose,' said Caldigate.
'It has paid;--not a doubt about it. Whether it's played out or not, I'm not so sure. But Ahalala is a working-man's diggings, not a master's, such as Crinkett is now. Of course Crinkett has a down on Ahalala.'
'Your friend Jack Brien didn't seem to think much of the place,' said Dick.
'Poor Jack is one of them who never has a stroke of luck. He's a sort of chum who, when he has a bottle of pickles, somebody else is sure to eat 'em. Ahalala isn't so bad. It's one of them chancy places, of course. You may and you mayn't, as I was a-saying before. When the great rush was on, I did uncommon well at Ahalala. I never was the man I was then.'
'What became of it?' asked Caldigate with a smile.
'Mother Henniker can tell you that, or any other publican round the country. It never will stick to me. I don't know why, but it never will. I've had my luck, too. Oh, laws! I might have had my house, just as grand as Polly Hooker this moment, only I never could stick to it like Tom Crinkett. I've drank cham--paign out of buckets;--I have.'
'I'd rather have a pot of beer out of the pewter,' said Caldigate.
'Very like. One doesn't drink cham--paign because it's better nor anything else. A nobbler of brandy's worth ten of it. It's the glory of out-facing the swells at their own game. There was a chap over in the other colony shod his horse with gold,--and he had to go shepherding afterwards for thirty pounds a-year and his grub. But it's something for him to have ridden a horse with gold shoes. You've never seen a bucketful of cham--paign in the old country?'
When both Dick and Caldigate had owned that they had never encountered luxury so superabundant, and had discussed the matter in various shapes,--asking whether the bucket had been emptied, and other questions of the same nature,--Caldigate inquired of his friend whether he knew Mick Maggott?
'Mick Maggott!' said the man, jumping up to his feet. 'Who wants Mick Maggott?' Then Caldigate explained the recommendation which Mr. Crinkett had made. 'Well;--I'm darned;--Mick Maggott? I'm Mick Maggott, myself.'
Before the evening was over an arrangement had been made between the parties, and had even been written on paper and signed by all the three. Mick on the morrow was to proceed to Ahalala with his new comrades, and was to remain with them for a month, assisting them in all their views; and for this he was to receive ten shillings a-day. But, in the event of his getting drunk, he was to be liable to dismissal at once. Mick pleaded hard for one bout of drinking during the month;--but when Dick explained that one bout might last for the entire time, he acknowledged that the objection was reasonable and assented to the terms proposed.
| {
"id": "11643"
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11 | None | Ahalala It was all settled that night, and some necessary purchases made. Ahalala was twenty-three miles from Nobble, and a coach had been established through the bush for the benefit of miners going to the diggings;--but Mick was of opinion that miners ought to walk, with their swag on their backs, when the distance was not more than forty miles. 'You look so foolish getting out of one of them rattletrap coaches,' he said, 'and everybody axing whether you're going to pick for yourself or buy a share in a claim. I'm all for walking,--if it ain't beneath you.' They declared themselves quite ready to walk, and under Mick's guidance they went out and bought two large red blankets and two pannikins. Mick declared that if they went without swags on their backs and pannikins attached to their swags, they would be regarded with evil eyes by all who saw them. There were some words about the portmanteaus. Mick proposed that they should be left for the entire month in the charge of Mrs. Henniker, and, when this was pronounced impossible, he was for a while disposed to be off the bargain. Caldigate declared that, with all his ambition to be a miner, he must have a change of shirts. Then Mick pointed to the swag. Couldn't he put another shirt into the swag? It was at last settled that one portmanteau should be sent by the coach, and one left in the charge of Mrs. Henniker. 'Them sort of traps ain't never any good, in my mind,' said Mick. 'It's unmanly, having all them togs. I like a wash as well as any man,--trousers, jersey, drawers, and all. I'm always at 'em when I get a place for a rinse by the side of a creek. But when my things are so gone that they won't hang on comfortable any longer, I chucks 'em away and buys more. Two jerseys is good, and two drawers is good, because of wet. Boots is awkward, and I allays does with one pair. Some have two, and ties 'em on with the pannikin. But it ain't ship-shape. Them's my ideas, and I've been at it these nine years. You'll come to the same.'
The three started the next morning at six, duly invested with their swags. Before they went they found Mrs. Henniker up, with hot tea, boiled beef, and damper. 'Just one drop at starting,--for the good of the house,' said Mick, apologetically. Whereupon the whisky was brought, and Mick insisted on shouting for it out of his own pocket.
They had hardly gone a mile out of Nobble before Maggott started a little difficulty,--merely for the purpose of solving it with a master's hand. 'There ain't to be no misters among us, you know.'
'Certainly not,' said Caldigate.
'My name's Mick. This chap's name's Dick. I didn't exactly catch your'n. I suppose you've been kursened.'
'Yes;--they christened me John.'
'Ain't it never been Jack with you?'
'I don't think it ever was.'
'John! It do sound lackadaisical. What I call womanish. But perhaps it's for the better. We have such a lot of Jacks. There's dirty Jack, and Jack the nigger, and Jack Misery,--that's poor Jack Brien;--and a lot more. Perhaps you wouldn't like not another name of that sort.'
'Well; no,--unless it's necessary.'
'There ain't another John about the place, as I know. I never knew a John down a mine,--never. We'll try it, anyhow.'
And so that was settled. As it happened, though Dick Shand had always been Dick to his friend, Caldigate had never, as yet, been either John or Jack to Dick Shand. There are men who fall into the way of being called by their Christian names, and others who never hear them except from their own family. But before the day was out, Caldigate had become John to both his companions. 'It don't sound as it ought to do;--not yet,' said Mick, after he had tried it about a dozen times in five minutes.
Before the day was over it was clear that Mick Maggott had assumed the mastery. When three men start on an enterprise together, one man must be 'boss.' Let the republic be as few as it may one man must be president. And as Mick knew what he was about, he assumed the situation easily. The fact that he was to receive wages from the others had no bearing on the subject at all. Before they got to Ahalala, Caldigate had begun to appreciate all this, and to understand in part what they would have to do during this month, and how they would have to live. It was proposed that they should at once fix on a spot,--'peg out a claim,' on some unoccupied piece of ground, buy for themselves a small tent,--of which they were assured that they would find many for sale,--and then begin to sink a hole. When they entered Ahalala, Caldigate was surprised to find that Mick was the most tired of the three. It is always so. The man who has laboured from his youth upwards can endure with his arms. It is he who has had leisure to shoot, to play cricket, to climb up mountains and to handle a racket, that can walk. 'Darned if you ain't better stuff than I took you for,' said Mick, as the three let the swags down from their backs on the veranda of Ridley's hotel at Ahalala.
Ahalala was a very different place from Nobble,--made Nobble seem to be almost a compact and prosperous city. At Nobble there was at any rate a street. But at Ahalala everything was straggling. The houses, such as they were, stood here and there about the place, while a great part of the population lived under canvas. And then Ahalala was decidedly in the forest. The trees around had not yet been altogether killed, nor had they been cut down in sufficient numbers to divest the place of its forest appearance. Ahalala was leafy, and therefore, though much less regular, also less hideous than Nobble. When Dick first made tender inquiry as to the comforts of an hotel, he was assured that there were at least a couple of dozen. But the place was bewildering. There seemed to be no beginning to it and no end. There were many tracks about here and there,--but nothing which could be called a road. The number of holes was infinite,--each hole covered by a rough windlass used for taking out the dirt, which was thrown loosely anywhere round the aperture. Here and there were to be seen little red flags stuck upon the end of poles. These indicated, as Mick informed them, those fortunate adventures in which gold had been found. At those very much more numerous hillocks which showed no red flag, the labourers were hitherto labouring in vain. There was a little tent generally near to each hillock in which the miners slept, packed nearly as close as sheep in a fold. As our party made its way through the midst of this new world to Ridley's hotel, our friend observed many a miner sitting at his evening meal. Each generally had a frying-pan between his legs, out of which he was helping himself to meat which he had cooked on the ashes just behind him. Sometimes two or three were sharing their provisions out of the same frying-pan; but as a rule each miner had his own, and each had it between his legs.
Before they had been at Ahalala twenty-four hours they also had their tent and their frying-pan and their fire, and had pegged out their claim, and were ready to commence operations on the morrow. It was soon manifest to Caldigate and Dick Shand that they would have been very much astray without a 'boss' to direct them. Three or four hours had been passed in forming a judgment as to the spot on which they should commence to dig. And in making his choice Mick had been guided by many matters as to which our two adventurers were altogether ignorant. It might be that Mick was equally so; but he at any rate assumed some knowledge. He looked to the fall of the ground, the line in which the red flags were to be traced,--if any such line could be found,--and was possessed of a considerable amount of jargon as to topographical mining secrets. At last they found a spot, near a creek, surrounded by forest-trees, perhaps three hundred yards from the nearest adjacent claim, and, as Mick declared, in a direct line with three red flags. Here they determined to commence their operations. 'I don't suppose we shall do any good,' said Caldigate to Dick, 'but we must make a beginning, if only for the sake of hardening our hands. We shall be learning something at the time even though we only shovel up so much mud.'
For a fortnight they shovelled up the soil continuously without any golden effects, and, so far, without any feeling of disappointment. Mick had told them that if they found a speck at the end of three weeks they would be very fortunate. They had their windlass, and they worked in relays; one man at the bottom, one man at the wheel, and one man idle. In this way they kept up their work during eighteen hours of the day. Each man in this way worked twelve hours, and had twelve for sleeping, and cooking, and eating. Other occupation they had none. During the fortnight neither of them went any further distance from their claim than to the neighbouring shop. Mick often expressed his admiration at their continued industry, not understanding the spirit which will induce such young men as them to work, even when the work is agonising. And they were equally charmed with Mick's sobriety and loyalty. Not a word had been said as to hours of work,--and yet he was as constant to their long hours as though the venture was his own,--as though there was no question of wages.
'We ain't had a drop o' drink yet,' said Mick one night. 'Ain't we a holding off like Britons?' There was great triumph in his voice as he said this;--very great triumph, but, also, as Caldigate thought, a sound of longing also. They were now in their third week, and the word whisky had never been pronounced between them. At this moment, when Mick's triumphant ejaculation was uttered, they were all lying--in bed. It shall be called bed by way of compliment. They had bought a truss of straw, which Mick had declared to be altogether unnecessary and womanish, and over that was laid a white india-rubber sheet which Caldigate had brought with him from England. This, too, had roused the miner's wrath. Nevertheless he condescended to lie upon it. This was their bed; and here they lay, each wrapped up in his blanket, Mick in the middle, with our two friends at the sides. Now it was not only on Mick's account, but quite as much in reference to Dick Shand, that Caldigate deprecated any reference to drink. The abstention hitherto had been marvellous. He himself would have gone daily to the store for a bottle of beer, but that he recognised the expediency of keeping them away from the place. He had heard that it was a peculiarity of the country that all labour was done without drink, even when it was done by determined drunkards. The drunkard would work for a month, and then drink for a month,--and then, after a time, would die. The drink almost always consisted of spirits of the worst description. It seemed to be recognised by the men that work and drink must be kept separate. But Mick's mind travelled away on this occasion from the little tent to the delights of Ridley's bar. 'We haven't had a drop of drink yet,' he said.
'We'll push through the month without it;--eh, old boy?' said Caldigate.
'What wouldn't I give for a pint of bitter beer?' said Shand.
'Or a bottle of Battleaxe between the three of us!' said Mick;--Battleaxe being the name for a certain brand of brandy.
'Not a drop till the month is over,' said Caldigate turning himself round in his blanket. Then there were whisperings between the other two men, of which he could only hear the hum.
On the next morning at six Caldigate and Dick Shand were at the hole together. It was Caldigate's turn to work till noon, whereas Dick went off at nine, and Mick would come on from nine till three. At nine Mick did not make his appearance, and Dick declared his purpose of looking after him. Caldigate also threw down his tools, as he could not work alone, and went in search. The upshot of it was, that he did not see either of his companions again till he found them both very drunk at a drinking-shop about two miles away from their claim, just before dusk!
This was terrible. He did at last succeed in bringing back his own friend to the tent, having, however, a sad task in doing so. But Mick Maggott would not be moved. He had his wits about him enough to swear that he cared for nothing. He was going to have a spree. Nobody had ever known him to be talked out of it when he had once set his mind upon it. He had set his mind upon it now, and he meant to have his whack. This was what he said of himself: 'It ain't no good, John. It ain't no good at all, John. Don't you trouble yourself, John. I'm going to have it out, John, so I tell you.' This he said, nodding his head about in a maudlin sort of way, and refusing to allow himself to be moved.
On the next day Dick Shand was sick, repentant, and idle. On the third, he returned to his work,--working however, with difficulty. After that, he fairly recovered himself, and the two Cambridge men went on resolutely at their hole. They soon found how hard it was not to go astray without their instructed mate. The sides of the shaft became crooked and uneven, and the windlass sometimes could not be made to work. But still they persevered, and went on by themselves for an entire week without a sign of gold. During this time various fruitless expeditions were made by both the men in search of Maggott. He was still at the same drinking-shop, but could not be induced to leave it. At last they found him with the incipient horrors of delirium tremens, and yet they could not get him away. The man who kept the place was quite used to delirium tremens, and thought nothing about it. When Caldigate tried a high moral tone everybody around him laughed at him.
They had been digging for a month, and still without a speck of gold, when, one morning early, Mick appeared in front of the tent. It was then about eight, and our friends had stopped their work to eat their breakfast. The poor man, without saying a word, came and crouched down before them;--not in shame,--not at all that; but apparently in an agony of sickness,--'I've had my bout,' he said.
'I don't suppose you're much the better for it,' replied Caldigate.
'No; I ain't none the better. I thought it was all up with me yesterday. Oh, laws! I've had it heavy this time.'
'Why are you such a fool?'
'Well;--you see, John, some of us is born fools. I'm one of 'em. You needn't tell me, 'cause I know all about it without any sermoning. Nobody don't know it so well as I do! How should they? If you had my inside now,--and my head! Oh, laws!'
'Give it up, man.'
'That's easy said;--as if I wouldn't if I could. I haven't got a blessed coin left to buy a bite of bread with,--and I couldn't touch a morsel if I had ever so much. I'll take my blanket and be off as soon as I can move.' All this time he had been crouching, but now he threw himself at length upon the ground.
Of course they did what they could for the poor wretch. They got him into the tent, and they made him swallow some tea. Then he slept; and in the course of the afternoon he had so far recovered as to be able to eat a bit of meat. Then, when his companions were at their work, he carefully packed up his swag, and fastening it on to his back, appeared by the side of the hole. 'I'm come to bid you good-bye he said.
'Where are you going, Mick?' asked Caldigate, climbing up out of the hole by the rope.
'I'm blessed if I know, but I'm off. You are getting that hole tarnation crooked.'
The man was going without any allusion to the wages he had earned, or to the work that he had done. But then, in truth, he had not earned his wages, as he had broken his contract. He made no complaint, however, and no apology, but was prepared to start.
'That's all nonsense,' said Dick, catching hold of him.
'You put your swag down,' said Caldigate, also catching hold of the other shoulder.
'What am I to put my swag down for? I'm a-going back to Nobble. Crinkett'll give me work.'
'You're not going to leave us in that way,' said Dick.
'Stop and make the shaft straight,' said Caldigate. The man looked irresolute. 'Friends are not to part like that.'
'Friends!' said the poor fellow. 'Who'll be friends to such a beast as I be? But I'll stay out the month if you'll find me my grub.'
'You shall have your grub and your money, too. Do you think we've forgotten the potatoes?' ' ---- the potatoes,' said the man, bursting into tears. Then he chucked away his swag, and threw himself under the tent upon the straw. The next day he was making things as straight as he could down the shaft.
When they had been at work about five weeks there was a pole stuck into their heap of dirt, and on the top of the pole there was a little red flag flying. At about thirty feet from the surface, when they had already been obliged to insert transverse logs in the shaft to prevent the sides from falling in, they had come upon a kind of soil altogether different from the ordinary clay through which they had been working. There was a stratum of loose shingle or gravelly earth, running apparently in a sloping direction, taking the decline of the very slight hill on which their claim was situated. Mick, as soon as this was brought to light, became an altered man. The first bucket of this stuff that was pulled up was deposited by him separately, and he at once sat down to wash it. This he did in an open tin pan. Handful after handful he washed, shifting and teasing it about in the pan, and then he cast it out, always leaving some very small residuum. He was intent upon his business to a degree that Caldigate would have thought to be beyond the man's nature. With extreme patience he went on washing handful after handful all the day, while the other two pulled up fresh buckets of the same stuff. He would not pause to eat, or hardly to talk. At last there came a loud exclamation. 'By------, we've got it!' Then Dick and Caldigate, stooping down, were shown four or five little specks in the angle of the pan's bottom. Before the sun had set they had stuck up their little red flag, and a crowd of neighbours was standing round them asking questions as to their success.
| {
"id": "11643"
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12 | None | Mademoiselle Cettini After three days of successful washing, when it became apparent that a shed must be built, and that, if possible, some further labour must be hired, Mick said that he must go. 'I ain't earned nothing,' he said, 'because of that bout, and I ain't going to ask for nothing, but I can't stand this any longer. I hope you'll make your fortins.' Then came the explanation. It was not possible, he said, that a regular miner, such as he was, should be a party to such a grand success without owning a share in it. He was quite aware that nothing belonged to him. He was working for wages and he had forfeited them. But he couldn't see the gold coming out under his hands in pailfuls and feel that none of it belonged to him. Then it was agreed that there should be no more talk of wages, and that each should have a third share in the concern. Very much was said on the matter of drink, in all of which Caldigate was clever enough to impose on his friend Dick the heavy responsibility of a mentor. A man who has once been induced to preach to another against a fault will feel himself somewhat constrained by his own sermons. Mick would make no promises; but declared his intention of trying very hard. 'If anybody'd knock me down as soon as I goes a yard off the claim, that'd be best.' And so they renewed their work, and at the end of six weeks from the commencement of their operations sold nine ounces of gold to the manager of the little branch bank which had already established itself at Ahalala. These were hardly 'pailfuls'; but gold is an article which adds fervour to the imagination and almost creates a power for romance.
Other matters, however, were not running smoothly with John Caldigate at this eventful time. To have found gold so soon after their arrival was no doubt a great triumph, and justified him in writing a long letter to his father, in which he explained what he had done, and declared that he looked forward to success with confidence. But still he was far from being at ease. He could not suffer himself to remain hidden at Ahalala without saying something of his whereabouts to Mrs. Smith. After what had happened between them he would be odious to himself if he omitted to keep the promise which he had made to her. And yet he would so fain have forgotten her,--or rather have wiped away from the reality of his past life that one episode, had it been possible. A month's separation had taught him to see how very silly he had been in regard to this woman,--and had also detracted much from those charms which had delighted him on board ship. She was pretty, she was clever, she had the knack of being a pleasant companion. But how much more than all these was wanted in a wife? And then he knew nothing about her. She might be, or have been, all that was disreputable. If he could not shake himself free from her, she would be a millstone round his neck. He was aware of all that, and as he thought of it he would think also of the face of Hester Bolton, and remember her form as she sat silent in the big house at Chesterton. But nevertheless it was necessary that he should write to Mrs. Smith. He had promised that he would do so, and he must keep his word.
The name of the woman had not been mentioned between him and Dick Shand since they left the ship. Dick had been curious, but had been afraid to inquire, and had in his heart applauded the courage of the man who had thus been able to shake off at once a woman with whom he had amused himself. Caldigate himself was continually meditating as he worked with the windlass in his hand, or with his pick at the bottom of the hole, whether in conformity with the usages of the world he could not simply--drop her. Then he remembered the words which had passed between them on the subject, and he could not do it. He was as yet too young to be at the same time so wise and so hard. 'I shall hold you as engaged to me,' he had said, 'and myself as engaged to you.' And he remembered the tones of her voice as, with her last words, she had said to him, 'My love, my love!' They had been very pleasant to him then, but now they were most unfortunate. They were unfortunate because there had been a power in them from which he was now unable to extricate himself.
Therefore, during one of those leisure periods in which Mick and Dick were at work, he wrote his letter, with the paper on his knees, squatting down just within his tent on a deal case which had contained boxes of sardines, bottles of pickles, and cans of jam. For now, in their prosperity, they had advanced somewhat beyond the simple plenty of the frying-pan. It was a difficult letter to write. Should it be ecstatic and loving, or cold and severe,--or light, and therefore false? 'My own one, here I am. I have struck gold. Come to me and share it.' That would have been ecstatic and loving.' 'Tis a hard life this, and not fit for a woman's weakness. But it must be my life--and therefore let there be an end of all between us.' That would have been cold and severe. 'How are you, and what are you doing? Dick and I are shoving along. It isn't half as nice as on board ship. Hope to see you before long, and am yours,--just the same as ever.' That would have been light and false,--keeping the word of promise to the ear but breaking it to the heart. He could not write either of these. He began by describing what they had done, and had completed two pages before he had said a word of their peculiar circumstances in regard to each other. He felt that his letter was running into mere gossip, and was not such as she would have a right to expect. If any letter were sent at all, there must be something more in it than all this. And so, after much thinking of it, he at last rushed, as it were, into hot words, and ended it as follows: 'I have put off to the last what I have really got to say. Let me know what you are doing and what you wish,--and whether you love me. I have not as yet the power of offering you a home, but I trust that the time may come.' These last words were false. He knew that they were false. But the falseness was not of a nature to cause him to be ashamed. It shames no man to swear that he loves a woman when he has ceased to love her;--but it does shame him to drop off from the love which he has promised. He balanced the matter in his mind for a while before he would send his letter. Then, getting up quickly, he rushed forth, and dropped it into the post-office box.
The very next day chance brought to Ahalala one who had been a passenger on board the Goldfinder; and the man, hearing of the success of Shand and Caldigate came to see them. 'Of course you know,' said the man, 'what your fellow-passenger is doing down at Sydney?' Dick Shand, who was present, replied that they had heard nothing of any fellow-passenger. Caldigate understood at once to whom the allusion was made, and was silent. 'Look here,' said the man, bringing a newspaper out of his pocket, and pointing to a special advertisement. 'Who do you think that is?' The advertisement declared that Mademoiselle Cettini would, on such and such a night, sing a certain number of songs, and dance a certain number of dances, and perform a certain number of tableaux, at a certain theatre in Sydney. 'That's your Mrs. Smith,' said the man, turning to Caldigate.
'I am very glad she has got employment,' said Caldigate; 'but she is not my Mrs. Smith.'
'We all thought that you and she were very thick.'
'All the same I beg you to understand that she is not my Mrs. Smith,' repeated Caldigate, endeavouring to appear unconcerned, but hardly able to conceal his anger.
Dancing dances, singing songs, and acting tableaux;--and all under the name of Mademoiselle Cettini! Nothing could be worse,--unless, indeed, it might be of service to him to know that she was earning her bread, and therefore not in distress, and earning it after a fashion of which he would be at liberty to express his disapproval. Nothing more was said at the time about Mrs. Smith, and the man went his way.
Ten days afterwards Caldigate, in the presence both of Mick and Dick, declared his purpose of going down to Sydney. 'Our luggage must be looked after,' said he;--'and I have a friend whom I want to see,' he added, not choosing to lie. At this time all was going successfully with them. Mick Maggott lived in such a manner that no one near him would have thought that he knew what whisky meant. His self-respect had returned to him, and he was manifestly 'boss.' There had come to be necessity for complicated woodwork below the surface, and he had shown himself to be a skilled miner. And it had come to pass that our two friends were as well assured of his honesty as of their own. He had been a veritable godsend to them,--and would remain so, could he be kept away from the drinking-shops.
'If you go away don't you think he'll break out?' Dick asked when they were alone together.
'I hope not. He seems to have been steadied by success. At any rate I must go.'
'Is it to see--Mrs. Smith?' Dick as he asked the question put on his most serious face. He did not utter the name as though he were finding fault. The time that had passed had been sufficient to quench the unpleasantness of their difference on board ship. He was justified in asking his friend such a question, and Caldigate felt that it was so.
'I am.'
'Don't you think, upon the whole,----. I don't like to interfere, but upon my word the thing is so important.'
'You think I had better not see her?'
'I do.'
'And lie to her?'
'All is fair in love and war.'
'That means that no faith is due to a woman. I cannot live by such a doctrine. I do not mind owning to you that I wish I could do as you bid me. I can't. I cannot be so false. I must go, old fellow; but I know all that you would say to me, and I will endeavour to escape honestly from this trouble.' And so he went.
Yes;--to escape honestly from that trouble! But how? It is just that trouble from which there is no honest escape,--unless a man may honestly break his word. He had engaged himself to her so much that, simply to ignore her would be cowardly as well as false. There was but one thing that he could do, but one step that he could take, by which his security and his self-respect might both be maintained. He would tell her the exact truth, and put it to her whether, looking at their joint circumstances, it would not be better that they should--part. Reflecting on this during his three days' journey down to Sydney, it was thus that he resolved,--forgetting altogether in his meditations the renewed force of the woman's charms upon himself.
As he went from the railway station at Sydney to the third-class inn at which he located himself, he saw the hoardings on all sides placarded with the name of Mademoiselle Cettini. And there was a picture on some of these placards of a wonderful female, without much clothes, which was supposed to represent some tragic figure in a tableau. There was the woman whom he was to make his wife. He had travelled all night, and had intended to seek Mrs. Smith immediately after his breakfast. But so unhappy was he, so much disgusted by the tragic figure in the picture, that he postponed his visit and went after his luggage. His luggage was all right in the warehouse, and he arranged that it should be sent down to Nobble. Waggons with stores did make their way to Nobble from the nearest railway station, and hopes were held out that the packages might be there in six weeks' time. He would have been willing to postpone their arrival for twelve months, for twenty-four months, could he, as compensation have been enabled to postpone, with honour, his visit to Mrs. Smith for the same time.
Soon after noon, however, his time was vacant, and he rushed to his fate. She had sent him her address, and he found her living in very decent lodgings overlooking the public park. He was at once shown up to her room, where he found her at breakfast. 'So you have come,' she said. Then, when the door was shut, she flung herself into his arms.
He was dressed as a miner might be dressed who was off work and out for a holiday;--clean, rough, and arranged with a studied intention to look as little like a gentleman as possible. The main figure and manner were so completely those of a gentleman that the disguise was not perfect; but yet he was rough. She was dressed with all the pretty care which a woman can use when she expects her lover to see her in morning costume. Anything more unlike the Mrs. Smith of the ship could not be imagined. If she had been attractive then, what was she now? If her woman's charms sufficed to overcome his prudence while they were so clouded, what effect would they have upon him now? And she was in his arms! Here there was no quartermaster to look after the proprieties;--no Mrs. Crompton, no Mrs. Callander, no Miss Green to watch with a hundred eyes for the exchange of a chance kiss in some moment of bliss. 'So you have come! Oh, my darling oh, my love!' No doubt it was all just as it should be. If a lady may not call the man to whom she is engaged her love and her darling, what proper use can there be for such words? And into whose arms is she to jump, if not into his? As he pressed her to his heart, and pressed his lips to hers, he told himself that he ought to have arranged it all by letter.
'Why Cettini?' he asked. But he smiled as he put the question. It was intended to be serious, but still he could not be hard upon her all at once.
'Why fifty thousand fools?'
'I don't understand.'
'Supposing there to be fifty thousand people in Sydney,--as to which I know nothing. Or why ever so many million fools in London? If I called myself Mrs. Smith nobody would come and see me. If I called myself Madame Cettini, not nearly so many would come. You have got to inculcate into the minds of the people an idea that a pure young girl is going to jump about for their diversion. They know it isn't so. But there must be a flavour of the idea. It isn't nice, but one has to live.'
'Were you ever Cettini before?'
'Yes,--when I was on the stage as a girl.' Then he thought he remembered that she had once told him some particular in regard to her early life, which was incompatible with this, unless indeed she had gone under more than one name before she was married. 'I used as a child to dance and sing under that name.'
'Was it your father's name?'
She smiled as she answered, 'You want to discover all the little mean secrets of my life at once, and do not reflect that, in so far as they were mean, they are disagreeable as subjects of conversation. I was not mean myself.'
'I am sure of that.'
'If you are sure of it, is not that enough? Of course I have been among low people. If not, why should I have been a singer on the stage at so early an age, why a dancer, why should I have married such a one as Mr. Smith?'
'I do not know of what sort he was,' said Caldigate.
'This is not the time to ask, when you have just come to see me;--when I am so delighted to see you! Oh, it is such a pleasure! I have not had a nice word spoken to me since I left the Goldfinder. Come and take a walk in the gardens? Nobody knows me off the stage yet, and nobody knows you. So we can do just as we like. Come and tell me about the gold.'
He did go, and did tell her about the gold, and before he had been with her an hour, sitting about on the benches in that loveliest of all places, the public gardens at Sydney, he was almost happy with her. It was now late in the autumn, in May; but the end of the autumn in Sydney is the most charming time of the year. He spent the whole day with her, dining with her in her lodgings at five in order that he might take her to the theatre at seven. She had said a great deal to him about her performances, declaring that he would find them to be neither vulgar nor disagreeable. She told him that she had no friend in Sydney, but that she had been able to get an engagement for a fortnight at Melbourne, and had been very shortly afterwards pressed to come on to Sydney. She listened not only with patience, but apparently with the greatest pleasure, to all that he could tell her of Dick Shand, and Mr. Crinkett, and Mick Maggott, arousing herself quite to enthusiasm when he came to the finding of the gold. But there was not a word said the whole day as to their future combined prospects. Nor was there any more outspoken allusion to loves and darlings, or any repetition of that throwing herself into his arms. For once it was natural. If she were wanted thus again, the action must be his,--not hers. She was clever enough to know that.
'What do you think of it?' she said, when he waited to take her home.
'It is the only good dancing I ever saw in my life. But----' 'Well!'
'I will tell you to-morrow.'
'Tell me whatever you think and you will see that I will attend to you. Come about eleven,--not sooner, as I shall not be dressed. Now good-night.'
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"id": "11643"
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13 | None | Coming Back The letter which Caldigate wrote to his father from Ahalala, telling him of the discovery of gold upon their claim, contained the first tidings which reached Folking of the wanderer, and that was not received till seven or eight months had passed by since he left the place. The old Squire, during that time, had lived a very solitary life. In regard to his nephew, whom he had declared his purpose of partially adopting, he had expressed himself willing to pay for his education, but had not proposed to receive him at Folking. And as to that matter of heirship, he gave his brother to understand that it was not to be regarded as a settled thing. Folking was now his own to do what he liked with it, and as such it was to remain. But he would treat his nephew as a son while the nephew seemed to him to merit such treatment. As for the estate, he was not at all sure whether it would not be better for the community at large, and for the Caldigate family in particular, that it should be cut up and sold in small parcels. There was a long correspondence between him and his brother, which was ended by his declaring that he did not wish to see any of the family just at present at Folking. He was low in spirits, and would prefer to be alone.
He was very low in spirits and completely alone. All those who knew anything about him,--and they were very few, the tenants, perhaps, and servants, and old Mr. Bolton,--were of opinion that he had torn his son out from all place in his heart, had so thoroughly disinherited the sinner, not only from his house and acres, but from his love, that they did not believe him capable of suffering from regret. But even they knew very little of the man. As he wandered about alone among the dikes, as he sat alone among his books, even as he pored over the volumes which were always in his hand, he was ever mourning and moaning over his desolation. His wife and daughters had been taken from him by the hand of God;--but how had it come to pass that he had also lost his son, that son who was all that was left to him? When he had first heard of those dealings with Davis, while John was amusing himself with the frivolities of Babington, he had been full of wrath, and had declared to himself that the young man must be expelled, if not from all affection, yet from all esteem. And he had gone on to tell himself that it would be unprofitable for him to live with a son whom he did not esteem. Then it had come to pass that, arguing it out in his own mind, rationally, as he had thought, but still under the impulse of hot anger, he had determined that it was better that they should part, even though the parting should be for ever. But now he had almost forgotten Davis,--had turned the matter over in his mind till he had taught himself to think that the disruption had been altogether his son's work, and in no degree his own. His son had not loved him. He had not been able to inspire his son with love. He was solitary and wretched because he had been harsh and unforgiving. That was his own judgment as to himself. But he never said a word of his feelings to any human being.
John had promised to write. The promise had not been very enthusiastically given; but still, as the months went by it was constantly remembered. The young man, after leaving Cambridgeshire, had remained some weeks at the Shands' house before he had started;--and from thence he had not written. The request had been that he should write from Australia, and the correspondence between him and his father had always been so slight, that it had not occurred to him to write from Pollington. But Mr. Caldigate had,--not expected, but hoped that a letter might come at the last moment. He knew to a day, to an hour, when the vessel would sail from Plymouth. There might have been a letter from Plymouth, but no letter came. And then the months went by slowly. The son did not write from Melbourne, nor from Nobble,--nor from Ahalala till gold had been found. So it came to pass that nearly eight months had passed, and that the father had told himself again and again that his son had torn himself altogether away from all remembrance of his home, before the letter came.
It was not a long letter, but it was very satisfactory. The finding of the gold was in itself, of course, a great thing; but the manner in which it was told, without triumph or exultation, but with an air of sober, industrious determination, was much more; and then there was a word or two at the end: 'Dear father,--I think of you every day, and am already looking forward to the time when I may return and see you again.' As he read it, the tears rolled down his cheeks, and unluckily the old housekeeper came into the room at the same time.
'Is it from Mr. John, sir?'
He had to recover himself, and to get rid of his tears, and to answer the old woman in an unconcerned tone, all in a moment, and it disconcerted him.
'Yes,--yes;' he said. 'I'll tell you all about it another time.'
'Is he well, sir?'
'I daresay he is. He doesn't say. It's about business. Didn't you hear me say that I'd tell you another time?' And so the old woman was turned out of the room, having seen the tear and heard the little gurgle in the throat.
'He seems to be doing well,' the Squire said to Mr. Holt. 'He has got a couple of partners, and they have succeeded in finding gold. He may probably come back some day; but I don't suppose it will be for the next twenty years.'
After that he marked the posts, which he knew came from that part of the world by San Francisco, and had resolved not to expect anything by that of the next month,--when there came, a day before its time, a much longer letter than the last. In this there was given a detailed description of the 'claim' at Ahalala, which had already been named Folking. Much was said of Mick, and much was said of Dick, both of whom were working 'as steady as rocks.' The number of ounces extracted were stated, with the amount of profits which had been divided. And something was said as to the nature of their life at Ahalala. They were still living under their original tent, but were meditating the erection of a wooden shanty. Ahalala, the writer said, was not a place at which a prosperous miner could expect to locate himself for many years; but the prospects were good enough to justify some present attention to personal comforts. All this was rational, pleasant, and straightforward. And in the letter there was no tone or touch of the old quarrel. It was full and cordial,--such as any son might write to any father. It need hardly be said that there was no mention made in it of Mrs. Smith. It was written after the return of John Caldigate from Sydney to Ahalala, but contained no reference to any matrimonial projects.
Letters then came regularly, month by month, and were always regularly answered,--till a chance reader would have thought that no father and no son stood on better terms with each other. There had been misfortunes; but the misfortunes did not seem to touch John Caldigate himself. After three months of hard work and steady conduct Mick Maggott had broken out and had again taken to drinking champagne out of buckets. Efforts were made, with infinite trouble, to reclaim him, which would be successful for a time,--and then again he would slip away into the mud. And then Shand would sometimes go into the mud with him; and Shand, when drunk, would be more unmanageable even than Mick. And this went on till Mick had--killed himself, and Dick Shand had disappeared. 'I grieve for the man as for a dear friend,' he said in one of his father's letters; 'for he has been as true to me as steel in all things, save drink; and I feel that I have learned under him the practical work of a gold-miner as it cannot be learned except by the unwearied attention of the teacher. Could he have kept from spirits, this man would have made a large fortune and would have deserved it; for he was indefatigable and never-ending in resources.' Such was the history of poor Mick Maggott.
And Shand's history was told also. Shand strayed away to Queensland, and then returning was again admitted to a certain degree of partnership, and then again fell into drink, and at last, deserting the trade of a miner, tried his hand at various kinds of work, till at last he became a simple shepherd. From time to time Caldigate sent him money when he was in want of it, but they had not again come together as associates in their work.
All this was told in his monthly letters which came to be expected at Folking, till each letter was regarded as the rising of a new sun. There is a style of letter-writing which seems to indicate strength of purpose and a general healthy condition on the part of the writer. In all his letters, the son spoke of himself and his doings with confidence and serenity, somewhat surprising his father after a while by always desiring to be remembered to Mr., Mrs., and Miss Bolton. This went on not only from month to month, but from year to year, till at the end of three years from the date at which the son had left Folking, there had come to be a complete confidence between him and his father. John Caldigate had gone into partnership with Crinkett,--who had indeed tried to cheat him wretchedly but had failed,--and at that time was the manager of the Polyeuka mine. The claim at Ahalala had been sold, and he had deserted the flashy insecurity of alluvial searchings for the fundamental security of rock-gold. He was deep in the crushing of quartz, and understood well the meaning of two ounces to the ton,--that glittering boast by which Crinkett had at first thought to allure him. From time to time he sent money home, paying back to his father and to Bolton's bank what had been borrowed on the estate. For there had passed between them many communications respecting Folking. The extravagances of the son became almost the delight of the father, when the father had become certain of the son's reform. There had been even jocular reference to Davis, and a complete understanding as to the amount of money to be given to the nephew in compensation for the blighted hopes as to the reversion of the property.
Why it should have been that these years of absence should have endeared to John Caldigate a place which, while it was his home, had always been distasteful to him, I cannot perhaps explain to those readers who have never strayed far from their original nests;--and to those who have been wanderers I certainly need not explain it. As soon as he felt that he could base the expression of his desires as to Folking on the foundation of substantial remittances, he was not slow to say that he should like to keep the place. He knew that he had no right to the reversion, but perhaps his father would sympathise with his desire to buy back his right. His father, with all his political tenets as to land, with his often-expressed admiration as to the French system, with his loud denunciations of the absurdity of binding a special family to a special fraction of the earth's surface, did sympathise with him so strongly, that he at once accepted the arrangement. 'I think that his conduct has given him a right to demand it,' he said to Mr. Bolton.
'I don't quite see that. Money certainly gives a man great powers. If he has money enough he can buy the succession to Folking if you choose to sell it to him.'
'I mean as my son,' said the father somewhat proudly. 'He was the heir.'
'But he ceased to be so,--by his own doing. I advised you to think longer over it before you allowed him to dispossess himself.'
'It certainly has been all for the best.'
'I hope so. But when you talk of his right, I am bound to say that he has none. Folking is now yours, without encumbrance, and you can give it to whom you please.'
'It was he who paid off the mortgage.'
'You have told me that he sent you part of the money;--but that's between you and him. I am very glad, Caldigate, that your son has done so well;--and the more so perhaps because the early promise was not good. But it may be doubted whether a successful gold-digger will settle down quietly as an English country gentleman.'
There can be no doubt that old Mr. Bolton was a little jealous, and, perhaps, in some degree incredulous, as to the success of John Caldigate. His sons had worked hard from the very beginning of their lives. With them there had been no period of Newmarket, Davis, and disreputation. On the basis of capital, combined with conduct, they had gradually risen to high success. But here was a young man, who, having by his self-indulgence thrown away all the prospects of his youth, had rehabilitated himself by the luck of finding gold in a gully. To Mr. Bolton it was no better than had he found a box of treasure at the bottom of a well. Mr. Bolton had himself been a seeker of money all his life, but he had his prejudices as to the way in which money was to be sought. It should be done in a gradual, industrious manner, and in accordance with recognised forms. A digger who might by chance find a lump of gold as big as his head, or might work for three months without finding any, was to him only one degree better than Davis, and therefore he did not receive his old friend's statements as to the young man's success with all the encouragement which his old friend would have liked.
But his father was very enthusiastic in his return letter to the miner. The matter as to the estate had been arranged. The nephew, who, after all, had not shown himself to be very praiseworthy, had already been--compensated. His own will had already been made,--of course in his son's favour. As there had been so much success,--and as continued success must always be doubtful,--would it not be well that he should come back as soon as possible? There would be enough now for them all. Then he expressed an opinion that such a place as Nobble could not be very nice for a permanent residence.
Nobble was not very nice. Over and beside his professional success, there was not much in his present life which endeared itself to John Caldigate. But the acquisition of gold is a difficult thing to leave. There is a curse about it, or a blessing,--it is hard to decide which,--that makes it almost impossible for a man to tear himself away from its pursuit when it is coming in freely. And the absolute gold,--not the money, not the balance at one's banker's, not the plentiful so much per annum,--but the absolute metal clinging about the palm of one's hands like small gravel, or welded together in a lump too heavy to be lifted, has a peculiar charm of its own. I have heard of a man who, having his pocket full of diamonds, declared, as he let them run through his fingers, that human bliss could not go beyond that sensation. John Caldigate did not shoe his horse with gold; but he liked to feel that he had enough gold by him to shoe a whole team. He could not return home quite as yet. His affairs were too complicated to be left quite at a moment's notice. If, as he hoped, he should find himself able to leave the colony within four years of the day on which he had begun work, and could then do so with an adequate fortune, he believed that he should have done better than any other Englishman who had set himself to the task of gold-finding. In none of his letters did he say anything special about Hester Bolton; but his inquiries about the family generally were so frequent as to make his father wonder why such questions should be asked. The squire himself, who was living hardly a dozen miles from Mr. Bolton's house, did not see the old banker above once a quarter perhaps and the ladies of the family certainly not oftener than once a year. Very little was said in answer to any of John's inquiries. 'Mr. and Mrs. and Miss Bolton are, I believe, quite well.' So much was declared in one of the old squire's letters; and even that little served to make known that at any rate, so far, no tidings as to marriage on the part of Hester had reached the ear of her father's old friend. Perhaps this was all that John Caldigate wanted to learn.
At last there came word that John intended to come home with the next month's mail. This letter arrived about midsummer, when the miner had been absent three years and a half. He had not settled all his affairs so completely but that it might be necessary that he should return; but he thought that he would be able to remain at least twelve months in England. And in England he intended to make his home. Gold, he said, was certainly very attractive; but he did not like New South Wales as a country in which to live. He had now contracted his ventures to the one enterprise of the Polyeuka mine, from which he was receiving large monthly dividends. If that went on prosperously, perhaps he need not return to the colony at all. 'Poor Dick Shand!' he said. 'He is a shepherd far away in the west, hardly earning better wages than an English ploughman, and I am coming home with a pocket full of money! A few glasses of whisky have made all the difference!'
The squire when he received this felt more of exultation than he had ever known in his life. It seemed as though something of those throbbings of delight which are common to most of us when we are young, had come to him for the first time in his old age. He could not bring himself to care in the least for Dick Shand. At last,--at last,--he was going to have near him a companion that he could love.
'Well, yes; I suppose he has put together a little money,' he said to Farmer Holt, when that worthy tenant asked enthusiastically as to the truth of the rumours which were spread about as to the young squire's success. 'I rather think he'll settle down and live in the old place after all.'
'That's what he ought to do, squoire--that's what he ought to do,' said Mr. Holt, almost choked by the energy of his own utterances.
| {
"id": "11643"
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14 | None | Again at Home On his arrival in England John Caldigate went instantly down to Folking. He had come back quite fortified in his resolution of making Hester Bolton his wife, if he should find Hester Bolton willing and if she should have grown at all into that form and manner, into those ways of look, of speech, and of gait, which he had pictured to himself when thinking of her. Away at Nobble the females by whom he had been surrounded had not been attractive to him. In all our colonies the women are beautiful and in the large towns a society is soon created, of which the fastidious traveller has very little ground to complain; but in the small distant bush-towns, as they are called, the rougher elements must predominate. Our hero, though he had worn moleskin trousers and jersey shirts, and had worked down a pit twelve hours a-day with a pickaxe, had never reconciled himself to female roughnesses. He had condescended to do so occasionally,--telling himself that it was his destiny to pass his life among such surroundings; but his imagination had ever been at work with him, and he possessed a certain aptitude for romance which told him continually that Hester Bolton was the dream of his life, and ought to become, if possible, the reality; and now he came back resolved to attempt the reality,--unless he should find that the Hester Bolton of Chesterton was altogether different from the Hester Bolton of his dreams.
The fatted calf was killed for him in a very simple but full-hearted way. There was no other guest to witness the meeting. 'And here you are,' said the father.
'Yes, sir, here I am;--all that's left of me.'
'There is quite plenty,' said the father, looking at the large proportions of his son. 'It seems but a day or two since you went;--and yet they have been long days. I hardly expected to see you again, John,--certainly not so soon as this; certainly not in such circumstances. If ever a man was welcome to a house, you are welcome to this. And now,--what do you mean to do with yourself?'
'By nine o'clock to-morrow morning you will probably find a pit opened on the lawn, and I shall be down to the middle, looking for gold. Ah, sir, I wish you could have known poor Mick Maggott.'
'If he would have made holes in my lawn I am glad he did not come home with you.' This was the first conversation, but both the father and son felt that there was a tone about it which had never before been heard between them.
John Caldigate at this time was so altered in appearance, that they who had not known him well might possibly have mistaken him. He was now nearly thirty, but looked older than his age. The squareness of his brow was squarer, and here and there through his dark brown hair there was to be seen an early tinge of coming grey; and about his mouth was all the decision of purpose which comes to a man when he is called upon to act quickly on his own judgment in matters of importance; and there was that look of self-confidence which success gives. He had thriven in all that he had undertaken. In that gold-finding business of his he had made no mistakes. Men who had been at it when a boy had tried to cheat him, but had failed. He had seen into such mysteries as the business possessed with quick glances, and had soon learned to know his way. And he had neither gambled nor drank,--which are the two rocks on which gold-miners are apt to wreck their vessels. All this gave him an air of power and self-assertion which might, perhaps, have been distasteful to an indifferent acquaintance, but which at this first meeting was very pleasing to the father. His son was somebody,--had done something, that son of whom he had been so thoroughly ashamed when the dealings with Davis had first been brought to light. He had kept up his reading too; had strong opinions of his own respecting politics; regarded the colonies generally from a politico-economical point of view; had ideas on social, religious, and literary subjects sufficiently alike to his father's not to be made disagreeable by the obstinacy with which he maintained them. He had become much darker in colour, having been, as it seemed, bronzed through and through by colonial suns and colonial labour. Altogether he was a son of whom any father might be proud, as long as the father managed not to quarrel with him. Mr. Caldigate, who during the last four years had thought very much on the subject, was determined not to quarrel with his son.
'You asked, sir, the other day what I meant to do?'
'What are we to find to amuse you?'
'As for amusement, I could kill rats as I used to do; or slaughter a hecatomb of pheasants at Babington,'--here the old man winced, though the word hecatomb reconciled him a little to the disagreeable allusion. 'But it has come to me now that I want so much more than amusement. What do you say to a farm?'
'On the estate?' --and the landlord at once began to think whether there was any tenant who could be induced to go without injustice.
'About three times as big as the estate if I could find it. A man can farm five thousand acres as well as fifty, I take it, if he have the capital. I should like to cut a broad sward, or, better still, to roam among many herds. I suppose a man should have ten pounds an acre to begin with. The difficulty would be in getting the land.' But all this was said half in joke; for he was still of opinion that he would, after his year's holiday, be forced to return for a time to New South Wales. He had fixed a price for which, up to a certain date, he would sell his interest in the Polyeuka mine. But the price was high, and he doubted whether he would get it; and, if not, then he must return.
He had not been long at Folking,--not as yet long enough to have made his way into the house at Chesterton,--before annoyance arose. Mrs. Shand was most anxious that he should go to Pollington and 'tell them anything about poor Dick.' They did, in truth, know everything about poor Dick; that poor Dick's money was all gone, and that poor Dick was earning his bread, or rather his damper, mutton, and tea, wretchedly, in the wilderness of a sheep-run in Queensland. The mother's letter was not very piteous, did not contain much of complaint,--alluded to poor Dick as one whose poverty was almost natural, but still it was very pressing. The girls were so anxious to hear all the details,--particularly Maria! The details of the life of a drunken sot are not pleasant tidings to be poured into a mother's ear, or a sister's. And then, as they two had gone away equal, and as he, John Caldigate, had returned rich, whereas poor Dick was a wretched menial creature, he felt that his very presence in England would carry with it some reproach against himself. He had in truth been both loyal and generous to Dick; but still,--there was the truth. He had come back as a rich man to his own country, while Dick was a miserable Queensland shepherd. It was very well for him to tell his father that a few glasses of whisky had made the difference; but it would be difficult to explain this to the large circle at Pollington, and very disagreeable even to him to allude to it. And he did not feel disposed to discuss the subject with Maria, with that closer confidence of which full sympathy is capable. And yet he did not know how to refuse to pay the visit. He wrote a line to say that as soon as he was at liberty he would run up to Pollington, but that at present business incidental to his return made such a journey impossible.
But the letter, or letters, which he received from Babington were more difficult to answer even than the Shand despatch. There were three of them,--from his uncle, from Aunt Polly, and from--not Julia--but Julia's second sister; whereby it was signified that Julia's heart was much too heavily laden to allow her to write a simple, cousinly note. The Babington girls were still Babington girls,--would still romp, row boats, and play cricket; but their condition was becoming a care to their parents. Here was this cousin come back, unmarried, with gold at command,--not only once again his father's heir, but with means at command which were not at all diminished by the Babington imagination. After all that had passed in the linen-closet, what escape would there be for him? That he should come to Babington would be a matter of course. The real kindness which had been shown to him there as a child would make it impossible that he should refuse.
Caldigate did feel it to be impossible to refuse. Though Aunt Polly had on that last occasion been somewhat hard upon him, had laid snares for him, and endeavoured to catch him as a fowler catches a bird, still there had been the fact that she had been as a mother to him when he had no other mother. His uncle, too, had supplied him with hunting and shooting and fishing, when hunting and shooting and fishing were the great joys of his life. It was incumbent on him to go to Babington,--- probably would be incumbent on him to pay a prolonged visit there. But he certainly would not marry Julia. As to that his mind was so fixed that even though he should have to declare his purpose with some rudeness, still he would declare it. 'My aunt wants me to go over to Babington,' he said to his father.
'Of course she does.'
'And I must go?'
'You know best what your own feelings are as to that. After you went, they made all manner of absurd accusations against me. But I don't wish to force a quarrel upon you on that account.'
'I should be sorry to quarrel with them, because they were kind to me when I was a boy. They are not very wise.'
'I don't think I ever knew such a houseful of fools.' There was no relationship by blood between the Squire of Folking and the Squire of Babington; but they had married two sisters, and therefore Mrs. Babington was Aunt Polly to John Caldigate.
'But fools may be very worthy, sir. I should say that a great many people are fools to you.'
'Not to me especially,' said the squire, almost angrily.
'People who read no books are always fools to those who do read.'
'I deny it. Our neighbour over the water'--the middle wash was always called the water at Folking--'never looks at a book, as far as I know, and he is not a fool. He thoroughly understands his own business. But your uncle Babington doesn't know how to manage his own property,--and yet he knows nothing else. That's what I call being a fool.'
'Now, I'm going to tell you a secret, sir.'
'A secret!'
'You must promise to keep it.'
'Of course I will keep it, if it ought to be kept.'
'They want me to marry Julia.'
'What!'
'My cousin Julia. It's an old affair. Perhaps it was not Davis only that made me run away five years ago.'
'Do you mean they asked you;--or did you ask her?'
'Well; I did not ask her. I do not know that I can be more explicit. Nevertheless it is expected; and as I do not mean to do it, you can see that there is a difficulty.'
'I would not go near the place, John.'
'I must.'
'Then you'll have to marry her.'
'I won't.'
'Then there'll be a quarrel.'
'It may be so, but I will avoid it if possible. I must go. I could not stay away without laying myself open to a charge of ingratitude. They were very kind to me in the old days.' Then the subject was dropped; and on the next morning, John wrote to his aunt saying that he would go over to Babington after his return from London. He was going to London on business, and would come back from London to Babington on a day which he named. Then he resolved that he would take Pollington on his way down, knowing that a disagreeable thing to be done is a lion in one's path which should be encountered and conquered as soon as possible.
But there was one visit which he must pay before he went up to London. 'I think I shall ride over to-morrow and call on the Boltons,' he said to his father.
'Of course; you can do that if you please.'
'He was a little rough to me, but he was kind. I stayed a night at his house, and he advanced me the money.'
'As for the money, that was a matter of business. He had his security, and, in truth, his interest. He is an honest man, and a very old friend of mine. But perhaps I may as well tell you that he has always been a little hard about you.'
'He didn't approve of Davis,' said the son, laughing.
'He is too prejudiced a man to forget Davis.'
'The more he thinks of Davis, the better he'll think of me if I can make him believe that I am not likely to want a Davis again.'
'You'll find him probably at the bank about half-past two.'
'I shall go to the house. It wouldn't be civil if I didn't call on Mrs. Bolton.'
As the squire was never in the habit of going to the house at Chesterton himself, and as Mrs. Bolton was a lady who kept up none of the outward ceremonies of social life, he did not quite understand this; but he made no further objection.
On the following day, about five in the afternoon, he rode through the iron gates, which he with difficulty caused to be opened for him, and asked for Mrs. Bolton. When he had been here before, the winter had commenced, and everything around had been dull and ugly; but now it was July, and the patch before the house was bright with flowers. The roses were in full bloom, and every morsel of available soil was bedded out with geraniums. As he stood holding his horse by the rein while he rang the bell, a side-door leading through the high brick wall from the garden, which stretched away behind the house, was suddenly opened, and a lady came through with a garden hat on, and garden gloves, and a basket full of rose leaves in her hand. It was the lady of whom he had never ceased to think from the day on which he had been allowed just to touch her fingers, now five years ago.
It was she, of course, whom he had come to see, and there she was to be seen. It was of her that he had come to form a judgment,--to tell himself whether she was or was not such as he had dreamed her to be. He had not been so foolishly romantic as to have been unaware that in all probability she might have grown up to be something very different from that which his fancy had depicted. It might or it might not come to pass that that promise of loveliness,--of loveliness combined with innocence and full intelligence,--should be kept. How often it is that Nature is unkind to a girl as she grows into womanhood, and robs the attractive child of her charms! How often will the sparkle of early youth get itself quenched utterly by the dampness and clouds of the opening world. He knew all that,--and knew too that he had only just seen her, had barely heard the voice which had sounded so silvery sweet in his ears.
But there she was,--to be seen again, to be heard, if possible, and to receive his judgment. 'Miss Bolton,' he said, coming down the stone steps which he had ascended, that he might ring the bell, and offering her his hand.
'Mr. Caldigate!'
'You remember me, then?'
'Oh yes, I remember you very well. I do not see people often enough to forget them. And papa said that you were coming home.'
'I have come at once to call upon your mother and your father,--and upon you. I have to thank him for great kindness to me before I went.'
'Poor mamma is not quite well,' said the daughter. 'She has headaches so often, and she has one now. And papa has not come back from the bank. I have been gardening and am all----.' Then she stopped and blushed, as though ashamed of herself for saying so much.
'I am sorry Mrs. Bolton is unwell. I will not go the ceremony of leaving a card, as I hope to able to come again to thank her for her kindness before I went on my travels. Will you tell your father that I called?' Then he mounted his horse, feeling, as he did so, that he was throwing away an opportunity which kind fortune had given him. There they were together, he and this girl of whom he had dreamed;--and now he was leaving her, because he did not know how to hold her in conversation for ten minutes! But it was true, and he had to leave her. He could not instantly tell her how he admired her, how he loved her, how he had thought of her, and how completely she had realised all his fondest dreams. When on his horse, he turned round, and, lifting his hat to her, took a last glance. It could not have been otherwise, he said to himself. He had been sure that she would grow up to be exactly that which he had found her. To have supposed that Nature could have been untrue to such promises as had been made then, would have been to suppose Nature a liar.
Just outside the gate he met the old banker, who, according to his daily custom, had walked back from the town. 'Yes,' said Mr. Bolton, 'I remember you,--I remember you very well. So you found a lot of gold?'
'I got some.'
'You have been one of the few fortunate, I hear. I hope you will be able to keep it, and to make a good use of it. My compliments to your father. Good evening.'
'I shall take an early opportunity of paying my respects again to Mrs. Bolton, who, I am sorry to hear, is not well enough to see me,' said Caldigate, preventing the old curmudgeon from escaping with his intended rapidity.
'She is unfortunately often an invalid, sir,--and feels therefore that she has no right to exact from any one the ceremony of morning visits. Good evening sir.'
But he cared not much for this coldness. Having found where the gold lay at this second Ahalala,--that the gold was real gold,--he did not doubt but that he would be able to make good his mining operations.
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"id": "11643"
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15 | None | Again At Pollington On his arrival at Pollington, all the Shands welcomed him as though he had been the successful son or successful brother who had gone out from among them; and spoke of 'Poor Dick' as being the unsuccessful son or unsuccessful brother,--as indeed he was. There did not seem to be the slightest anger against him, in that he had thriven and had left Dick behind him in such wretched poverty. There was no just ground for anger, indeed. He was well aware of that. He had done his duty by Dick to the best of his ability. But fathers and mothers are sometimes apt to think that more should be done for their own children than a friend's best ability can afford. These people, however, were reasonable. 'Poor Dick!' 'Isn't it sad?' 'I suppose when he's quite far away in the bush like that he can't get it,'--by which last miserable shred of security the poor mother allowed herself to be in some degree comforted.
'Now I want you to tell me,' said the father, when they were alone together on the first evening, 'what is really his condition?'
'He was a shepherd when I last heard about him.'
'He wrote to his mother by the last mail, asking whether something cannot be done for him. He was a shepherd then. What is a shepherd?'
'A man who goes about with the sheep all day, and brings them up to a camp at night. He may probably be a week without seeing a human being, That is the worst of it.'
'How is he fed?'
'Food is brought out to his hut,--perhaps once a week, perhaps once a fortnight,--so much meat, so much flour, so much tea, and so much sugar. And he has thirty or thirty-five pounds a-year besides.'
'Paid weekly?'
'No;--perhaps quarterly, perhaps half-yearly. He can do nothing with his money as long as he is there. If he wants a pair of boots or a new shirt, they send it out to him from the store, and his employer charges him with the price. It is a poor life, sir.'
'Very poor. Now tell me, what can we do for him?'
'It is an affair of money.'
'But is it an affair of money, Mr. Caldigate? Is it not rather an affair of drink? He has had his money,--more than his share; more than he ought to have had. But even though I were able to send him more, what good would it do him?'
This was a question very difficult to answer. Caldigate had been forced to answer it to himself in reference to his own conduct. He had sent money to his former friend, and could without much damage to himself have sent more. Latterly he had been in that condition as to money in which a man thinks nothing of fifty pounds,--that condition which induces one man to shoe his horse with gold, and another to chuck his bank-notes about like half-crowns. The condition is altogether opposed to the regulated prudence of confirmed wealth. Caldigate had stayed his hand in regard to Dick Shand simply because the affair had been one not of money but of drink. 'I suppose a man may be cured by the absence of liquor?'
'By the enforced absence?'
'No doubt they often break out again. I hardly know what to say, sir. If you think that money will do good,--money, that is, in moderation,--I will advance it. He and I started together, and I am sometimes aghast with myself when I think of the small matter which, like the point on a railway, sent me running rapidly on to prosperity,--while the same point, turned wrong, hurried him to ruin. I have taken my glass of grog, too, my two glasses,--or perhaps more. But that which would elate him into some fury of action would not move me. It was something nature did for me rather than virtue. I am a rich man, and he is a shepherd, because something was put into my stomach capable of digesting bad brandy, which was not put into his.'
'A man has more than one chance. When he found how it was with him, he should have abstained. A man must pay the fine of his own weakness.'
'Oh, yes. It is all understood somewhere, I suppose, though we don't understand it. I tell you what it is, Dr. Shand. If you think that five hundred pounds left with you can be of any assistance, you can have it.'
But the doctor seemed to doubt whether the money would do any good, and refused to take it, at any rate for the present. What could he do with it, if he did take it? 'I fear that he must lie upon his bed as he has made it,' said the doctor sorrowfully. 'It is a complaint which money cannot cure, but can always exaggerate. If, without costing myself or my family a shilling, I could put a thousand pounds into his hands to-morrow, I do not know whether I ought to do it.'
'You will remember my offer.'
The doctor thanked him, and said that he would remember. So the conversation was ended, and the doctor went about the ordinary occupation of his life, apparently without any settled grief at his heart. He had done his duty by his son, and that sufficed,--or almost sufficed, for him.
Then came the mother's turn. Could anything be sent to the poor lost one,--to poor Dick? Clothes ran chiefly in her mind. If among them they could make up a dozen of shirts, would there be any assured means of getting them conveyed safely to Dick's shepherd-hut out in the Queensland bush? In answer to this Caldigate would fain have explained, had it been possible, that Dick would not care much for a dozen new shirts,--that they would be to him, even if received, almost as little a source of comfort as would be a ton of Newcastle coals. He had sunk below shirts by the dozen; almost below single shirts, such as Mrs. Shand and her daughters would be able to fabricate. Some upper flannel garment, and something in the nature of trousers, with a belt round his middle, and an old straw-hat would be all the wardrobe required by him. Men by dint of misery rise above the need of superfluities. The poor wretch whom you see rolling himself, as it were, at the corner of the street within his old tattered filthy coat, trying to extract something more of life and warmth out of the last glass of gin which he has swallowed, is by no means discomposed because he has no clean linen for the morrow. All this Caldigate understood thoroughly;--but there was a difficulty in explaining it to Dick Shand's mother. 'I think there would be some trouble about the address,' he said.
'But you must know so many people out there.'
'I have never been in Queensland myself, and have no acquaintance with squatters. But that is not all, Mrs. Shand.'
'What else? You can tell me. Of course I know what it is that he has come to. I don't blind myself to it, Mr. Caldigate, even though I am his mother. But I am his mother; and if I could comfort him, just a little----' 'Clothes are not what he wants;--of clothes he can get what is necessary, poor as he is.'
'What is it he wants most?'
'Somebody to speak to;--some one to be kind to him.'
'My poor boy!'
'As he has fallen to what he is now, so can he rise again if he can find courage to give his mind to it. I think that if you write to him and tell him so, that will be better than sending him shirts. The doctor has been talking to me about money for him.'
'But, Mr. Caldigate, he couldn't drink the shirts out there in the bush. Here, where there is a pawn-broker at all the corners, they drink everything.'
He had promised to stay two days at Pollington and was of course aware of the dangers among which he walked. Maria had been by no means the first to welcome him. All the other girls had presented themselves before her. And when at last she did come forward she was very shy. The eldest daughter had married her clergyman though he was still only a curate; and the second had been equally successful with Lieutenant Postlethwaite though the lieutenant had been obliged in consequence to leave the army and to earn his bread by becoming agent to a soap-making company. Maria Shand was still Maria Shand, and was it not too probable that she had remained so for the sake of that companion who had gone away with her darling brother Dick? 'Maria has been thinking so much about your coming,' said the youngest,--not the girl who had been impertinent and ill-behaved before, for she had since become a grown-up Miss Shand, and had a young attorney of her own on hand, and was supposed to be the one of the family most likely to carry her pigs to a good market,--but the youngest of them all who had been no more than a child when he had been at Pollington before. 'I hope she is at home,' said Caldigate 'At home! Of course she's at home. She wouldn't be away when you're coming!'
The Shands were demonstrative, always;--and never hypocritical. Here it was; told at once,--the whole story. He was to atone for having left Dick in the lurch by marrying Maria. There did seem to him to be a certain amount of justice in the idea; but then, unfortunately, it could not be carried out. If there were nothing else against it but the existence of the young lady at Chesterton, that alone would have been sufficient. And then, though Maria Shand was very well, though, no doubt, she would make a true and loving wife to any husband, though there had been a pretty touch of feeling about the Thomson's 'Seasons,'--still, still, she was not all that he fancied that a wife should be. He was quite willing to give £500 for Dick; but after that he thought that he would have had almost enough of the Shands. He could not marry Maria, and so he must say plainly if called upon to declare himself in the matter. There was an easiness about the family generally which enabled him to hope that the difficulty would be light. It would be as nothing compared with that coming scene between himself and aunt Polly, perhaps between himself and his uncle Babington, or perhaps,--worse again,--between himself and Julia!
When he found himself alone with Maria in the drawing-room on the following morning, he almost thought that it must have been arranged by the family. 'Doesn't it seem almost no time since you went away,' said the young lady.
'It has gone quickly;--but a great deal has been done.'
'I suppose so. Poor Dick!'
'Yes, indeed! Poor fellow! We can only hope about Dick. I have been speaking to your father about him.'
'Of course we all know that you did your very best for him. He has said so himself when he has written. But you;--you have been fortunate.'
'Yes, I have done very well. There is so much chance at it that there is nothing to be proud of.'
'I am sure there is a great deal;--cleverness, and steadiness, and courage, and all that. We were delighted to hear it, though poor Dick could not share it with you. You have made an immense fortune.'
'Oh dear no,--not that. I have been able to get over the little difficulties which I left behind me when I went away, and have got something in hand to live upon.'
'And now----?'
'I suppose I shall go back again,' said Caldigate, with an air of indifference.
'Go back again!' said Maria, who had not imagined this. But still a man going back to Australia might take a wife with him. She would not object to the voyage. Her remembrance of the evening on which she had crept down and put the little book into his valise was so strong that she felt herself to be justified in being in love with him. 'But not for always?'
'Certainly not;--but just to wind up affairs.'
It would be no more than a pleasant wedding-tour,--and, perhaps, she could do something for poor Dick. She could take the shirts so far on their destination.
'Oh, Mr. Caldigate, how well I remember that last night!'
'So indeed, do I,--and the book.' The hardship upon the moth is that though he has already scorched himself terribly in the flame, and burned up all the tender fibre of his wings, yet he can't help returning to the seductions of the tallow-candle till his whole body has become a wretched cinder. Why should he have been the first to speak of the book?
Of course she blushed, and of course she stammered. But in spite of her stammering she could say a word. 'I dare say you never looked at it.'
'Indeed I did,--very often. Once when Dick saw it in my hands, he wanted to take it away from me.'
'Poor Dick!'
'But I have never parted with it for an hour!'
'Where is it now?' she asked.
'Here,' said Caldigate, pulling it out of the breast-pocket of his coat. If he had had the presence of mind to say that he had lent the book to another young lady, and that she had never returned it, there might probably have been an end of this little trouble at once. But when the little volume appeared, just as though it had been kept close to his heart during all these four years, of course she was entitled to hope. He had never opened the book since that morning in his cabin, not caring for the academic beauties of Thomson's 'Seasons;'--had never looked at it till it had occurred to him as proper that he should take it with him to Pollington. Now he brought it out of his pocket, and she put out her hand to receive it from him. 'You are not going to take it back again?'
'Certainly not if it be of any value to you?'
'Do you not value the presents which your friends make you?'
'If I care for the friends, I do.'
'As I care very much for this friend I shall keep the book.'
'I don't think that can be true, Mr. Caldigate?'
He was painfully near the blaze;--determined not to be burned, and yet with no powers of flying away from the candle into the farthest corner of the room. 'Why not true? I have kept it hitherto. It has been with me in many very strange places.'
Then there was a pause,--while he thought of escaping, and she of utilising the occasion. And yet it was not in her nature to be unmaidenly or aggressive. Only if he did like her it would be so very nice, and it is so often the case that men want a little encouragement! 'I dare say you thought more of the book than the donor.'
'That is intended to be unkind.'
'No;--certainly not. I can never be unkind to a friend who has been so very good as you were to poor Dick. Whatever else may happen, I shall,--never,--forget--that.' By this time there was a faint sound of sobbing to be heard, and then she turned away her face that she might wipe a tear from her eyes. It was a real tear, and a real sob, and she really thought that she was in love with him.
'I know I ought not to have come here,' he said.
'Why not?' she asked energetically.
'Because my coming would give rise to so much sadness about your brother.'
'I am so glad you have come,--so very glad. Of course we wanted to hear. And besides----' 'What besides?'
'Papa and mamma, and all of them, are so glad to see you. We never forget old friends.' Then again there was silence. 'Never,' she repeated, as she rose from her chair slowly and went out of the room. Though he had fluttered flamewards now and again, though he had shown some moth-like aptitudes, he had not shown himself to be a downright, foolish, blind-eyed moth, determined to burn himself to a cinder as a moth should do. And she;--she was weak. Having her opportunity at command, she went away and left him, because she did not know what more to say. She went away to her own bedroom, and cried, and had a headache, during the remainder of the day. And yet there was no other day!
Late that evening, just at the hour when, on the previous night, he was closeted with the father, he found himself closeted with the mother. 'She has never forgotten you for one moment since you left us,' said the mother. Mrs. Shand had rushed into the subject so quickly that these were almost the first words she said to him. He remained quite quiet, looking out from the open window into the moonlight. When a distinct proposition was made to him like this, he certainly would not be a moth. 'I don't know whether you have thought of her too, Mr. Caldigate.' He only shook his head. 'That is so?'
'I hope you do not think that I have been to blame in any way,' he said, with a conscience somewhat stricken;--for he remembered well that he had kissed the young lady on that evening four years ago.
'Oh no. I have no complaint to make. My poor child! It is a pity. But I have nothing more to say. It must be so then?'
'I am the least settled man in all the world, Mrs. Shand.'
'But at some future time?'
'I fear not. My mind is intent on other things.' So it was;--intent on Hester Bolton! But the statement as he made it, was certainly false, for it was intended to deceive. Mrs. Shand shook hands with him kindly, however, as she sent him away to bed, telling him that breakfast should be ready for him at eight the next morning.
His train left Pollington at nine, and at eight the doctor with all his family were there to greet him at the breakfast-table,--with all the family except Maria. The mother, in the most natural tone in the world, said that poor Maria had a headache and could not come down. They filled his plate with eggs and bacon and toast, and were as good to him as though he had blighted no hopes and broken no heart. He whispered one word at going to the doctor. 'Pray remember that whenever you think the money can be of use, it is there. I consider that I owe him quite as much as that.' The father grasped his hand, and all of them blessed him as he went.
'If I can only get away from Babington as easily!' he said to himself, as he took his place in the railway carriage.
| {
"id": "11643"
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16 | None | Again at Babington The affair of Julia Babington had been made to him in set terms, and had, if not accepted, not been at once refused. No doubt this had occurred four years ago, and, if either of them had married since, they would have met each other without an unpleasant reminiscence. But they had not done so, and there was no reason why the original proposition should not hold good. After escaping from Babington he had, indeed, given various reasons why such a marriage was impossible. He had sold his inheritance. He was a ruined man. He was going out to Australia as a simple miner. It was only necessary for him to state all this, and it became at once evident that he was below the notice of Julia Babington. But everything had been altered since that. He had regained his inheritance, he had come back a rich man, and he was more than ever indebted to the family because of the violent fight they had made on his behalf, just as he was going. As he journeyed to Babington all this was clear to him; and it was clear to him also that, from his first entrance into the house, he must put on an air of settled purpose, he must gird up his loins seriously, he must let it be understood that he was not as he used to be, ready for worldly lectures from his aunt, or for romping with his female cousins, or for rats, or rabbits, or partridges, with the male members of the family. The cares of the world must be seen to sit heavy on him, and at the very first mention of a British wife he must declare himself to be wedded to Polyeuka.
At Babington he was received with many fatted calves. The whole family were there to welcome him, springing out upon him and dragging him out of the fly as soon as he had entered the park gates. Aunt Polly almost fainted as she was embracing him under an oak tree; and tears, real tears, ran down the squire's face as he shook both his nephew's hands at once. 'By George,' said the Babington heir, 'you're the luckiest fellow I ever heard of! We all thought Folking was gone for good.' As though the possessions of Folking were the summit of human bliss! Caldigate with all the girls around him could not remonstrate with words, but his spirit did remonstrate. 'Oh, John, we are so very, very, very, very glad to have you back again,' said Julia, sobbing and laughing at the same time. He had kissed them all of course, and now Julia was close to his elbow as he walked up to the house.
In the midst of all this there was hardly opportunity for that deportment which he meant to exercise. When fatted calves are being killed for you by the dozen, it is very difficult to repudiate the good nature of the slaughterers. Little efforts he did make even before he got to the house. 'I hardly know how I stand just yet,' he had said, in answer to his uncle's congratulations as to his wealth. 'I must go out again at any rate.'
'Back to Australia?' asked his aunt.
'I fear so. It is a kind of business,--gold-mining,--in which it is very hard for a man to know what he's worth. A claim that has been giving you a thousand pounds net every month for two years past, comes all of sudden a great deal worse than valueless. You can't give it up, and you have to throw back your thousands in profitless work.'
'I wouldn't do that,' said the squire.
'I'd stick to what I'd got,' said the Babington heir.
'It is a very difficult business,' said Caldigate, with a considerable amount of deportment, and an assumed look of age,--as though the cares of gold-seeking had made him indifferent to all the lighter joys of existence.
'But you mean to live at Folking?' asked Aunt Polly.
'I should think probably not. But a man situated as I am, never can say where he means to live.'
'But you are to have Folking?' whispered the squire,--whispered it so that all the party heard the words;--whispering not from reticence but excitement.
'That's the idea at present,' said the Folking heir. 'But Polyeuka is so much more to me than Folking. A gold mine with fifty or sixty thousand pounds worth of plant about it, Aunt Polly, is an imperious mistress.' In all this our hero was calumniating himself. Polyeuka and the plant he was willing to abandon on very moderate terms, and had arranged to wipe his hands of the whole concern if those moderate terms were accepted. But cousin Julia and aunt Polly were enemies against whom it was necessary to assume whatever weapons might come to his hand.
He had arranged to stay a week at Babington. He had considered it all very deeply, and had felt that as two days was the least fraction of time which he could with propriety devote to the Shands, so must he give at least a week to Babington. There was, therefore, no necessity for any immediate violence on the part of the ladies. The whole week might probably have been allowed to pass without absolute violence, had he not shown by various ways that he did not intend to make many visits to the old haunts of his childhood before his return to Australia. When he said that he should not hunt in the coming winter; that he feared his hand was out for shooting; that he had an idea of travelling on the Continent during the autumn; and that there was no knowing when he might be summoned back to Polyeuka, of course there came across Aunt Polly's mind,--and probably also across Julia's mind,--an idea that he meant to give them the slip again. On the former occasion he had behaved badly. This was their opinion. But, as it had turned out, his circumstances at the moment were such as to make his conduct pardonable. He had been harassed by the importunities both of his father and of Davis; and that, under such circumstances, he should have run away from his affianced bride, was almost excusable, But now----! It was very different now. Something must be settled. It was very well to talk about Polyeuka. A man who has engaged himself in business must, no doubt, attend to it. But married men can attend to business quite as well as they who are single. At any rate, there could be no reason why the previous engagement should not be consolidated and made a family affair. There was felt to be something almost approaching to resistance in what he had said and done already. Therefore Aunt Polly flew to her weapons, and summoned Julia also to take up arms. He must be bound at once with chains, but the chains were made as soft as love and flattery could make them. Aunt Polly was almost angry,--was prepared to be very angry;--but not the less did she go on killing fatted calves.
There were archery meetings at this time through the country, the period of the year being unfitted for other sports. It seemed to Caldigate as though all the bows and all the arrows had been kept specially for him,--as though he was the great toxophilite of the age,--whereas no man could have cared less for the amusement than he. He was carried here and was carried there; and then there was a great gathering in their own park at home. But it always came to pass that he and Julia were shooting together,--as though it were necessary that she should teach him,--that she should make up by her dexterity for what was lost by his awkwardness,--that she by her peculiar sweetness should reconcile him to his new employment. Before the week was over, there was a feeling among all the dependants at Babington, and among many of the neighbours, that everything was settled, and that Miss Julia was to be the new mistress of Folking.
Caldigate knew that it was so. He perceived the growth of the feeling from day to day. He could not say that he would not go to the meetings, all of which had been arranged beforehand. Nor could he refuse to stand up beside his cousin Julia and shoot his arrows directly after she had shot hers. Nor could he refrain from acknowledging that though she was awkward in a drawing-room, she was a buxom young woman dressed in green with a feather in her hat and a bow in her hand; and then she could always shoot her arrows straight into the bull's-eye. But he was well aware that the new hat had been bought specially for him, and that the sharpest arrow from her quiver was intended to be lodged in his heart. He was quite determined that any such shooting as that should be unsuccessful.
'Has he said anything?' the mother asked the daughter. 'Not a word.' This occurred on the Sunday night. He had reached Babington on the previous Tuesday, and was to go to Folking on next Tuesday. 'Not a word.' The reply was made in a tone almost of anger. Julia did believe that her cousin had been engaged to her, and that she actually had a right to him, now that he had come back, no longer ruined.
'Some men never do,' said Aunt Polly, not wishing to encourage her daughter's anger just at present. 'Some men are never left alone with a girl for half a moment, but what they are talking stuff and nonsense. Others never seem to think about it in the least. But whether it's the one or whether it's the other, it makes no difference afterwards. He never had much talk of that kind. I'll just say a word to him, Julia.'
The saying of the word was put off till late on Sunday evening. Sunday was rather a trying day at Babington. If hunting, shooting, fishing, croquet, lawn-billiards, bow and arrows, battledore and shuttle-cock, with every other game, as games come up and go, constitute a worldly kind of life, the Babingtons were worldly. There surely never was a family in which any kind of work was so wholly out of the question, and every amusement so much a matter of course. But if worldliness and religion are terms opposed to each other, then they were not worldly. There were always prayers for the whole household morning and evening. There were two services on Sunday, at the first of which the males, and at both of which the females, were expected to attend. But the great struggle came after dinner at nine o'clock, when Aunt Polly always read a sermon out loud to the assembled household. Aunt Polly had a certain power of her own, and no one dared to be absent except the single servant who was left in the kitchen to look after the fire.
The squire himself was always there, but a peculiar chair was placed for him, supposed to be invisible to the reader, in which he slept during the whole time, subject to correction from a neighbouring daughter in the event of his snoring. An extra bottle of port after dinner was another Sunday observance which added to the irritability of the occasion,--so that the squire, when the reading and prayers were over, would generally be very cross, and would take himself up to bed almost without a word, and the brothers would rush away almost with indecent haste to their smoking. As the novels had all been put away into a cupboard, and the good books which were kept for the purpose strewed about in place of them, and as knitting, and even music, were tabooed, the girls, having nothing to do, would also go away at an early hour.
'John, would you mind staying a few moments with me?' said Aunt Polly, in her softest voice when Caldigate was hurrying after his male cousins. He knew that the hour had come, and he girded up his loins.
'Come nearer, John,' she said,--and he came nearer, so that she could put her hand upon his. 'Do you remember, John, when you and I and Julia were together in that little room up-stairs?' There was so much pathos in her voice, she did her acting so well, that his respect for her was greatly augmented,--as was also his fear. 'She remembers it very well.'
'Of course I remember it, Aunt Polly. It's one of those things that a man doesn't forget.'
'A man ought not to forget such a scene as that,' she said, shaking her head. 'A man would be very hard of heart if he could forget it.'
Now must be the moment for his exertion! She had spoken so plainly as to leave no doubt of her meaning, and she was pausing for an answer; yet he hesitated,--not in his purpose, but doubting as to his own manner of declaring it. He must be very decided. Upon that he was resolved. He would be decided, though they should drag him in pieces with wild horses for it afterwards. But he would fain be gentle with his aunt if it were possible. 'My dear Aunt Polly, it won't do; I'm not going to be caught, and so you may as well give it over.' That was what he wished her to understand;--but he would not say it in such language. Much was due to her, though she was struggling to catch him in a trap. 'When I had made such a fool of myself before I went--about money,' he said, 'I thought that was all over.'
'But you have made anything but a fool of yourself since,' she replied triumphantly; 'you have gone out into the world like a man, and have made your fortune, and have so returned that everybody is proud of you. Now you can take a wife to yourself and settle down, and be a happy goodman.'
It was exactly his view of life;--only there was a difference about the wife to be taken. He certainly had never said a word to his cousin which could justify this attack upon him. The girl had been brought to him in a cupboard, and he had been told that he was to marry her! And that when he had been young and drowned with difficulties. How is a man ever to escape if he must submit under such circumstances as these? 'My dear Aunt Polly, I had better tell you at once that I cannot marry my cousin Julia.' Those were the words which he did speak, and as he spoke there was a look about his eyes and his mouth which ought to have made her know that there was no hope.
'And why not? John Caldigate, is this you that I hear?'
'Why should I?'
'Because you promised it.'
'I never did, Aunt Polly.'
'And because she loves you.'
'Even if it were so, am I to be bound by that? But, indeed, indeed, I never even suggested it,--never thought of it. I am very fond of my cousin, very fond of all my cousins. But marriage is a different thing. I am inclined to think that cousins had better not marry.'
'You should have said that before. But it is nonsense. Cousins marry every day. There is nothing about it either in the Bible or the Prayer-book. She will die.'
Aunt Polly said this in a tone of voice which made it a matter of regret that she should not have been educated for Drury Lane. But as she said it, he could not avoid thinking of Julia's large ankles, and red cheeks, and of the new green hat and feather. A girl with large ankles is, one may suppose, as liable to die for love as though she were as fine about her feet as a thorough-bred filly; and there is surely no reason why a true heart and a pair of cherry cheeks should not go together. But our imagination has created ideas in such matters so fixed, that it is useless to contend against them. In our endeavours to produce effects, these ideas should be remembered and obeyed. 'I hope not on that account,' said Caldigate, and as he uttered the words some slightest suspicion of a smile crossed his face.
Then Aunt Polly blazed forth in wrath. 'And at such a moment as this you can laugh!'
'Indeed, I did not laugh;--I am very far from laughing, Aunt Polly.'
'Because I am anxious for my child, my child whom you have deceived, you make yourself merry with me!'
'I am not merry. I am miserably unhappy because of all this. But I cannot admit that I have deceived my cousin. All that was settled, I thought, when I went away. But coming back at the end of four years, of four such long years, with very different ideas of life----' 'What ideas?'
'Well,--at any rate, with ideas of having my own way,--I cannot submit myself to this plan of yours, which, though it would have given me so much----' 'It would give you everything, sir.'
'Granted! But I cannot take everything. It is better that we should understand each other, so that my cousin, for whom I have the most sincere regard, should not be annoyed.'
'Much you care!'
'What shall I say?'
'It signifies nothing what you say. You are a false man. You have inveigled your cousin's affections, and now you say that you can do nothing for her. This comes from the sort of society you have kept out at Botany Bay! I suppose a man's word there is worth nothing, and that the women are of such a kind they don't mind it. It is not the way with gentlemen here in England; let me tell you that!' Then she stalked out of the room, leaving him either to go to bed, or join the smokers or to sit still and repent at his leisure, as he might please. His mind, however, was chiefly occupied for the next half-hour with thinking whether it would be possible for him to escape from Babington on the following morning.
Before the morning he had resolved that, let the torment of the day be what it might, he would bear it,--unless by chance he might be turned out of the house. But no tragedy such as that came to relieve him. Aunt Polly gave him his tea at breakfast with a sternly forbidding look,--and Julia was as cherry-cheeked as ever, though very silent. The killing of calves was over, and he was left to do what he pleased during the whole day. One spark of comfort came to him. 'John, my boy,' said his uncle in a whisper, 'what's the matter between you and Madame?' Mr. Babington would sometimes call his wife Madame when he was half inclined to laugh at her. Caldigate of course declared that there was nothing wrong. The squire shook his head and went away. But from this it appeared to Caldigate that the young lady's father was not one of the conspirators,--by ascertaining which his mind was somewhat relieved.
On the next morning the fly came for him, and he went away without any kisses. Upon the whole he was contented with both his visits, and was inclined to assure himself that a man has only to look a difficulty in the face, and that the difficulty will be difficult no longer.
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"id": "11643"
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17 | None | Again at Puritan Grange As Caldigate travelled home to Folking he turned many things in his mind. In the first place he had escaped, and that to him was a matter of self-congratulation. He had declared his purpose in reference to his cousin Julia very clearly;--and though he had done so he had not quarrelled utterly with the family. As far as the young lady's father was concerned or her brothers, there had been no quarrel at all. The ill-will against him was confined to the women. But as he thought of it all, he was not proud of himself. He had received great kindness from their hands, and certainly owed them much in return. When he had been a boy he had been treated almost as one of the family;--but as he had not been quite one of them, would it not have been natural that he should be absorbed in the manner proposed? And then he could not but admit to himself that he had been deficient in proper courage when he had been first caught and taken into the cupboard. On that occasion he had neither accepted nor rejected the young lady; and in such a matter as this silence certainly may be supposed to give consent. Though he rejoiced in his escape he was not altogether proud of his conduct in reference to his friends at Babington.
Would it not have been better that he should have told his aunt frankly that his heart was engaged elsewhere? The lady's name would have been asked, and the lady's name could not have been given. But he might in this way have prepared the way for the tidings which would have to be communicated should he finally be successful with Hester Bolton. Now such news would reach them as an aggravation of the injury. For that, however, there could be no remedy. The task at present before him was that of obtaining a footing in the house at Chesterton, and the more he thought of it the more he was at a loss to know how to set about it. They could not intend to shut such a girl up, through all her young years, as in a convent. There must be present to the minds of both of them an idea that marriage would be good for her, or, at any rate, that she should herself have some choice in the matter. And if there were to be any son-in-law why should not he have as good a chance as any other? When they should learn how constantly the girl's image had been present to his mind, so far away, during so many years, under such hard circumstances would not that recommend him to them? Had he not proved himself to be steady, industrious, and a good man of business? In regard to position and fortune was he not such as a father would desire for his daughter? Having lost his claim to Folking, had he not regained it;--and in doing so had he not shown himself to be something much more than merely the heir to Folking? An immediate income would, of course, be necessary;--but there was money enough. He would ask the old man for nothing. Reports said that though the old man had been generous to his own sons, still he was fond of money. He should have the opportunity of bestowing his daughter in marriage without being asked for a shilling. And then John Caldigate bethought himself with some pride that he could make a proper settlement on his wife without burdening the estate at Folking with any dowers. But of what use would be all this if he could not get at the girl to tell her that he loved her?
He might, indeed, get at the father and tell his purpose plainly and honestly. But he thought that his chance of prevailing with the girl might be better than with the father. In such cases it is so often the daughter who prevails with her own parents after she has surrendered her own heart. The old man had looked at him sternly, had seemed even in that moment of time to disapprove of him. But the girl----. Well; in such an interview as that there had not been much scope for approval. Nor was he a man likely to flatter himself that any girl could fall in love with him at first sight. But she had not looked sternly at him. In the few words which she had spoken her voice had been very sweet. Both of them had said they remembered him after the long interval that had passed;--but the manner of saying so had been very different. He was almost sure that the old man would be averse to him, though he could tell himself personally that there was no just cause for such aversion. But if this were so, he could not forward his cause by making his offer through the father.
'Well, John, how has it gone with you at Babington?' his father asked almost as soon as they were together.
It had not been difficult to tell his father of the danger before he made his visit, but now he hesitated before he could avow that the young lady's hand had again been offered to him. 'Pretty well, sir. We had a good deal of archery and that kind of thing. It was rather slow.'
'I should think so. Was there nothing besides the archery?'
'Not much.'
'The young lady was not troublesome?'
'Perhaps the less we say about it the better, sir. They were very kind to me when I was a boy.'
'I have nothing to say at all, unless I am to be called on to welcome her as a daughter-in-law.'
'You will not have to do that, sir.'
'I suppose, John, you mean to marry some day,' said the father after a pause. Then it occurred to the son that he must have some one whom he could trust in this matter which now occupied his mind, and that no one probably might be so able to assist him as his father. 'I wish I knew what your idea of life is,' continued Mr. Caldigate. 'I fear you will be growing tired of this place, and that when you get back to your gold-mines you will stay there.'
'There is no fear of that. I do not love the place well enough.'
'If you were settled here, I should feel more comfortable. I sometimes think, John, that if you would fix yourself I would give the property up to you altogether and go away with my books into some town. Cambridge, perhaps, would do as well as any other.'
'You must never do that, sir. You must not leave Folking. But as for myself,--I have ideas about my own life.'
'Are they such that you can tell them?'
'Yes;--you shall hear them all. But I shall expect you to help me;--or at least not turn against me?'
'Turn against you, John! I hope I may never have to do that again. What is that you mean?' This he said very seriously. There was usually in his voice something of a tone of banter,--a subdued cynicism,--which had caused everybody near him to be afraid of him, and which even yet was habitual to him. But now that was all gone. Was there to be any new source of trouble betwixt him and his son?
'I intend to ask Hester Bolton to be my wife,' said John Caldigate.
The father, who was standing in the library, slapped both his hands down upon the table. 'Hester Bolton!'
'Is there any objection?'
'What do you know about her? Why;--she's a child.'
'She is nearly twenty, sir.'
'Have you ever seen her?'
'Yes, I have seen her,--twice. I daresay you'll think it very absurd, but I have made up my mind about it. If I say that I was thinking about it all the time I was in Australia, of course you will laugh at me.'
'I will not laugh at you at all, John.'
'If any one else were to say so to me, I should laugh at them. But yet it was so. Have you ever seen her?'
'I suppose I have. I think I remember a little girl.'
'For beauty I have never seen anybody equal to her,' said the lover. 'I wish you'd go over to Chesterton and judge for yourself.'
'They wouldn't know what such a thing meant. It is years since I have been in the house. I believe that Mrs. Bolton devotes herself to religious exercises and that she regards me as a pagan.'
'That's just the difficulty, sir. How am I to get at her? But you may be sure of this, I mean to do it. If I were beat I do think that then I should go back and bury myself in the gold-mines. You asked me what I meant to do about my future life. That is my purpose. If she were my wife I should consult her. We might travel part of the time, and I might have a farm. I should always look upon Folking as home. But till that is settled, when you ask me what I mean to do with my life, I can only say that I mean to marry Hester Bolton.'
'Did you tell them at Babington?'
'I have told nobody but you. How am I to set about it?'
Then Mr. Caldigate sat down and began to scratch his head and to consider. 'I don't suppose they ever go out anywhere.'
'I don't think they do;--except to church.'
'You can't very well ask her there. You can always knock at the house-door.'
'I can call again once;--but what if I am refused then? It is of no use knocking if a man does not get in.' After a little more conversation the squire was so far persuaded that he assented to the proposed marriage as far as his assent was required; but he did not see his way to give any assistance. He could only suggest that his son should go direct to the father and make his proposition in the old-fashioned legitimate fashion. But when it was put to him whether Mr. Bolton would not certainly reject the offer unless it were supported by some goodwill on the part of his own daughter, he acknowledged that it might probably be so. 'You see,' said the squire, 'he believes in gold, but he doesn't believe in gold-mines.'
'It is that accursed Davis that stands against me,' said the son.
John Caldigate, no doubt, had many things to trouble him. Before he had resolved on making his second visit to Chesterton, he received a most heartrending epistle from Aunt Polly in which he was assured that he was quite as dear to her as ever, quite as dear as her own children, and in which he was implored to return to the haunts of his childhood where everybody loved him and admired him. After what had passed, he was determined not to revisit the haunts till he was married, or, at any rate, engaged to be married. But there was a difficulty in explaining this to Aunt Polly without an appearance of ingratitude. And then there were affairs in Australia which annoyed him. Tom Crinkett was taking advantage of his absence in reference to Polyeuka,--that his presence would soon be required there;--and other things were not going quite smoothly. He had much to trouble him;--but still he was determined to carry out his purpose with Hester Bolton. Since the day on which he had roused himself to the necessity of an active life he had ever called upon himself 'not to let the grass grow under his feet.' And he had taught himself to think that there were few things a man could not achieve if he would only live up to that motto. Therefore, though he was perplexed by letters from Australia, and though his Aunt Polly was a great nuisance, he determined to persevere at once. If he allowed himself to revisit Nobble before he had settled this matter with Hester Bolton, would it not be natural that Hester Bolton should be the wife of some other man before he returned?
With all this on his mind he started off one day on horseback to Cambridge. When he left Folking he had not quite made up his mind whether he would go direct to the bank and ask for old Mr. Bolton, or make a first attempt at that fortified castle at Chesterton. But on entering the town he put his horse up at an inn just where the road turns off to Chesterton, and proceeded on foot to the house. This was about a mile distant from the stable, and as he walked that mile he resolved that if he could get into the house at all he would declare his purpose to some one before he left it. What was the use of shilly-shallying? 'Who ever did anything by letting the grass grow under his feet?' So he knocked boldly at the door and asked for Mrs. Bolton. After a considerable time, the maid came and told him, apparently with much hesitation, that Mrs. Bolton was at home. He was quite determined to ask for Miss Bolton if Mrs. Bolton were denied to him. But the girl said that Mrs. Bolton was at home, seeming by her manner to say at the same time, 'I cannot tell a lie about it, because of the sin; but I don't know what business you can have here, and I'm sure that my mistress does not want to see any such a one as you.' Nevertheless she showed him into the big sitting-room on the left hand of the hall, and as he entered he saw the skirts of a lady's dress vanishing through another door. Had there been a moment allowed him he would boldly have called the lady back, for he was sure that the lady was Hester;--but the lady was gone and the door closed before he could open his mouth.
Then he waited for full ten minutes, which, of course, seemed to him to be very much more than an hour. At last the door was opened and Mrs. Bolton appeared. The reader is not to suppose that she was an ugly, cross-looking old woman. She was neither ugly, nor old, nor cross. When she had married Mr. Bolton, she had been quite young, and now she was not much past forty. And she was handsome too, with a fine oval face which suited well with the peculiar simplicity of her dress and the sober seriousness of her gait and manner. It might, perhaps, be said of her that she tried to look old and ugly,--and cross too, but that she did not succeed. She now greeted her visitor very coldly, and having asked after old Mr. Caldigate, sat silent looking at John Caldigate as though there were nothing more possible for her to say.
'I could not but come to see you and thank you for your kindness before I went,' said John.
'I remember your coming about some business. We have very few visitors here.'
'I went out, you know, as a miner.'
'I think I heard Mr. Bolton say so.'
'And I have succeeded very well.'
'Oh, indeed!'
'So well that I have been able to come back; and though I may perhaps be obliged to revisit the colony to settle my affairs there, I am going to live here at home.'
'I hope that will be comfortable to you.' At every word she spoke, her voice took more and more plainly that tone of wonder which we are all of us apt to express when called on to speak on matters which we are at the moment astonished to have introduced to us.
'Yes; Mrs. Bolton, I hope it will. And now I have got something particular to say.'
'Perhaps you had better see--Mr. Bolton--at the bank.'
'I hope I may be able to do so. I quite intend it. But as I am here, if you will allow me, I will say a word to you first. In all matters there is nothing so good as being explicit.' She looked at him as though she was altogether afraid of him. And indeed she was. Her husband's opinion of the young man had been very bad five years ago,--and she had not heard that it had been altered since. Young men who went out to the colonies because they were ruined, were, to her thinking, the worst among the bad,--men who drank and gambled and indulged in strange lives, mere castaways, the adopted of Satan. And, to her thinking, among men, none were so rough as miners,--and among miners none were so godless, so unrestrained so wild as the seekers after gold. She had read, perhaps, something of the Spaniards in Central America, and regarded such adventurers as she would pirates and freebooters generally. And then with regard to the Caldigates generally,--the elder of whom she knew to have been one of her husband's intimate friends in his less regenerated days,--she believed them to be infidel freethinkers. She was not, therefore, by any means predisposed in favour of this young man; and when he spoke of his desire to be explicit, she thought that he had better be explicit anywhere rather than in her drawing-room. 'You may remember,' he said, 'that I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter here before I left the country five years ago.' Then she listened with all her ears. There were not many things in this empty, vain, hard unattractive world which excited her. But the one thing in regard to which she had hopes and fears, doubts and resolutions,--the one matter as to which she knew that she must ever be on her guard, and yet as to which she hardly knew how she was to exercise her care,--was her child. 'And once I have seen her since I have been back, though only for a moment.' Then he paused as though expecting that she should say something;--but what was it possible that she should say? She only looked at him with all her eyes, and retreated a little from him with her body, as anxious to get away from a man of his class who should dare even to speak to her of her girl. 'The truth is, Mrs. Bolton, that her image has been present to me through all my wanderings, and I am here to ask her to be my wife.' She rose from her chair as though to fly from him,--and then sitting down again stared at him with her mouth open and her eyes fixed upon him. His wife! Her Hester to become the wife of such a one as that! Her girl, as to whom, when thinking of the future life of her darling, she had come to tell herself that there could be no man good enough, pure enough, true enough, firm enough in his faith and life, to have so tender, so inestimable a treasure committed to his charge!
| {
"id": "11643"
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18 | None | Robert Bolton Caldigate felt at the moment that he had been very abrupt,--so abrupt as to have caused infinite dismay. But then it had been necessary that he should be abrupt in order that he might get the matter understood. The ordinary approaches were not open to him, and unless he had taken a more than usually rapid advantage of the occasion which he had made for himself, he would have had to leave the house without having been able to give any of its inmates the least idea of his purpose. And then,--as he said to himself,--matrimony is honest. He was in all worldly respects a fit match for the young lady. To his own thinking there was nothing preposterous in the nature of his request, though it might have been made with some precipitate informality. He did not regard himself exactly as the lady regarded him, and therefore, though he saw her surprise, he still hoped that he might be able to convince her that in all that he was doing he was as anxious for the welfare of her child as she could be herself.
She sat there so long without saying a word that he found himself obliged to renew his suit. 'Of course, Mrs. Bolton, I am aware how very little you know of me.'
'Nothing at all,' she answered, hurriedly;--'or rather too much.'
He blushed up to his eyes, perfectly understanding the meaning of her words; and, knowing that he had not deserved them, he was almost angry. 'If you will make inquiry I think you will find that I have so far succeeded as to justify you in hoping that I may be able to marry and settle myself in my own country.'
'You don't know my daughter at all.'
'Very little.'
'It is quite out of the question. She is very young, and such a thing has never occurred to her. And we are not the same sort of people.'
'Why not, Mrs. Bolton? Your husband and my father have been intimate friends for a great many years. It is not as though I had taken up the idea only yesterday. It has been present with me, comforting me, during all my work, for the last five years. I know all your daughter's features as though she had been my constant companion.' The lady shivered and almost trembled at this profanation of her child's name. It was trouble to her that one so holy should ever have been thought about by one so unholy. 'Of course I do not ask for anything at present;--but will you not consult your husband as to the propriety of allowing her to make my acquaintance?'
'I shall tell my husband, of course.'
'And will repeat to him what I say?'
'I shall tell him,--as I should any other most wild proposition that might be made to me. But I am quite sure that he will be very angry.'
'Angry! why should he be angry?'
'Because----' Then she stopped.
'I do not think, Mrs. Bolton, that there can be any cause for anger. If I were a beggar, if I were below her in position, if I had not means to keep a wife,--even if I were a stranger to his name, he might be angry. But I do not think he can be angry with me, now, because, in the most straightforward way, I come to the young lady's parents and tell them that I love their child. Is it a disgrace to me that of all whom I have seen I think her to be the loveliest and best? Her father may reject me; but he will be very unreasonable if he is angry with me.'
She could not tell him about the dove and the kite, or the lamb and the wolf. She could not explain to him that he was a sinner, unregenerated, a wild man in her estimation, a being of quite another kind than herself, and therefore altogether unfitted to be the husband of her girl! Her husband, no doubt, could do all this--if he would. But then she too had her own skeleton in her own cupboard. She was not quite assured of her own husband's regeneration. He went to church regularly, and read his Bible, and said his prayers. But she feared,--she was almost sure,--that he liked the bank-books better than his Bible. That he would reject this offer from John Caldigate, she did not doubt. She had always heard her husband speak of the man with disapprobation and scorn. She had heard the whole story of Davis and the Newmarket debts. She had heard, too, the man's subsequent prosperity spoken of as a thing of chance,--as having come from gambling on an extensive scale. She herself regarded money acquired in so unholy a way as likely to turn to slate-stones, or to fly away and become worse than nothing. She knew that Mr. Bolton, whether regenerate or not, regarded young Caldigate as an adventurer, and that therefore, the idea of such a marriage would be as unpalatable to him as to herself. But she did not dare to tell her visitor that he was an unregenerate kite, lest her husband would not support her.
'Whatever more you have got to say, you had better say it to him,' she replied to the lover when he had come to the end of his defence. At that moment the door opened, and a gentleman entered the room. This was Mr. Robert Bolton, the attorney. Now of all her husband's sons,--who were, of course, not her sons,--Mrs. Bolton saw this one the most frequently and perhaps liked him the least. Or it might be juster to say that she was more afraid of him than of the others. The two eldest, who were both in the bank, were quiet, sober men, who lived affluently and were married to religious wives, and brought up their children plentifully and piously. She did not see very much of them, because her life was not a social life. But among her friends they were the most intimate. But Robert's wife was given to gaiety and dinner-parties and had been seen even at balls. And Robert himself was much oftener at the Grange than either of the other brothers. He managed his father's private affairs, and was, perhaps, of all his sons the best liked by the father. He was prosperous in his business and was reported to be the leading lawyer in the town. In the old Cambridge days he had entertained John Caldigate at his house; and though they had not met since the miner's return from Australia, each at once knew the other, and their greeting was friendly 'Where's Hess?' said Robert, asking at once after his sister.
'She is engaged, Robert,' said Mrs. Bolton, very seriously, and very firmly.
'She gave me a commission about some silk, and Margaret says that it can't be executed in Cambridge. She must write to Fanny.' Margaret was Mrs. Robert Bolton, and Fanny was the wife of the barrister brother who lived in London.
'I will tell her, Robert.'
'All the same I should have liked to have seen her.'
'She is engaged, Robert.' This was said almost more seriously and more firmly than before.
'Well, Caldigate,' said the attorney, turning to the visitor, 'so you are the one man who has not only gone to the gold country and found gold, but has brought his gold home with him.'
'I have brought a little home;--but I hope others have done so before.'
'I have never heard of any. You seem to have been uncommonly lucky. Hard work, wasn't it?'
'Hard enough at first.'
'And a good deal of chance?'
'If a man will work steadily, and has backbone enough to stand up against reverses without consoling himself with drink; and if, when the gold comes, he can refrain from throwing it about as though it were endless, I think a man may be tolerably sure to earn something.' Then he told the story of the horse with the golden shoes.
'Shoes of gold upon a horse!' said Mrs. Bolton, holding up both her hands. The man who could even tell such a story must be an adventurer. But, nevertheless the story had interested her so that she had been enticed into taking some part in the conversation.
When Caldigate got up to take his leave, Robert Bolton offered to walk back to the town with him. He had expected to find his father, but would now look for him at the bank. They started together; and as they went Caldigate told his story to the young lady's half-brother. It occurred to him that of all the family Robert Bolton would be the most reasonable in such a matter; and that of all the family he might perhaps be the best able to give assistance. When Robert Bolton had heard it all, at first he whistled. Then he asked the following question. 'What did she say to you?'
'She did not give me much encouragement.'
'I should think not. Though I say it who shouldn't, Hester is the sweetest girl in Cambridgeshire. But her mother thinks her much too good to be given in marriage to any man. This kind of thing was bound to come about some day.'
'But Mrs. Bolton seems to have some personal objection to me.'
'That's probable.'
'I don't know why she should.'
'She has got one treasure of her own, in enjoying which she is shut out from all the rest of the world. Is it unnatural that she should be a little suspicious about a man who proposes to take her treasure away from her?'
'She must surrender her treasure to some one,--some day.'
'If it be so, she will hope to do so to a man of whose antecedents she may know more than she does of yours. What she does know of you is of a nature to frighten her. You will excuse me.'
'Oh, of course.'
'She has heard that you went away under a cloud, having surrendered your estate. That was against you. Well;--you have come back, and she hears that you have brought some money with you. She does not care very much about money; but she does care about regularity and fixed habits. If Hess is to be married at all she would especially wish that her husband should be a religious man. Perhaps you are.'
'I am neither the one thing nor the other,--especially.'
'And therefore peculiarly dangerous in her eyes. It is natural that she should oppose you.'
'What am I to do, then?'
'Ah! How am I to answer that? The whole story is very romantic, and I do not know that we are a romantic family. My father is autocratic in his own house.'
This last assurance seemed to contain some comfort. As Mrs. Bolton would be his enemy in the matter, it was well that the power of deciding should be in other hands. 'I do not mean to give it up,' said he.
'I suppose you must if they won't open their doors to you.'
'I think they ought to allow me to have the chance of seeing her.'
'I don't see why they should. Mind I am not saying anything of this for myself. If I were my sister's guardian, I should take the trouble to make many inquiries before I either asked you into my house or declined to do so. I should not give access to you, or to any other gentleman merely because he asked it.'
'Let them make inquiry.'
'Mrs. Bolton probably thinks that she already knows enough. What my father may say I cannot even surmise.'
'Will you tell him?'
'If you wish it.'
'Tell him also that I will wait upon him at once if he desires it. He shall know everything about my affairs,--which indeed require no concealment. I can settle enough upon her for her comfort. If she is to have anything of her own, that will be over and above. As far as I am concerned myself, I ask no question about that. I think that a man ought to earn enough for himself and for his wife too. As to religion----' 'If I were you, I would leave that alone,' said the lawyer.
'Perhaps so.'
'I will tell my father. That is all I can say. Good-bye.'
So they parted; and Caldigate, getting on his horse, rode back to Folking. Looking back at what he had done that day, he was almost disposed to be contented with it. The lady's too evident hostility was, of course, to be deprecated;--but then he had expected it. As Robert Bolton had explained to him very clearly, it was almost impossible that he should, at the first, be regarded by her with favourable eyes. But he thought that the brother had been quite as favourable to him as he could have expected, and the ice was broken. The Bolton family generally would know what he was about. Hester would not be told, of course;--at any rate, not at once. But the first steps had been taken, and it must be for him now so to press the matter that the ultimate decision should be made to rest in her hands as soon as possible.
'What did Mr. Bolton say to you?' asked the squire.
'I did not see him.'
'And what did the young lady say?'
'I did not see her.'
'Or the mamma?'
'I did see her, and told her my project.'
'I should think she would be startled?'
'She was not very propitious, sir; but that was not to be expected.'
'She is a poor melancholy half-crazed creature, I take it,' said the squire; 'at least, that is what I hear. The girl, I should think, would be glad to get away from such a home. But I am afraid you will find a good many obstacles.' After that nothing more was said about the matter at Folking for some days.
But there was a great deal said upon the matter both in Cambridge and at Chesterton. Robert Bolton found his father at the bank on the same afternoon, and performed his promise. 'Did he see your step-mother?' asked the old man.
'Oh yes; and as far as I can understand, did not receive very much favour at her hands.'
'But he did not see Hester?'
'Certainly not to-day.'
Then the old man looked up into his son's face, as though seeking some expression there from which he might take some counsel. His own nature had ever been imperious; but he was old now, and, in certain difficulties which environed him, he was apt to lean on his son Robert. It was Robert who encouraged him still to keep in his hands some share of the management of the bank; and it was to Robert that he could look for counsel when the ceremonious strictness of his wife at home became almost too hard even for him.
'It is natural to suppose that Hester should be married some day,' said the lawyer.
'Her mother will never wish it.'
'She will never wish it at any given moment, but she would probably assent to the proposition generally. Why not Hester as well as another girl? It is the happiest life for women.'
'I am not sure. I am not sure.'
'Women think so themselves, and Hester will probably be the same as others. She will, of course, have an opinion of her own.'
'She will be guided by her mother.'
'Not altogether. It will only be fair that she should be consulted on a matter of such importance to herself.'
'You would not tell her what this man has been saying?'
'Not necessarily. I say that she should be consulted generally as to her future life. In regard to this man, I see no objection to him if he be a good man.'
'He was here at college. You know what he did then?'
'Yes; and I know, too, something of what he has done since. He went away disinherited and almost degraded. He has come back, as I hear, comparatively a rich man. He has got back his inheritance, which might probably be settled on his children if he were to be married. And all this he has done off his own bat. Where other men stumble so frequently, he has stood on his legs. No doubt, he has lived with rough people, but still he seems to be a gentleman. Hester will be well off, no doubt, some day.'
'She will have something,--something,' said the old man.
'But this suitor asks for nothing. It is not as though he were coming to you to prop him up in the world. It does not look like that at least. Of course, we ought to make inquiry as to his means.'
'The mortgage has been paid off.'
'So much we know, and the rest may be found out. I do not mean at all to say that he should be allowed to have his own way. I think too much of my sister for that. But, in this matter, we ought to regard simply her happiness and her welfare;--and in considering that you ought to be prepared for her coming marriage. You may take it for granted that she will choose to give herself, sooner or later, to some man. Give a girl good looks, and good sense, and good health, and she is sure to wish to be some man's wife,--unless she be deterred by some conventual superstition.'
If there were any words capable of conveying horror to the mind of the old banker, they were convents, priests, and papacy,--of which the lawyer was well aware when speaking thus of his sister. Mrs. Bolton was certainly not addicted to papistical observances, nor was she at all likely to recommend the seclusion of her daughter in a convent. All her religious doctrines were those of the Low Church. But she had a tendency to arrive at similar results by other means. She was so afraid of the world, the flesh, and the devil, that she would fain shut up her child so as to keep her from the reach of all evil. Vowed celibacy was abominable to her, because it was the resource of the Roman Catholics; and because she had been taught to believe that convent-walls were screens for hiding unheard-of wickedness. But yet, on behalf of her child, she desired seclusion from the world, fancying that so and so only might security be ensured. Superstition was as strong with her as with any self-flagellated nun. Fasting, under that name, she held in abhorrence. But all sensual gratifications were wicked in her sight. She would allow all home indulgences to her daughter, each under some separate plea,--constrained to do so by excessive love; but she did so always in fear and trembling, lest she was giving some foothold to Satan. All of which Robert Bolton understood better even than did his father when he gave the above advice in reference to this lover.
| {
"id": "11643"
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19 | None | Men Are So Wicked A month had passed by since Caldigate's interview with Mrs. Bolton, and nothing had as yet been decided either for him or against him at Chesterton. And the fact that no absolute decision had been made against him may be taken as having been very much in his favour. But of those who doubted, and doubting, had come to no decision, Mrs. Bolton herself was by no means one. She was as firm as ever in her intention that the idea should not even be suggested to her daughter. Nor, up to this time, had our hero's name been even mentioned to Hester Bolton.
About a week after Caldigate's visit to Chesterton in the early days of August, he wrote to Robert Bolton saying that he was going into Scotland for a month, and that he trusted that during that time his proposition might be considered. On his return he would take the liberty of calling on Mr. Bolton at the bank. In the meantime he hoped that inquiries might be made as to his position in the world, and in order that such inquiries might be effectual he gave a reference to his man of business in London. To this letter Robert Bolton sent no answer; but he went up to London, and did make the inquiries as suggested, and consulted his brother the barrister, and his sister-in-law the barrister's wife. They were both of opinion that John Caldigate was behaving well, and were of opinion also that something should be done to liberate Hester from the thraldom of her mother. 'I knew how it would be when she grew up and became a woman,' said Mrs. William Bolton. 'Nobody will be allowed to see her, and she won't have a chance of settling herself. When we asked her to come up here for a couple of months in the season, Mrs. Bolton sent me word that London is a terrible place for young girls,--though, of course, she knew that our own girls were being brought up here.' Then the ways of Mrs. Bolton at Chesterton and Hester's future life generally were discussed in a spirit that was by no means unfriendly to our hero.
The suggested inquiries were made in the city, and were all favourable. Everyone connected with the mining interests of the Australian colonies knew the name of John Caldigate. All of that class of people were well aware of his prosperity and confirmed good-fortune. He had brought with him or sent home nobody quite knew how much money. But it was very well known that he had left his interest in the Polyeuka mine to be sold for £60,000, and now there had come word that a company had created itself for the sake of making the purchase, and that the money would be forthcoming. The gentleman in the city connected with mining matters did not think that Mr. Caldigate would be called upon to go out to the colony again, unless he chose to do so for his own pleasure. All this Robert Bolton learned in the City, and he learned also that the man as to whom he was making inquiry was held in high esteem for honesty, perseverance, and capacity. The result of all this was that he returned to Cambridge with a feeling that his sister ought to be allowed to make the man's acquaintance. He and his brother had agreed that something should be done to liberate their sister from her present condition. Love on the part of a mother may be as injurious as cruelty, if the mother be both tyrannical and superstitious. While Hester had been a child, no interference had been possible or perhaps expedient,--but the time had now come when something ought to be done. Such having been the decision in Harley Street, where the William Boltons lived, Robert Bolton went back home with the intention of carrying it out.
This could only be done through the old man, and even with him not without great care. He was devotedly attached to his young wife;--but was very averse to having it thought that he was ruled by her. Indeed, in all matters affecting his establishment, his means, and his business, he would hardly admit of interference from her at all. His worldly matters he kept between himself and his sons. But in regard to his soul he could not restrain her, and sometimes would hardly oppose her. The prolonged evening prayers, the sermons twice a-week, the two long church services on Sundays,--indulgence as to the third being allowed to him only on the score of his age,--he endured at her command. And in regard to Hester, he had hitherto been ruled by his wife, thinking it proper that a daughter should be left in the hands of her mother. But now, when he was told that if he did not interfere, his girl would be constrained by the harsh bonds of an unnatural life, stern as he was himself and inclined to be gloomy, little as he was disposed to admit ideas of recreation and delight, he did acknowledge that something should be done to relieve her. 'But when I die she must be left in her mother's hands,' said the old banker.
'It is to be hoped that she may be in other hands before that,' replied his son. 'I do not mean to say anything against my step-mother;--but for a young woman it is generally best that she should be married. And in Hester's peculiar position, she ought to have the chance of choosing for herself.'
In this way something almost like a conspiracy was made on behalf of Caldigate. And yet the old man did not as yet abandon his prejudices against the miner. A man who had at so early an age done so much to ruin himself, and had then sprung so suddenly from ruin to prosperity, could not, he thought, be regarded as a steady well-to-do man of business. He did agree that, as regarded Hester, the prison-bars should be removed; but he did not think that she should be invited to walk forth with Mr. John Caldigate. Robert declared that his sister was quite able to form an opinion of her own, and boldly suggested that Hester should be allowed to come and dine at his house. 'To meet the man?' asked the banker in dismay. 'Yes,' said Robert. 'He isn't an ogre. You needn't be afraid of him. I shall be there,--and Margaret. Bring her yourself if you are afraid of anything. No plant ever becomes strong by being kept always away from the winds of heaven.' To this he could not assent at the time. He knew that it was impossible to assent without consulting his wife. But he was brought so far round as to think that if nothing but his own consent were wanting, his girl would be allowed to go and meet the ogre.
'I suppose we ought to wish that Hester should be married some day,' he said to his wife about this time. She shuddered and dashed her hands together as though deprecating some evil,--some event which she could hardly hope to avoid but which was certainly an evil. 'Do you not wish that yourself?' She shook her head. 'Is it not the safest condition in which a woman can live?'
'How shall any one be safe among the dangers of this world, Nicholas?' She habitually called her husband by his Christian name, but she was the only living being who did so.
'More safe then?' said he. 'It is the natural condition of a woman.'
'I do not know. Sin is natural.'
'Very likely. No doubt. But marriage is not sinful.'
'Men are so wicked.'
'Some of them are.'
'Where is there one that is not steeped in sin over his head?'
'That applies to women also; doesn't it?' said the banker petulantly. He was almost angry because she was introducing a commonplace as to the world's condition into a particular argument as to their daughter's future life,--which he felt to be unfair and illogical.
'Of course it does, Nicholas. We are all black and grimed with sin, men and women too; and perhaps something more may be forgiven to men because they have to go out into the world and do their work. But neither one nor the other can be anything but foul with sin;--except,--except--' He was quite accustomed to the religious truth which was coming, and, in an ordinary way, did not object to the doctrine which she was apt to preach to him often. But it had no reference whatever to the matter now under discussion. The general condition of things produced by the fall of Adam could not be used as an argument against matrimony generally. Wicked as men and women are it is so evidently intended that they should marry and multiply, that even she would not deny the general propriety of such an arrangement. Therefore when he was talking to her about their daughter, she was ill-treating him when on that occasion she flew away to her much-accustomed discourse.
'What's the use, then, of saying that men are wicked?'
'They are. They are!'
'Not a doubt about it. And so are the women, but they've got to have husbands and wives. They wouldn't be any the better if there were no marrying. We have to suppose that Hester will do the same as other girls.'
'I hope not, Nicholas.'
'But why not?'
'They are vain, and they adorn themselves, not in modest apparel, as St. Paul says in First Timothy, chapter second, nor with shame-facedness and sobriety; but with braided hair and gold and pearls and costly array.'
'What has that to do with it?'
'Oh, Nicholas!'
'She might be married without all those things.'
'You said you wanted her to be like other girls.'
'No, I didn't. I said she would have to get married like other girls. You don't want to make a nun of her.'
'A nun! I would sooner sit by her bedside and watch her die! My Hester a nun!'
'Very well, then. Let her go out into the world----' 'The world, Nicholas! The world, the flesh, and the devil! Do they not always go together?'
He was much harassed and very angry. He knew how unreasonable she was, and yet he did not know how to answer her. And she was dishonest with him. Because she felt herself unable to advocate in plain terms a thorough shutting up of her daughter,--a protecting of her from the temptation of sin by absolute and prolonged sequestration,--therefore she equivocated with him, pretending to think that he was desirous of sending his girl out to have her hair braided and herself arrayed in gold and pearls. It was thoroughly dishonest, and he understood the dishonesty. 'She must go somewhere,' he said, rising from his chair and closing the conversation. At this time a month had passed since Caldigate had been at Chesterton, and he had now returned from Scotland to Folking.
On the following day Hester was taken out to dinner at The Nurseries, as Robert Bolton's house was called,--was taken out by her father. This was quite a new experiment, as she had never dined with any of her aunts and cousins except at an early dinner almost as a child,--and even as a child not at her brother Robert's. But the banker, after having declared that she must go somewhere, had persisted. It is not to be supposed that Caldigate was on this occasion invited to meet her;--nor that the father had as yet agreed that any such meeting should be allowed. But as William Bolton,--the London brother,--and Mrs. William and one of their girls were down at Cambridge, it was arranged that Hester should meet her relatives. Even so much as this was not settled without much opposition on the part of Hester's mother.
There was nobody at the house but members of the family. The old banker's oldest son Nicholas was not there as his wife and Mrs. Robert did not get on well together. Mrs. Nicholas was almost as strict as Mrs. Bolton herself, and, having no children of her own, would not have sympathised at all in any desire to procure for Hester the wicked luxury of a lover. The second son Daniel joined the party with his wife, but he had married too late to have grown-up children. His wife was strict too,--but of a medium strictness. Teas, concerts, and occasional dinner parties were with her permissible;--as were also ribbons and a certain amount of costly array. Mrs. Nicholas was in the habit of telling Mrs. Daniel that you cannot touch pitch and not be defiled,--generally intending to imply that Mrs. Robert was the pitch; and would harp on the impossibility of serving both God and mammon, thinking perhaps that her brother-in-law Robert and mammon were one and the same. But Daniel, who could go to church as often as any man on Sundays, and had thoroughly acquired for himself the reputation of a religious man of business, had his own ideas as to proprieties and expediencies, and would neither quarrel with his brother Robert, or allow his wife to quarrel with Mrs. Robert. So that the Nicholases lived very much alone. Mrs. Nicholas and Mrs. Bolton might have suited each other, might have been congenial and a comfort each to the other, but the elder son and the elder son's wife had endeavoured to prevent the old man's second marriage, and there had never been a thorough reconciliation since. There are people who can never forgive. Mrs. Nicholas had never forgiven the young girl for marrying the old man, and the young girl had never forgiven the opposition of her elder step-daughter-in-law to her own marriage. Hence it had come to pass that the Nicholases were extruded from the family conclaves, which generally consisted of the Daniels and the Roberts. The Williams were away in London, not often having much to do with these matters. But they too allied themselves with the dominant party, it being quite understood that as long as the old man lived Robert was and would be the most potent member of the family.
When the father and the three sons were in the dining-room together, after the six or seven ladies had left them, the propriety of allowing John Caldigate to make Hester's acquaintance was fully discussed. 'I would not for the world interfere,' said Robert, 'if I did not think it unfair to the dear girl that she should be shut up there altogether.'
'Do you suppose that the young man is in earnest?' asked Daniel.
As to this they all agreed that there could be no doubt. He was, too, an old family friend, well-to-do in the world, able to make proper settlements, and not at all greedy as to a fortune with his wife. Even Daniel Bolton thought that the young man should have a chance,--by saying which he was supposed to declare that the question ought to be left to the arbitrament of the young lady. The old banker was unhappy and ill at ease. He could not reconcile himself at once to so great a change. Though he felt that the excessive fears of his wife, if indulged, would be prejudicial to their girl, still he did not wish to thrust her out into the world all at once. Could there not be some middle course? Could there not be a day named, some four years hence, at which she might be allowed to begin to judge for herself? But his three sons were against him, and he could not resist their joint influence. It was therefore absolutely decided that steps should be taken for enabling John Caldigate to meet Hester at Robert Bolton's house.
'I suppose it will end in a marriage,' William Bolton said to his brother Robert when they were alone.
'Of course it will. She is the dearest creature in the world;--so good to her mother; but no fool, and quite aware that the kind of restraint to which she has been subjected is an injustice. Of course she will be gratified when a man like that tells her that he loves her. He is a good-looking fellow, with a fine spirit and plenty of means. How on earth can she do better?'
'But Mrs. B.?' said William, who would sometimes thus disrespectfully allude to his step-mother.
'Mrs. B. will do all she can to prevent it,' said Robert; 'but I think we shall find that Hester has a will of her own.'
On the following day John Caldigate called at the bank, where the banker had a small wainscoted back-parlour appropriated to himself. He had already promised that he would see the young man, and Caldigate was shown into the little room. He soon told his story, and was soon clever enough to perceive that the telling of his story was at any rate permitted. The old father did not receive him with astonishment and displeasure combined, as the young mother had done. Of course he made difficulties, and spoke of the thing as being beyond the bounds of probability. But objection no stronger than that may be taken as amounting almost to encouragement in such circumstances. And he paid evident attention to all that Caldigate said about his own pecuniary affairs,--going so far as to say that he was not in a condition to declare whether he would give his daughter any fortune at all on her marriage.
'It is quite unnecessary,' said Caldigate.
'She will probably have something at my death,' rejoined the old man.
'And when may I see her?' asked Caldigate.
In answer to that Mr. Bolton would not at first make any suggestion whatsoever,--falling back upon his old fears, and declaring that there could be no such meetings at all, but at last allowing that the lover should discuss the matter with his son Robert.
'Perhaps I may have been mistaken about the young man Caldigate,' the banker said to his wife that night.
'Oh, Nicholas!'
'I only say that perhaps I may have been mistaken.'
'You are not thinking of Hester?'
'I said nothing about Hester then;--but perhaps I may have been mistaken in my opinion about that young man John Caldigate.'
John Caldigate, as he rode home after his interview at the bank, almost felt that he had cleared away many difficulties, and that, by his perseverance, he might probably be enabled to carry out the dream of his earlier youth.
| {
"id": "11643"
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20 | None | Hester's Courage After that Caldigate did not allow the grass to grow under his feet, and before the end of November the two young people were engaged. As Robert Bolton had said, Hester was of course flattered and of course delighted with this new joy. John Caldigate was just the man to recommend himself to such a girl, not too light, not too prone to pleasure, not contenting himself with bicycles, cricket matches, or billiards, and yet not wholly given to serious matters as had been those among whom she had hitherto passed her days. And he was one who could speak of his love with soft winning words, neither roughly nor yet with too much of shame-faced diffidence. And when he told her how he had sworn to himself after seeing her that once,--that once when all before him in life was enveloped in doubt and difficulty,--that he would come home and make her his wife, she thought that the manly constancy of his heart was almost divine. Of course she loved him with all her heart. He was in all respects one made to be loved by a woman;--and then what else had she ever had to love? When once it was arranged that he should be allowed to speak to her, the thing was done. She did not at once tell him that it was done. She took some few short halcyon weeks to dally with the vow which her heart was ready to make; but those around her knew that the vow had been inwardly made; and those who were anxious on her behalf with a new anxiety, with a new responsibility, redoubled their inquiries as to John Caldigate. How would Robert Bolton or Mrs. Robert excuse themselves to that frightened miserable mother if at last it should turn out that John Caldigate was not such as they had represented him to be?
But no one could pick a hole in him although many attempts to pick holes were made. The question of his money was put quite at rest by the transference of all his securities, balances, and documents to the Boltons' bank, and the £60,000 for Polyeuka was accepted, so that there was no longer any need that he should go again to the colony. This was sweet news to Hester when she first heard it;--for it had come to pass that it had been agreed that the marriage should be postponed till his return, that having been the one concession made to Mrs. Bolton. There had been many arguments about it;--but Hester at last told him that she had promised so much to her mother and that she would of course keep her promise. Then the arrangement took such a form that the journey was not necessary,--or perhaps the objection to the journey became so strong in Caldigate's mind that he determined to dispense with it at any price. And thus, very greatly to the dismay of Mrs. Bolton, suddenly there came to be no reason why they should not be married almost at once.
But there was an attempt made at the picking of holes,--or rather many attempts. It would be unfair to say that this was carried on by Mrs. Bolton herself;--but she was always ready to listen to what evil things were said to her. Mrs. Nicholas, in her horror at the general wickedness of the Caldigates almost reconciled herself to her step-mother, and even Mrs. Daniel began to fear that a rash thing was being done. In the first place there was the old story of Davis and Newmarket. Robert Bolton, who had necessarily become the advocate and defender of our hero generally, did not care much for Davis and Newmarket. All young men sow their wild oats. Of course he had been extravagant. Since his extravagance he had shown himself to be an industrious, sensible, steady member of society;--and there was the money that he had earned! What young man had earned more in a shorter time, or had ever been more prudent in keeping it? Davis and Newmarket were easily answered by a reference to the bank account. Did he ever go to Newmarket now, though he was living so close to it? On that matter Robert Bolton was very strong.
But Mrs. Nicholas had found out that Caldigate had spent certainly two Sundays running at Folking without going to church at all; and, as far as she could learn, he was altogether indifferent about public worship. Mrs. Bolton, who could never bring herself to treat him as a son-in-law, but who was still obliged to receive him, taxed him to his face with his paganism. 'Have you no religion, Mr. Caldigate?' He assured her that he had, and fell into a long discussion in which he thoroughly confused her, though he by no means convinced her that he was what he ought to be. But he went with her to church twice on one Sunday, and showed her that he was perfectly familiar with the ways of the place.
But perhaps the loudest complaint came from the side of Babington; and here two sets of enemies joined their forces together who were thoroughly hostile to each other. Mrs. Babington declared loudly that old Bolton had been an errand-boy in his youth, and that his father had been a porter and his mother a washerwoman. This could do no real harm, as Caldigate would not have been deterred by any such rumours, even had they been true; but they tended to show animosity, and enabled Mrs. Nicholas to find out the cause of the Babington opposition. When she learned that John Caldigate had been engaged to his cousin Julia, of course she made the most of it; and so did Mrs. Bolton. And in this way it came to be reported not only that the young man had been engaged to Miss Babington before he went to Australia,--but also that he had renewed his engagement since his return. 'You do not love her, do you?' Hester asked him. Then he told her the whole story, as nearly as he could tell it with some respect for his cousin, laughing the while at his aunt's solicitude, and saying, perhaps something not quite respectful as to Julia's red cheeks and green hat, all of which certainly had not the effect of hardening Hester's heart against him. 'The poor young lady can't help it if her feet are big,' said Hester, who was quite alive to the grace of a well-made pair of boots, although she had been taught to eschew braided hair and pearls and gold.
Mrs. Babington, however, pushed her remonstrances so far that she boldly declared that the man was engaged to her daughter, and wrote to him more than once declaring that it was so. She wrote, indeed, very often, sometimes abusing him for his perfidy, and then, again, imploring him to return to them, and not to defile the true old English blood of the Caldigates with the suds of a washerwoman and the swept-up refuse of a porter's shovel. She became quite eloquent in her denunciation, but always saying that if he would only come back to Babington all would be forgiven him. But in these days he made no visits to Babington.
Then there came a plaintive little note from Mrs. Shand. Of course they wished him joy if it were true. But could it be true? Men were very fickle, certainly; but this change seemed to have been very, very sudden! And there was a word or two, prettily written in another hand, on a small slip of paper--'Perhaps you had better send back the book'; and Caldigate, as he read it, thought that he could discern the almost-obliterated smudge of a wiped-up tear. He wrote a cheerful letter to Mrs. Shand, in which he told her that though he had not been absolutely engaged to marry Hester Bolton before he started for Australia,--and consequently before he had ever been at Pollington,--yet his mind had been quite made up to do so; and that therefore he regarded himself as being abnormally constant rather than fickle. 'And tell your daughter, with my kindest regards,' he added, 'that I hope I may be allowed to keep the book.'
The Babington objections certainly made their way in Cambridge and out at Chesterton further than any others, and for a time did give a hope to Mrs. Bolton and Mrs. Nicholas,--and made Robert Bolton shrug his shoulders uneasily when he heard all the details of the engagement in the linen-closet. But there came at one moment a rumour, which did not count for much among the Boltons, but which disturbed Caldigate himself more than any of the other causes adduced for breaking off his intended marriage. Word came that he had been very intimate with a certain woman on his way out to Melbourne;--a woman supposed to be a foreigner and an actress; and the name of Cettini was whispered. He did not know whence the rumour came;--but on one morning Robert Bolton, half-laughing, but still with a tone of voice that was half-earnest, taxed him with having as many loves as Lothario. 'Who is Cettini?' asked Robert Bolton.
'Cettini?' said Caldigate, with a struggle to prevent a blush.
'Did you travel with such a woman?'
'Yes;--at least, if that was her name. I did not hear it till afterwards. A very agreeable woman she was.'
'They say that you promised to marry her when on board.'
'Then they lie. But that is a matter of course. There are so many lies going about that I almost feel myself to be famous.'
'You did not see her after the journey?'
'Yes, I did. I saw her act at Sydney; and very well she acted. Have you anything else to ask?' Robert Bolton said that he had nothing else to ask,--and seemed, at the moment, to turn his half-serious mood into one that was altogether jocular. But the mention of the name had been a wound; and when an anonymous letter a few days afterwards reached Hester herself he was really unhappy. Hester made nothing of the letter--did not even show it to her mother. At that time a day had been fixed for their marriage; and she already regarded her lover as nearer to her than either father or mother. The letter purported to be from some one who had travelled with her lover and this woman on board ship, and declared that everybody on board the ship had thought that Caldigate meant to marry the woman,--who then, so said the letter, called herself Mrs. Smith. Hester showed the letter to Caldigate, and then Caldigate told his story. There had been such a woman, who had been much ill-treated because of her poverty. He had certainly taken the woman's part. She had been clever and, as he had thought, well-behaved. And, no doubt, there had been a certain amount of friendship. He had seen her again in Sydney, where he had found her exercising her profession as an actress. That had been all. 'I cannot imagine, dear,' he said, 'that you should be jealous of any woman; but certainly not of such a one as she.' 'Nor can I imagine,' said Hester, stoutly, 'that I could possibly be jealous of any woman.' And then there was nothing more said about the woman Smith-Cettini.
During all this time there were many family meetings. Those between Mr. Caldigate, the father, and old Mr. Bolton were pleasant enough, though not peculiarly cordial. The banker, though he had been brought to agree to the marriage had not been quite reconciled to it. His younger son had been able to convince him that it was his duty to liberate his daughter from the oppression of her mother's over-vigilance, and all the rest had followed very quickly,--overwhelming him, as it were, by stern necessity. When once the girl had come to understand that she could have her own way, if she chose to have a way of her own, she very quickly took the matter into her own management. And in this way the engagement became a thing settled before the banker had realised the facts of the position. Though he could not be cordial he endeavoured to be gracious to his old friend. But Mrs. Bolton spoke words which made all friendship impossible. She asked old Mr. Caldigate after his soul, and when he replied to her less seriously than she thought becoming, she told him that he was in the bad way. And then she said things about the marriage which implied that she would sooner see her daughter in her grave than married to a man who was no more than a professing Christian. The conversation ended in a quarrel, after which the squire would not go again to Puritan Grange.
There was indeed a time, an entire week, during which the mother and daughter hardly spoke to each other. In these days Mrs. Bolton continually demanded of her husband that he should break off the match, always giving as a reason the alleged fact that John Caldigate was not a true believer. It had been acknowledged between them that if such were the fact the man would be an unfit husband for their daughter. But they differed as to the fact. The son had over and over again declared himself to be a faithful member of the Church of England,--not very scrupulous perhaps in the performance of her ceremonies,--but still a believing member. That his father was not so every one knew, but he was not responsible for his father. Mr. Bolton seemed to think that the argument was good;--but Mrs. Bolton was of opinion that to become willingly the daughter-in-law of an infidel, would be to throw oneself with one's eyes open in the way of perdition. Hester through all this declared that nothing should now turn her from the man she loved, 'Not though he were an infidel himself?' said the terror-stricken mother. 'Nothing!' said Hester, bravely. 'Of course I should try to change him.' A more wretched woman than Mrs. Bolton might not probably then have been found. She suddenly perceived herself to be quite powerless with the child over whom her dominion had hitherto been supreme. And she felt herself compelled to give way to people whom, with all her heart, she hated. She determined that nothing,--nothing should induce her to soften her feelings to this son-in-law who was forced upon her. The man had come and had stolen from her her treasure, her one treasure. And that other man whom she had always feared and always hated, Robert Bolton, the man whose craft and worldliness had ever prevented her from emancipating her husband from the flesh and the devil, had brought all this about. Then she reconciled herself to her child, and wept over her, and implored heaven to save her. Hester tried to argue with her,--spoke of her own love,--appealed to her mother, asking whether, as she had now declared her love, it could be right that she should abandon a man who was so good and so fondly attached to her. Then Mrs. Bolton would hide her face, and sob, and put up renewed prayers to heaven that her daughter might not by means of this unhappy marriage become lost to all sense of grace.
It was very miserable, but still the prospect of the marriage was never abandoned nor postponed. A day had been settled a little before Christmas, and the Robert Boltons would allow of no postponement. The old man was so tormented by the misery of his own home that he himself was averse to delay. There could be no comfort for him till the thing should have been done. Mrs. Bolton had suggested that it should be put off till the spring;--but he had gloomily replied that as the thing had to be done, the sooner it was done the better.
It had been settled almost from the first that the marriage festival should be held, not at Puritan Grange, but at The Nurseries; and gradually it came to be understood that Mrs. Bolton herself would not be present, either at the church or at the breakfast. It was in vain that Hester implored her mother to yield to her in something, to stand with her at any rate on the steps before the altar. 'Would you wish me to go and lie before my God?' said the unhappy woman. 'When I would give all that I have in the world except my soul,--my life, my name, even my child herself, to prevent this, am I to go and smile and be congratulated, and to look as though I were happy?' There was, therefore, very much unhappiness at the Grange, and an absence of all triumph even at The Nurseries. At the old bank-house in the town where the Nicholases lived, the marriage was openly denounced; and even the Daniels, though they were pledged to be present, were in doubt.
'I suppose it is all right,' said Mrs. Robert to her husband.
'Of course it is all right. Why not?'
'It seems sad that such an event as a marriage should give rise to so much ill-feeling. I almost wish we had not meddled, Robert.'
'I don't think there is anything to regret. Remember what Hester's position would have been if my father had died, leaving her simply to her mother's guardianship! We were bound to free her from that, and we have done it.' This was all very well;--but still there was no triumph, no ringing of those inward marriage bells the sound of whose music ought to be so pleasant to both the families concerned.
There were, however, two persons quite firm to their purpose, and these were the bride and bridegroom. With him firmness was comparatively easy. When his father suggested that the whole Bolton family was making itself disagreeable, he could with much satisfaction reply that he did not intend to marry the whole Bolton family. Having answered the first letter or two he could ignore the Babington remonstrances. And when he was cross-examined as to points of doctrine, he could with sincerity profess himself to be of the same creed with his examiners. If he went to church less often than old Mr. Bolton, so did old Mr. Bolton go less often than his wife. It was a matter as to which there was no rule. Thus his troubles were comparatively light, and his firmness might be regarded as a thing of course. But she was firm too, and firm amidst very different circumstances. Though her mother prayed and sobbed, implored her, and almost cursed her, still she was firm. She had given her word to the man, and her heart, and she would not go back. 'Yes, papa. It is too late now,' she said, when her father coming from his wife, once suggested to her that even yet it was not too late. 'Of course I shall marry him,' she said to Mrs. Robert, almost with indignation, when Mrs. Robert on one occasion almost broke down in her purpose.
'Dear aunt, indeed, indeed, you need not interfere,' she said to Mrs. Nicholas. 'If he were all that they have called him, still I would marry him,' she said to her other aunt,--'because I love him.' And so they all became astonished at the young girl whom they had reared up among them, and to understand that whatever might now be their opinions, she would have her way.
And so it was decided that they should be married on a certain Tuesday in the middle of December. Early in the morning she was to be brought down to her aunt's house, there to be decked in her bridal robes, thence to be taken to the church, then to return for the bridal feast, and from thence to be taken off by her husband,--to go whither they might list.
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"id": "11643"
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21 | None | The Wedding It was a sad wedding, though everything within the power of Mr. Robert Bolton was done to make it gay. There was a great breakfast, and all the Boltons were at last persuaded to be present except Mrs. Bolton and Mrs. Nicholas. As to Mrs. Nicholas she was hardly even asked. 'Of course we would be delighted to see Mrs. Nicholas, if she would come,' Mrs. Robert said to Nicholas himself. But there had been such long-continued and absolute hostility between the ladies that this was known to be impossible. In regard to Mrs. Bolton herself, great efforts were made. Her husband condescended to beg her to consent on this one occasion to appear among the Philistines. But as the time came nearer she became more and more firm in her resolution. 'You shall not touch pitch and not be defiled,' she said. 'You cannot serve God and Mammon.' When the old man tried to show her that there was no question of Mammon here, she evaded him, as she always did on such occasions, either by a real or simulated deficiency of consequent intelligence. She regarded John Caldigate as being altogether unregenerate, and therefore a man of the world,--and therefore a disciple of Mammon. She asked him whether he wanted her to do what she thought to be sinful. 'It is very sinful hating people as you hate my sons' families,' he said in his wrath. 'No, Nicholas, I do not hate their families. I certainly do not hate Margaret, nor yet Fanny;--but I think that they live in opposition to the Gospel. Am I to belie my own belief?' Now the old man was quite certain that his wife did hate both Robert's wife and William's and would not admit in her own mind this distinction between the conduct of persons and the persons themselves. But he altogether failed in his attempts to induce her to go to the breakfast.
The great contest was between the mother and the daughter; but in all that passed between them no reference was even made to the banquet. As to that Hester was indifferent. She thought, on the whole, that her mother would do best to be absent. After all, what is a breakfast;--or what the significance of any merry-meeting, even for a wedding? There would no doubt be much said and much done on such an occasion at variance with her mother's feelings. Even the enforced gaiety of the dresses would be distasteful to her, and there would hardly be sufficient cause for pressing her to be present on such an occasion. But in reference to the church, the question, to Hester's thinking, was very different, 'Mamma,' she said, 'if you are not there, it will be a lasting misery to me.'
'How can I go there when I would give so much to save you from going there yourself?' This was a terrible thing for a mother to say to her own child on the eve of her wedding, but it had been now said so often as to have lost something of its sting. It had come to be understood that Mrs. Bolton would not allow herself to give any assent to the marriage, but that the marriage was to go on without such assent. All that had been settled. But still she might go to the church with them and pray for good results. She feared that evil would come, but still she might wish for good,--wish for it and pray for it.
'You don't want me to be unhappy, mamma?'
'Want!' said the mother. 'Who can want her child to be unhappy? But there is an unhappiness harder to be borne, more to be dreaded, enduring so much longer than that which we may suffer here.'
'Will you not come and pray that I may be delivered also from that? As I am going from you, will you not let me know that you are there with me at the last moment. Though you do not love him, you do not wish to quarrel with me. Oh, mamma, let me feel at any rate that you are there.' Then the mother promised that she would be there, in the church, though unknown to or at least unrecognised by any one else. When the morning came, and when Hester was dropped at The Nurseries, in order that she might go up and be invested in her finery amidst her bridesmaids, who were all her cousins, the carriage went on and took Mrs. Bolton to the church. It was represented to her that, by this arrangement, she would be forced to remain an hour alone in the cold building. But she was one of those who regarded all discomfort as meritorious, as in some way adding something to her claim for heaven. Self-scourging with rods as a penance, was to her thinking a papistical ordinance most abominable and damnatory; but the essence of the self-scourging was as comfortable to her as ever was a hair-shirt to a Roman Catholic enthusiast. So she went and sat apart in a dark distant pew, dressed in black and deeply veiled, praying, not it is to be feared, that John Caldigate might be a good husband to her girl, but that he, as he made his way downward to things below, might not drag her darling with him. That only a few can be saved was the fact in all her religion with which she was most thoroughly conversant. The strait way and the narrow gate, through which only a few can pass! Were they not known to all believers, to all who had a glimmering of belief, as an established part of the Christian faith, as a part so established that to dream even that the gate would be made broad and the way open would be to dream against the Gospel, against the very plainest of God's words? If so,--and she would tell herself at all hours that certainly, certainly, certainly so it was,--then why should she trouble herself for one so little likely to come in the way of salvation as this man who was now robbing her of her daughter? If it was the will of the Almighty,--as it clearly was the will of the Almighty,--that, out of every hundred, ninety and nine should perish, could she dare now to pray more than for one? Or if her prayers were wider must they not be inefficacious? Yes;--there had been the thief upon the cross! It was all possible. But this man was a thief, not upon the cross. And, therefore, as she prayed that morning she said not a prayer for him.
In the meantime the carriage had gone back for the bride, who in very simple raiment, but yet in bridal-white array, was taken up to the church. These Boltons were prosperous people, who had all their carriages, so that there was no lack of vehicles. Two of the girls from London and two from The Nurseries made up the bevy of bridesmaids who were as bright and fair as though the bride had come from some worldlier stock. Mrs. Robert, indeed, had done all she could to give to the whole concern a becoming bridal brightness, till even Mrs. Daniel had been tempted to remonstrate. 'I don't see why you shouldn't wear pretty things if you've got the money to pay for them,' said Mrs. Robert. Mrs. Daniel shook her head, but on the afternoon before the wedding she bought an additional ribbon.
Caldigate came over from Folking that morning attended by one John Jones, an old college friend, as his best man. The squire was not at the wedding, but on the day before he was with Hester at The Nurseries, telling her that she should be his dear daughter, and at the same time giving her a whole set of wicked but very pretty worldly gauds. 'Upon my word, my dear, he has been very gracious,' said Mrs. Robert, when she saw them. 'I quite envy the girls being married nowadays, because they get such pretty things.'
'They are very pretty,' said Hester.
'And must have cost, I'm afraid to say how much money.'
'I suppose it means to say that he will love me, and therefore I am so glad to have them!' But the squire, though he did mean to say that he would love her, did not come to the wedding. He was, he said, unaccustomed to such things, and hoped that he might be excused.
Therefore, from the Folking side there was no one but John Caldigate himself and John Jones. Of the Babingtons, of course, there was not one. As long as there was a possibility of success Mrs. Babington had kept up her remonstrances;--but when there was no longer a possibility she announced that there was to be an everlasting quarrel between the houses. Babington and Folking were for the future to know nothing of each other. Caldigate had hoped that though the ladies would for a time be unforgiving, his uncle and his male cousins would not take up the quarrel. But aunt Polly was too strong for that; and he was declared to be a viper who had been warmed in all their bosoms and had then stung them all round. 'If you will nurse a viper in your bosom of course he will sting you,' said Aunt Polly in a letter which she took the trouble to write to the squire. In reply to which the squire wrote back thus; 'My dear sister, if you will look into your dictionary of natural history you will see that vipers have no stings. Yours truly, D. Caldigate.' This letter was supposed to add much to the already existing offence.
But the marriage ceremony was performed in spite of all this quarrelling, and the mother standing up in the dark corner of her pew heard her daughter's silver-clear voice as she vowed to devote herself to her husband. As she heard it, she also devoted herself. When sorrow should come as sorrow certainly would come, then she would be ready once again to be a mother to her child. But till that time should come the wife of John Caldigate would be nothing to her.
She was not content with thinking and resolving that it should be so, but she declared her intention in so many words to her daughter. For poor Hester, though she was proud of her husband, this was in truth a miserable day. Could she have been induced to separate herself altogether from her mother on the previous night, or even on that morning, it would have been better, but there was with her that customary longing for a last word of farewell which has often made so many of us wretched. And then there was a feeling that, as she was giving herself away in marriage altogether in opposition to her mother's counsels, on that very account she owed to her more attached and increased observance. Therefore, she had arranged with her husband that when she returned from the banquet to prepare herself for her journey, a longer absence than usual should be allowed to her;--so that she might be taken back to Chesterton, and might thus see her mother the last after saying farewell to all the others. Then the carriage should return to The Nurseries and he would be ready to step in, and she need not show herself again, worn out as she would be with the tears and sobbings which she anticipated.
It all went as it was arranged, but it would have been much better to arrange it otherwise. The journey to the Grange and back, together with the time spent in the interview, took an hour,--and the time went very slowly with the marriage guests. There always comes a period beyond which it is impossible to be festive. When the bride left the room, the bridesmaids and other ladies went with her. Then the gentlemen who remained hardly knew what to do with each other. Old Mr. Bolton was not jovial on the occasion, and the four brothers hardly knew how to find subjects for conversation on such an occasion. The bridegroom felt the hour to be very long, although he consented to play billiards with the boys; and John Jones, although he did at last escape and find his way up among the girls, thought that his friend had married himself into a very sombre family. But all this was pleasant pastime indeed compared with that which poor Hester endured in her mother's bedroom. 'So it has been done,' said Mrs. Bolton, sitting in a comfortless little chair, which she was accustomed to use when secluded, with her Bible, from all the household. She spoke in a voice that might have been fit had a son of hers been just executed on the gallows.
'Oh, mamma, do not speak of it like that!'
'My darling, my own one; would you have me pretend what I do not feel?' 'Why, yes. Even that would be better than treatment such as this.' That would have been Hester's reply could she have spoken her mind; but she could not speak it, and therefore she stood silent. 'I will not pretend. You and your father have done this thing against my wishes and against my advice.'
'It is I that have done it, mamma.'
'You would not have persevered had he been firm,--as firm as I have been. But he has vacillated, turning hither and thither, serving God and Mammon. And he has allowed himself to be ruled by his own son. I will never, never speak to Robert Bolton again.'
'Oh mamma, do not say that.'
'I do say it. I swear it. You shall not touch pitch and not be defiled. If there be pitch on earth he is pitch. If your eye offend you, pluck it out. He is my step-son, I know; but I will pluck him out like an eye that has offended. It is he that has robbed me of my child.'
'Am I not still your child?' said Hester, going down on her knees with her hands in her mother's lap and her eyes turned up to her mother's face.
'No. You are not mine any longer. You are his. You are that man's wife. When he bids you do that which is evil in the sight of the Lord, you must do it. And he will bid you. You are not my child now. As days run on and sins grow black I cannot warn you now against the wrath to come. But though you are not my child, though you are this man's wife, I will pray for you.'
'And for him?'
'I do not know. I cannot say. Who am I that I should venture to pray specially for a stranger? That His way may be shown to all sinners;--thus will I pray for him. And it will be shown. Though whether he will walk in it,--who can say that?' So much was true of John Caldigate, no doubt, and is true of all; but there was a tone in her voice which implied that in regard to this special sinner there could be very little hope indeed.
'Why should you think that he is bad, mamma?'
'We are all bad. There is no doubt about his being bad. There is not one among us fit to sweep the lowest step of God's throne. But they who are His people shall be made bright enough to sit round His feet. May the time come when you, my darling, shall be restored to the fold.' The poor young wife by this time had acknowledged to herself the mistake she had made in thus coming to her mother after her marriage. She now was of course in that ecstatic phase of existence which makes one's own self altogether subordinate to the self of another person. That her husband should be happy constituted her hope of happiness; that he should be comfortable, her comfort. If he were thought worthy, that would be her worthiness; or if he were good, that would be her goodness. And even as to those higher, more distant aspirations, amidst which her mother was always dwelling, she would take no joy for herself which did not include him. The denunciations against him which were so plainly included even in her mother's blessings and prayers for herself, did not frighten her on behalf of the man to whom she had devoted herself. She could see the fanaticism and fury of her mother's creed. But she could not escape from the curse of the moment. When that last imprecation was made by the woman, with her hands folded and her eyes turned up to heaven, Hester could only bury her face on her mother's knees and weep. 'When that time comes, and I know it will come, you shall return to me, and once more be my child,' said the mother.
'You do not mean that I shall leave my husband?'
'Who can tell? If you do, and I am living, you shall be my child. Till then we must be apart. How can it be otherwise? Can I give my cheek to a man to be kissed, and call him my son, when I think that he has robbed me of my only treasure?'
This was so terrible that the daughter could only hang around her mother's neck, sobbing and kissing her at the same time, and then go without another word. She was sure of this,--that if she must lose one or the other, her mother or her husband, then she would lose her mother. When she returned to The Nurseries, her husband, according to agreement came out to her at once. She had bidden adieu to all the others; but at the last moment her father put his hand into the carriage, so that she could take it and kiss it. 'Mamma is so sad,' she said to him; 'go home to her and comfort her.' Of course the old man did go home, but he was aware that there would for some time be little comfort there either for him or for his wife. He and his sons had been too powerful for her in arranging the marriage; but now, now that it was done, nothing could stop her reproaches. He had been made to think it wrong on one side to shut his girl up, and now from the other side he was being made to think that he had done very wrong in allowing her to escape.
It had been arranged that they should be driven out of Cambridge to the railway station at Audley End on their way to London; so that they might avoid the crowd of people who would know them at the Cambridge station. As soon as they had got away from the door of Robert Bolton's house, the husband attempted to comfort his young wife. 'At any rate it is over,' he said, alluding of course to the tedium of their wedding festivities.
'So much is over,' she replied.
'You do not regret anything?'
She shook her head slowly as she leaned lovingly against his shoulder. 'You are not sorry, Hester, that you have become my wife?'
'I had to be your wife,--because I love you.'
'Is that a sorrow?'
'I had been all my mother's;--and now I am all yours. She has thrown me off because I have disobeyed her. I hope you will never throw me off.'
'Is it likely?'
'I think not. I know that I shall never throw you off. They have tried to make me believe that you are not all that you ought to be--in religion. But now your religion shall be my religion, and your life my life. I shall be of your colour--altogether. But, John, a limb cannot be wrenched out of a socket, as I have been torn away from my mother, without pain.'
'She will forgive it all when we come back.'
'I fear--I fear. I never knew her to forgive anything yet.' This was very bad; but nevertheless it was plain to him as it had been plain to Robert and William Bolton, that not because of the violence of the woman's character should the life of her daughter have been sacrificed to her. His duty to make her new life bright for her was all the more plain and all the more sound,--and as they made their first journey together he explained to her how sacred that duty should always be to him.
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"id": "11643"
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22 | None | As To Touching Pitch Before the wedding old Mr. Caldigate arranged with his son that he would give up to the young married people the house at Folking, and indeed the entire management of the property. 'I have made up my mind about it,' said the squire, who at this time was living with his son on happy terms. 'I have never been adapted for the life of a country gentleman,' he continued, 'though I have endeavoured to make the best of it, and have in a certain way come to love the old place. But I don't care about wheat nor yet about bullocks;--and a country house should always have a mistress.' And so it was settled. Mr. Caldigate took for himself a house in Cambridge, whither he proposed to remove nothing but himself and his books, and promised to have Folking ready for his son and his son's bride on their return from their wedding tour. In all this Robert Bolton and the old squire acted together, the brother thinking that the position would suit his sister well. But others among the Boltons,--Mrs Daniel, the London people, and even Mrs. Robert herself,--had thought that the 'young people' had better be further away from the influences or annoyances of Puritan Grange. Robert, however, had declared that it would be absurd to yield to the temper, and prejudice, and fury--as he called it--of his father's wife. When this discussion was going on she had absolutely quarrelled with the attorney, and the attorney had made up his mind that she should be--ignored. And then, too, as Robert explained, it must be for the husband and not for the wife to choose where they would live. Folking was, or at any rate would be, his own, by right of inheritance, and it was not to be thought of that a man should be driven away from his natural duties and from the enjoyment of his natural privileges by the mad humours of a fanatic female. In all this old Mr. Bolton was hardly consulted; but there was no reason why he should express an opinion. He was giving his daughter absolutely no fortune; nor had he even vouchsafed to declare what money should be coming to her at his death. John Caldigate had positively refused to say a word on the subject;--had refused even when instigated to do so by Hester's brother. 'It shall be just as he pleases,' Caldigate had said. 'I told your father that I was not looking after his daughter with any view to money, and I will be as good as my word.' Robert had told her father that something should be arranged;--but the old man had put it off from day to day, and nothing had been arranged. And so it came to pass that he was excluded almost from having an opinion as to his daughter's future life.
It was understood that the marriage trip should be continued for some months. Caldigate was fettered by no business that required an early return. He had worked hard for five years, and felt that he had earned a holiday. And Hester naturally was well disposed to be absent for as long a time as would suit her husband. Time, and time alone, might perhaps soften her mother's heart. They went to Italy, and stayed during the winter months in Rome, and then, when the fine weather came, they returned across the Alps, and lingered about among the playgrounds of Europe, visiting Switzerland, the Tyrol, and the Pyrenees, and returning home to Cambridgeshire at the close of the following September.
And then there was a reason for the return. It would be well that the coming heir to the Folking estate should be born at Folking. Whether an heir, or only an insignificant girl, it would be well that the child should be born amidst the comforts of home; and so they came back. When they reached the station at Cambridge the squire was there to receive them, as were also Robert Bolton and his wife. 'I am already in my new house,' said the old man,--'but I mean to go out with you for to-day and to-morrow, and just stay till you are comfortably fixed.'
'I never see her myself,' said Robert, in answer to a whispered inquiry from his sister. 'Or it would be more correct to say she will never see me. But I hear from the others that she speaks of you constantly.'
'She has written to me of course. But she never mentions John. In writing back I have always sent his love, and have endeavoured to show that I would not recognise any quarrel.'
'If I were you,' said Robert, 'I would not take him with me when I went.' Then the three Caldigates were taken off to Folking.
A week passed by and then arrived the day on which it had been arranged that Hester was to go to Chesterton and see her mother. There had been numerous letters, and at last the matter was settled between Caldigate and old Mr. Bolton at the bank. 'I think you had better let her come alone,' the old man had said when Caldigate asked whether he might be allowed to accompany his wife. 'Mrs. Bolton has not been well since her daughter's marriage and has felt the desolation of her position very much. She is weak and nervous, and I think you had better let Hester come alone.' Had Caldigate known his mother-in-law better he would not have suggested a visit from himself. No one who did know her would have looked forward to see her old hatred eradicated by an absence of nine months. Hester therefore went into Cambridge alone, and was taken up to the house by her father. As she entered the iron gates she felt almost as though she were going into the presence of one who was an enemy to herself. And yet when she saw her mother, she rushed at once into the poor woman's arms. 'Oh, mamma, dear mamma, dearest mamma! My own, own, own mamma!'
Mrs. Bolton was sitting by the open window of a small breakfast parlour which looked into the garden, and had before her on her little table her knitting and a volume of sermons. 'So you have come back, Hester,' she said after a short pause. She had risen at first to receive her daughter, and had returned her child's caresses, but had then reseated herself quickly, as though anxious not to evince any strong feeling on the occasion.
'Yes, mamma, I have come back. We have been so happy!'
'I am glad you have been happy. Such joys are short-lived; but, still--' 'He has been so good to me, mamma!'
Good! What was the meaning of the word good? She doubted the goodness of such goodness as his. Do not they who are tempted by the pleasures of the world always praise the good-nature and kindness of them by whom they are tempted? There are meanings to the word good which are so opposed one to another! 'A husband is, I suppose, generally kind to his wife, at any rate for a little time,' she said.
'Oh, mamma, I do so wish you knew him!' The woman turned her face round, away from her daughter, and assumed that look of hard, determined impregnable obstinacy with which Hester had been well acquainted all her life. But the young wife had come there with a purpose, not strong perhaps, in actual hope, but resolute even against hope to do her best. There must be an enduring misery to her unless she could bring her mother into some friendly relation with her husband, and she had calculated that the softness produced by her return would give a better chance for this than she might find at any more protracted time. But Mrs. Bolton had also made her calculations and had come to her determination. She turned her head away therefore, and sat quite silent, with the old stubborn look of resolved purpose.
'Mamma, you will let him come to you now?'
'No.'
'Not your own Hester's husband?'
'No.'
'Are we to be divided for ever?'
'Did I not tell you before,--when you were going? Shall I lie, and say that I love him? I will not touch pitch, lest I be defiled.'
'Mamma, he is my husband. You shall not call him pitch. He is my very own. Mamma, mamma! --recall the word that you have said.'
The woman felt that it had to be recalled in some degree. 'I said nothing of him, Hester. I call that pitch which I believe to be wrong, and if I swerve but a hair's-breadth wittingly towards what I believe to be evil, then I shall be touching pitch and then I shall be defiled. I did not say that he was pitch. Judge not and ye shall not be judged.' But if ever judgment was pronounced, and a verdict given, and penalties awarded, such was done now in regard to John Caldigate.
'But, mamma, why will it be doing evil to be gracious to your daughter's husband?'
The woman had an answer to this appeal very clearly set forth in her mind though she was unable to produce it clearly in words. When the marriage had been first discussed she had opposed it with all her power, because she had believed the man to be wicked. He was unregenerate;--and when she had put it to her husband and to the Nicholases and to the Daniels to see whether such was not the case, they had not contradicted her. It was acknowledged that he was such a one as Robert,--a worldly man all round. And then he was worse than Robert, having been a spendthrift, a gambler, and, if the rumours which had reached them were true, given to the company of loose women. She had striven with all her might that such a one should not be allowed to take her daughter from her, and had striven in vain. He had succeeded;--but his character was not changed by his success. Did she not know him to be chaff that must be separated by the wind from the corn and then consumed in the fire? His character was not altered because that human being whom she loved the best in all the world had fallen into his power. He was not the less chaff,--the less likely to be burned. That her daughter should become chaff also,--ah, there was the agony of it! If instead of taking the husband and wife together she could even now separate them,--would it not be her duty to do so? Of all duties would it not be the first? Let the misery here be what it might, what was that to eternal misery or to eternal bliss? When therefore she was asked whether she would be doing evil were she to be gracious to her own son-in-law, she was quite, quite sure that any such civility would be a sin. The man was pitch,--though she had been coerced by the exigencies of a worldly courtesy to deny that she had intended to say so. He was pitch to her, and she declared to herself that were she to touch him she would be defiled. But she knew not in what language to explain all this. 'What you call graciousness, Hester, is an obligation of which religion knows nothing,' she said after a pause.
'I don't know why it shouldn't. Are we to be divided, mamma, because of religion?'
'If you were alone----' 'But I am not alone. Oh, mamma, mamma, do you not know that I am going to become a mother?'
'My child!'
'And you will not be with me, because you think that you and John differ as to religious forms.'
'Forms!' she said. 'Forms! Is the spirit there? By their fruits ye shall know them. I ask you yourself whether his life as you have seen it is such as I should think conformable with the Word of God?'
'Whose life is so?'
'But an effort may be made. Do not let us palter with each other, Hester! There are the sheep,--and there are the goats! Of which is he? According to the teaching of your early years, in which flock would he be found if account were taken now?'
There was something so terrible in this that the young wife who was thus called upon to denounce her husband separated herself by some steps from her mother, retreating back to a chair in which she seated herself. 'Do you remember, mamma, the words you said just now? Judge not and ye shall not be judged.'
'Nor do I judge.'
'And how does it go on? Forgive and ye shall be forgiven.'
'Neither do I judge, nor can I forgive.' This she said, putting all her emphasis on the pronoun, and thereby declaring her own humility. 'But the great truths of my religion are dear to me. I will not trust myself in the way of sinners, because by some worldly alliance to which I myself was no consenting party, I have been brought into worldly contact with them. I at any rate will be firm. I say to you now no more than I said, ah, so many times, when it was still possible that my words should not be vain. They were vain. But not on that account am I to be changed. I will not be wound like a skein of silk round your little finger.' That was it. Was she to give way in everything because they had been successful among them in carrying out this marriage in opposition to her judgment? Was she to assent that this man be treated as a sheep because he had prevailed against her, while she was so well aware that he would still have been a goat to them all had he not prevailed? She at any rate was sincere. She was consistent. She would be true to her principles even at the expense of all her natural yearnings. Of what use to her would be her religious convictions if she were to give them up just because her heart-strings were torn and agonised? The man was a goat though he were ten times told her child's husband. So she looked again away into the garden and resolved that she would not yield in a single point.
'Good-bye, mamma,' said Hester, rising from her chair, and coming up to her mother.
'Good-bye, Hester. God bless you, my child!'
'You will not come to me to Folking?'
'No. I will not go to Folking.'
'I may come to you here?'
'Oh yes;--as often as you will, and for as long as you will.'
'I cannot stay away from home without him, you know,' said the young wife.
'As often as you will, and for as long as you will,' the mother said again, repeating the words with emphasis. 'Would I could have you here as I used to do, so as to look after every want and administer to every wish. My fingers shall work for your baby, and my prayers shall be said for him and for you, morning and night. I am not changed, Hester. I am still and ever shall be, while I am spared, your own loving mother.' So they parted, and Hester was driven back to Folking.
In forming our opinion as to others we are daily brought into difficulty by doubting how much we should allow to their convictions, and how far we are justified in condemning those who do not accede to our own. Mrs. Bolton believed every word that she said. There was no touch of hypocrisy about her. Could she without sting of conscience have gone off to Folking and ate of her son-in-law's bread and drank of his cup, and sat in his presence, no mother living would have enjoyed more thoroughly the delight of waiting upon and caressing and bending over her child. She denied herself all this with an agony of spirit, groaning not only over their earthly separation, thinking not only of her daughter's present dangers, but tormented also by reflections as to dangers and possible separations in another world. But she knew she was right. She knew at least that were she to act otherwise there would be upon her conscience the weight of sin. She did not know that the convictions on which she rested with such confidence had come in truth from her injured pride,--had settled themselves in her mind because she had been beaten in her endeavours to prevent her daughter's marriage. She was not aware that she regarded John Caldigate as a goat,--as one who beyond all doubt was a goat,--simply because John Caldigate had had his way, while she had been debarred from hers. Such no doubt was the case. And yet who can deny her praise for fidelity to her own convictions? When we read of those who have massacred and tortured their opponents in religion, have boiled alive the unfortunates who have differed from themselves as to the meaning of an unintelligible word or two, have vigorously torn the entrails out of those who have been pious with a piety different from their own, how shall we dare to say that they should be punished for their fidelity? Mrs. Bolton spent much of that afternoon with her knees on the hard boards,--thinking that a hassock would have taken something from the sanctity of the action,--wrestling for her child in prayer. And she told herself that her prayer had been heard. She got up more than ever assured that she must not touch pitch lest she should be defiled. Let us pray for what we will with earnestness,--though it be for the destruction of half of a world,--we are sure to think that our prayers have been heard.
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"id": "11643"
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23 | None | The New Heir Things went on smoothly at Folking, or with apparent smoothness, for three months, during which John Caldigate surprised both his friends and his enemies by the exemplary manner in which he fulfilled his duties as a parish squire. He was put on the commission, and was in the way to become the most active Justice of the Peace in those parts. He made himself intimate with all the tenants, and was almost worshipped by Mr. Ralph Holt, his nearest neighbour, to whose judgment he submitted himself in all agricultural matters. He shot a little, but moderately, having no inclination to foster what is called a head of game. And he went to church very regularly, having renewed his intimacy with Mr. Bromley, the parson, a gentleman who had unfortunately found it necessary to quarrel with the old squire, because the old squire had been so manifestly a pagan.
There had been unhappiness in the parish on this head, and, especially, unhappiness to Mr. Bromley, who was a good man. That Mr. Caldigate should be what he called a pagan had been represented by Mr. Bromley to his friends as a great misfortune, and especially a misfortune to the squire himself. But he would have ignored that in regard to social life,--so Mr. Bromley said when discussing the matter,--if the pagan would have desisted from arguing the subject. But when Mr. Caldigate insisted on the parson owning the unreasonableness of his own belief, and called upon him to confess himself to be either a fool or a hypocrite, then the parson found himself constrained to drop all further intercourse. 'It is the way with all priests,' said the old squire triumphantly to the first man he could get to hear him. 'The moment you disagree with them they become your enemies at once, and would straightway kill you if they had the power.' He probably did not know how very disagreeable he had made himself to the poor clergyman.
But now matters were on a much better footing, and all the parish rejoiced. The new squire was seen in his pew every Sunday morning, and often entertained the parson at the house. The rumour of this change was indeed so great that more than the truth reached the ears of some of the Boltons, and advantage was taken of it by those who desired to prove to Mrs. Bolton that the man was not a goat. What more would she have? He went regularly to morning and evening service,--here it was that rumour exaggerated our hero's virtues,--did all his duty as a country gentleman, and was kind to his wife. The Daniels, who were but lukewarm people, thought that Mrs. Bolton was bound to give way. Mrs. Robert declared among her friends that the poor woman was becoming mad from religion, and the old banker himself was driven very hard for a reply when Robert asked him whether such a son-in-law as John Caldigate ought to be kept at arms' length. The old man did in truth hate the name of John Caldigate, and regretted bitterly the indiscretion of that day when the spendthrift had been admitted within his gates. Though he had agreed to the marriage, partly from a sense of duty to his child, partly under the influences of his son, he had, since that, been subject to his wife for nine or ten months. She had not been able to prevail against him in action; but no earthly power could stop her tongue. Now when these new praises were dinned into his ears, when he did convince himself that, as far as worldly matters went, his son-in-law was likely to become a prosperous and respected gentleman, he would fain have let the question of hostility drop. There need not have been much intercourse between Puritan Grange and Folking; but then also there need be no quarrel. He was desirous that Caldigate should be allowed to come to the house, and that even visits of ceremony should be made to Folking. But Mrs. Bolton would have nothing to do with such half friendship. In the time that was coming she must be everything or nothing to her daughter. And she could not be brought to think that one who had been so manifestly a goat should cease to be a goat so suddenly. In other words, she could not soften her heart towards the man who had conquered her. Therefore when the time came for the baby to be born there had been no reconciliation between Puritan Grange and Folking.
Mrs. Babington had been somewhat less stern. Immediately on the return of the married couple to their own home she had still been full of wrath, and had predicted every kind of evil; but when she heard that all tongues were saying all good things of this nephew of hers, and when she was reminded by her husband that blood is thicker than water, and when she reflected that it is the duty of Christians to forgive injuries, she wrote to the sinner as follows:-- 'BABINGTON HALL, _November_ 187-.
'My DEAR JOHN,--We are all here desirous that bygones should be bygones, and are willing to forgive,--though we may not perhaps be able to forget. I am quite of opinion that resentments should not be lasting, let them have been ever so well justified by circumstances at first.
'Your uncle bids me say that he hopes you will come over and shoot the Puddinghall coverts with Humphry and John. They propose Thursday next but would alter the day if that does not suit.
'We have heard of your wife's condition, of course, and trust that everything may go well with her. I shall hope to make her acquaintance some day when she is able to receive visitors.
'I am particularly induced at the present moment to hold out to you once more the right hand of fellowship and family affection by the fact that dear Julia is about to settle herself most advantageously in life. She is engaged to marry the Rev. Augustus Smirkie, the rector of Plum-cum-Pippins near Woodbridge in this county. We all like Mr. Smirkie very much indeed, and think _that Julia has been most fortunate in her choice_.' (These words were underscored doubly by way of showing how very much superior was Mr. Augustus Smirkie to Mr. John Caldigate.) 'I may perhaps as well mention, to avoid anything disagreeable at present, that Julia is at this time staying with Mr. Smirkie's mother at Ipswich. --Your affectionate aunt, 'MARYANNE BABINGTON.'
Caldigate was at first inclined to send, in answer to this letter, a reply which would not have been agreeable to his aunt, but was talked into a better state of mind by his wife. 'Telling me that she will forgive me! The question is whether I will forgive her!' 'Let that be the question,' said his wife, 'and do forgive her. She wants to come round, and, of course, she has to make the best of it for herself. Tell her from me that I shall be delighted to see her whenever she chooses to come.'
'Poor Julia!' said Caldigate, laughing.
'Of course you think so, John. That's natural enough. Perhaps I think so too. But what has that to do with it?'
'It's rather unfortunate that I know so much about Mr. Smirkie. He is fifty years old, and has five children by his former wife.'
'I don't see why he shouldn't be a good husband for all that.'
'And Plum-cum-Pippins is less than _£300_ a-year. Poor dear Julia!'
'I believe you are jealous, John.'
'Well; yes. Look at the way she has underscored it. Of course I'm jealous.' Nevertheless he wrote a courteous answer promising to go over and shoot the coverts, and stay for one night.
He did go over and shoot the coverts, and stayed for one night; but the visit was not very successful. Aunt Polly would talk of the glories of the Plum-cum-Pippins rectory in a manner which implied that dear Julia's escape from a fate which once threatened her had been quite providential. When he alluded,--as he did, but should not have done,--to the young Smirkies, she spoke with almost ecstatic enthusiasm of the 'dear children,' Caldigate knowing the while that the eldest child must be at least sixteen. And then, though Aunt Polly was kind to him, she was kind in an almost insulting manner,--as though he were to be received for the sake of auld lang syne in spite of the step he had taken downwards in the world. He did his best to bear all this with no more than an inward smile, telling himself that it behoved him as a man to allow her to have her little revenge. But the smile was seen, and the more that was seen of it, the more often was he reminded that he had lost that place in the Babington elysium which might have been his, had he not been too foolish to know what was good for him. And a hint was given that the Boltons a short time since had not been aristocratic, whereas it was proved to him from Burke's Landed Gentry that the Smirkies had been established in Suffolk ever since Cromwell's time. No doubt their land had gone, but still there had been Smirkies.
'How did you get on with them?' his father asked, as he passed home through Cambridge.
'Much the same as usual. Of course in such a family a son-in-law elect is more thought of than a useless married man.'
'They snubbed you.'
'Aunt Polly snubbed me a little, and I don't think I had quite so good a place for the shooting as in the old days. But all that was to be expected. I quite agree with Aunt Polly that family quarrels are foolish things.'
'I am not so sure. Some people doom themselves to an infinity of annoyance because they won't avoid the society of disagreeable people. I don't know that I have ever quarrelled with any one. I have never intended to do so. But when I find that a man or woman is not sympathetic I think it better to keep out of the way.' That was the squire's account of himself. Those who knew him in the neighbourhood were accustomed to say that he had quarrelled with everybody about him.
In December the baby was born, just twelve months after the marriage, and there was great demonstrations of joy, and ringing of bells in the parishes of Utterden and Netherden. The baby was a boy, and all was as it ought to be. John Caldigate himself, when he came to look at his position and to understand the feeling of those around him, was astonished to find how strong was the feeling in his own favour, and how thoroughly the tenants had been outraged by the idea that the property might be made over to a more distant member of the family. What was it to them who lived in the house at Folking? Why should they have been solicitous in the matter? They had their leases, and there was no adequate reason for supposing that one Caldigate would be more pleasant in his dealing with them than another. And yet it was evident to him now that this birth of a real heir at the squire's house, with a fair prospect that the acres would descend in a right line, was regarded by them all with almost superstitious satisfaction. The bells were rung as though the church-towers were going to be pulled down, and there was not a farmer or a farmer's wife who did not come to the door of Folking to ask how the young mother and the baby were doing.
'This is as it should be, squoire,' said Ralph Holt, who was going about in his Sunday clothes, as though it was a day much too sacred for muck and work. He had caught hold of Caldigate in the stable yard, and was now walking with him down towards the ferry.
'Yes;--she's doing very well, they tell me,' said the newly-made father.
'In course she'll do well. Why not? A healthy lass like she, if I may make so free? There ain't nothing like having them strong and young, with no town-bred airs about 'em. I never doubted as she wouldn't do well. I can tell from their very walk what sort of mothers they'll be.' Mr. Holt had long been known as the most judicious breeder of stock in that neighbourhood. 'But it ain't only that, squoire.'
'The young'un will do well too, I hope.'
'In course he will. Why not? The foals take after their dams for a time, pretty much always. But what I mean is;--we be all glad you've come back from them out-o'-the-way parts.'
'I had to go there, Holt.'
'Well;--we don't know much about that, sir, and I don't mean nothing about that.'
'To tell the truth, my friend, I should not have done very well here unless I had been able to top-dress the English acres with a little Australian gold.'
'Like enough, squoire; like enough. But I wasn't making bold to say nothing about that. For a young gentleman to go out a while and then to come back was all very well. Most of 'em does it. But when there was a talk as you wern't to come back, and that Master George was to take the place;--why then it did seem as things was very wrong.'
'Master George might have been quite as good as I.' 'It wasn't the proper thing, squoire. It wasn't straight. If you hadn't never a' been, sir, or if the Lord Almighty had taken you as he did the others, God bless 'em, nobody wouldn't have had a right to say nothing. But as you was to the fore it wouldn't have been straight, and no one wouldn't have thought it straight.' Instigated by this John Caldigate looked a good deal into the matter that day, and began to feel that, having been born Squire of Folking, he had, perhaps, no right to deal with himself otherwise. Then various thoughts passed through his mind as to other dealings which had taken place. How great had been the chance against his being Squire of Folking when he started with Dick Shand to look for Australian gold! And how little had been the chance of his calling Hester Bolton his wife when he was pledging his word to Mrs. Smith on board the Goldfinder! But now it had all come round to him just as he would have had it. There was his wife up-stairs in the big bed-room with her baby,--the wife as to whom he had made that romantic resolution when he had hardly spoken to her; and there had been the bells ringing and the tenants congratulating him, and everything had been pleasant. His father who had so scorned him,--who in the days of Davis and Newmarket had been so well justified in scorning him,--was now his closest friend. Thinking of all this, he told himself that he had certainly received better things than he had deserved.
A day or two after the birth of the baby Mrs. Robert came out to see the new prodigy, and on the following day Mrs. Daniel. Mrs. Robert was, of course, very friendly and disposed to be in all respects a good sister-in-law. Hester's great grief was in regard to her mother. She was steadfast enough in her resolution to stand in all respects by her husband if there must be a separation,--but the idea of the separation robbed her of much of her happiness. Mrs. Robert was aware that a great effort was being made with Mrs. Bolton. The young squire's respectability was so great, and his conduct so good, that not only the Boltons themselves, but neighbours around who knew aught of the Bolton affairs, were loud in denouncing the woman for turning up her nose at such a son-in-law. The great object was to induce her to say that she would allow Caldigate to enter the house at Chesterton. 'You know I never see her now,' said Mrs. Robert; 'I'm too much of a sinner to think of entering the gates.'
'Do not laugh at her, Margaret,' said Hester.
'I do not mean to laugh at her. It is simply the truth. Robert and I have made up our minds that it is better for us all that I should not put myself in her way.'
'Think how different it must be for me!'
'Of course it is. It is dreadful to think that she should be so--prejudiced. But what can I do, dear? If they will go on persevering, she will, of course, have to give way.' The 'they' spoken of were the Daniels, and old Mr. Bolton himself, and latterly the Nicholases, all of whom were of opinion that the separation of the mother from her daughter was very dreadful, especially when it came to be understood that the squire of Folking went regularly to his parish church.
On the next day Mrs. Daniel came out; and though she was much less liked by Hester than her younger sister-in-law, she brought more comfortable tidings. She had been at the Grange a day or two before, and Mrs. Bolton had almost consented to say that she would see John Caldigate. 'You shouldn't be in a hurry, you know, my dear,' said Mrs. Daniel.
'But what has John done that there should be any question about all this?'
'I suppose he was a little--just a little--what they call fast once.'
'He got into debt when he was a boy,' said the wife, 'and then paid off everything and a great deal more by his own industry. It seems to me that everybody ought to be proud of him.'
'I don't think your mother is proud of him, my dear.'
'Poor mamma!'
'I hope he'll go when he's told to do so.'
'John! Of course he'll go if I ask him. There's nothing he wouldn't do to make me happy. But really when I talk to him about it at all, I am ashamed of myself. Poor mamma!' The result of this visit was, however, very comforting. Mrs. Daniel had seen Mrs. Bolton, and had herself been witness to the fact that Mrs. Bolton had mitigated the sternness of her denial when asked to receive her son-in-law at Puritan Grange. It was, said Mrs. Daniel, the settled opinion of the Bolton family that, in the course of another month or so, the woman would be induced to give way under the pressure put upon her by the family generally.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
24 | None | News from the Gold Mines It was said at the beginning of the last chapter that things had gone on smoothly, or with apparent smoothness, at Folking since the return of the Caldigates from their wedding tour; but there had in truth been a small cloud in the Folking heavens over and beyond that Babington haze which was now vanishing, and the storm at Chesterton as to which hopes were entertained that it would clear itself away. It will perhaps be remembered that Caldigate's offer for the sale of his interest in the Polyeuka mine had been suddenly accepted by certain enterprising persons in Australia, and that the money itself had been absolutely forthcoming. This had been in every way fortunate, as he had been saved from the trouble of another journey to the colony; and his money matters had been put on such a footing as to make him altogether comfortable. But just when he heard that the money had been lodged to his account,--and when the money actually had been so paid,--he received a telegram from Mr. Crinkett, begging that the matter might be for a time postponed. This, of course, was out of the question. His terms had been accepted,--which might have gone for very little had not the money been forthcoming. But the cash was positively in his hands. Who ever heard of a man 'postponing' an arrangement in such circumstances? Let them do what they might with Polyeuka, he was safe! He telegraphed back to say that there could be no postponement. As far as he was concerned the whole thing was settled. Then there came a multiplicity of telegrams, very costly to the Crinkett interest;--costly also and troublesome to himself; for he, though the matter was so pleasantly settled as far as he was concerned, could not altogether ignore the plaints that were made to him. Then there came very long letters, long and loud; letters not only from Crinkett, but from others, telling him that the Polyeuka gold had come to an end, the lode disappearing altogether, as lodes sometimes do disappear. The fact was that the Crinkett Company asked to have back half its money, offering him the Polyeuka mine in its entirety if he chose to accept it.
John Caldigate, though in England he could be and was a liberal gentleman, had been long enough in Australia to know that if he meant to hold his own among such men as Mr. Crinkett, he must make the best of such turns of fortune as chance might give him. Under no circumstances would Crinkett have been generous to him. Had Polyeuka suddenly become more prolific in the precious metal than any mine in the colony the Crinkett Company would have laughed at any claim made by him for further payment. When a bargain has been fairly made, the parties must make the best of it. He was therefore very decided in his refusal to make restitution, though he was at the same time profuse in his expressions of sorrow.
Then there came a threat,--not from Crinkett, but from Mrs. Euphemia Smith. And the letter was not signed Euphemia Smith,--but Euphemia Caldigate. And the letter was as follows:--- 'In spite of all your treachery to me I do not wish to ruin you, or to destroy your young wife, by proving myself in England to have been married to you at Ahalala. But I will do so unless you assent to the terms which Crinkett has proposed. He and I are in partnership in the matter with two or three others, and are willing to let all that has gone before be forgotten if we have means given us to make another start. You cannot feel that the money you have received is fairly yours, and I can hardly think you would wish to become rich by taking from me all that I have earned after so many hardships. If you will do as I propose, you had better send out an agent. On paying us the money he shall not only have the marriage-certificate, but shall stand by and see me married to Crinkett, who is now a widower. After that, of course, I can make no claim to you. If you will not do this, both I and Crinkett, and the other man who was present at our marriage, and Anne Young, who has been with me ever since, will go at once to England, and the law must take its course.
'I have no scruple in demanding this as you owe me so much more.
'Allan, the Wesleyan who married us, has gone out of the colony, no one knows where,--but I send you the copy of the certificate; and all the four of us who were there are still together. And there were others who were at Ahalala at the time, and who remember the marriage well. Dick Shand was not in the chapel, but Dick knew all about it. There is quite plenty of evidence.
'Send back by the wire word what you will do, and let your agent come over as soon as possible.
'EUPHEMIA CALDIGATE.'
However true or however false the allegations made in the above letter may have been, for a time it stunned him greatly. This letter reached him about a month before the birth of his son, and for a day or two it disturbed him greatly. He did not show it to his wife, but wandered about the place alone thinking whether he would take any notice of it, and what notice. At last he resolved that he would take the letter to his brother-in-law Robert, and ask the attorney's advice. 'How much of it is true?' demanded Robert, when he read the letter twice from beginning to end.
'A good deal,' said Caldigate,--'as much as may be, with the exception that I was never married to the woman.'
'I suppose not that.' Robert Bolton as he spoke was very grave, but did not at first seem disposed to be angry. 'Had you not better tell me everything, do you think?'
'It is for that purpose that I have come and brought you the letter. You understand about the money.'
'I suppose so.'
'There can be no reason why I should return a penny of it?'
'Certainly not, now. You certainly must not return it under a threat,--even though the woman should be starving. There can be no circumstances--' and as he spoke he dashed his hand down upon the table,--'no circumstances in which a man should allow money to be extorted from him by a threat. For Hester's sake you must not do that.'
'No;--no; I must not do that, of course.'
'And now tell me what is true?' There was something of authority in the tone of his voice, something perhaps of censure, something too of doubt, which went much against the grain with Caldigate. He had determined to tell his story, feeling that counsel was necessary to him, but he wished so to tell it as to subject himself to no criticism and to admit no fault. He wanted assistance, but he wanted it on friendly and sympathetic terms. He had a great dislike to being--'blown up,' as he would probably have expressed it himself, and he already thought that he saw in his companion's eye a tendency that way. Turning all this in his mind, he paused a moment before he began to tell his tale. 'You say that a good deal in this woman's letter is true. Had you not better tell me what is true?'
'I was very intimate with her.'
'Did she ever live with you?'
'Yes, she did.'
'As your wife?'
'Well; yes. It is of course best that you should know all.' Then he gave a tolerably true account of all that had happened between himself and Mrs. Smith up to the time at which, as the reader knows, he found her performing at the Sydney theatre.
'You had made her a distinct promise of marriage on board the ship?'
'I think I had.'
'You think?'
'Yes. I think I did. Can you not understand that a man may be in great doubt as to the exact words that he may have spoken at such a time?'
'Hardly.'
'Then I don't think you realise the man's position. I wish to let you know the truth as exactly as I can. You had better take it for granted that I did make such a promise, though probably no such promise was absolutely uttered. But I did tell her afterwards that I would marry her.'
'Afterwards?'
'Yes, when she followed me up to Ahalala.'
'Did Richard Shand know her?'
'Of course he did,--on board the ship;--and he was with me when she came to Ahalala.'
'And she lived with you?'
'Yes.'
'And you promised to marry her?'
'Yes.'
'And was that all?'
'I did not marry her, of course,' said Caldigate.
'Who heard the promise?'
'It was declared by her in the presence of that Wesleyan minister she speaks of. He went to her to rebuke her, and she told him of the promise. Then he asked me, and I did not deny it. At the moment when he taxed me with it I was almost minded to do as I had promised.'
'You repeated your promise, then, to him?'
'Nothing of the kind. I did not deny it, and I told him at last to mind his own business. Life up there was a little rough at that time.'
'So it seems, indeed. And then, after that?'
'I had given her money and she had some claims in a gold-mine. When she was successful for a time she became so keen about her money that I fancy she hardly wished to get herself married. Then we had some words, and so we parted.'
'Did she call herself--Mrs. Caldigate?'
'I never called her so.'
'Did she herself assume the name?'
'It was a wild kind of life up there, Robert, and this was apparent in nothing more than in the names people used. I daresay some of the people did call her Mrs. Caldigate. But they knew she was not my wife.'
'And this man Crinkett?'
'He knew all about it.'
'He had a wife. Did his wife know her?'
'He had quarrelled with his wife at that time and had sent her away from Nobble. Mrs. Smith was then living at Nobble, and Crinkett knew more about her than I did. She was mad after gold, and it was with Crinkett she was working. I gave her a lot of shares in another mine to leave me.'
'What mine?'
'The Old Stick-in-the-Mud they called it. I had been in partnership with Crinkett and wanted to get out of the thing, and go in altogether for Polyeuka. At that time the woman cared little for husbands or lovers. She had been bitten with the fury of gold-gambling and, like so many of them, filled her mind with an idea of unlimited wealth. And she had a turn of luck. I suppose she was worth at one time eight or ten thousand pounds.'
'But she did not keep it?'
'I knew but little of her afterwards. I kept out of her way; and though I had dealings with Crinkett, I dropped them as soon as I could.' Then he paused,--but Robert Bolton held his peace with anything but a satisfied countenance. 'Now I think you know all about it.'
'It is a most distressing story.'
'All attempts at robbery and imposition are of course distressing.'
'There is so much in it that is--disgraceful.'
'I deny it altogether,--if you mean disgraceful to me.'
'If it had all been known as it is known now,--as it is known even by your own telling, do you think that I should have consented to your marriage with my sister?'
'Why not?' Robert Bolton shrugged his shoulders. 'And I think, moreover, that had you refused your consent I should have married your sister just the same.'
'Then you know very little about the matter.'
'I don't think there can be any good in going into that. It is at any rate the fact that your sister is my wife. As this demand has been made upon me it was natural that I should wish to discuss it with some one whom I can trust. I tell you all the facts, but I am not going to listen to any fault-finding as to my past life.'
'Poor Hester!'
'Why is she poor? She does not think herself so.'
'Because there is a world of sorrow and trouble before her; and because all that you have told to me must probably be made known to her.'
'She knows it already;--that is, she knows what you mean. I have not told her of the woman's lie, nor of this demand for money. But I shall when she is strong enough to hear it and to talk of it. You are very much mistaken if you think that there are secrets between me and Hester.'
'I don't suppose you will be pleased to hear the story of such a life told in all the public papers.'
'Certainly not;--but it will be an annoyance which I can bear. You or any one else would be very much mistaken who would suppose that life out in those places can go on in the same regular way that it does here. Gold beneath the ground is a dangerous thing to touch, and few who have had to do with it have come out much freer from misfortune than myself. As for these people, I don't suppose that I shall hear from them again. I shall send them both word that not a shilling is to be expected from me.'
There was after this a long discussion as to the nature of the messages to be sent. There was no absolute quarrel between the two men, and the attorney acknowledged to himself that it was now his duty to give the best advice in his power to his brother-in-law; but their manner to each other was changed. It was evident that Robert did not quite believe all that Caldigate told him, and evident also that Caldigate resented this want of confidence. But still each knew that he could not do without the other. Their connection was too firm and too close to be shaken off. And, therefore, though their tones were hardly friendly, still they consulted as to what should be done. It was at last decided that two messages should be sent by Caldigate, one to Crinkett and the other to Mrs. Smith, and each in the same words. 'No money will be sent you on behalf of the Polyeuka mine,' and that this should be all. Any letter, Robert Bolton thought, would be inexpedient. Then they parted, and the two messages were at once sent.
After a day or two Caldigate recovered his spirits. We all probably know how some trouble will come upon us and for a period seem to quell all that is joyous in our life, and that then by quick degrees the weight of the trouble will grow less, till the natural spring and vivacity of the mind will recover itself, and make little or nothing of that which a few hours ago was felt to be so grievous a burden. So it had been with John Caldigate. He had been man enough to hold up his head when telling his story to Robert Bolton, and to declare that the annoyance would be one that he could bear easily;--but still for some hours after that he had been unhappy. If by sacrificing some considerable sum of money,--even a large sum of money, say ten thousand pounds,--he could at that moment have insured the silence of Crinkett and the woman, he would have paid his money. He knew the world well enough to be aware that he could insure nothing by any such sacrifice. He must defy these claimants;--and then if they chose to come to England with their story, he must bear it as best he could. Those who saw him did not know that aught ailed him, and Robert Bolton spoke no word of the matter to any one at Cambridge.
But Robert Bolton thought very much of it,--so much that on the following day he ran up to London on purpose to discuss the matter with his brother William. How would it be with them, and what would be his duty, if the statement made by the woman should turn out to be true? What security had they after the story told by Caldigate himself that there had been no marriage? By his own showing he had lived with the woman, had promised to marry her, had acknowledged his promise in the hearing of a clergyman, and had been aware that she had called herself by his name. Then he had given her money to go away. This had been his own story. 'Do you believe him?' he said to his brother William.
'Yes; I do. In the first place, though I can understand from his antecedents and from his surroundings at the time, that he should have lived a loose sort of life when he was out there, I don't think that he is a rascal or even a liar.'
'One wouldn't wish to think so.'
'I do not think so. He doesn't look like it, or talk like it, or act like it.'
'How many cases do we know in which some abominable unexpected villainy has destroyed the happiness and respectability of a family?'
'But what would you do?' asked the barrister. 'She is married to him. You cannot separate them if you would.'
'No,--poor girl. If it be so, her misery is accomplished; but if it be so she should at once be taken away from him. What a triumph it would be to her mother!'
That is a dreadful thing to say, Robert.'
'But nevertheless true. Think of her warnings and refusals, and of my persistence! But if it be so, not the less must we all insist upon--destroying him. If it be so, he must be punished to the extent of the law.'
William Bolton, however, would not admit that it could be so, and Robert declared that though he suspected,--though in such a case he found himself bound to suspect,--he did not in truth believe that Caldigate had been guilty of so terrible a crime. All probability was against it;--but still it was possible. Then, after much deliberation, it was decided that an agent should be sent out by them to New South Wales, to learn the truth, as far as it could be learned, and to bring back whatever evidence might be collected without making too much noise in the collection of it. Then there arose the question whether Caldigate should be told of this;--but it was decided that it should be done at the joint expense of the two brothers without the knowledge of Hester's husband.
| {
"id": "11643"
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25 | None | The Baby's Sponsors 'Is there anything wrong between you and Robert?' Hester asked this question of her husband, one morning in January, as he was sitting by the side of her sofa in their bedroom. The baby was in her arms, and at that moment there was a question as to the godfathers and godmother for the baby.
The letter from Mrs. Smith had arrived on the last day of October, nearly two months before the birth of the baby, and the telegrams refusing to send the money demanded had been despatched on the 1st November,--so that, at this time, Caldigate's mind was accustomed to the burden of the idea. From that day to this he had not often spoken of the matter to Robert Bolton,--nor indeed had there been much conversation between them on other matters. Robert had asked him two or three times whether he had received any reply by the wires. No such message had come; and of course he answered his brother-in-law's questions accordingly;--but he had answered them almost with a look of offence. The attorney's manner and tone seemed to him to convey reproach; and he was determined that none of the Boltons should have the liberty to find fault with him. It had been suggested, some weeks since, before the baby was born, that an effort should be made to induce Mrs. Bolton to act as godmother. And, since that, among the names of many other relatives and friends, those of uncle Babington and Robert Bolton had been proposed. Hester had been particularly anxious that her brother should be asked, because,--as she so often said to her husband,--he had always been her firm friend in the matter of her marriage. But now, when the question was to be settled, John Caldigate shook his head.
'I was afraid there was something even before baby was born,' said the wife.
'There is something, my pet.'
'What is it, John? You do not mean to keep it secret from me?'
'I have not the slightest objection to your asking him to stand;--but I think it possible that he may refuse.'
'Why should he refuse?'
'Because, as you say, there is something wrong between us. There have been applications for money about the Polyeuka mine. I would not trouble you about it while you were ill.'
'Does he think you ought to give back the money?'
'No,--not that. We are quite agreed about the money. But another question has come up;--and though we are, I believe, agreed about that too, still there has been something a little uncomfortable.'
'Would not baby make that all right?'
'I think if you were to ask your brother William it would be better.'
'May I not know what it is now, John?'
'I have meant you to know always,--from the moment when it occurred,--when you should be well enough.'
'I am well now.'
'I hardly know; and yet I cannot bear to keep it secret from you.'
There was something in his manner which made her feel at once that the subject to which he alluded was of the greatest importance. Whether weak or strong, of course she must be told now. Let the shock of the tidings be what it might, the doubt would be worse. She felt all that, and she knew that he could feel it. 'I am quite strong,' she said; 'you must tell me now.'
'Is baby asleep? Put him in the cradle.'
'Is it so bad as that?'
'I do not say that it is bad at all. There is nothing bad in it,--except a lie. Let me put him in the cradle.'
Then he took the child very gently and deposited him, fast asleep, among the blankets. He had already assumed for himself the character of being a good male nurse; and she was always delighted when she saw the baby in his arms. Then he came and seated himself close to her on the sofa, and put his arm round her waist. 'There is nothing bad--but a lie.'
'A lie may be so very bad!'
'Yes, indeed; and this lie is very bad. Do you remember my telling you--about a woman?'
'That Mrs. Smith;--the dancing woman?'
'Yes;--her.'
'Of course I remember.'
'She was one of those, it seems, who bought the Polyeuka mine.'
'Oh, indeed!'
'She, with Crinkett and others. Now they want their money back again.'
'But can they make you send it? And would it be very bad--to lose it?'
'They cannot make me send it. They have no claim to a single shilling. And if they could make me pay it, that would not be very bad.'
'What is it, then? You are afraid to tell me?'
'Yes, my darling,--afraid to speak to you of what is so wicked;--afraid to shock you, to disgust you; but not afraid of any injury that can be done to you. No harm will come to you.'
'But to you?'
'Nor to me;--none to you, or to me, or to baby there.' As he said this she clutched his hand with hers. 'No harm, dearest; and yet the thing is so abominable that I can hardly bring myself to wound your ears with it.'
'You must tell now, John.'
'Yes, I must tell you. I have thought about it much, and I know that it is better that you should be told.' He had thought much about it, and had so resolved. But he had not quite known how difficult the telling would be. And now he was aware that he was adding to the horror she would feel by pausing and making much of the thing. And yet he could not tell it as though it were a light matter. If he could have declared it all at once,--at first, with a smile on his face, then expressing his disgust at the woman's falsehood,--it would have been better. 'That woman has written me a letter in which she declares herself to be--my wife!'
'Your wife! John! Your wife?' These exclamations came from her almost with a shriek as she jumped up from his arms and for a moment stood before him.
'Come back to me,' he said. Then again she seated herself. 'You did not leave me then because you doubted me?'
'Oh no,' she cried, throwing herself upon him and smothering him with kisses--'No, no! It was surprise at such horrid words,--not doubt, not doubt of you. I will never doubt you.'
'It was because I was sure of you that I have ventured to tell you this.'
'You may be sure of me,' she said, sobbing violently the while. 'You are sure of me; are you not? And now tell it me all. How did she say so? why did she say so? Is she coming to claim you? Tell me all. Oh, John, tell me everything.'
'The why is soon told. Because she wants money. She had heard no doubt of my marriage and thought to frighten me out of money. I do not think she would do it herself. The man Crinkett has put her up to it.'
'What does she say?'
'Just that,--and then she signs herself,--Euphemia Caldigate.'
'Oh, John!'
'Now you know it all.'
'May I not see the letter?'
'For what good? But you shall see it if you wish it. I have determined that nothing shall be kept back from you. In all that there may ever be to trouble us the best comfort will be in perfect confidence.' He had already learned enough of her nature to be sure that in this way would he best comfort her, and most certainly ensure her trust in himself.
'Oh yes,' she cried. 'If you will tell me all, I will never doubt you.' Then she took the letter from his hand, and attempted to read it. But her excitement was so great that though the words were written very clearly, she could not bring her mind to understand them. 'Treachery! Ruin! Married to you! What is it all? Do you read it to me;--every word of it.' Then he did read it; every word of it. 'She says that she will marry the other man. How can she marry him when she says that she is--your wife?'
'Just so, my pet. But you see what she says. It does not matter much to her whether it be true or false, so that she can get my money from me. But, Hester, I would fain be just even to her. No doubt she wrote the letter.'
'Who else would have written it?'
'She wrote it. I know her hand. And these are her words,--because they are properly expressed. But it is all his doing,--the man's doing. He has got her in his power, and he is using her in this way.'
'If you sent her money--?'
'Not a shilling;--not though she were starving; not now. A man who gives money under a threat is gone. If I were to send her money, everyone would believe this tale that she tells. Your brother Robert would believe it.'
'He knows it?'
'I took the letter to him instantly, but I made up my mind that I would not show it you till baby was born. You can understand that?' She only pressed closer to him as he said this. 'I showed it to Robert, and, altogether we are not quite such friends since as we were before.'
'You do not mean that he believes it?'
'No; not that. He does not believe it. If he did, I do not see how he and I could ever speak to each other again. I don't think he believes it at all. But I had to tell him the whole story, and that, perhaps, offended him.' The 'whole story' had not been told to Hester, nor did he think it necessary that it should be told. There was no reason why these details which Robert had elicited by his questions should be repeated to her,--the promise of marriage, the interference of the Wesleyan minister, the use made of his name,--of all this he said nothing. But she had now been told that which to her had been very dreadful, and she was not surprised that her brother should have been offended when he heard the same sad story. She, of course, had at once pardoned the old offence. A young wife when she is sure of her husband, will readily forgive all offences committed before marriage, and will almost be thankful for the confidence placed in her when offences are confessed. But she could understand that a brother could not be thankful, and she would naturally exaggerate in her own mind the horror which he would feel at such a revelation. Then the husband endeavoured to lighten the effect of what he had said. 'Offence, perhaps, is the wrong word. But he was stiff and masterful, if you know what I mean.'
'You would not bear that, certainly, John?'
'No. I have to own that I do not love the assumption of authority,--except from you.'
'You do not like it from anybody, John.'
'You would not wish me to submit myself to your brother?'
'No; but I think I might ask him to be baby's godfather.'
'As you please; only you would be unhappy if he refused.'
Then there came a little wail from the cradle and the baby was taken up, and for some minutes his little necessities occupied the mother to the exclusion even of that terrible letter. But when Caldigate was about to leave the room, she asked him another question. 'Will she do anything more, John?'
'I can hardly say. I should think not.'
'What does Robert think?'
'He has not told me. I sent an immediate refusal by the telegraph wires, and have heard nothing since.'
'Is he--nervous about it?'
'I hardly know. It dwells in his mind, no doubt.'
'Are you nervous?'
'It dwells in my mind. That is all.'
'May I speak to him about it?'
'Why should you? What good would it do? I would rather you did not. Nevertheless, if you feel frightened, if you think that there is anything wrong, it will be natural that you should go to him for assistance. I will not forbid it.' As he said this he stood back away from her. It was but by a foot or two, but still there was a sign of separation which instantly made itself palpable to her.
'Wrong, how wrong?' she said, following him and clinging to him. 'You do not suppose that I would go to him because I think you wrong? Do you not know that whatever might come I should cling to you? What is he to me compared to you? No; I will never speak to him about it.'
He returned her caress with fervour, and stroked her hair, and kissed her forehead. 'My dearest! my own! my darling! But what I mean is that if some other man's opinion on this subject is necessary to your comfort, you may go to him.'
'No other man's opinion shall be necessary to me about anything. I will not speak about it to Robert, or to any one. But if more should come of it, you will tell me?'
'You shall know everything that comes. I have never for a moment had the idea of keeping it back from you. But because of baby, and because baby had to be born, I delayed it.' This was an excuse which, as the mother of her child, she could not but accept with thankfulness.
'I think I will ask him,' she said that night, referring again to the vexed question of godfathers. Uncle Babington had some weeks since very generously offered his services, and, of course, they had been generously accepted. Among the baby's relations he was the man of highest standing in the world; and then this was a mark of absolute forgiveness in reference to the wrongs of poor Julia. And a long letter had been prepared to Mrs. Bolton, written by Hester's own hand, not without much trouble, in which the baby's grandmother was urged to take upon herself the duties of godmother. All this had been discussed in the family, so that the nature of the petition was well known to Mrs. Bolton for some time before she received it. Mrs. Daniel, who had consented to act in the event of a refusal from Puritan Grange, had more than once used her influence with her step-mother-in-law. But no hint had as yet come to Folking as to what the answer might be. It had also been suggested that Robert should be the other godfather,--the proposal having been made to Mrs. Robert. But there had come upon all the Boltons a feeling that Robert was indifferent perhaps, even unwilling to undertake the task. And yet no one knew why. Mrs. Robert herself did not know why.
The reader, however, will know why, and will understand how it was that Mrs. Robert was in the dark. The attorney, though he was suspicious, though he was frightened, though he was, in truth, very angry with this new brother-in-law, through whose ante-nuptial delinquencies so much sorrow was threatened to the Bolton family, nevertheless kept the secret from all the Cambridge Boltons. It had been necessary to him to seek counsel with some one, but he had mentioned the matter only to his brother William. But he did not wish to add to the bond which now tied him to Folking. If this horror, this possible horror, should fall upon them,--if it should turn out that he had insisted on giving his sister in marriage to a man already married,--then,--then,--then----! Such possible future incidents were too terrible to be considered closely, but with such a possibility he would not add to the bonds. At Puritan Grange they would throw all the responsibility of what had been done upon him. This feeling was mingled with his love for his sister,--with the indignation he would not only feel but show if it should turn out that she had been wronged. 'I will destroy him,--I will destroy him utterly,' he would sometimes say to himself as he thought of it.
And now the godfather question had to be decided, 'No,' he said to his wife, 'I don't care about such things. I won't do it. You write and tell her that I have prejudices, or scruples, or whatever you choose to call it.'
'There is to be a little tarradiddle told, and I am to tell it?'
'I have prejudices and scruples.'
'About the religion of the thing?' She knew,--as of course, she was bound to know,'--that he had at any rate a round dozen of god-children somewhere about the country. There were the young Williams, and the young Daniels, and her own nephews and nieces, with the parents of all of whom uncle Robert had been regarded as the very man for a godfather. The silversmith in Trumpington Street knew exactly the weight of the silver cup that was to be given to the boy or to a girl. The Bible and prayer-books were equally well regulated. Mrs. Robert could not but smile at the idea of religious scruples. 'I wish I knew what it was that has come over you of late. I fancy you have quarrelled with John Caldigate.'
'If you think that, then you can understand the reason.'
'What is it about?'
'I have not quarrelled with him. It is possible that I may have to do so. But I do not mean to say what it is about.' Then he smiled. 'I don't want you to ask any more questions, but just to write to Hester as kindly as you can, saying I don't mean to be godfather any more. It will be a good excuse in regard to all future babies.' Mrs. Robert was a good wife and did as she was bid. She worded her refusal as cautiously as she could, and,--on that occasion,--asked her husband no further question.
The prayer that was addressed to the lady of Puritan Grange became the subject of much debate of great consideration, and I may say also of lengthened prayer. To Mrs. Bolton this position of godmother implied much of the old sacred responsibility which was formerly attached to it, and which Robert Bolton, like other godfathers and godmothers of the day, had altogether ignored. She had been already partly brought round, nearly persuaded, in regard to the acceptance of John Caldigate as her son-in-law. It did not occur to her to do other than hate him. How was it possible that such a woman should do other than hate the man who had altogether got the better of her as to the very marrow of her life, the very apple of her eye? But she was alive to her duty towards her daughter; and when she was told that the man was honest in his dealings, well-to-do in the world, a professing Christian who was constant in his parish church, she did not know how to maintain her opinion, that in spite of all this, he was an unregenerate castaway. Therefore, although she was determined still to hate him, she had almost made up her mind to enter his house. With these ideas she wrote a long letter to Hester, in which she promised to have herself taken out to Folking in order that she might be present as godmother at the baby's baptism. She would lunch at Folking, but must return to Chesterton before dinner. Even this was a great thing gained.
Then it was arranged that Daniel Bolton should stand as second godfather in place of his brother Robert.
| {
"id": "11643"
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26 | None | A Stranger in Cambridge 'I am sorry you will not come out to us to-morrow.' On the day before the christening, which was at last fixed for a certain Tuesday in the middle of February, John Caldigate went into Cambridge, and at once called upon the attorney at his office. This he did partly instigated by his own feelings, and partly in compliance with his wife's wishes. Before that letter had come he and his brother-in-law had been fast friends; and now, though for a day or two he had been angry with what he had thought to be unjustifiable interference, he regretted the loss of such a friend. More than three months had now passed since the letter had come, but his mind was far from being at ease, and he felt that if trouble should come it would be very well for him to have Robert Bolton on his side.
'Margaret is going,' said the attorney.
'Why do you not bring her?'
'Days are days with me, my boy. I can't afford to give up a morning for every baby that is born.'
'That of course may be true, and if that is the reason, I have nothing more to say.' As he spoke he looked in his brother-in-law's face, so as almost to prevent the possibility of continued pretence.
'Well, Caldigate, it isn't the reason altogether,' said the other. 'If you would have allowed it to pass without further explanation so would I. But if the truth must be spoken in so many words, I will confess that I would rather not go out to Folking till I am sure we shall be no more troubled by your friends in Australia.'
'Why not? Why should you not go out to Folking?'
'Simply because I may have to take an active part against you. I do not suppose it will come to that, but it is possible. I need not say that I trust there may be nothing of the kind, but I cannot be sure. It is on the cards.'
'I think that is a hard judgment. Do you mean to say that you believe that woman's statement not only against mine, but against the whole tenor of my life and character?'
'No; I do not believe the woman's statement. If I did, I should not be talking to you now. The woman has probably lied, and is probably a tool in the hands of others for raising money, as you have already suggested. But, according to your own showing there has been much in your life to authorise the statement. I do not know what does or does not constitute a marriage there.'
'The laws are the same as ours.'
'There at any rate you are wrong. Their marriage laws are not the same as ours, though how they may differ you and I probably do not accurately know. And they may be altered at any time as they may please. Let the laws be what they will, it is quite possible, after what you have told me, that they may bring up evidence which you would find it very difficult to refute. I don't think it will be so. If I did I should use all my influence to remove my sister at once.'
'You couldn't do it,' said Caldigate, very angrily.
'I tell you what I should endeavour to do. You must excuse me if I stand aloof just at present. I don't suppose you can defend such a condition of things as you described to me the other day.'
'I do not mean to be put upon my defence,--at any rate by you,' said Caldigate, very angrily. And then he left the office.
He had come into Cambridge with the intention of calling at Puritan Grange after he had left the attorney, and when he found himself in the street he walked on in the direction of Chesterton. He had wished to thank his wife's mother for her concession and had been told by Hester that if he would call, Mrs. Bolton would certainly see him now. Had there been no letter from the woman in Australia, he would probably not have obeyed his wife's behest in this matter. His heart and spirit would then have been without a flaw, and, proud in his own strength and his own rectitude, he would have declared to himself that the absurd prejudices of a fanatic woman were beneath his notice. But that letter had been a blow, and the blow, though it had not quelled him, had weakened his forces. He could conceal the injury done him even from his wife, but there was an injury. He was not quite the man that he had been before. From day to day, and from hour to hour, he was always remonstrating with himself because it was so. He was conscious that in some degree he had been cowed, and was ever fighting against the feeling. His tenderness to his wife was perhaps increased, because he knew that she still suffered from the letter; but he was almost ashamed of his own tenderness, as being a sign of weakness. He made himself very busy in these days,--busy among his brother magistrates, busy among his farming operations, busy with his tenants, busy among his books, so as to show to those around him that he was one who could perform all the duties of life, and enjoy all the pleasures, with an open brow and a clear conscience. He had been ever bold and self-asserting; but now he was perhaps a little over-bold. But through it all the Australian letter and the Australian woman were present to him day and night.
It was this resolution not to be quelled that had made him call upon the attorney at his office; and when he found himself back in the street he was very angry with the man. 'If it pleases him, let it be so,' he said to himself. 'I can do in the world without him.' And then he thought of that threat,--when the attorney had said that he would remove his sister. 'Remove her! By heavens!' He had a stick in his hand, and as he went he struck it angrily against a post. Remove his wife! All the Boltons in Cambridgeshire could not put a hand upon her, unless by his leave! For some moments his anger supported him; but after a while that gave way to the old feeling of discomfort which pervaded him always. She was his wife, and nobody should touch her. Nevertheless he might find it difficult, as Robert Bolton had said, to prove that that other woman was not his wife.
Robert Bolton's office was in a small street close to Pembroke College, and when he came out of it he had intended to walk direct through Trumpington Street and Trinity Street to Chesterton. But he found it necessary to compose himself and so to arrange his thoughts that he might be able to answer such foolish questions as Mrs. Bolton would probably ask him without being flurried. He was almost sure that she had heard nothing of the woman. He did not suspect Robert Bolton of treachery in that respect; but she would probably talk to him about the iniquity of his past life generally, and he must be prepared to answer her. It was incumbent upon him to shake off, before he reached Chesterton, that mixture of alarm and anger which at present dominated him; and with this object, instead of going straight along the street, he turned into the quadrangle of King's College, and passing through the gardens and over the bridge, wandered for a while slowly under the trees at the back of the college. He accused himself of a lack of manliness in that he allowed himself to be thus cowed. Did he not know that such threats as these were common? Was it not just what might have been expected from such a one as Crinkett, when Crinkett was driven to desperation by failing speculations? As he thought of the woman, he shook his head, looking down upon the ground. The woman had at one time been very dear to him. But it was clearly now his duty to go on as though there were no such woman as Euphemia Smith, and no such man as Thomas Crinkett. And as for Robert Bolton, he would henceforth treat him as though his anger and his suspicions were unworthy of notice. If the man should choose of his own accord to reassume the old friendly relations,--well and good. No overtures should come from him--Caldigate. And if the anger and the suspicions endured, why then, he, Caldigate, could do very well without Robert Bolton.
As he made these resolutions he turned in at a little gate opening into a corner of St. John's Gardens, with the object of passing through the college back into the streets of the town. It was not quite his nearest way, but he loved the old buildings, and the trees, and the river, even in winter. It still was winter, being now the middle of February; but, as it happened, the air was dry and mild, and the sun was shining. Still, he was surprised at such a time of the year to see an elderly man apparently asleep on one of the benches which are placed close to the path. But there he was, asleep, with his two hands on a stick, and his head bent forward over his stick. It was impossible not to look at the man sleeping there in that way; but Caldigate would hardly have looked, would hardly have dared to look, could he have anticipated what he would see. The elderly man was Thomas Crinkett. As he passed he was quite sure that the man was Thomas Crinkett. When he had gone on a dozen yards, he paused for a moment to consider what he would do. A dozen different thoughts passed through his mind in that moment of time. Why was the man there? Why, indeed, could he have come to England except with the view of prosecuting the demand which he and the woman had made? His presence even in England was sufficient to declare that this battle would have to be fought. But to Cambridge he could have come with no other object than that of beginning the attack at once. And then, had he already commenced his work? He had not at any rate been to Robert Bolton, to whom any one knowing the family would have first referred him. And why was he sleeping there? Why was he not now at work upon his project? Again, would it be better at the present moment that he should pass by the man as though he had not seen him; or should he go back and ask him his purpose? As the thought passed through his mind, he stayed his step for a moment on the pathway and looked round. The man had moved his position, and was now sitting with his head turned away but evidently not asleep. Then it occurred to Caldigate that Crinkett's slumbers had been only a pretence, that the man had seen and recognised him, and at the moment had not chosen to make himself known. And it occurred to him also that in a matter of such importance as this he should do nothing on the spur of the moment,--nothing without consideration. A word spoken to Crinkett, a word without consideration, might be fatal to him. So he passed on, having stood upon the path hardly more than a second or two.
Before he had got up to the new buildings of St. John's a cold sweat had come out all over him. He was conscious of this, and conscious also that for a time he was so confounded by the apparition of his enemy as to be unable to bring his mind to work properly on the subject. 'Let him do his worst,' he kept on saying to himself; 'let him do his worst.' But he knew that the brave words, though spoken only to himself, were mere braggadocio. No doubt the man would do his worst, and very bad it would be to him. At the moment he was so cowed by fear that he would have given half his fortune to have secured the woman's silence,--and the man's. How much better would it have been had he acceded to the man's first demand as to restitution of a portion of the sum paid for Polyeuka, before the woman's name had been brought into the matter at all?
But reflections such as these were now useless and he must do something. It was for his wife's sake,--he assured himself,--for his wife's sake that he allowed himself to be made thus miserable by the presence of this wretched creature. What would she not be called upon to suffer? The woman no doubt would be brought before magistrates and judges, and would be made to swear that she was his wife. The whole story of his life in Australia would be made public,--and there was so much that could not be made public without overwhelming her with sorrow! His own father, too, who had surrendered the estate to him, must know it all. His father hitherto had not heard the name of Mrs. Smith, and had been told only of Crinkett's dishonest successes and dishonest failures. When Caldigate had spoken of Crinkett to his father, he had done so with a triumph as of a man whom he had weighed and measured and made use of,--whose frauds and cunning he had conquered by his own honesty and better knowledge. Now he could no longer weigh and measure and make use of Crinkett. Crinkett had been a joke to him in talking with his father. But Crinkett was no joke now.
While walking through the College quad, he was half stupefied by his confusion, and was aware that such was his condition. But going out under the gate he paused for a moment and shook himself. He must at any rate summon his own powers to his aid at the moment and resolve what he would do. However bad all this might be, there was a better course and a worse. If he allowed this confusion to master him he would probably be betrayed into the worse course. Now, at this moment, in what way would it become him to act? He drew himself together, shaking his head and shoulders,--so as to shake off his weakness,--pressing his foot for a moment on the earth so as to convince himself of his own firmness, and then he resolved.
He was on the way out to see his mother-in-law, but he thought that nothing now could be gained by going to Chesterton. It was not impossible that Crinkett might have been there. If so the man would have told something of his story; and his wife's mother was the last person in the world whom, under such circumstances, he could hope to satisfy. He must tell no lie to any one; he must at least conceal nothing of the things as they occurred now. He must not allow it to be first told by Crinkett that they two had seen each other in the Gardens. But he could not declare this to Mrs. Bolton. For the present, the less he saw of Mrs. Bolton the better. She would come to the christening to-morrow,--unless indeed Crinkett had already told enough to induce her to change her mind,--but after that any intimacy with the house at Chesterton had better be postponed till this had all been settled.
But how much would have to be endured before that! Robert Bolton had almost threatened to take his wife away from him. No one could take his wife away from him,--unless, indeed, the law were to say that she was not his wife. But how would it be with him if she herself, under the influence of her family, were to wish to leave him! The law no doubt would give him the custody of his own wife, till the law had said that she was not his wife. But could he keep her if she asked him to let her go? And should she be made to doubt,--should her mind be so troubled as it would be should she once be taught to think it possible that she had been betrayed,--would she not then want to go from him? Would it not be probable that she would doubt when she should be told that this woman had been called by her husband's name in Australia, and when he should be unable to deny that he had admitted, or at least had not contradicted, the appellation?
On a sudden, when he turned away from the street leading to Chesterton as he came out of the College, he resolved that he would at once go back to Robert Bolton. The man was offensive, suspicious and self-willed; but, nevertheless, his good services, if they could be secured, would be all-important. For his wife's sake, as Caldigate said to himself,--for his wife's sake he must bear much. 'I have come to tell you something that has occurred since I was here just now,' said Caldigate, meeting his brother-in-law at the door of the office. 'Would you mind coming back?'
'I am rather in a hurry.'
'It is of importance, and you had better hear it,' said Caldigate, leading the way imperiously to the inner room. 'It is for your sister's sake. That man Crinkett is in Cambridge.'
'In Cambridge?'
'I saw him just now.'
'And spoke to him?' the attorney asked.
'No. I passed him; and I do not know even whether he recognised me. But he is here, in Cambridge.'
'And the woman?'
'I have told you all that I know. He has not come here for nothing.'
'Probably not,' said the attorney, with a scornful smile. 'You will hear of him before long.'
'Of course I shall. I have come to you now to ask a question. I must put my case at once into a lawyer's hands. Crinkett, no doubt, will commit perjury and I must undergo the annoyance and expense of proving him to be a perjurer. She probably is here also, and will be ready to commit perjury. Of course I must have a lawyer. Will you act for me?'
'I will act for my sister.'
'Your sister and I are one; and I am obliged, therefore, to ask again whether you will act for me? Of course I should prefer it. Though you are, I think, hard to me in this matter, I can trust you implicitly. It will be infinitely better for Hester that it should be so. But I must have some lawyer.'
'And so must she.'
'Hers and mine must be the same. As to that I will not admit any question. Can you undertake to fight this matter on my behalf,--and on hers? If you feel absolutely hostile to me you had better decline. For myself, I cannot understand why there should be such hostility.'
Caldigate had so far conquered his own feelings of abasement as to be able to say this with a determined face, looking straight into the attorney's eyes, at any rate without sign of fear.
'It wants thinking about,' said Robert Bolton.
'To-morrow the baby is to be christened, and for Hester's sake I will endeavour to put this matter aside;--but on Wednesday I must know.'
'On Wednesday morning I will answer your question. But what if this man comes to me in the meantime?'
'Listen to him or speak to him, just as seems good to you. You know everything that there is to tell, and may therefore know whether he lies or speaks the truth.'
Then Caldigate went to the inn, got his horse, and rode back to Folking.
| {
"id": "11643"
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27 | None | The Christening The next day was the day of the christening. Caldigate, on his return home from Cambridge, had felt himself doomed to silence. He could not now at this moment tell his wife that the man had come,--the man who would doubtless work her such terrible misery. She was very strong. She had gone through the whole little event of her baby's birth quite as well as could be expected, and had been just what all her friends might have wished her to be. But that this blow had fallen upon her,--but that these ill news had wounded her,--she would now have been triumphant. Her mother was at last coming to her. Her husband was all that a husband should be. Her baby was, to her thinking, sweeter, brighter, more satisfactory than any other baby ever had been. But the first tidings had been told to her. She had seen the letter signed 'Euphemia Caldigate'; and of course she was ill at ease. Knowing how vexatious the matter was to her husband, she had spoken of it but seldom,--having asked but a question now and again when the matter pressed itself too severely on her mind. He understood it all, both her reticence and her sufferings. Her sufferings must of course be increased. She must know before long that Crinkett, and probably the woman also, were in her neighbourhood. But he could not tell her now when she was preparing her baby for his ceremony in the church.
The bells were rung, and the baby was prepared, and Mrs. Bolton came out to Folking according to her promise. Though Robert was not there, many of the Boltons were present, as was also Uncle Babington. He had come over on the preceding evening, making on this occasion his first journey to Folking since his wife's sister had died; and the old squire was there in very good humour, though he excused himself from going to the church by explaining that as he had no duty to perform he would only be in the way amongst them all. Daniel and Mrs. Bolton had also been at Folking that night, and had then for the first time been brought into contact with the Babington grandeur. The party had been almost gay, the old squire having taken some delight in what he thought to be the absurdities of his brother-in-law. Mr. Babington himself was a man who was joyous on most occasions and always gay on such an occasion as this. He had praised the mother, and praised the baby, and praised the house of Folking generally, graciously declaring that his wife looked forward to the pleasure of making acquaintance with her new niece, till old Mr. Caldigate had been delighted with these manifestations of condescension. 'Folking is a poor place,' said he, 'but Babington is really a country-house.'
'Yes,' replied the other squire, much gratified, 'Babington is what you may call really a good country-house.'
You had to laugh very hard at him before you could offend Uncle Babington. In all this John Caldigate was obliged to assist, knowing all the time, feeling all the time, that Crinkett was in Cambridge; and through all this the young mother had to appear happy, knowing the existence of that letter signed 'Euphemia Caldigate,'--feeling it at every moment. And they both acted their parts well. Caldigate himself,--though when he was alone the thought of what was coming would almost crush him,--could always bear himself bravely when others were present.
On the morning before they went to church, when the bells were ringing, old Mr. Bolton came in a carriage with his wife from Cambridge. She, of course, condescended to give her hand to her son-in-law but she did it with a look which was full of bitterness. She did not probably intend to be specially bitter, but bitterness of expression was common to her. She was taken, however, at once up to the baby, and then in the presence of her daughter and grandchild it may be presumed that she relaxed a little. At any rate, her presence in the house made her daughter happy for the time.
Then they all went to the church, except the squire, who, as he himself pleaded, had no duty to perform there. Mrs. Bolton, as she was taken through the hall, saw him and recognised him, but would not condescend even to bow her head to him, though she knew how intimate he had been with her husband. She still felt,--though she had yielded for this day, this day which was to make her grandchild a Christian,--that there must be, and should be, a severance between people such as the Boltons and people such as the Caldigates.
As the service went on, and as the water was sprinkled, and as the prayers were said, Caldigate felt thankful that so much had been allowed to be done before the great trouble had disclosed itself. The doubt whether even the ceremony could be performed before the clap of thunder had been heard through all Cambridge had been in itself a distinct sorrow to him. Had Crinkett showed himself at Chesterton, neither Mrs. Bolton nor Daniel Bolton would have been standing then at the font. Had Crinkett been heard of at Babington, Uncle Babington would not now have been at Folking. All this was passing through his mind as he was standing by the font. When the ceremony of making the young Daniel Humphrey Caldigate a Christian was all but completed, he fancied that he saw old Mr. Bolton's eyes fixed on something in the church, and he turned his head suddenly, with no special purpose, but simply looking, as one is apt to look, when another looks. There he saw, on a seat divided from himself by the breadth of the little nave, Thomas Crinkett sitting with another man.
There was not a shadow of a doubt on his mind as to the identity of the Australian--nor as to that of Crinkett's companion. At the moment he did not remember the man's name, but he knew him as a miner with whom he had been familiar at Ahalala, and who had been in partnership both with himself and Crinkett at Nobble,--as one who had, alas! been in his society when Euphemia Smith had been there also. At that instant he remembered the fact that the man had called Euphemia Smith Mrs. Caldigate in his presence, and that he had let the name pass without remonstrance. The memory of that moment flashed across him now as he quickly turned back his face towards his child who was still uttering his little wail in the arms of the clergyman.
Utterden church is not a large building. The seat on which Crinkett had placed himself was one usually occupied by parish boys at the end of the row of appropriated seats and near to the door. Less than half-a-dozen yards from it, at the other side of the way leading up the church, stood the font, so that the stranger was almost close to Caldigate when he turned. They were so near that others there could not but have observed them. Even the clergyman, however absorbed he might have been in his sacred work, could not but have observed them. It was not there as it might have been in a town. Any stranger, even on a Sunday, would be observed by all in Utterden church,--how much then at a ceremony which, as a rule, none but friends attend! And Crinkett was looking on with all his eyes, leaning forward over his stick and watching closely. Caldigate had taken it all in, even in that moment. The other man was sitting back, gazing at nothing as though the matter to him were indifferent. Caldigate could understand it all. The man was there simply to act or to speak when he might be wanted.
As the ceremony was completed John Caldigate stood by and played with all proper words and actions the part of the young father. No one standing there could see by his face that he had been struck violently; that he had for a few moments been almost unable to stand. But he himself was aware that a cold sweat had broken out all over him as before. Though he leaned over the baby lying in his mother's arms and kissed it, and smiled on the young mother, he did so as some great actor will carry out his part before the public when nearly sinking to the ground from sudden suffering. What would it be right that he should do now,--now,--now? No one there had heard of Crinkett except his wife. And even she herself had no idea that the man of whom she had heard was in England. Should he speak to the man, or should he endeavour to pass out of the church as though he had not recognised him? Could he trust himself even to make the endeavour when he should have turned round and when he would find himself face to face with the man?
And then what should he say, and how should he act, if the man addressed him in the church? The man had not come out there to Utterden for nothing, and probably would so address him. He had determined on telling no lie,--no lie, at any rate, as to present circumstances. That life of his in Australia had been necessarily rough; and though successful, had not been quite as it should have been. As to that, he thought that it ought to be permitted to him to be reticent. But as to nothing since his marriage would he lie. If Crinkett spoke to him he must acknowledge the man,--but if Crinkett told his story about Euphemia Smith in the church before them all, how should he then answer? There was but a moment for him to decide it all. The decision had to be made while he was handing back his babe to its mother with his sweetest smile.
As the party at the font was broken up, the eyes of them all were fixed upon the two strangers. A christening in a public church is a public service, and open to the world at large. There was no question to be asked them, but each person as he looked at them would of course think that somebody else would recognise them. They were decently dressed,--dressed probably in such garments as gentlemen generally wear on winter mornings,--but any one would know at a glance that they were not English gentlemen. And they were of an appearance unfamiliar to any one there but Caldigate himself,--clean, but rough, not quite at home in their clothes, which had probably been bought ready-made; with rough, ignoble faces,--faces which you would suspect, but faces, nevertheless, which had in them something of courage. As the little crowd prepared to move from the font, the two men got up and stood in their places.
Caldigate took the opportunity to say a word to Mr. Bromley before he turned round, so that he might yet pause before he decided. At that moment he resolved that he would recognise his enemy, and treat him with the courtesy of old friendship. It would be bad to do at the moment, but he thought that in this way he might best prepare himself for the future. Crinkett had appealed to him for money, but Crinkett himself had said nothing to him about Euphemia Smith. The man had not as yet accused him of bigamy. The accusation had come from her, and it still might be that she had used Crinkett's name wrongfully. At any rate, he thought that when the clap of thunder should have come, it would be better for him not to have repudiated a man with whom it would then be known that his relations had once been so intimate.
He addressed himself therefore at once to his old associate. 'I am surprised to see you here, Mr. Crinkett.' This he said with a smile and a pleasant voice, putting out his hand to him. How hard it was to summon up that smile! How hard to get that tone of voice! Even those commonplace words had been so difficult of selection! 'Was it you I saw yesterday in the College gardens?'
'Yes, it was me, no doubt.'
'I turned round, and then thought that it was impossible We have just been christening my child. Will you come up to our breakfast?'
'You remember Jack Adamson,--eh?'
'Of course I do,' said Caldigate, giving his hand to the second man, who was rougher even than Crinkett. 'I hope he will come up also. This is my uncle, Mr. Babington; and this is my father-in-law, Mr. Bolton.' 'These were two of my partners at Nobble,' he said, turning to the two old gentlemen, who were looking on with astonished eyes. 'They have come over here, I suppose, with reference to the sale I made to them lately of my interests at Polyeuka.'
'That's about it,' said Adamson.
'We won't talk business just at this moment, because we have to eat our breakfast and drink our boy's health. But when that is done, I'll hear what you have to say;--or come into Cambridge to-morrow just as you please. You'll walk up to the house now, and I'll introduce you to my wife?'
'We don't mind if we do eat a bit,--do we, Jack?' said Crinkett. Jack bobbed his head, and so they walked back to Folking, the three of them together, while the two Mr. Boltons and Uncle Babington followed behind. The ladies and the baby had been taken in a carriage.
The distance from the church to the house at Folking was less than half a mile, but Caldigate thought that he would never reach his hall door. How was he to talk to the men,--with what words and after what fashion? And what should he say about them to his wife when he reached home? She had seen him speak to them, had known that he had been obliged to stay behind with them when it would have been so natural that he should have been at her side as she got into the carriage. Of that he was aware, but he could not know how far their presence would have frightened her. 'Yes,' he said, in answer to some question from Crinkett; 'the property round here is not exactly mine, but my father's.'
'They tell me as it's yours now?' said Crinkett.
'You haven't to learn to-day that in regard to other people's concerns men talk more than they know. The land is my father's estate, but I live here.'
'And him?' asked Adamson.
'He lives in Cambridge.'
'That's what we mean,--ain't it, Crinkett?' said Adamson. 'You're boss here?'
'Yes, I'm boss.'
'And a deuced good time you seem to have of it,' said Crinkett.
'I've nothing to complain of,' replied Caldigate, feeling himself at the moment to be the most miserable creature in existence.
It was fearful work,--work so cruel that his physical strength hardly enabled him to support it. He already repented his present conduct, telling himself that it would have been better to have treated the men from the first as spies and enemies;--though in truth his conduct had probably been the wisest he could have adopted. At last he had the men inside the hall door, and, introducing them hurriedly to his father, he left them that he might rush up to his wife's bedroom. The nurse was there and her mother; and, at the moment, she only looked at him. She was too wise to speak to him before them. But at last she succeeded in making an opportunity of being alone with her husband. 'You stay here, nurse; I'll be back directly, mamma,' and then she took him across the passage into his own dressing-room. 'Who are they, John? who are they?'
'They are men from the mines. As they were my partners, I have asked them to come in to breakfast.'
'And the woman?' As she spoke she held on to the back of a chair by which she stood, and only whispered her question.
'No woman is with them.'
'Is it the man,--Crinkett?'
'Yes, it is Crinkett.'
'In this house! And I am to sit at table with him?'
'It will be best so. Listen, dearest; all that I know, all that we know of Crinkett is, that he is asking money of me because the purchase he made of me has turned out badly for him.'
'But he is to marry that woman, who says that she is--' Then she stopped, looking into his face with agony. She could not bring herself to utter the words which would signify that another woman claimed to be her husband's wife.
'You are going too fast, Hester. I cannot condemn the man for what the woman has written until I know that he says the same himself. He was my partner, and I have had his money;--I fear, all his money. He as yet has said nothing about the woman. As it is so, it behoves me to be courteous to him. That I am suffering much, you must be well aware. I am sure you will not make it worse for me.'
'No, no,' she said, embracing him; 'I will not. I will be brave. I will do all that I can. But you will tell me everything?'
'Everything,' he said. Then he kissed her, and went back again to his unwelcome guests. She was not long before she followed him, bringing her baby in her arms. Then she took the child round to be kissed by all its relatives, and afterwards bowed politely to the two men, and told them that she was glad to see her husband's old friends and fellow-workmen.
'Yes, mum,' said Jack Adamson; 'we've been fellow-workmen when the work was hard enough. T' young squire seems to have got over his difficulties pretty tidy!' Then she smiled again, and nodded to them, and retreated back to her mother.
Mrs. Bolton scowled at them, feeling certain that they were godless persons;--in which she was right. The old banker, drawing his son Daniel out of the room, whispered an inquiry; but Daniel Bolton knew nothing. 'There's been something wrong as to the sale of that mine,' said the banker. Daniel Bolton thought it probable that there had been something wrong.
The breakfast was eaten, and the child's health was drunk, and the hour was passed. It was a bad time for them all, but for Caldigate it was a very bitter hour. To him the effort made was even more difficult than to her;--as was right;--for she at any rate had been blameless. Then the Boltons went away, as had been arranged, and also Uncle Babington while the men still remained.
'If you don't mind, squire, I'll take a turn with you,' said Crinkett at last; 'while Jack can sit anywhere about the place.'
'Certainly,' said Caldigate. And so they took their hats and went off, and Jack Adamson was left 'sitting anywhere' about the place.
| {
"id": "11643"
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28 | None | Tom Crinkett at Folking Caldigate thought that he had better take his companion where there would be the least chance of encountering many eyes. He went therefore through the garden into the farmyard and along the road leading back to the dike, and then he walked backwards and forwards between the ferry, over the Wash, and the termination of the private way by which they had come. The spot was not attractive, as far as rural prettiness was concerned. They had, on one hand or the other as they turned, the long, straight, deep dike which had been cut at right angles to the Middle Wash; and around, the fields were flat, plashy, and heavy-looking with the mud of February. But Crinkett for a while did not cease to admire everything. 'And them are all yourn?' he said, pointing to a crowd of corn-stacks standing in the haggard.
'Yes, they're mine. I wish they were not.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'As prices are at present, a man doesn't make pinch by growing corn and keeping it to this time of the year.'
'And where them chimneys is,--is that yourn?' This he said pointing along the straight line of the road to Farmer Holt's homestead, which showed itself on the other side of the Wash.
'It belongs to the estate,' said Caldigate.
'By jingo! And how I remember your a-coming and talking to me across the gate at Polyeuka Hall!'
'I remember it very well.'
'I didn't know as you were an estated gent in those days.'
'I had spent a lot of money when I was young, and the estate, as you call it, was not large enough to bear the loss. So I had to go out and work, and get back what I had squandered.'
'And you did it?'
'Yes, I did it.'
'My word, yes! What a lot of money you took out of the colony, Caldigate!'
'I'm not going to praise myself, but I worked hard for it, and when I got it I didn't run riot.'
'Not with drink.'
'Nor in any other way. I kept my money.'
'Well;--I don't know as you was very much more of a Joseph than anybody else.' Then Crinkett laughed most disagreeably; and Caldigate, turning over various ideas rapidly in his mind, thought that a good deed would be done if a man so void of feeling could be drowned beneath the waters of the black deep dike which was slowly creeping along by their side. 'Any way you was lucky,--infernally lucky.'
'You did not do badly yourself. When I first reached Nobble you had the name of more money than I ever made.'
'Who's got it now? Eh, Caldigate! who's got my money now?'
'It would take a clever man to tell that.'
'It don't take much cleverness for me to tell who has got more of it nor anybody else, and it don't take much cleverness for me to tell that I ain't got none of it left myself;--none of it, Caldigate. Not a d----- hundred pounds!' This he said with terrible energy.
'I'm sorry it's so bad as that with you, Crinkett.'
'Yes;--you is sorry, I daresay. You've acted sorry in all you said and done since I got taken in last by that ---- mine;--haven't you? Well;--I have got just a few hundreds; what I could scrape together to bring me and a few others as might be wanted over to England. There's Jack Adamson with me and ---- just two more. They may be wanted, squire.'
The attack now was being commenced, and how was he to repel it, or to answer it? Only on one ground had he received from Robert Bolton a decided opinion. Under no circumstances was he to give money to these persons. Were he to be guilty of that weakness he would have delivered himself over into their hands. And not only did he put implicit trust in the sagacity of Robert Bolton, but he himself knew enough of the world's opinion on such a matter to be aware that a man who has allowed himself to be frightened out of money is supposed to have acknowledged some terrible delinquency. He had been very clear in his mind when that letter came from Euphemia Smith that he would not now make any rebate. Till that attack had come, it might have been open to him to be generous;--but not now. And yet when this man spoke of his own loss, and reminded him of his wealth;--when Crinkett threw it in his teeth that by a happy chance he had feathered his nest with the spoils taken from the wretched man himself,--then he wished that it was in his power to give back something.
'Is that said as a threat?' he asked, looking round on his companion, and resolving that he would be brave.
'That's as you take it, squire. We don't want to threaten nothing.'
'Because if you do, you'd better go, and do what you have to do away from here.'
'Don't you be so rough now with an old pal. You won't do no good by being rough. I wasn't rough to you when you came to Polyeuka Hall without very much in your pocket.' This was untrue, for Crinkett had been rough, and Caldigate's pockets had been full of money; but there could be no good got by contradicting him on small trifles. 'I was a good mate to you then. You wouldn't even have got your finger into the "Old Stick-in-the-Mud," nor yet into Polyeuka, but for me. I was the making of your fortin, Caldigate. I was.'
'My fortune, such as it is, was made by my own industry.'
'Industry be blowed! I don't know that you were so much better than anybody else. Wasn't I industrious? Wasn't I thinking of it morning, noon, and night, and nothing else? You was smart. I do allow that, Caldigate. You was very smart.'
'Did you ever know me dishonest?'
'Pooh! what's honesty? There's nothing so smart as honesty. Whatever you got, you got a sure hold of. That's what you mean by honesty. You was clever enough to take care as you had really got it. Now about this Polyeuka business, I'll tell you how it is. I and Jack Adamson and another,'--as he alluded to the 'other' he winked,--'we believed in Polyeuka; we did. D----- the cussed hole! Well;--when you was gone we thought we'd try it. It was not easy to get the money as you wanted, but we got it. One of the banks down at Sydney went shares, but took all the plant as security. Then the cussed place ran out the moment the money was paid. It was just as though fortin had done it a purpose. If you don't believe what I'm a-saying, I've got the documents to show you.'
Caldigate did believe what the man said. It was a matter as to which he had, in the way of business, received intelligence of his own from the colony, and he was aware that he had been singularly lucky as to the circumstances and time of the sale. But there had been nothing 'smart' about it. Those in the colony who understood the matter thought at the time that he was making a sacrifice of his own interests by the terms proposed. He had thought so himself, but had been willing to make it in order that he might rid himself of further trouble. He had believed that the machinery and plant attached to the mine had been nearly worth the money, and he had been quite certain that Crinkett himself, when making the bargain, had considered himself to be in luck's way. But such property, as he well knew, was, by its nature, precarious and liable to sudden changes. He had been fortunate, and the purchasers had been the reverse. Of that he had no doubt, though probably the man had exaggerated his own misfortune. When he had been given to understand how bad had been the fate of these old companions of his in the matter, with the feelings of a liberal gentleman he was anxious to share with them the loss. Had Crinkett come to him, explaining all that he now explained, without any interference from Euphemia Smith, he would have been anxious to do much. But now;--how could he do anything now? 'I do not at all disbelieve what you tell me about the mine,' he said.
'And yet you won't do anything for us? You ain't above taking all our money and seeing us starve; and that when you have got everything round you here like an estated gentleman, as you are?'
There was a touch of eloquence in this, a soundness of expostulation which moved him much. He could afford to give back half the price he had received for the mine and yet be a well-to-do man.
He paid over to his father the rents from Folking, but he had the house and home-farm for nothing. And the sum which he had received for Polyeuka by no means represented all his savings. He did not like to think that he had denuded this man who had been his partner of everything in order that he himself might be unnecessarily rich. It was not pleasant to him to think that the fatness of his opulence had been extracted from Jack Adamson and from--Euphemia Smith. When the application for return of the money had been first made to him from Australia, he hadn't known what he knew now. There had been no eloquence then,--no expostulation. Now he thoroughly wished that he was able to make restitution. 'A threat has been used to me,' he muttered almost anxious to explain to the man his exact position.
'A threat! I ain't threatened nothing. But I tell you there will be threats and worse than threats. Fair means first and foul means afterwards! That's about it, Caldigate.'
If he could have got this man to say that there was no threat, to be simply piteous, he thought that he might even yet have suggested some compromise. But that was impossible when he was told that worse than threats was in store for him. He was silent for some moments, thinking whether it would not be better for him to rush into that matter of Euphemia Smith himself. But up to this time he had no absolute knowledge that Crinkett was aware of the letter which had been written. No doubt that in speaking of 'another' as being joined with himself and Adamson he had intended that Euphemia Smith should be understood. But till her name had been mentioned, he could not bring himself to mention it. He could not bring himself to betray the fear which would become evident if he spoke of the woman.
'I think you had better go to my lawyer,' he said.
'We don't want no lawyering. The plunder is yours, no doubt. Whether you'll have so much law on your side in other matters,--that's the question.' Crinkett did not in the least understand the state of his companion's mind. To Crinkett it appeared that Caldigate was simply anxious to save his money.
'I do not know that I can say anything else to you just at present. The bargain was a fair bargain, and you have no ground for any claim. You come to me with some mysterious threat------' 'You understand,' said Crinkett.
'I care nothing for your threats. I can only bid you go and do your worst.'
'That's what we intend.'
'That you should have lost money by me is a great sorrow to me.'
'You look sorry, squire.'
'But after what you have said, I can make you no offer. If you will go to my brother-in-law, Mr. Robert Bolton--' 'That's the lady's brother?'
'My wife's brother.'
'I know all about it, Caldigate. I won't go to him at all. What's he to us? It ain't likely that I am going to ask him for money to hold our tongues. Not a bit of it. You've had sixty thousand pounds out of that mine. The bank found twenty and took all the plant. There's forty gone. Will you share the loss? Give us twenty and we'll be off back to Australia by the first ship. And I'll take a wife back with me. You understand? I'll take a wife back with me. Then we shall be all square all round.'
With what delight would he have given the twenty thousand pounds, had he dared! Had there been no question about the woman, he would have given the money to satisfy his own conscience as to the injury he had involuntarily done to his old partners. But he could not do it now. He could make no suggestion towards doing it. To do so would be to own to all the Boltons that Mrs. Euphemia Smith was his wife. And were he to do so, how could he make himself secure that the man and the woman would go back to Australia and trouble him no more? All experience forbade him to hope for such a result. And then the payment of the money would be one of many damning pieces of evidence against him. They had now got back for the second time to the spot at which the way up to the house at Folking turned off from the dike. Here he paused and spoke what were intended to be his last words. 'I have nothing more to say, Crinkett. I will not promise anything myself. A threatened man should never give way. You know that yourself. But if you will go to my brother-in-law I will get him to see you.'
'D---- your brother-in-law. He ain't your brother-in-law, no more than I am.'
Now the sword had been drawn and the battle had been declared. 'After that,' said Caldigate, walking on in front, 'I shall decline to speak to you any further.' He went back through the farmyard at a quick pace, while Crinkett kept up with him, but still a few steps behind. In the front of the house they found Jack Adamson, who, in obedience to his friend's suggestion had been sitting anywhere about the place.
'I'm blowed if he don't mean to stick to every lump he's robbed us of!' said Crinkett, in a loud voice.
'He do, do he? Then we know what we've got to be after.'
'I've come across some of 'em precious mean,' continued Crinkett; 'but a meaner skunk nor this estated gent, who is a justice of the peace and a squire and all that, I never did come across, and I don't suppose I never shall.' And then they stood looking at him, jeering at him. And the gardener, who was then in the front of the house, heard it all.
'Darvell,' said the squire, 'open the gate for these gentlemen.' Darvell of course knew that they had been brought from the church to the house, and had been invited in to the christening breakfast.
'If I were Darvell I wouldn't take wages from such a skunk as you,' said Crinkett. 'A man as has robbed his partners of every shilling, and has married a young lady when he has got another wife living out in the colony. At least she was out in the colony. She ain't there now, Darvell. She's somewhere else now. That's what your master is, Darvell. You'll have to look out for a place, because your master'll be in quod before long. How much is it they gets for bigamy, Jack? Three years at the treadmill;--that's about it. But I pities the young lady and the poor little bastard.'
What was he to do? A sense of what was fitting for his wife rather than for himself forbade him to fly at the man and take him by the throat. And now, of course, the wretched story would be told through all Cambridgeshire. Nothing could prevent that now. 'Darvell,' he said, as he turned towards the hall steps, 'you must see these men off the premises. The less you say to them the better.'
'We'll only just tell him all about it as we goes along comfortable,' said Adamson. Darvell, who was a good sort of man in his way,--slow rather than stupid, weighted with the ordinary respect which a servant has for his master,--had heard it all, but showed no particular anxiety to hear more. He accompanied the men down to the Causeway, hardly opening his mouth to them, while they were loud in denouncing the meanness of the man who had deserted a wife in Australia, and had then betrayed a young lady here in England.
'What were they talking about?' said his wife to him when they were alone. 'I heard their voices even here.'
'They were threatening me;--threatening me and you.'
'About that woman?'
'Yes; about that woman. Not that they have dared yet to mention her name,--but it was about that woman.'
'And she?'
'I've heard nothing from her since that letter. I do not know that she is in England, but I suppose that she is with them.'
'Does it make you unhappy, John?'
'Very unhappy.'
'Does it frighten you?'
'Yes. It makes me fear that you for a while will be made miserable,--you whom I had thought that I could protect from all sorrow and from all care! O my darling! of course it frightens me; but it is for you.'
'What will they do first, John?'
'They have already said words before the man there which will of course be spread about the country.'
'What words?'
Then he paused, but after pausing he spoke very plainly. 'They said that you were not my wife.'
'But I am.'
'Indeed you are.'
'Tell me all truly. Though I were not, I would still be true to you.'
'But, Hester,--Hester, you are. Do not speak as though that were possible.'
'I know that you love me. I am sure of that. Nothing should ever make me leave you;--nothing. You are all the world to me now. Whatever you may have done I will be true to you. Only tell me everything.'
'I think I have,' he said, hoarsely. Then he remembered that he had told much to Robert Bolton which she had not heard. 'I did tell her that I would marry her.'
'You did.'
'Yes, I did.'
'Is not that a marriage in some countries?'
'I think nowhere,--certainly not there. And the people, hearing of it all, used to call her by my name.' ' O John! --will not that be against us?'
'It will be against me,--in the minds of persons like your mother.'
'I will care nothing for that. I know that you have repented, and are sorry. I know that you love me now.'
'I have always loved you since the first moment that I saw you.'
'Never for a moment believe that I will believe them. Let them do what they will, I will be your wife. Nothing shall take me away from you. But it is sad, is it not; on that the very day that poor baby has been christened?' Then they sat and wept together and tried to comfort each other. But nothing could comfort him. He was almost prostrated at the prospect of his coming misery,--and of hers.
| {
"id": "11643"
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29 | Just by Telling Me that I Am' | The thunderbolt had fallen now. Caldigate, when he left his wife that he might stroll about the place after the dusk had fallen, told himself again and again that the thunderbolt had certainly fallen now. There could be no longer a doubt but that this woman would claim him as her husband. A whole world of remorse and regrets oppressed his conscience and his heart. He looked back and remembered the wise counsels which had been given him on board the ship, when the captain and Mrs. Callender and poor Dick Shand had remonstrated with him, and called to mind his own annoyance when he had bidden them mind their own affairs. And then he remembered how he had determined to break away from the woman at Sydney, and to explain to her, as he might then have done without injustice, that they two could be of no service the one to the other, and that they had better part. It seemed now, as he looked back, to have been so easy for him then to have avoided danger, so easy to have kept a straight course! But now,--now, surely he would be overwhelmed.
And then how easy it would have been, had he been more careful at the beginning of these troubles, to have bought these wretches off! He had been, he now acknowledged, too peremptory in his first refusal to refund a portion of the money to Crinkett. The application had, indeed, been made without those proofs as to the condition of the mine which had since reached him, and he had distrusted Crinkett. Crinkett he had known to be a man not to be trusted. But yet, even after receiving the letter from Euphemia Smith, the matter might have been arranged. When he had first become assured that the new Polyeuka Company had failed, he should have made an offer, even though Euphemia Smith had then commenced her threats. With skill, might he not have done it on this very day? Might he not have made the man understand that if he would base his claim simply on his losses, and make it openly on that ground, then his claim should be considered? But now it was too late, and the thunderbolt had fallen.
What must he do first? Robert Bolton had promised to tell him on the morrow whether he would act for him as his lawyer. He felt sure now that his brother-in-law would not do so; but it would be necessary that he should have an answer, and that necessity would give him an excuse for going into Cambridge and showing himself among the Boltons. Let his sufferings or his fears be what they might, he would never confess to the world that he suffered or that he was frightened, by shutting himself up. He would be seen about Cambridge, walking openly, as though no reports, no rumours, had been spread about concerning him. He would go to the houses of his wife's relations until he should be told that he was not welcome.
'John,' his wife said to him that night, 'bear it like a man.'
'Am I not bearing it like a man?'
'It is crushing your very heart. I see it in your eyes.'
'Can you bear it?' He asked his question with a stern voice; but as he asked it he turned to her and kissed her.
'Yes,' she said, 'yes. While I have you with me, and baby, I can bear anything. While you will tell me everything that happens, I will bear everything. And, John, when you were out just now, and when I am alone and trying to pray, I told myself that I ought not to be unhappy; for I would sooner have you and baby and all these troubles, than be back at Chesterton--without you.'
'I wish you were back there. I wish you had never seen me.'
'If you say that, then I shall be crushed.'
'For your sake, my darling; for your sake,--for your sake! How shall I comfort you when all those around you are saying that you are not my wife?'
'By telling me that I am,' she said, coming and kneeling at his feet, and looking up into his face. 'If you say so, you may be sure that I shall believe no one who says the contrary.'
It was thus, and only now, that he began to know the real nature of the woman whom he had succeeded in making his own, and of whom he found now that even her own friends would attempt to rob him. 'I will bear it,' he said, as he embraced her. 'I will bear it, if I can, like a man.'
'Oh, ma'am! those men were saying horrid things,' her nurse said to her that night.
'Yes; very horrid things. I know it all. It is part of a wicked plot to rob Mr. Caldigate of his money. It is astonishing the wickedness that people will contrive. It is very very sad. I don't know how long it may be before Mr. Caldigate can prove it all.'
'But he can prove it all, ma'am?'
'Of course he can. The truth can always be proved at last. I trust there will be no one about the place to doubt him. If there were such a one, I would not speak to him,--though it were my own father; though it were my own mother.' Then she took the baby in her arms, as though fearing that the nurse herself might not be loyal.
'I don't think there will be any as knows master, will be wrong enough for that,' said the nurse, understanding what was expected of her. After that, but not quite readily, the baby was once more trusted to her.
On the following morning Caldigate rode into the town, and as he put his horse up at the inn, he felt that the very ostler had heard the story. As he walked along the street, it seemed to him that everyone he met knew all about it. Robert Bolton would, of course, have heard it; but nevertheless he walked boldly into the attorney's office. His fault at the time was in being too bold in manner, in carrying himself somewhat too erect, in assuming too much confidence in his eye and mouth. To act a part perfectly requires a consummate actor; and there are phases in life in which acting is absolutely demanded. A man cannot always be at his ease, but he should never seem to be discomfited. For petty troubles the amount of acting necessary is so common that habit has made it almost natural. But when great sorrows come it is hard not to show them,--and harder still not to seem to hide them.
When he entered the private room he found that the old man was there with his son. He shook hands, of course, with both of them, and then he stood a moment silent to hear how they would address him. But as they also were silent he was compelled to speak. 'I hope you got home all right, sir, yesterday; and Mrs. Bolton.'
The old man did not answer, but he turned his face round to his son. 'I hear that you had that man Crinkett out at Folking yesterday,' said Robert.
'He was there, certainly, to my sorrow.'
'And another with him?'
'Yes; and another with him, whom I had also known at Nobble.'
'And they were brought in to breakfast?'
'Yes.'
'And they afterwards declared that you had married a wife out there in the colony?'
'That also is true.'
'They have been with my father this morning.'
'I am very, very sorry, sir,' said Caldigate, turning to the old man, 'that you should have been troubled in so disagreeable a business.'
'Now, Caldigate, I will tell you what we propose.' It was still the attorney who was speaking, for the old man had not as yet opened his mouth since his son-in-law had entered the room. 'There can, I think, be no doubt that this woman intends to bring an accusation of bigamy against you.'
'She is threatening to do it. I think it very improbable that she will be fool enough to make the attempt.'
'From what I have heard I feel sure that the attempt will be made. Depositions, in fact, will be made before the magistrates some day this week. Crinkett and the woman have been with the mayor this morning, and have been told the way in which they should proceed.' Caldigate, when he heard this, felt that he was trembling, but he looked into the speaker's face without allowing his eyes to turn to the right or left. 'I am not going to say anything now about the case itself. Indeed, as I know nothing, I can say nothing. You must provide yourself with a lawyer.'
'You will not act for me?'
'Certainly not. I must act for my sister. Now what I propose, and what her father proposes, is this,--that she shall return to her home at Puritan Grange while this question is being decided.'
'Certainly not,' said the husband.
'She must,' said the old man, speaking for the first time.
'We shall compel it,' said the attorney.
'Compel! How will you compel it? She is my wife.'
'That has to be proved. Public opinion will compel it, if nothing else. You cannot make a prisoner of her.'
'Oh, she shall go if she wishes it. You shall have free access to her. Bring her mother. Bring your carriage. She shall dispose of herself as she pleases. God forbid that I should keep her, though she be my wife, against her will.'
'I am sure she will do as her friends shall advise her when she hears the story,' said the attorney.
'She has heard the story. She knows it all. And I am sure that she will not stir a foot,' said the husband. 'You know nothing about her.' This he said turning to his wife's half-brother; and then again he turned to the old man. 'You, sir, no doubt, are well aware that she can be firm to her purpose. Nothing but death could take her away from me. If you were to carry her by force to Chesterton she would return to Folking on foot before the day was over. She knows what it is to be a wife. I am not a bit afraid of her leaving me.' This he was able to say with a high spirit and an assured voice.
'It is quite out of the question that she should stay with you while this is going on.'
'Of course she must come away,' said the banker, not looking at the man whom he now hated as thoroughly as did his wife.
'Consult your own friends, and let her consult hers. They will all tell you so. Ask Mrs. Babington. Ask your own father.'
'I shall ask no one--but her.'
'Think what her position will be! All the world will at least doubt whether she be your wife or not.'
'There is one person who will not doubt,--and that is herself.'
'Very good. If it be so, that will be a comfort to you, no doubt. But, for her sake, while other people doubt, will it not be better that she should be with her father and mother? Look at it all round.'
'I think it would be better that she should be with me,' replied Caldigate.
'Even though your former marriage with that other woman were proved?'
'I will not presume that to be possible. Though a jury should so decide, their decision would be wrong. Such an error could not effect us. I will not think of such a thing.'
'And you do not perceive that her troubles will be lighter in her father's house than in yours?'
'Certainly not. To be away from her own house would be such a trouble to her that she would not endure it unless restrained by force.'
'If you press her, she would go. Cannot you see that it would be better for her name?'
'Her name is my name,' he said, clenching his fist in his violence, 'and my name is hers. She can have no good name distinct from me,--no name at all. She is part and parcel of my very self, and under no circumstances will I consent that she shall be torn away from me. No word from any human being shall persuade me to it,--unless it should come from herself.'
'We can make her,' said the old man.
'No doubt we could get an order from the Court,' said the attorney, thinking that anything might be fairly said in such an emergency as this; 'but it will be better that she should come of her own accord, or by his direction. Are you aware how probable it is that you may be in prison within a day or two?'
To this Caldigate made no answer, but turned round to leave the room. He paused a moment at the doorway to think whether another word or two might not be said in behalf of his wife. It seemed hard to him, or hard rather upon her, that all the wide-stretching solid support of her family should be taken away from her at such a crisis as the present. He knew their enmity to himself. He could understand both the old enmity and that which had now been newly engendered. Both the one and the other were natural. He had succeeded in getting the girl away from her parents in opposition to both father and mother. And now, almost within the first year of his marriage, she had been brought to this terrible misery by means of disreputable people with whom he had been closely connected! Was it not natural that Robert Bolton should turn against him? If Hester had been his sister and there had come such an interloper what would he have felt? Was it not his duty to be gentle and to give way, if by any giving way he could lessen the evil which he had occasioned. 'I am sorry to have to leave your presence like this,' he said, turning back to Mr. Bolton.
'Why did you ever come into my presence?'
'What has been done is done. Even if I would give her back, I cannot. For better or for worse she is mine. We cannot make it otherwise now. But understand this, when you ask that she shall come back to you, I do not refuse it on my own account. Though I should be miserable indeed were she to leave me, I will not even ask her to stay. But I know she will stay. Though I should try to drive her out, she would not go. Good-bye, sir.' The old man only shook his head. 'Good-bye, Robert.'
'Good-bye. You had better get some lawyer as soon as you can. If you know any one in London you should send for him. If not, Mr. Seely here is as good a man as you can have. He is no friend of mine, but he is a careful attorney who understands his business.' Then Caldigate left the room with the intention of going at once to Mr. Seely.
But standing patiently at the door, just within the doorway of the house, he met a tall man in dark plain clothes; whom he at once knew to be a policeman. The man, who was aware that Caldigate was a county magistrate, civilly touched his hat, and then, with a few whispered words, expressed his opinion that our hero had better go with him to the mayor's office. Had he a warrant? Yes, he had a warrant, but he thought that probably it might not be necessary for him to show it. 'I will go with you, of course,' said Caldigate. 'I suppose it is on the allegation of a man named Crinkett.'
'A lady, sir, I think,' said the policeman.
'One Mrs. Smith.'
'She called herself--Caldigate, sir,' said the policeman. Then they went together without any further words to the mayor's court, and from thence, before he heard the accusation made against him, he sent both for his father and for Mr. Seely.
He was taken through to a private room, and thither came at once the mayor and another magistrate of the town with whom he was acquainted. 'This is a very sad business, Mr. Caldigate,' said the mayor.
'Very sad, indeed. I suppose I know all about it. Two men were with me yesterday threatening to indict me for bigamy if I did not give them a considerable sum of money. I can quite understand that they should have been here, as I know the nature of the evidence they can use. The policeman tells me the woman is here too.'
'Oh yes;--she is here, and has made her deposition. Indeed, there are two men and another woman who all declare that they were present at her marriage.' Then, after some further conversation, the accusers were brought into the room before him, so that their depositions might be read to him. The woman was closely veiled, so that he could not see a feature of her face; but he knew her figure well, and he remembered the other woman who had been half-companion half-servant to Euphemia Smith when she had come up to the diggings, and who had been with her both at Ahalala and at Nobble. The woman's name, as he now brought to mind, was Anna Young. Crinkett also and Adamson followed them into the room, each of whom had made a deposition on the matter. 'Is this the Mr. Caldigate,' said the mayor, 'whom you claim as your husband?'
'He is my husband,' said the woman. 'He and I were married at Ahalala in New South Wales.' 'It is false,' said Caldigate.
'Would you wish to see her face?' asked the mayor.
'No; I know her voice well. She is the woman in whose company I went out to the Colony, and whom I knew while I was there. It is not necessary that I should see her. What does she say?'
'That I am your wife, John Caldigate.'
Then the deposition was read to him, which stated on the part of the woman, that on a certain day she was married to him by the Rev. Mr. Allan, a Wesleyan minister, at Ahalala, that the marriage took place in a tent belonging, as she believed, to Mr. Crinkett, and that Crinkett, Adamson, and Anna Young were all present at the marriage. Then the three persons thus named had taken their oaths and made their depositions to the same effect. And a document was produced, purporting to be a copy of the marriage certificate as made out by Mr. Allan,--copy which she, the woman, stated that she obtained at the time, the register itself, which consisted simply of an entry in a small book, having been carried away by Mr. Allan in his pocket. Crinkett, when asked what had become of Mr. Allan, stated that he knew nothing but that he had left Ahalala. From that day to this none of them had heard of Mr. Allan.
Then the mayor gave Caldigate to understand that he must hold himself as committed to stand his trial for bigamy at the next Assizes for the County.
| {
"id": "11643"
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30 | None | The Conclave at Puritan Grange John Caldigate was committed, and liberated on bail. This occurred in Cambridge on the Wednesday after the christening; and before the Saturday night following, all the Boltons were thoroughly convinced that this wretched man, who had taken from them their daughter and their sister, was a bigamist, and that poor Hester, though a mother, was not a wife. The evidence against him, already named, was very strong, but they had been put in possession of other, and as they thought more damning evidence than any to which he had alluded in telling his version of the story to Robert Bolton. The woman had produced, and had shown to Robert Bolton, the envelope of a letter addressed in John Caldigate's handwriting to 'Mrs. Caldigate, Ahalala, Nobble,' which letter had been dated inside from Sydney, and which envelope bore the Sydney postmark. Caldigate's handwriting was peculiar, and the attorney declared that he could himself swear to it. The letter itself she also produced, but it told less than the envelope. It began as such a letter might begin, 'Dearest Feemy,' and ended 'Yours, ever and always, J.C.' As she herself had pointed out, a man such as Caldigate does not usually call his wife by that most cherished name in writing to her. The letter itself referred almost altogether to money matters, though perhaps hardly to such as a man generally discusses with his wife. Certain phrases seemed to imply a distinct action. She had better sell these shares or those, if she could, for a certain price,--and suchlike. But she explained, that they both when they married had been possessed of mining shares, represented by scrip which passed from hand to hand readily, and that each still retained his or her own property. But among the various small documents which she had treasured up for use, should they be needed for some possible occasion such as this, was a note, which had not, indeed, been posted, but which purported to have been written by the minister, Allan, to Caldigate himself, offering to perform the marriage at Ahalala, but advising him to have the ceremony performed at some more settled place, where an established church community with a permanent church or chapel admitted the proper custody of registers. Nothing could be more sensible, or written in a better spirit than this letter, though the language was not that of an educated man. This letter, Caldigate had, she said, showed to her, and she had retained it. Then she brought forward two handkerchiefs which she herself had marked with her new name, Euphemia Caldigate, and the date of the year. This had been done, she declared, immediately after her marriage, and the handkerchiefs seemed by their appearance to justify the assertion. Caldigate had admitted a promise, admitted that he had lived with the woman, admitted that she had passed by his name, admitted that there had been a conversation with the clergyman in regard to his marriage. And now there were three others, besides the woman herself, who were ready to swear,--who had sworn,--that they had witnessed the ceremony!
A clerk had been sent out early in November by Robert and William Bolton to make inquiry in the colony, and he could not well return before the end of March. And, if the accused man should ask for delay, it would hardly be possible to refuse the request as it might be necessary for his defence that he, too, should get evidence from the colony. The next assizes would be in April, and it would hardly be possible that the trial should take place so soon. And if not there would be a delay of three or four months more. Even that might hardly suffice should a plea be made on Caldigate's behalf that prolonged inquiry was indispensable. A thousand allegations might be made, as to the characters of these witnesses,--characters which doubtless were open to criticism; as to the probability of forgery; as to the necessity of producing Allan, the clergyman; as to Mrs. Smith's former position,--whether or no she was in truth a widow when she was living at Ahalala. Richard Shand had been at Ahalala, and must have known the truth. Caldigate might well declare that Richard Shand's presence was essential to his defence. There would and must be delay.
But what, in the meantime, would be the condition of Hester,--Hester Bolton, as they feared that they would be bound in duty to call her,--of Hester and her infant? The thing was so full of real tragedy,--true human nature of them all was so strongly affected, that for a time family jealousies and hatred had to give way. To father and mother and to the brothers, and to the brother's wife, it was equally a catastrophe, terrible, limitless, like an earthquake, or the falling upon them of some ruined tower. One thing was clear to them all,--that she and her child must be taken away from Folking. Her continued residence there would be a continuation of the horror. The man was not her husband. Not one of them was inspired by a feeling of mercy to allege that, in spite of all that they had heard, he still might be her husband. Even Mrs. Robert, who had been most in favour of the Caldigate marriage, did not doubt for an instant. The man had been a gambler at home on racecourses, and then had become a gambler at the gold-mines in the colony. His life then, by his own admission, had been disreputable. Who does not know that vices which may be treated with tenderness, almost with complaisance, while they are kept in the background, became monstrous, prodigious, awe-inspiring when they are made public? A gentleman shall casually let slip some profane word, and even some friendly parson standing by will think but little of it; but let the profane word, through some unfortunate accident, find its way into the newspapers, and the gentleman will be held to have disgraced himself almost for ever. Had nothing been said of a marriage between Caldigate and Mrs. Smith, little would have been thought by Robert Bolton, little perhaps by Robert Bolton's father, little even by Robert Bolton's wife, of the unfortunate alliance which he had admitted. But now, everything was added to make a pile of wickedness as big as a mountain.
From the conclave which was held on Saturday at Puritan Grange to decide what should be done, it was impossible to exclude Mrs. Bolton. She was the young mother's mother, and how should she be excluded? From the first moment in which something of the truth had reached her ears, it had become impossible to silence her or to exclude her. To her all those former faults would have been black as vice itself, even though there had been no question of a former marriage. Outside active sins, to which it may be presumed no temptation allured herself, were abominable to her. Evil thoughts, hardness of heart, suspicions, unforgivingness, hatred, being too impalpable for denunciation in the Decalogue but lying nearer to the hearts of most men than murder, theft, adultery, and perjury, were not equally abhorrent to her. She had therefore allowed herself to believe all evil of this man, and from the very first had set him down in her heart as a hopeless sinner. The others had opposed her,--because the man had money. In the midst of her shipwreck, in the midst of her misery, through all her maternal agony, there was a certain triumph to her in this. She had been right,--right from first to last, right in everything. Her poor old husband was crushed by the feeling that they had, among them, allowed this miscreant to take their darling away from them,--that he himself had assented; but she had not assented; she was not crushed. Before Monday night all Cambridge had heard something of the story, and then it had been impossible to keep her in the dark. And now, when the conclave met, of course she was one. The old man was there, and Robert Bolton, and William the barrister, who had come down from London to give his advice, and both Mr. and Mrs. Daniel. Mrs. Daniel, of all the females of the family, was the readiest to endure the severity of the step-mother, and she was now giving what comfort she could by her attendance at the Grange.
'Of course she should come home,' said the barrister. Up to this moment no one had seen Hester since the evil tidings had been made known; but a messenger had been sent out to Folking with a long letter from her mother, in which the poor nameless one had been implored to come back with her baby to her old home till this matter had been settled. The writer had endeavoured to avoid the saying of hard things against the sinner; but her feelings had been made very clear. 'Your father and brothers and all of us think that you should come away from him while this is pending. Nay; we do not hesitate to say that it is your bounden duty to leave him.'
'I will never, never leave my dearest, dearest husband. If they were to put my husband into gaol I would sit at the door till they had let him out.' That, repeated over and over again, had been the purport of her reply. And that word 'husband,' she used in almost every line, having only too clearly observed that her mother had not used it at all. 'Dearest mother,' she said, ending her letter, 'I love you as I have always done. But when I became his wife, I swore to love him best. I did not know then how strong my love could be. I have hardly known till now, when he is troubled, of what devotion I was capable. I will not leave him for a moment,--unless I have to do so at his telling.'
Such being her determination, and so great her obstinacy, it was quite clear that they could not by soft words or persuasive letters bring her to their way of thinking. She would not submit to their authority, but would claim that as a married woman she owed obedience only to her husband. And it would certainly not be within their power to make her believe that she was not Caldigate's wife. They believed it. They felt that they knew the facts. To them any continuation of the alliance between their poor girl and the false traitor was abominable. They would have hung the man without a moment's thought of mercy had it been possible. There was nothing they would not have done to rescue their Hester from his power. But how was she to be rescued till the dilatory law should have claimed its victim? 'Can't she be made to come away by the police?' asked the mother.
The barrister shook his head. 'Couldn't the magistrates give an order?' asked the father. Mr. Bolton had been a magistrate himself,--was one still indeed, although for some years he had not sat upon the bench,--but he had no very clear idea of a magistrate's power. The barrister again shook his head. 'You seemed to think that something of the kind could be done,' he said, turning to Robert. When he wanted advice he would always turn to Robert, especially in the presence of the barrister, intending to show that he thought the lower branch of the profession to be at any rate more accurate than the higher.
'I said something about an order from the Vice-Chancellor. But I fear we should not succeed in getting it.' The barrister again shook his head.
'Do you mean to say that nothing can be done?' exclaimed Mrs. Bolton, rising up from her seat; 'that no steps can be taken?'
'If she were once here, perhaps you could--prevent her return,' whispered the barrister.
'Persuade her not to go back,' suggested Mrs. Daniel.
'Well;--that might come after a time. But I think you would have the feeling of the community with you if you succeeded;--well, not violence, you understand.'
'No; not violence,' said the father.
'I could be violent with him,' said Mrs. Bolton.
'Just do not let her leave the house,' continued the barrister. 'Of course it would be disagreeable.'
'I should not mind that,' said Mrs. Bolton. 'In doing my duty I could bear anything. To separate her from him I could undergo any trouble.'
'But he would have the power to fetch her?' asked the father, doubtfully.
'No doubt;--by law he would have such power. But the magistrates would be very loath to assist him. The feeling of the community, as I said, would be in your favour. She would be cowed, and when once she was away from him he would probably feel averse to increase our enmity by taking strong measures for her recovery.' Mrs. Bolton seemed to declare by her face that it would be quite impossible for him to increase her enmity.
'But we can't lock her up,' said the old man.
'Practically you can. Take her bonnet away,--or whatever she came in. Don't let there be a vehicle to carry her back. Let the keys be turned if it be necessary. The servants must know of course what you are doing; but they will probably be on your side. I don't mean to say that if she be resolute to escape at any cost you can prevent her. But probably she will not be resolute like that. It requires a deal of resolution for a young woman to show herself in the streets alone in so wretched a plight as hers. It depends on her disposition.'
'She is very determined,' said Hester's mother.
'And you can be equally so.' To this assertion Mrs. Bolton assented with a little nod. 'You can only try it. It is one of those cases in which, unfortunately, publicity cannot be avoided. We have to do the best we can for her, poor dear, according to our conscience. I should induce her to come on a visit to her mother, and then I should, if possible, detain her.'
It was thus that William Bolton gave his advice; and as Robert Bolton assented, it was determined that this should be the line of action. Nor can it be said that they were either cruel or unloving in their projected scheme. Believing as they did that the man was not her husband, it must be admitted that it was their duty to take her away from him if possible. But it was not probable that Hester herself would look upon their care of her in the same light. She would beat herself against the bars of her cage; and even should she be prevented from escaping by the motives and reasons which William Bolton had suggested, she would not the less regard her father and mother as wicked tyrants. The mother understood that very well. And she, though she was hard to all the world besides, had never been hard to her girl. No tenderest female bosom that ever panted at injustice done to her offspring was more full than hers of pity, love, and desire. To save her Hester from sin and suffering she would willingly lay down her life. And she knew that in carrying out the scheme that had been proposed she must appear to her girl to be an enemy,--to be the bitterest of all enemies! I have seen a mother force open the convulsively closed jaws of her child in order that some agonising torture might be applied,--which, though agonising, would tend to save her sick infant's life. She did it though, the child shrank from her as from some torturing fiend. This mother resolved that she would do the same,--though her child, too, should learn to hate her.
William Bolton undertook to go out to Folking and give the invitation by which she was to be allured to come to Puritan Grange,--only for a day and night if longer absence was objectionable; only for a morning visit, if no more could be achieved. It was all treachery and falsehood;--a doing of certain evil that possible good might come from it. 'She will hate me for ever, but yet it ought to be done,' said William Bolton; who was a good man, an excellent husband and father, and regarded in his own profession as an honourable trustworthy man.
'She will never stay,' the old man said to his wife, when the others had gone and they two were left together.
'I don't know.'
'I am sure she will never stay.'
'I will try.'
Mrs. Robert said the same thing when the scheme was explained to her. 'Do you think anybody could keep me a prisoner against my will,--unless they locked me up in a cell? Do you think I would not scream?'
The husband endeavoured to explain that the screaming might depend on the causes which had produced the coercion. 'I think you would scream, and scream till you were let loose, if the person locking you up had nothing to justify him. But if you felt that the world would be all against you, then you would not scream and would not be let out.'
Mrs. Robert, however, seemed to think that no one could keep her in any house against her own will without positive bolts, bars, and chains.
In the meantime much had been settled out at Folking, or had been settled at Cambridge, so that the details were known at Folking. Mr. Seely had taken up the case, and had of course gone into it with much more minuteness than Robert Bolton had done. Caldigate owned to the writing of the envelope, and to the writing of the letter, but declared that that letter had not been sent in that envelope. He had written the envelope in some foolish joke while at Ahalala,--he remembered doing it well; but he was quite sure that it had never passed through the Sydney post-office. The letter itself had been written from Sydney. He remembered writing that also, and he remembered posting it at Sydney in an envelope addressed to Mrs. Smith. When Mr. Seely assured him that he himself had seen the post-office stamp of Sydney on the cover, Caldigate declared that it must have been passed through the post-office for fraudulent purposes after it had left his hands. 'Then,' said Mr. Seely, 'the fraud must have been meditated and prepared three years ago,--which is hardly probable.'
As to the letter from the clergyman, Allan, of which Mr. Seely had procured a copy, Caldigate declared that it had certainly never been addressed to him. He had never received any letter from Mr. Allan,--had never seen the man's handwriting. He was quite sure that if he were in New South Wales he could get a dozen people to swear that there had never been such a marriage at Ahalala. He did name many people, especially Dick Shand. Then Mr. Seely proposed to send out an agent to the colony, who should take the depositions of such witnesses as he could find, and who should if possible bring Dick Shand back with him. And, at whatever cost, search should be made for Mr. Allan; and Mr. Allan should, if found, be brought to England, if money could bring him. If Mr. Allan could not be found, some document written by him might perhaps be obtained with reference to his handwriting. But, through it all, Mr. Seely did believe that there had been some marriage ceremony between his client and Mrs. Euphemia Smith.
All this, down to the smallest detail, was told to Hester,--Hester Bolton or Hester Caldigate, whichever she might be. And there was no word uttered by the man she claimed as her husband which she did not believe as though it were gospel.
| {
"id": "11643"
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31 | None | Hester Is Lured Back On the Monday morning, Mr. William Bolton, the barrister, who had much to his own inconvenience remained at Cambridge for the purpose of carrying out the scheme which he had proposed, went over to Folking in a fly. He had never been at the place before, and was personally less well acquainted with the family into which his sister had married than any other Bolton. Had everything been pleasant, nothing could have been more natural than such a visit; but as things were very far from pleasant Hester was much surprised when he was shown into her room. It had been known to Robert Bolton that Caldigate now came every day into Cambridge to see either his lawyer or his father, and that therefore he would certainly not be found at home about the middle of the day. It was henceforth to be a law with all the Boltons, at any rate till after the trial, that they would not speak to, or if possible see, John Caldigate. Not without very strong cause would William Bolton have entered his house, but that strong cause existed.
'Oh, William! I am so glad to see you,' said Hester, rushing into her brother's arms.
'I too am glad to see you, Hester, though the time is so sad to us all.'
'Yes; yes. It is sad;--oh, so sad! Is it not terrible that there should be people so wicked, and that they should be able to cause so much trouble to innocent persons.'
'With all my heart I feel for you,' said the brother, caressing his young sister.
With quickest instinct she immediately perceived that a slight emphasis given to the word 'you' implied the singular number. She drew herself back a little, still feeling, however, that no offence had as yet been committed against which she could express her indignation. But it was necessary that a protest should be made at once. 'I am so sorry that my husband is not here to welcome you. He has gone into Cambridge to fetch his father. Poor Mr. Caldigate is so troubled by all this that he prefers now to come and stay with us.'
'Ah, indeed! I dare say it will be better that the father and the son should be together.'
'Father and son, or even mother and daughter, are not like husbands and wives, are they?'
'No; they are not,' said the barrister, not quite knowing how to answer so very self-evident a proposition, but understanding accurately the line of thought which had rendered it necessary for the poor creature to reassert at every moment the bond by which she would fain be bound to the father of her child.
'But Mr. Caldigate is so good,--so good and gentle to me and baby, that I am delighted that he should be here with John. You know of all this.'
'Yes, I know, of course.'
'And will feel all that John has to suffer.'
'It is very bad, very bad for everybody concerned. By his own showing, his conduct----' 'William,' said she, 'let this be settled in one word. I will not hear a syllable against my husband from you or any one else. I am delighted to see you,--I cannot tell you how delighted. Oh, if papa would come,--or mamma! Dear, dear mamma! You don't suppose but what I love you all!'
'I am sure you do.'
'But not from papa or mamma even will I hear a word against him. Would Fanny,'--Fanny was the barrister's wife--'let her people come and say things behind your back?'
'I hope not.'
'Then, believe that I can be as stout as Fanny. But we need not quarrel. You will come and see baby, and have some lunch. I am afraid they will not be here till three or four, but they will be so glad to see you if you will wait.'
He would not wait, of course; but he allowed himself to be taken away to see baby, and did eat his lunch. Then he brought forward the purport of his mission. 'Your mother is most anxious to see you, Hester. You will go and visit her?'
'Oh, yes,' said Hester, unaware of any danger. 'But I wish she would come to me.'
'My dear girl, as things are at present that is impossible. You can understand as much as that. There must be a trial.'
'I suppose so.'
'And till that has been held your mother would be wrong to come here. I express no judgment against any one.'
'I should have thought mamma would have been the first to support me,--me and baby,' she said sobbing.
'Certainly, if you were homeless--' 'But I am not. My husband gives me a house to live in, and I want none other.'
'What I wish to explain is that if you were in want of anything--' 'I am in want of nothing--but sympathy.'
'You have it from me and from all of us. But pray, listen for a moment. She cannot come to you till the trial be over. I am sure Mr. Caldigate would understand that.'
'He comes to me,' she said, alluding to her father-in-law, and not choosing to understand that her brother should have called her husband 'Mr. Caldigate.'
'But there can be no reason why you should not go to Chesterton.'
'Just to see mamma?'
'For a day or two,' he replied, blushing inwardly at his own lie. 'Could you go to-morrow?'
'Oh no;--not to stay. Of course I must ask my husband. I'm sure he'll let me go if I ask it, but not to-morrow. Why to-morrow?'
'Only that your mother longs to see you.' He had been specially instigated to induce her to come as soon as possible. 'You may imagine how anxious she is.'
'Poor mamma! Yes;--I know she suffers. I know mamma's feelings. Mamma and I must, must, must quarrel if we talk about this. Of course I will go to see her. But will you tell her this,--that if she cannot speak of my husband with affection and respect it will be better that--she should not mention him at all. I will not submit to a word even from her.'
When he took his departure it was settled that she should, with her husband's permission, go over to Chesterton for a couple of nights in the course of the next week; but that she could not fix the day till she had seen him. Then, when he was taking his departure and kissing her once again, she whispered a word to him. 'Try and be charitable, William. I sometimes think that at Chesterton we hardly knew what charity meant.'
That evening the proposed visit to Chesterton was discussed at Folking. The old man had very strongly taken up his son's side, and was of opinion that the Boltons were not only uncharitable, but perversely ill-conditioned in the view which they took. To his thinking, Crinkett, Adamson, and the woman were greedy, fraudulent scoundrels, who had brought forward this charge solely with the view of extorting money. He declared that the very fact that they had begun by asking for money should have barred their evidence before any magistrates. The oaths of the four 'scoundrels' were, according to him, worth nothing. The scrap of paper purporting to be a copy of the marriage certificate, and the clergyman's pretended letter, were mere forgeries, having about them no evidence or probability of truth. Any one could have written them. As to that envelope addressed to Mrs. Caldigate, with the Sydney postmark, he had his own theory. He thought but little of the intercourse which his son acknowledged with the woman, but was of opinion that his son 'had been an ass' in writing those words. But a man does not marry a woman by simply writing his own name with the word mistress prefixed to it on an envelope. Any other woman might have adduced the envelope as evidence of his marriage with her! It was, he said, monstrous that any one should give credence to such bundles of lies. Therefore his words were gospel, and his wishes were laws to Hester. She clung round him, and hovered over him, and patted him like a very daughter, insisting that he should nurse the baby, and talking of him to her husband as though he were manifestly the wisest man in Cambridgeshire. She forgot even that little flaw in his religious belief. To her thinking at the present moment, a man who would believe that her baby was the honest son of an honest father and mother had almost religion enough for all purposes.
'Quite right that you should go,' said the old man.
'I think so,' said the husband, 'though I am afraid they will trouble her.'
'The only question is whether they will let her come back.'
'What!' exclaimed Hester.
'Whether they won't keep you when they've got you.'
'I won't be kept. I will come back. You don't suppose I'd let them talk me over?'
'No, my dear; I don't think they'll be able to do that. But there are such things as bolts and bars.'
'Impossible!' said his son.
'Do you mean that they'll send me to prison?' asked Hester.
'No; they can't do that. They wouldn't take you in at the county jail, but they might make a prison of Puritan Grange. I don't say they will, but they might try it.'
'I should get out, of course.'
'I daresay you would; but there might be trouble.'
'Papa would not allow that,' said Hester. 'Papa understands better than that. I've a right to go where I like, just as anybody else;--that is, if John tells me.' The matter was discussed at some length, but John Caldigate was of opinion that no such attempt as the old man had suggested was probable,--or even possible. The idea that in these days any one should be kept a prisoner in a private house,--any one over whom no one in that house possessed legitimate authority,--seemed to him to be monstrous. That a husband should lock up his wife might be possible, or a father his unmarried and dependent daughter; but that any one should venture to lock up another man's wife was, he declared, out of the question. Mr. Caldigate again said that he should not be surprised if it were attempted; but acknowledged that the attempt could hardly be successful.
As Hester was anxious to make the visit, it was arranged that she should go. It was not that she expected much pleasure even in seeing her mother;--but that it was expedient at such a time to maintain what fellowship might still be possible with her own family. The trial would of course liberate them from all their trouble; and then, when the trial should be over, it would be very sad if an entire rupture between herself and her parents should have been created. She would be true to her husband; as true as a part must be to the whole, as the heart must to the brain. They two were, and ever would be, one. But if her mother could be spared to her, if she could be saved from a lasting quarrel with her mother, it would be so much to her! Tears came into the eyes even of the old man as he assented; and her husband swore to her that for her sake he would forgive every injury from any one bearing the name of Bolton when all this should be over.
A day was therefore fixed, and a note was written, and on the last day of February she and her baby and her nurse were taken over to Puritan Grange. In the meantime telegrams at a very great cost had been flying backwards and forwards between Cambridge and Sydney. William and Robert Bolton had determined among them that, at whatever expense to the family, the truth must be ascertained; and to this the old banker had assented. So far they were right, no doubt. If the daughter and sister was not in truth a wife,--if by grossest, by most cruel ill-usage she had been lured to a ruin for which there could be no remedy in this world,--it would be better that the fact should be known at once, so that her life might be pure though it could never again be bright. But it was strange that, with all these Boltons, there was a desire, an anxiety, to prove the man's guilt rather than his innocence. Mrs. Bolton had always regarded him as a guilty man,--though guilty of she knew not what. She had always predicted misery from a marriage so distasteful to her; and her husband, though he had been brought to oppose her and to sanction the marriage, had, from the moment in which the sanction was given, been induced by her influence to reject it. Robert Bolton, when the charge was first made, when the letter from the woman was first shown to him, had become aware that he had made a mistake in allowing this trouble to come upon the family; and then, as from point to point the evidence had been opened out to him, he had gradually convinced himself that the son-in-law and brother-in-law, whom he had, as it were, forced into the family, was a bigamist. There was present to them all an intense desire to prove the man's guilt, which was startling to all around who heard anything of the matter. Up to this time the Bolton telegrams and the Caldigate telegrams had elicited two facts,--that Allan the Wesleyan minister had gone to the Fiji Islands and had there died, and that they at Nobble who had last known Dick Shand's address, now knew it no longer. Caldigate had himself gone to Pollington, and had there ascertained that no tidings had been received from Dick by any of the Shand family for the last twelve months. It had been decided that the trial must be postponed at any rate till the summer assizes, which would be held in Cambridge about the last week in August; and it was thought by some that even then the case would not be ready. There was, no doubt, an opinion prevalent in Cambridge that the unfortunate young mother should be taken home to her own family till the matter should be decided; and among the ladies of the town John Caldigate himself was blamed severely for not allowing her to place herself under her father's protection; but the ladies of the town generally were not probably well acquainted with the disposition and temper of the young wife herself.
Things were in this condition when Hester and her baby went to her father's house. Though that suspicion as to some intended durance which Mr. Caldigate had expressed was not credited by her, still, as she was driven up to the house, the idea was in her mind. She looked at the door and she looked at the window, and she could not conceive it possible that such a thing should be attempted. She thought of her own knowledge of the house; how, if it were necessary, she could escape from the back of the garden into the little field running down to the river, and how she could cross the ferry. Of course she knew every outlet and inlet about the place, and was sure that confinement would be impossible. But she did not think of her bonnet nor of her boots, nor of the horror which it would be to her should she be driven to wander forth into the town, and to seek a conveyance back to Folking in the public streets.
She went on a Monday with an understanding that she was to remain there till Wednesday. Mrs. Bolton almost wished that a shorter visit had been arranged in order that she might at once commence her hostile operations without any intermediate and hypocritical pretences. She had planned her campaign thoroughly in her own mind, and had taken the cook into her confidence, the cook being the oldest and most religious servant in the house. When the day of departure should have come the cook was to lock the doors, and the gardener was to close the little gate at the bottom of the garden; and the bonnet and other things were to be removed, and then the mother would declare her purpose. But in the meantime allusions to that intended return to Folking must be accepted, and listened to with false assent. It was very grievous, but so it was arranged. As soon as Hester was in the house the mother felt how much better it would have been to declare to her daughter at once that she was a prisoner;--but it was then too late to alter their proposed plans.
It very nearly came to pass that Hester left her mother on the morning of her arrival. They had both determined to be cautious, reticent, and forbearing but the difference between them was so vital that reticence was impossible. At first there was a profusion of natural tears, and a profusion of embraces. Each clung to the other for a while as though some feeling might be satisfied by mere contact; and then the woe of the thing, the woe of it, was acknowledged on both sides! They could agree that the wickedness of the wicked was very wicked. Wherever might lie the sin of fraud and falsehood, the unmerited misfortunes of poor Hester were palpable enough. They could weep together over the wrongs inflicted on that darling baby. But by degrees it was impossible to abstain from alluding to the cause of their sorrow;--and such allusion became absolutely necessary when an attempt was made to persuade Hester to remain at her old home with her own consent. This was done by her father on the evening of her arrival, in compliance with the plan that had been arranged. 'No, papa, no; I cannot do that,' she said, with a tone of angry determination.
'It is your duty, Hester. All your friends will tell you so.'
'My duty is to my husband,' she said, 'and in such a matter I can allow myself to listen to no other friend.' She was so firm and fixed in this that he did not even dare to go on with his expostulation.
But afterwards, when they were upstairs together, Mrs. Bolton spoke out more at length and with more energy. 'Mamma, it is of no use,' said Hester.
'It ought to be of use. Do you know the position in which you are?'
'Very well. I am my husband's wife.'
'If it be so, well. But if it be not so, and if you remain with him while there is a doubt upon the matter, then you are his mistress.'
'If I am not his wife, then I will be his mistress,' said Hester, standing up and looking as she spoke much as her mother would look in her most determined moments.
'My child!'
'What is the use of all this, mamma? Nothing shall make me leave him. Others may be ashamed of me; but because of this I shall never be ashamed of myself. You are ashamed of me!'
'If you could mean what you said just now I should be ashamed of you.'
'I do mean it. Though the juries and the judges should say that he was not my husband, though all the judges in England should say it, I would not believe them. They may put him in prison and so divide us; but they never shall divide my bone from his bone, and my flesh from his flesh. As you are ashamed of me, I had better go back to-morrow.'
Then Mrs. Bolton determined that early in the morning she would look to the bolts and bars; but when the morning came matters had softened themselves a little.
| {
"id": "11643"
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32 | None | The Babington Wedding It is your duty,--especially your duty,--to separate them.' This was said by Mr. Smirkie, the vicar of Plum-cum-Pippin, to Mr. Bromley, the rector of Utterden, and the words were spoken in the park at Babington where the two clergymen were taking a walk together. Mr. Smirkie's first wife had been a Miss Bromley, a sister of the clergyman at Utterden; and as Julia Babington was anxious to take to her bosom all her future husband's past belongings, Mr. Bromley had been invited to Babington. It might be that Aunt Polly was at this time well inclined to exercise her hospitality in this direction by a feeling that Mr. Bromley would be able to talk to them about this terrible affair. Mr. Bromley was intimate with John Caldigate, and of course would know all about it. There was naturally in Aunt Polly's heart a certain amount of self-congratulation at the way in which things were going. Mr. Smirkie, no doubt, had had a former wife, but no one would call him a bigamist. In what a condition might her poor Julia have been but for that interposition of Providence! For Aunt Polly regarded poor Hester Bolton as having been quite a providential incident, furnished expressly for the salvation of Julia. Hitherto Mr. Bromley had been very short in his expressions respecting the Folking tragedy, having simply declared that, judging by character, he could not conceive that a man such as Caldigate would have been guilty of such a crime. But now he was being put through his facings more closely by his brother-in-law.
'Why should I want to separate them?'
'Because the evidence of his guilt is so strong.'
'That is for a jury to judge.'
'Yes; and if a jury should decide that there had been no Australian marriage,--which I fear we can hardly hope;--but if a jury were to decide that, then of course she could go back to him. But while there is a doubt, I should have thought, Tom, you certainly would have seen it, even though you never have had a wife of your own.'
'I think I see all that there is to see,' said the other. 'If the poor lady has been deceived and betrayed, no punishment can be too heavy for the man who has so injured her. But the very enormity of the iniquity makes me doubt it. As far as I can judge, Caldigate is a high-spirited, honest gentleman, to whom the perpetration of so great a sin would hardly suggest itself.'
'But if,--but if--! Think of her condition, Tom!'
'You would have to think of your own, if you were to attempt to tell her to leave him.'
'That means that you are afraid of her.'
'It certainly means that I should be very much afraid if I thought of taking such a liberty. If I believed it to be my duty, I hope that I would do it.'
'You are her clergyman.'
'Certainly. I christened her child. I preach to her twice every Sunday. And if she were to die I should bury her.'
'Is that all?'
'Pretty nearly;--except that I generally dine at the house once a week.'
'Is there nothing further confided to you than that?'
'If she were to come to me for advice, then it would be my duty to give her what advice I thought to be best; and then--' 'Well, then?'
'Then I should have to make up my mind,--which I have not done at present,--I should have to make up my mind, not as to his guilt, for I believe him to be innocent, but as to the expediency of a separation till a jury should have acquitted him. But I am well aware that she won't come to me; and from little words which constantly drop from her, I am quite sure that nothing would induce her to leave her husband but a direct command from himself.'
'You might do it through him.'
'I am equally sure that nothing would induce him to send her away.'
But such a conviction as this was not sufficient for Mr. Smirkie. He was alive to the fact,--uncomfortably alive to the fact,--that the ordinary life of gentle-folk in England does not admit of direct clerical interference. As a country clergyman, he could bestow his admonitions upon his poorer neighbours; but upon those who were well-to-do he could not intrude himself unasked, unless, as he thought, in cases of great emergency. Here was a case of very great emergency. He was sure that he would have courage for the occasion if Folking were within the bounds of Plum-cum-Pippin. It was just the case in which counsel should be volunteered;--in which so much could be said which would be gross impertinence from others though it might be so manifest a duty to a clergyman! But Mr. Bromley could not be aroused to a sense either of his duty or of his privileges. All this was sad to Mr. Smirkie, who regretted those past days in which, as he believed, the delinquent soul had been as manifestly subject to ecclesiastical interference as the delinquent body has always been to the civil law.
But with Julia, who was to be his wife, he could be more imperative. She was taught to give thanks before the throne of grace because she had been spared the ignominy of being married to a man who could not have made her his wife, and had had an unstained clergyman of the Church of England given to her for her protection. For with that candour which is so delightful, and so common in these days, everything had been told to Mr. Smirkie,--how her young heart had for a time turned itself towards her cousin, how she had been deceived, and then how rejoiced she was that by such deceit she had been reserved for her present more glorious fate. 'And won't Mr. Bromley speak to her?' Julia asked.
'It is a very difficult question,--a very difficult question, indeed,' said Mr. Smirkie, shaking his head. He was quite sure that were Folking in his parish he would perform the duty, though Mr. Caldigate and the unfortunate lady might be as a lion and a lioness in opposition to him; but he was also of opinion that sacerdotal differences of opinion should not be discussed among laymen,--should not be discussed by a clergyman even with the wife of his bosom.
At Babington opinion was somewhat divided. Aunt Polly and Julia were of course certain that John Caldigate had married the woman in Australia. But the two other girls and their father were not at all so sure. Indeed, there had been a little misunderstanding among the Babingtons on the subject, which was perhaps strengthened by the fact that Mr. Smirkie had more endeared himself to Julia's mother than to Julia's father or sisters, and that Mr. Smirkie himself was very clear as to the criminality of the bigamist. 'I suppose you are often there,' Mr. Babington said to his guest, the parson of Utterden.
'Yes; I have seen a good deal of them.'
'Do you think it possible?'
'Not probable,' said the clergyman.
'I don't,' said the Squire. 'I suppose he was a little wild out there, but that is a very different thing from bigamy. Young men, when they get out to those places, are not quite so particular as they ought to be, I daresay. When I was young, perhaps I was not as steady as I ought to have been. But, by George! here is a man comes over and asks for a lot of money; and then the woman asks for money; and then they say that if they don't get it, they'll swear the fellow was married in Australia. I can't fancy that any jury will believe that.'
'I hope not.'
'And yet, Madame,'--the Squire was in the habit of calling his wife Madame when he intended to insinuate anything against her,--'has got it settled in her head that this young woman isn't his wife at all. I think it's uncommon hard. A man ought to be considered innocent till he has been found guilty. I shall go over and see him one of these days, and say a kind word to her.'
There was at that moment some little difference of opinion, which was coming to a head in reference to a very delicate matter. When the conversations above related took place, the Babington wedding had been fixed to take place in a week's time. Should cousin John be invited, or should he not? Julia was decidedly against it. 'She did not think,' she said, 'that she could stand up at the altar and conduct herself on an occasion so trying if she were aware that he were standing by her.' Mr. Smirkie, of course, was not asked,--was not directly asked. But equally, of course, he was able to convey his own opinion through his future bride. Aunt Polly thought that the county would be shocked if a man charged with bigamy was allowed to be present at the marriage. But the Squire was a man who could have an opinion of his own; and after having elicited that of Mr. Bromley, insisted that the invitation should be sent.
'It will be a pollution,' said Julia, sternly, to her younger sisters.
'You will be a married woman almost before you have seen him,' said Georgiana, the second, 'and so it won't matter so much to you. We must get over it as we can.'
Julia had been thought by her sisters not to bear the Smirkie triumph with sufficient humility; and they, therefore, were sometimes a little harsh to her. 'I don't think you understand it at all,' said Julia. 'You have no conception what should be the feelings of a married woman, especially when she is going to become the wife of one of God's ministers.'
But in spite of all this, Aunt Polly wrote to her nephew as follows:-- 'Dear John,--Our dearest Julia is to be married on Tuesday next. You know how anxious we all have been to maintain affectionate family relations with you, and we therefore do not like the idea of our sweet child passing from her present sphere to other duties without your presence. Will you come over on Monday evening, and stay till after the breakfast? It is astonishing how many of our friends from the two counties have expressed their wish to grace the ceremony by their company. I doubt whether there is a clergyman in the diocese of Ely more respected and thought of by all the upper classes than Augustus Smirkie.
'I do not ask Mrs. Caldigate, because, under present circumstances, she would not perhaps wish to go into company, and because Augustus has never yet had an opportunity of making her acquaintance. I will only say that it is the anxious wish of us all here that you and she together may soon see the end of these terrible troubles. --Believe me to be, your affectionate aunt, 'Maryanne Babington.'
The writing of this letter had not been effected without much difficulty. The Squire himself was not good at the writing of letters, and, though he did insist on seeing this epistle, so that he might be satisfied that Caldigate had been asked in good faith, he did not know how to propose alterations. 'That's all my eye,' he said, referring to his son-in-law that was to be. 'He's as good as another, but I don't know that he's any better.'
'That, my dear,' said Aunt Polly, 'is because you do not interest yourself about such matters. If you had heard what the Archdeacon said of him the other day, you would think differently.'
'He's another parson,' said the Squire. 'Of course they butter each other up.' Then he went on to the other paragraph. 'I wouldn't have said anything about his wife.'
'That would not have been civil,' said Aunt Polly; 'and as you insist on my asking him, I do not wish to be rude.' And so the letter was sent as it was written.
It reached Caldigate on the day which Hester was passing with her mother at Chesterton,--on the Tuesday. She had left Folking on the Monday, intending to return on the Wednesday. Caldigate was therefore alone with his father. 'They might as well have left that undone,' said he, throwing the letter over the table.
'It's about the silliest letter I ever read,' said the old Squire; 'but it is intended for civility. She means to show that she does not condemn you. There are many people who do not know when to speak and when to be silent. I shouldn't go.'
'No, I shan't go.'
'But I should take it as meant in kindness.'
Then John Caldigate wrote back as follows:--'All this that has befallen my wife and me prevents us from going anywhere. She is at the present moment with her own people at Chesterton, but when she returns I shall not leave her. Give my kindest love to Julia, and ask her from me to accept the little present which I send her.'
Julia declared that she would much rather not have accepted the brooch, and that she would never wear it. But animosity against such articles wears itself out quickly, and it may be expected that the little ornament will be seen in the houses of the Suffolk gentry among whom Mr. Smirkie is so popular.
Whether it was Mr. Smirkie's popularity, or the general estimation in which the Babington family were held, or the delight which is taken by the world at large in weddings, there was a very great gathering at Babington church, and in the Squire's house afterwards. Though it was early in March,--a time of the year which, in the eastern counties of England, is not altogether propitious to out-of-doors festivity,--though the roads were muddy, and the park sloppy, and the church abominably open to draughts, still there was a crowd. The young ladies in that part of the world had been slow in marrying lately, and it was felt that the present occasion might give a little fillip to the neighbourhood. This was the second Suffolk young lady that Mr. Smirkie had married, and he was therefore entitled to popularity. He certainly had done as much as he could, and there was probably no one around who had done more.
'I think the dear child will be happy,' said Mrs. Babington to her old friend, Mrs. Munday,--the wife of Archdeacon Munday, the clerical dignitary who had given Mr. Smirkie so good a character.
'Of course she will,' said Mrs. Munday, who had already given three daughters in marriage to three clergymen, and who had, as it were, become used to the transfer.
'And that she will do her duty in it.'
'Why not? There's nothing difficult in it if she only sees that he has his surplice and bands properly got up. He is not, on the whole, a bad-tempered man; and though the children are rough, they'll grow out of that. And she ought to make him take two, or perhaps three, glasses of port wine on Sundays. Mr. Smirkie is not as young as he used to be, and two whole duties, with the Sunday school, which must be looked into, do take a good deal out of a man. The archdeacon, of course, has a curate; but I suppose Mr. Smirkie could hardly manage that just at present?'
The views which had hitherto been taken at Babington of the bride's future life had been somewhat loftier than this. The bands and the surplice and the port wine seemed to be small after all that had been said. The mother felt that she was in some degree rebuked,--not having yet learned that nothing will so much lessen the enthusiasm one may feel for the work of a barrister, or a member of Parliament, or a clergyman, as a little domestic conversation with the wife of the one or the other. But Mrs. Munday was a lady possessing much clerical authority, and that which she said had to be endured with equanimity.
Mr. Smirkie seemed to enjoy the occasion, and held his own through the day with much dignity, The archdeacon, and the clergyman of the parish, and Mr. Bromley, all assisted, and nothing was wanting of outward ceremony which a small country church could supply. When his health was drunk at the breakfast he preached quite a little sermon as he returned thanks, holding his bride's hands in his the while, performing his part in the scene in a manner which no one else would have dared to attempt.
Then there was the parting between the mother and daughter, upstairs, before she was taken away for her ten days' wedding-tour to Brighton. 'My darling;--it is not so far but that I can come and see you very often.'
'Pray do, mamma.'
'And I think I can help you with the children.'
'I am not a bit afraid of them, mamma. I intend to have my way with them, and that will be everything. I don't mean to be weak. Of course Augustus will do what he thinks best in the parish, but he quite understands that I am to be mistress at home. As for Mrs. Munday, mamma, I don't suppose that she knows everything. I believe I can manage quite as well as Mrs. Munday.'
Then there was a parting joint congratulation that she had not yielded to the allurements of her cousin, John Caldigate. 'Oh, no, mamma; that would never have done.'
'Think where you might have been now!'
'I am sure I should have found out his character in time and have broken from him, let it have cost what it might. A man that can do such things as that is to me quite horrible. What is to become of her, and her baby;--and, perhaps, two,' she added in a whisper, holding up her hands and shaking her head. The ceremony through which she had just passed had given her courage to hint at such a possibility. 'I suppose she'll have to be called Miss Bolton again.' Of course there was some well-founded triumph in the bosom of the undoubted Mrs. Augustus Smirkie as she remembered what her own fate might have been. Then she was carried away in the family carriage amidst a deluge of rice and a shower of old shoes.
That same night Mr. Bromley gave an account of the wedding to John Caldigate at Folking, telling him how well all the personages had performed their parts. 'Poor Julia! she at any rate will be safe.'
'Safe enough, I should think,' said the clergyman.
'What I mean is that she has no dangers to fear such as my poor wife has encountered. Whomever I think of now I cannot but compare them to ourselves. No woman surely was ever so ill-used as she, and no man ever so unfortunate as myself.'
'It will be all over in August.'
'And where shall I be? My own lawyer tells me that it is too probable that I shall be in prison. And where will she be then?'
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
33 | None | Persuasion Early on the Tuesday morning Hester came down into the breakfast parlour at Puritan Grange, having with difficulty persuaded herself that she would stay the appointed hours in her mother's house. On the previous evening her mother had, she thought, been very hard on her, and she had determined to go. She would not stay even with her mother, if her mother insisted upon telling her that she was not her husband's wife. But during the night she was able to persuade herself to bear what had been already said,--to let it be as though it had been forgotten. Her mother was her mother. But she would bear no more. As to herself and her own conduct her parents might say what they pleased to her. But of her husband she would endure to hear no evil word spoken. In this spirit she came down into the little parlour.
Mrs. Bolton was also up,--had been up and about for some time previous. She was a woman who never gave way to temptations of ease. A nasty dark morning at six o'clock, with just light enough to enable her to dress without a candle, with no fire and no hot water, with her husband snoring while she went through her operations, was to her thinking the proper condition of things for this world. Not to be cold, not to be uncomfortable, not to strike her toes against the furniture because she could not quite see what she was about, would to her have been to be wicked. When her daughter came into the parlour, she had been about the house for more than an hour, and had had a conference both with the cook and with the gardener. The cook was of opinion that not a word should be said, or an unusual bolt drawn, or a thing removed till the Wednesday. 'She can't carry down her big box herself, ma'am; and the likes of Miss Hester would never think of going without her things;--and then there's the baby.' A look of agony came across the mother's face as she heard her daughter called Miss Hester;--but in truth the woman had used the name from old association, and not with any reference to her late young mistress's present position. 'I should just tell her flat on Wednesday morning that she wasn't to stir out of this, but I wouldn't say nothing at all about any of it till then.' The gardener winked and nodded his head, and promised to put a stake into the ground behind the little wicket-gate which would make the opening of it impossible. 'But take my word for it, ma'am, she'll never try that. She'll be a deal too proud. She'll rampage at the front door, and 'll despise any escaping like.' That was the gardener's idea, and the gardener had long known the young lady. By these arguments Mrs. Bolton was induced to postpone her prison arrangements till the morrow.
When she found her daughter in the small parlour she had settled much in her mind. During the early morning,--that is, till Mr. Bolton should have gone into Cambridge,--not a word should be said about the marriage. Then when they two would be alone together, another attempt should be made to persuade Hester to come and live at Chesterton till after the trial. But even in making that attempt no opinion should be expressed as to John Caldigate's wickedness, and no hint should be given as to the coming incarceration. 'Did you bring baby down with you?' the grandmother asked. No; baby had been awake ever so long, and then had gone to sleep again, and the nurse was now with him to protect him from the sufferings incident to waking. 'Your papa will be down soon, and then we will have breakfast,' said Mrs. Bolton. After that there was silence between them for some time.
A bond of discord, if the phrase may be allowed, is often quite as strong as any bond coming from concord and agreement. There was to both these women a subject of such paramount importance to each that none other could furnish matter of natural conversation. The one was saying to herself ever and always, 'He is my husband. Let the outside world say what it may, he is my husband.' But the other was as constantly denying to herself this assertion and saying, 'He is not her husband. Certainly he is not her husband.' And as to the one the possession of that which she claimed was all the world, and as to the other the idea of the possession without true possession entailed upon her child pollution, crime, and ignominy, it was impossible but that the mind of each should be too full to admit of aught but forced expressions on other matters. It was in vain for them to attempt to talk of the garden, the house, the church, or of the old man's health. It was in vain even to attempt to talk of the baby. There are people who, however full their hearts may be, full of anger or full of joy, can keep the fulness in abeyance till a chosen time for exhibiting it shall come. But neither of these two was such a person. Every stiff plait in the elder woman's muslin and crape declared her conviction that John Caldigate was not legally married to her daughter. Every glance of Hester's eye, every motion made with her hands, every little shake of her head, declared her purpose of fighting for that one fact, whatever might be the odds against her.
When the banker came down to breakfast things were better for a little time. The pouring out of his tea mitigated somewhat the starchiness of his wife's severity, and Hester when cutting the loaf for him could seem to take an interest in performing an old duty. He said not a word against Caldigate; and when he went out, Hester, as had been her custom, accompanied him to the gate. 'Of course you will be here when I come,' he said.
'Oh yes; I do not go home till to-morrow.' Then she parted from him, and spent the next hour or two up-stairs with her baby.
'May I come in?' said the mother, knocking at the door.
'Oh yes, mamma. Don't you think baby is very like his father?'
'I dare say. I do not know that I am good at tracing likenesses. He certainly is like you.'
'So much more like his father!' said Hester.
After that there was a pause, and then the mother commenced her task in her most serious voice. 'Hester, my child, you can understand that a duty may become so imperious that it must be performed.'
'Yes,' said Hester, pressing her lips close together 'I can understand that.' There might be a duty very necessary for her to perform, though in the performance of it she should be driven to quarrel absolutely with her own mother.
'So it is with me. Whom do you think I love best in all the world?'
'Papa.'
'I do love your father dearly, and I endeavour, by God's grace, to do my duty by him, though, I fear, it is done imperfectly. But, my child, our hearts, I think, yearn more to those who are younger than ourselves than to our elders. We love best those whom we have cherished and protected, and whom we may perhaps still cherish and protect. When I try to tear my heart away from the things of this vile world, it clings to you--to you--to you!'
Of course this could not be borne without an embrace 'Oh, mamma!' Hester exclaimed, throwing herself on her knees before her mother's lap.
'If you suffer, must not I suffer? If you rejoice, would I not fain rejoice with you if I could? Did I not bring you into the world, my only one, and nursed you, and prayed for you, and watched you with all a mother's care as you grew up among the troubles of the world? Have you not known that my heart has been too soft towards you even for the due performance of my duties?'
'You have always been good to me, mamma.'
'And am I altered now? Do you think that a mother's heart can be changed to her only child?'
'No, mamma.'
'No, Hester. That, I think, is impossible. Though for the last twelve months I have not seen you day by day,--though I have not prepared the food which you eat and the clothes which you wear, as I used to do,--you have been as constantly in my mind. You are still my child, my only child.'
'Mamma, I know you love me.'
'I so love you as to know that I sin in so loving aught that is human. And so loving you, must I not do my duty by you? When love and duty both compel me to speak, how shall I be silent?'
'You have said it, mamma,' said Hester, slowly drawing herself up from off the ground.
'And is saying it once enough, when, as I think, the very soul, the immortal soul, of her who is of all the dearest to me depends on what I may say;--may be saved, or, oh, perhaps lost for ever by the manner in which I may say it! How am I not to speak when such thoughts as these are heavy within me?'
'What is it you would say?' This Hester asked with a low hoarse voice and a stern look, as though she could not resist her mother's prayer for the privilege of speaking; but at the same time was resolutely prepared not to be turned a hair's-breadth by anything that might be said.
'Not a word about him.'
'No, mamma; no. Unless you can tell me that you will love him as your son-in-law.'
'Not a word about him,' she repeated, in a harsher voice. She felt that that promise should have been enough, and that in the present circumstances she should not have been invited to love the man she hated. 'Your father and I wish you for the next few months to come and live with us.'
'It is quite impossible,' said Hester, standing very upright, with a face altogether unlike that she had worn when kneeling at her mother's knees.
'You should listen to me.'
'Yes, I will listen.'
'There will be a trial.'
'Undoubtedly. John, at least, seems to think so. It is possible that these wicked people may give it up, or that they may have no money to go on; but I suppose there will be a trial.'
'The woman has bound herself to prosecute him.'
'Because she wants to get money. But we need not discuss that, mamma. John thinks that there will be a trial.'
'Till that is over, will you not be better away from him? How will it be with you if it should be decided that he is not your husband?' Here Hester of course prepared herself for interruption, but her mother prayed for permission to continue.
'Listen to me for one moment, Hester.'
'Very well, mamma. Go on.'
'How would it be with you in that case? You must be separated then. As that is possible, is it not right that you should obey the ordinances of God and man, and keep yourself apart till they who are in authority shall have spoken?'
'There are no such ordinances.'
'There are indeed. If you were to ask all your friends, all the married women in Cambridgeshire, what would they say? Would they not all tell you that no woman should live with a man while there is a shadow of doubt? And as to the law of God, you know God's law, and can only defend yourself by your own certainty as to a matter respecting which all others are uncertain. You think yourself certain because such certainty is a way to yourself out of your present misery.'
'It is for my child,' she shouted; 'and for him.'
'As for your babe, your darling babe, whether he be yours in joy of heart or in agony of spirit, he is still yours. No one will rob you of him. If it be as we fear, would not I help you to love him, help you to care for him, help you to pray for him? If it were so, would I desert him or you because in your innocence you had been betrayed into misfortune? Do I not feel for your child? But when he grows up and is a man, and will have learned the facts of his early years, let him be able to tell himself that his mother though unfortunate was pure.'
'I am pure,' she said.
'My child, my own one, can I, your mother, think aught else of you? Do I not know your heart? Do not I know the very thoughts within you?'
'I am pure. He has become my husband, and nothing can divide us. I never gave a thought to another man. I never had the faintest liking, as do other girls. When he came and told me that he had seen me and loved me, and would take me for his wife, I felt at once that I was all his,--his to do as he liked with me, his to nourish him, his to worship him, his to obey him, his to love him let father or mother or all the world say what they would to the contrary. Then we were married. Till he was my own, I never even pressed my lips upon his. But I became his wife by a bond that nothing shall break. You tell me of God's law. By God's law I am his wife, let the people say what they will. I have but two to think of.'
'Yourself and him?' asked her mother.
'I have three to think of,--God, and him, and my child; and may God be good to me and them, as in this matter I will put myself away from myself altogether. It is for me to obey him, and I will submit myself to none other. If he bids me go, I will go; if he bids me stay here, I will stay. I have become his so entirely, that no judges--no judges can divide us. Judges! I know but one Judge, and He is there; and He has said that those whom He has joined together, man shall not put asunder. Pure! pure! No one should praise herself, but as a woman I do know that I am pure.'
Then the mother's heart yearned greatly towards her daughter; and yet she was no whit changed. She knew nothing of phrases of logic, but she felt that Hester had begged the whole question. Those whom God had joined together! True, true! If only one could know whether in this or the other case God had joined the couple. As Hester argued the matter, no woman should be taken from the man she had married, though he might have a dozen other wives all living. And she spoke of purity as though it were a virtue which could be created and consecrated simply by the action of her own heart, as though nothing outside,--no ceremony, no ordinance,--could affect it. The same argument would enable her to live with John Caldigate after he should come out of prison, even though, as would then be the case, another woman would have the legal right of calling herself Mrs. John Caldigate! On the previous day she had declared that if she could not be his wife, she would be his mistress. The mother knew what she meant,--that, let people call her by what name they might, she would still be her husband's wife in the eye of God. But she would not be so. And then she would not be pure. And, to Mrs. Bolton, the worst of it was that this cloudiness had come upon her daughter,--this incapacity to reason it out,--because the love of a human being had become so strong within her bosom as to have superseded and choked the love of heavenly things. But how should she explain all this? 'I am not asking you to drop his name.'
'Drop his name! I will never drop it. I cannot drop it. It is mine. I could not make myself anything but Mrs. John Caldigate if I would. And he,' she said, taking the baby up from its cradle and pressing it to her bosom, 'he shall be Daniel Caldigate to the day of his death. Do you think that I will take a step that shall look like robbing my child of his honest name,--that will seem to imply a doubt that he is not his own father's honest boy,--that he is not a fitting heir to the property which his forefathers have owned so long? Never! They may call me what name they will, but I will call myself John Caldigate's wife as long as I have a voice to make myself heard.'
It was the same protest over and over again, and it was vain to answer. 'You will not stay under your father's roof?'
'No; I have to live under my husband's roof.' Then Mrs. Bolton left the room, apparently in anger. Though her heart within might be melting with ruth, still it was necessary that she should assume a look of anger. On the morrow she would have to show herself angry with a vengeance, if she should then still be determined to carry out her plan. And she thought that she was determined. What had pity to do with it, or love, or moving heart-stirring words? Were not all these things temptation from the Evil One, if they were allowed to interfere with the strict line of hard duty? When she left the room, where the young mother was still standing with her baby in her arms, she doubted for some minutes,--perhaps for some half-hour,--then she wrestled with those emanations from the Evil One,--with pity, with love, and suasive tenderness,--and at last overcame them. 'I know I am pure,' the daughter had said. 'I know I am right,' said the mother.
But she spoke a word to her husband when he came home. 'I cannot bend her; I cannot turn her, in the least.'
'She will not stay?'
'Not of her own accord.'
'You have told her?'
'Oh no; not till to-morrow.'
'She ought to stay, certainly,' said the father. There had been very little intercourse between the mother and daughter during the afternoon, and while the three were sitting together, nothing was said about the morrow. The evening would have seemed to be very sad and very silent, had they not all three been used to so many silent evenings in that room. Hester, during her wedding tour and the few weeks of her happiness at Folking, before the trouble had come, had felt a new life and almost an ecstasy of joy in the thorough liveliness of her husband. But the days of her old home were not so long ago that its old manners should seem strange to her. She therefore sat out the hours patiently, stitching some baby's ornament, till her mother told her that the time for prayer had come. After worship her father called her out into the hall as he went up to his room. 'Hester,' he said, 'it is not right that you should leave us to-morrow.'
'I must, papa.'
'I tell you that it is not right. You have a home in which everybody will respect you. For the present you should remain here.'
'I cannot, papa. He told me to go back to-morrow. I would not disobey him now,--not now,--were it ever so.' Then the old man paused as though he were going on with the argument, but finding that he had said all that he had to say, he slowly made his way upstairs.
'Good-night, mamma,' said Hester, returning only to the door of the sitting-room.
'Good-night, my love.' As the words were spoken they both felt that there was something wrong,--much that was wrong. 'I do not think they will do that,' said Hester to herself, as she went up the stairs to her chamber.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
34 | None | Violence It had been arranged at Folking, before Hester had started, that Caldigate himself should drive the waggonette into Cambridge to take her back on the Wednesday, but that he would bring a servant with him who should drive the carriage up to the Grange, so that he, personally, should not have to appear at the door of the house. He would remain at Mr. Seely's, and then the waggonette should pick him up. This had been explained to Mrs. Bolton. 'John will remain in town, because he has so much to do with Mr. Seely,' Hester had said; 'and Richard will call here at about twelve.' All her plans had thus been made known, and Mrs. Bolton was aware at what hour the bolts must be drawn and the things removed.
But, as the time drew nearer, her dislike to a sudden commencement of absolute hostilities became stronger,--to hostilities which would seem to have no sanction from Mr. Bolton himself, because he would then be absent. And he too, though as he lay awake through the dreary hours of the long night he said no word about the plan, felt, and felt more strongly as the dawn was breaking, that it would be mean to leave his daughter with a farewell kiss, knowing as he would do that he was leaving her within prison-bars, leaving her to the charge of jailers. The farewell kiss would be given as though he and she were to meet no more in her old home till this terrible trial should be over, and some word appropriate to such a parting would then be spoken. But any such parting word would be false, and the falsehood would be against his own child! 'Does she expect it?' he said, in a low voice, when his wife came up to him as he was dressing.
'She expects nothing. I am thinking that perhaps you would tell her that she could not go to-day.'
'I could not say "to-day." If I tell her anything, I must tell her all.'
'Will not that be best?' Then the old man thought it all over. It would be very much the best for him not to say anything about it if he could reconcile it to his conscience to leave the house without doing so. And he knew well that his wife was more powerful than he,--gifted with greater persistence, more capable of enduring a shower of tears or a storm of anger. The success of the plan would be more probable if the conduct of it were left entirely to his wife, but his conscience was sore within him.
'You will come with me to the gate,' he said to his daughter, after their silent breakfast.
'Oh yes;--to say good-bye.'
Then he took his hat, and his gloves, and his umbrella, very slowly, lingering in the hall as he did so, while his wife kept her seat firm and square at the breakfast table. Hester had her hat and shawl with her; but Mrs. Bolton did not suspect that she would endeavour to escape now without returning for her child. Therefore she sat firm and square, waiting to hear from Hester herself what her father might bring himself to communicate to her. 'Hester,' he said, as he slowly walked round the sweep in front of the house, 'Hester,' he said, 'you would do your duty best to God and man,--best to John Caldigate and to your child,--by remaining here.'
'How can I unless he tells me?'
'You have your father's authority.'
'You surrendered it when you gave me to him as his wife. It is not that I would rebel against you, papa, but that I must obey him. Does not St. Paul say, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord"?'
'Certainly; and you cannot suppose that in any ordinary case I would interfere between you and him. It is not that I am anxious to take anything from him that belongs to him.' Then, as they were approaching the gate, he stood still. 'But now, in such an emergency as this, when a question has risen as to his power of making you his wife----' 'I will not hear of that. I am his wife.'
'Then it may become my duty and your mother's to--to--to provide you with a home till the law shall have decided.'
'I cannot leave his home unless he bids me.'
'I am telling you of my duty--of my duty and your mother's.' Then he passed out through the gate, thus having saved his conscience from the shame of a false farewell; and she slowly made her way back to the house, after standing for a moment to look after him as he went. She was almost sure now that something was intended. He would not have spoken in that way of his duty unless he had meant her to suppose that he intended to perform it. 'My duty,' he had said, 'my duty and your mother's!' Of course something was intended, something was to be done or said more than had been done or said already. During the breakfast she had seen in the curves of her mother's mouth the signs of some resolute purpose. During the very prayers she had heard in her mother's voice a sound as of a settled determination She knew,--she knew that something was to be done, and with that knowledge she went back into her mother's room, and sat herself down firmly and squarely at the table. She had left her cup partly full, and began again to drink her tea. 'What did your papa say to you?' asked her mother.
'Papa bade me stay here, but I told him that most certainly I should go home to Folking.' Then Mrs. Bolton also became aware of fixed will and resolute purpose on her daughter's part.
'Does his word go for nothing?'
'How can two persons' words go for anything when obedience is concerned? It is like God and Mammon.'
'Hester!'
'If two people tell one differently, it must be right to cling to one and leave the other. No man can serve two masters. I have got to obey my husband. Even were I to say that I would stay, he could come and take me away.'
'He could not do that.'
'I shall not be so disobedient as to make it necessary The carriage will be here at twelve, and I shall go. I had better go and help nurse to put the things up.' So saying she left the room, but Mrs. Bolton remained there a while, sitting square and firm at the table.
It was not yet ten when she slowly followed her daughter up-stairs. She first went into her own room for a moment, to collect her thoughts over again, and then she walked across the passage to her daughter's chamber. She knocked at the door, but entered as she knocked. 'Nurse,' she said, 'will you go into my room for a minute or two? I wish to speak to your mistress. May she take the baby, Hester?' The baby was taken, and then the two were alone. 'Do not pack up your things to-day, Hester.'
'Why not?'
'You are not going to-day.'
'I am going to-day, mamma.'
'That I should seem to be cruel to you,--only seem,--cuts me to the heart. But you cannot go back to Folking to-day.'
'When am I to go?'
'Ah, Hester!'
'Tell me what you mean, mamma. Is it that I am to be a prisoner?'
'If you would be gentle I would explain it.'
'I will not be gentle. You mean to keep me,--by violence; but I mean to go; my husband will come. I will not be kept. Oh, mamma, you would not desire me to quarrel with you openly, before the servants, before all the world! I will not be kept. I will certainly go back to Folking. Would I not go back though I had to get through the windows, to walk the whole way, to call upon the policemen even to help me?'
'No one will help you, Hester. Every one will know that for the present this should be your home.'
'It never shall be my home again,' said Hester, bursting into tears, and rushing after her baby.
Then there were two hours of intense misery in that house,--of misery to all who were concerned. The servants, down to the girl in the scullery and the boy who cleaned the boots, were made aware that master and mistress were both determined to keep their married daughter a prisoner in the house. The servants of the house sided with their mistress generally, having all of them been induced to regard John Caldigate with horror. Hester's nurse, of course, sympathised with her and her baby. During these two hours the packing was completed, but Hester found that her strong walking-boots and her bonnet had been abstracted. Did they really think that at such a time as this boots and bonnets would be anything to her? They could know nothing of her nature. They could not understand the sort of combat she would carry on if an attempt were made to take from her her liberty,--an attempt made by those who had by law no right to control her! When once she had learned what was being done she would not condescend to leave her room till the carriage should have come. That that would come punctually at twelve she was sure. Then she would go down without her bonnet and without her boots, and see whether any one would dare to stand in her way, as with her baby in her arms she would attempt to walk forth through the front door.
But it had not occurred to her that other steps might be taken. Just before twelve the gardener stationed himself on the road before the house,--a road which was half lane and half street, belonging to the suburban village of Chesterton,--and there awaited the carriage at a spot some yards away from the gate. It was well that he was early, because Richard was there a few minutes before the time appointed. 'She ain't a-going back to-day,' said the gardener, laying his hands gently on the horse's back.
'Who ain't not a-going back?' asked the coachman.
'Miss Hester ain't.'
'Mrs. John ain't a-going home?'
'No;--I was to come out and tell you, as master don't like wheels on the gravel if it can be helped. We ain't got none of our own.'
'Missus ain't a-going home? Why, master expects her for certain!'
'I was to say she ain't a-going to-day.'
The man who was driving passed the reins into his whip-hand, and raising his hat, began to scratch his head with the other. He knew at once that there was something wrong,--that this prolonged staying away from home was not merely a pleasantly lengthened visit. His master had been very urgent with him as to punctuality, and was evidently intent upon the return of his wife. All the facts of the accusation were known to the man, and the fact also that his master's present wife was entirely in accord with his master. It could not be that she should have determined to prolong her visit, and then have sent him back to her husband with such a message as this! 'If you'll hold the hosses just a minute,' he said, 'I'll go in and see my missus.'
But the Grange gardener was quite as intent on his side of the question as was the Folking coachman on the other. To him the horrors of bigamy were manifest. He was quite of opinion that 'Miss Hester,'--who never ought to have been married in that way at all,--should now be kept a prisoner in her father's house. 'It ain't no use your going in,--and you can't,' said the gardener. 'I ain't a-going to hold the horses, and there's nobody as will.'
'What's up, mate?'
'I don't know as I'm mate to you, nor yet to no one like you. And as to what's up, I've told you all as I'm bade to tell you; and I ain't a-going to tell you no more. You can't turn your horses there You'd better drive round into the village, and there you'll get the high-road back to Cambridge.' Then the gardener retreated within a little gate of his own which led from the lane into the precincts close to his own cottage. The man was an honest, loyal old fanatic, who would scruple at nothing in carrying out the orders of his mistress in so good a cause. And personally his feelings had been acerbated in that he had been called 'mate' by a man not half his age.
The coachman did as he was bid, seeing before him no other possible course. He could not leave his horses. But when he was in front of the iron gates he stopped and examined the premises. The gates were old, and were opened and closed at ordinary times by an ordinary ancient lock. But now there was a chain passed in and out with a padlock,--evidently placed there to prevent him from entering in opposition to the gardener's instructions. There was clearly no course open to him but to drive the carriage back to his master.
At a quarter before twelve Hester left her own room,--which looked backwards into the garden, as did all the pleasanter rooms of the house,--with the intention of seating herself in a spare room looking out to the front, from which she could have seen the carriage as it entered the gate. Had she so seen it she would certainly have called to the man from the window when he was standing in the road. But the door of that front room was locked against her; and when she tried the other she found that all the front rooms were locked. She knew the house, of course, as well as did her mother, and she rushed up to the attics where the servants occupied the rooms looking out to the road. But they, too, were locked against her. Then it flashed upon her that the attempt to make her a prisoner was to be carried out through every possible detail.
What should she do? Her husband would come of course; but what if he were unable to force an entrance? And how could he force it? Would the police help him? Would the magistrates help him? She knew that the law was on her side, and on his,--that the law would declare him to be her lord and owner till the law should have separated them. But would the law allow itself to be used readily for this purpose? She, too, could understand that the feeling of the community would be against her, and that in such a case the law might allow itself to become slow, lethargic, and perhaps inoperative, yielding to the popular feeling. She saw the points which were strong against her as clearly as William and Robert Bolton had seen those which were strong on their side. But----! As she stood there beating her foot angrily on the floor of the passage, she made up her mind that there should be more than one 'but' in his favour. If they kept her, they should have to lock her up as in a dungeon; they and all the neighbourhood should hear her voice. They should be driven to do such things that the feeling of the community would be no longer on their side.
Various ideas passed through her mind. She thought for a moment that she would refuse to take any nourishment in that house. Her mother would surely not see her die; and would thus have to see her die or else send her forth to be fed. But that thought stayed with her but for a moment. It was not only for herself that she must eat and drink, but for her baby. Then, finding that she could not get to the front windows, and seeing that the time had come in which the carriage should have been there, she went down into the hall, where she found her mother seated on a high-backed old oak armchair. The windows of the hall looked out on to the sweep before the house; but she was well aware that from these lower windows the plot of shrubs in the centre of the space hindered any view of the gate. Without speaking to her mother she put her hand upon the lock of the door as though to walk forth, but found it barred. 'Am I a prisoner?' she said.
'Yes, Hester; yes. If you will use such a word as to your father's house, you are a prisoner.'
'I will not remain so. You will have to chain me, and to gag me, and to kill me. Oh, my baby,--oh, my child! Nurse, nurse, bring me my boy.' Then with her baby in her arms, she sat down in another high-backed oak armchair, looking at the hall-door. There she would sit till her husband should come. He surely would come. He would make his way up to those windows, and there she could at any rate hear his commands. If he came for her, surely she would be able to escape.
The coachman drove back to the town very quickly, and went to the inn at which his horses were generally put up, thinking it better to go to his master thence on foot. But there he found John Caldigate, who had come across from Mr. Seely's office. 'Where is Mrs. Caldigate?' he said, as the man drove the empty carriage down the entrance to the yard. The man, touching his hat, and with a motion of his hand which was intended to check his master's impetuosity, drove on; and then, when he had freed himself from the charge of his horses, told his story with many whispers.
'The gardener said she wasn't to come!'
'Just that, sir. There's something up more than you think, sir; there is indeed. He was that fractious that he wouldn't hold the hosses for me, not for a minute, till I could go in and see, and then------' 'Well?'
'The gates was chained, sir.'
'Chained?'
'A chain was round the bars, and a padlock. I never see such a thing on a gentleman's gate in my life before. Chained; as nobody wasn't to go in, nor yet nobody wasn't to come out!' The man as he said this wore that air of dignity which is always imparted by the possession of great tidings the truth of which will certainly not be doubted.
The tidings were great. The very thing which his father had suggested, and which he had declared to be impossible, was being done. The old banker himself would not, he thought, have dared to propose and carry out such a project. The whole Bolton family had conspired together to keep his wife from him, and had allured her away by the false promise of a friendly visit! He knew, too, that the law was on his side; but he knew also that he might find it very difficult to make use of the law. If the world of Cambridge chose to think that Hester was not his wife, the world of Cambridge would probably support the Boltons by their opinion. But if she, if his Hester, were true to him, and she certainly would be true to him--and if she were as courageous as he believed her to be,--then, as he thought, no house in Chesterton would be able to hold her.
He stood for a moment turning in his mind what he had better do. Then he gave his orders to the man in a clear natural voice. 'Take the horses out, Richard, and feed them. You had better get your dinner here, so that I may be sure to find you here the moment I want you.
'I won't stir a step from the place,' said the man.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
35 | None | In Prison What should he do? John Caldigate, as he walked out of the inn-yard, had to decide for himself what he would do at once. His first impulse was to go to the mayor and ask for assistance. He had a right to the custody of his wife. Her father had no right to make her a prisoner. She was entitled to go whither she pleased, so long as she had his sanction and should she be separated from him by the action of the law, she would be entitled to go whither she pleased without sanction from any one. Whether married or unmarried she was not subject to her father. The husband was sure that he was entitled to the assistance of the police, but he doubted much whether he would be able to get it, and he was most averse to ask for it.
And yet what other step could he take? With no purpose as yet quite fixed, he went to the bank, thinking that he might best commence his work by expostulating with his wife's father. It was Mr. Bolton's habit to walk every morning into the town, unless he was deterred by heat or wet or ill health; and till lately it had been his habit also to walk back, his house being a mile and a half distant from the bank; but latterly the double walk had become too much for him, and, when the time for his return came, he would send out for a cab to take him home. His hours were very various. He would generally lunch at the bank, in his own little dingy room; but if things went badly with him, so as to disturb his mind, he would go back early in the day, and generally pass the afternoon asleep. On this occasion he was very much troubled, so that when Caldigate reached the bank, which he did before one, Mr. Bolton was already getting into his cab. 'Could I speak a few words to you, sir?' said Caldigate in the street.
'I am not very well to-day,' said the banker, hardly looking round, persevering in his effort to get into the vehicle.
'I would not keep you for a minute, sir. I must see you, as you are aware.'
There were already half-a-dozen people collected, all of whom had no doubt heard the story of John Caldigate's wife. There was, indeed, no man or woman in Cambridge whose ears it had not reached. In the hearing of these Mr. Bolton was determined not to speak of his daughter, and he was equally determined not to go back into the house. 'I have nothing to say,' he muttered--'nothing, nothing; drive on.' So the cab was driven on, and John Caldigate was left in the street.
The man's anger now produced a fixed purpose, and with a quick step he walked away from the bank to Robert Bolton's office. There he soon found himself in the attorney's room. 'Are you aware of what they are doing at the Grange?' he asked, in a voice which was not so guarded as it should have been on such an occasion. Anger and the quickness of his walk had combined to make him short of breath, and he asked the question with that flurried, hasty manner which is common to angry people who are hot rather than malicious in their angers.
'I don't think I am,' said the attorney. 'But if I were, I doubt whether I should just at present be willing to discuss their doings with you.'
'My wife has gone there on a visit.'
'I am glad to hear it. It is the best thing that my sister could do.'
'And now it seems some difficulty is made about her returning.'
That I think very likely. Her father and mother can hardly wish that she should go back to your house at present. I cannot imagine that she should wish it herself. If you have the feelings of a gentleman or the heart of a man you ought not to wish it.'
'I have not come here to be taught what is becoming either to a man or a gentleman.'
'If you will allow me to say so, while things are as they are at present, you ought not to come here at all.'
'I should not have done so but for this violence, this breach of all hospitality at your father's house! My wife went there with the understanding that she was to stay for two days.'
'And now, you say, they detain her. I am not responsible; but in doing so they have my thorough sympathy and approbation. I do not know that I can help them, or that they will want my help; but I shall help them if I can. The fact is, you had better leave her there.'
'Never!'
'I should not have volunteered my advice, but, as you are here, I may perhaps say a word. If you attempt to take her by violence from her father's house you will have all the town, all the county, all England against you.'
'I should;--I own it;----unless she wished to come to me. If she chooses to stay, she shall stay.'
'It must not be left to her. If she be so infatuated, she must not be allowed to judge for herself. Till this trial be over, she and you must live apart. Then, if that woman does not make good her claim,--if you can prove that the woman is lying,--then you will have back your wife. But if, as everybody I find believes at present, it should be proved that you are the husband of that woman, and that you have basely betrayed my poor sister by a mock marriage, then she must be left to the care of her father and her mother, and may Heaven help her in her misery.' All this he said with much dignity, and in a manner with which even Caldigate could not take personal offence. 'You must remember,' he added, 'that this poor injured one is their daughter and my sister.'
'I say that she has been in no wise injured but,--as I also am injured,--by a wicked plot. And I say that she shall come back to me, unless she herself elects to remain with her parents.' Then he left the office and went forth again into the streets.
He now took at once the road to Chesterton, trying as he did so to make for himself in his own mind a plan or map of the premises. It would, he thought, be impossible but that his wife would be able to get out of the house and come to him if he could only make her aware of his presence. But then there was the baby, and it would be necessary not only that she should escape herself but that she should bring her child with her. Would they attempt to hold her? Could it be that they should have already locked her up in some room up-stairs? And if she did escape out of some window, even with her baby in her arms, how would it be with them then as they made their way back into the town? Thinking of this he hurried back to the inn and told Richard to take the carriage into Chesterton and wait there at the turn of the lane, where the lane leads down from the main road to the Grange. He was to wait there, though it might be all the day, till he heard from or saw his master. The man, who was quite as keen for his master as was the old gardener for his mistress on the other side, promised accurate obedience. Then he retraced his steps and walked as fast as he could to the Grange.
During all this time the mother and the daughter kept their weary seats in the hall, Hester having her baby in her arms. She had quite determined that nothing should induce her again to go up-stairs,--lest the key of the room should be turned upon her. For a long time they sat in silence, and then she declared her purpose.
'I shall remain here, mamma.'
'If so, I must remain too.'
'I shall not go up to my bedroom again, you may be sure of that.'
'You will go up to-night, I hope.'
'Certainly not. Nurse shall take baby up to his cradle. I do not suppose you will be cruel enough to separate me from my child.'
'Cruel! Do you not know that I would do anything for you or your child,--that I would die for you or your child?'
'I suppose you will let them bring me food here. You would not wish him to be starved.'
'Hester!'
'Well; what would you have me say? Are you not my jailer?'
'I am your mother. According to my conscience I am acting for you as best I know how. Do you not know that I mean to be good to you?'
'I know you are not good to me. Nobody can be good who tries to separate me from my husband. I shall remain here till he comes and tells me how I am to be taken away.' Then Mr. Bolton returned, and made his way into the house with the assistance of the gardener through the kitchen. He found the two women sitting in the hall, each in the high-backed arm-chair, and his daughter with her baby in her arms,--a most piteous sight, the two of them thus together. 'Papa,' she said, as he came up into the hall from the kitchen, 'you are treating me badly, cruelly, unjustly. You have no right to keep me here against my will. I am my husband's wife, and I must go to my husband.'
'It is for the best, Hester.'
'What is wrong cannot be for the best. Do you suppose that he will let me be kept here in prison? Of course he will come. Why do you not let me go?'
'It is right that you should be here, Hester,' he said, as he passed up-stairs to his own bedroom. It was a terrible job of work for which he had no strength whatever himself, and as to which he was beginning to doubt whether even his wife's strength would suffice. As for her, as for Hester, perhaps it would be well that she should be wearied and broken into submission. But it was fearful to think that his wife should have to sit there the whole day saying nothing, doing nothing, merely watching lest her daughter should attempt to escape through some window.
'It will kill your father, I think,' said the mother.
'Why does he not let me go then? I have to think of my husband and my child.' Then again there was silence. When they had been seated thus for two hours, all the words that had been spoken between them had not spread themselves over ten minutes, and Mrs. Bolton was looking forward to hour after hour of the same kind. It did not seem to her to be possible that Hester should be forced up into her own room. Even she, with all her hardihood, could not ask the men about the place to take her in their arms and carry her with violence up the stairs. Nor would the men have done it, if so required. Nothing but a policeman's garb will seem to justify the laying of a hand upon a woman, and even that will hardly do it unless the woman be odiously disreputable. Mrs. Bolton saw clearly what was before her. Should Hester be strong in her purpose to remain seated as at present, she also must remain seated. Weariness and solicitude for her baby might perhaps drive the young mother to bed. Then she also would go to her bed,--and would rest, with one eye ever open, with her ears always on the alert. She was somewhat sure of herself. Her life had not been so soft but that she could endure much,--and of her purpose she was quite sure. Nothing would trouble her conscience if she could succeed in keeping her daughter separated from John Caldigate.
Caldigate in his hot haste walked up to the iron gates and found them chained. It was in vain that he shook them, and in vain that he looked at them. The gates were fully twelve feet high, and spiked at the top. At each side of the gates ran a wall surmounted by iron railings,--extending to the gardener's cottage on the one side, and to the coach-house on the other. The drive up to the house, which swept round a plot of thick shrubs, lay between the various offices,--the stables and coach-house being on one side, and the laundry and gardener's cottage on the other. From the road there was no mode of ingress for him to this enclosure, unless he could get over the railings. This might perhaps have been possible, but it would have been quite impossible for him to bring his wife back by the same way. There was a bell at the gardener's little gate, which he rang loudly; but no one would come to him. At last he made his way round into the kitchen-garden by a corner where access was made by climbing a moderately high gate which gave an entrance to the fields. From thence he had no difficulty in making his way on to the lawn at the back of the house, and up by half-a-dozen stone steps to the terrace which ran along under the windows. Here he found that the lower shutters were barred on the inside throughout so that he could not look into any of the rooms. But he could rap at the windows, which he did loudly, and it was in his power to break them if he pleased. He rapped very loudly; but poor Hester, who sat at the front hall, heard nothing of the noise.
He knew that from the back-garden he could make his way to the front, with more or less of violence. Between the gardener's cottage and the laundry there was a covered passage leading to the front, the buildings above being continuous, but leaving a way through for the convenience of the servants. This, however, was guarded by a trellis-work gate. But even on this gate the gardener had managed to fix a lock. When Caldigate reached the spot the man was standing, idle and observant, at his own cottage door. 'You had better open this gate,' said Caldigate, 'or I shall kick it open.'
'You mustn't do that, Mr. Caldigate. It's master's orders as it's to be locked. It's master's orders as you ain't to be in here at all.' Then Caldigate raised his foot, and the trellis-work gate was very soon despatched. 'Very well,' said the man;--'very well, Mr. Caldigate. That'll have to come agin you when the other things come. It's my belief as it's burglorious.' Then Caldigate went up before the house windows, and the gardener followed him.
The front door was approached by half-a-dozen stone steps, which were guarded on each side by a curved iron rail. Along the whole front of the house, passing under the steps, there ran a narrow, shallow area, contrived simply to give light to the kitchen and offices in the basement storey. But this area was, again, guarded by an iron rail, which was so constructed as to make it impossible that any one less expert than a practised house-breaker should get in or out of any of the windows looking that way. From the hall there were no less than four windows looking to the front; but they were all equally unapproachable.
The moment that Caldigate appeared coming round the curve of the gravel road Hester saw him. Jumping up from her chair with her baby, she rushed to the window, and called to him aloud, tapping at the window as she did so, 'John, I am here! Come to me! come to me! Take me out! They have shut me in, and will not let me come to you.' Then she held up the baby. 'Mamma, let him in, so that he come to his own baby. You dare not keep the father away from his own child.' At this time the nurse was in the hall, as was also the cook. But the front door was locked as well as chained, and the key was in Mrs. Bolton's own pocket. She sat perfectly silent, rigid, without a motion. She had known that he would come and show himself; and she had determined that she would be rigid, silent, and motionless. She would not move or speak unless Hester should endeavour to make her way down into the kitchen. But just in the passage which led to the top of the kitchen stairs stood the cook,--strong, solid, almost twice the weight of Hester,--a pious, determined woman, on whom her mistress could depend that she would remain there impervious.
They could talk to each other now, Hester and Caldigate, each explaining or suggesting what had been done or should be done; but they could converse only so that their enemies around them should hear every word that was spoken. 'No, John, no; I will not stay,' she said, when her husband told her that he would leave the decision to her. 'Unless it be to do your bidding, I will not stay here willingly. And, John, I will not move upstairs. I will remain here; and if they choose to give me food they may bring it to me. Unless they carry me I will not go to my bedroom. And they shall tear me to pieces before I will let them carry me. Poor baby! poor baby! I know he will be ill,' she said, moaning, but still so that he, standing beyond the railings, should hear her through the window. 'I know he will be ill; but what can I do? They do not care for my baby. If he should die it will be nothing to them.' During all this Mrs. Bolton kept her resolve, and sat there rigid, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, speaking no word, apparently paying no attention to the scene around her. Her back was turned to the front door, so that she could not see John Caldigate. Nor would she attempt to look at him. He could not get in, nor could the other get out. If that were so she would endeavour to bear it all. In the meantime the old man was sitting in his arm-chair up in his bedroom, reduced almost to inanity of mind by the horror of the occasion. When he could think of it all he would tell himself that he must let her go. He could not keep the mother and her baby a prisoner in such a condition as this.
Then there came dinner. Let misfortunes be what they may, dinner will come. The old man crawled down-stairs, and Hester was invited into the dining-room. 'No,' she said. 'If you choose to send it to me here, because of baby, I will eat.' Then, neither would Mrs. Bolton go to her husband; but both of them, seated in their high-backed arm-chairs, ate their food with their plates upon their laps.
During this time Caldigate still remained outside, but in vain. As circumstances were at present, he had no means of approaching his wife. He could kick down a slight trellis-work gate; but he could bring no adequate force to bear against the stout front door. At last, when the dusk of evening came on he took his departure, assuring his wife that he would be there again on the following morning.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
36 | None | The Escape During the whole of that night Hester kept her position in the hall, holding her baby in her arms as long as the infant would sleep in that position, and then allowing the nurse to take it to its cradle up-stairs. And during the whole night also Mrs. Bolton remained with her daughter. Tea was brought to them, which each of them took, and after that neither spoke a word to the other till the morning. Before he went to bed, Mr. Bolton came down and made an effort for their joint comfort. 'Hester,' he said, 'why should you not go to your room? You can do yourself no good by remaining there.' 'No,' she said, sullenly; 'no; I will stay.' 'You will only make yourself ill,--you and your mother.'
'She can go. Though I should die, I will stay here.'
Nor could he succeed better with his wife. 'If she is obstinate, so must I be,' said Mrs. Bolton. It was in vain that he endeavoured to prove to her that there could be no reason for such obstinacy, that her daughter would not attempt to escape during the hours of the night without her baby.
'You would not do that,' said the old man, turning to his daughter. But to this Hester would make no reply, and Mrs. Bolton simply declared her purpose of remaining. To her mind there was present an idea that she would, at any rate, endure as much actual suffering as her daughter. There they both sat, and in the morning they were objects pitiable to be seen.
Macbeth and Sancho have been equally eloquent in the praise of sleep. 'Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care!' But sleep will knit up effectually no broken stitches unless it be enjoyed in bed. 'Blessings on him who invented sleep,' said Sancho. But the great inventor was he who discovered mattresses and sheets and blankets. These two unfortunates no doubt slept; but in the morning they were weary, comfortless, and exhausted. Towels and basins were brought to them, and then they prepared themselves to watch through another day. It seemed to be a trial between them, which could outwatch the other. The mother was, of course, much the older; but with poor Hester there was the baby to add to her troubles. Never was there a woman more determined to carry out her purpose than Mrs. Bolton, or one more determined to thwart the purpose of another than she who still called herself Hester Caldigate. In the morning Mrs. Bolton implored her husband to go into Cambridge as usual; but he felt that he could not leave the house with such inmates. So he sat in his bedroom dozing wretchedly in his arm-chair.
Caldigate appeared before the house at nine o'clock, no further attempt having been made to exclude his entrance by the side gate, and asked to see Mr. Bolton. 'Papa is up-stairs,' said Hester through the window. But the old man would not come down to see his visitor, nor would he send any message. Then Caldigate declared his purpose of going at once to the mayor and demanding assistance from the police. He at any rate would return with the carriage as early as he could after his visit to the magistrates' office. He went to the mayor, and inflicted much trouble on that excellent officer, who, however, at last, with the assistance of his clerk,--and of Robert Bolton, whom he saw on the sly,--came to the decision that his own authority would not suffice for the breaking open of a man's house in order that his married daughter should be taken by violence from his custody. 'No doubt,' he said; 'no doubt,' when Caldigate pleaded that Mr. Bolton's daughter was, at any rate for the present, his own wife; and that a man's right to have his wife is undoubted. Those words 'no doubt' were said very often; but no other words were said. Then the clerk expressed an opinion that the proper course would be for Mr. Caldigate to go up to London and get an order from the Vice-Chancellor; which was, of course, tantamount to saying that his wife was to remain at Chesterton till after the trial,--unless she could effect her own escape.
But not on that account was he inclined to yield. He had felt from the first, as had she also, that she would make her way out of the house, or would not make it, as she might or might not have the courage to be persistent in demanding it. This, indeed, had been felt both by William and Robert Bolton when they had given their counsel. 'She is a woman with a baby, and when in your house will be subject to your influences. She will be very angry at first, but will probably yield after a time to your instructions. She will at last give an unwilling assent to the course you propose. That is what may be expected. But if she should be firmer than we think, if there should be in her bosom a greater power of resistance than we expect, should she dash herself too violently against the cage,--then you must let her go.' That was intended to be the gist of the advice given, though it perhaps was not so accurately expressed. It was in that way understood by the old man; but Mrs. Bolton would not so understand it. She had taken the matter in hand, and as she pressed her lips together she told herself that she intended to go through with it.
And so did Hester. But as this day went on, Hester became at times almost hysterical in her efforts to communicate with her husband through the window, holding up her baby and throwing back her head, and was almost in convulsions in her efforts to get at him. He on the other side thundered at the door with the knocker, till that instrument had been unscrewed from within. But still he could knock with his stick and shout with his voice; while the people outside the iron gates stood looking on in a crowd. In the course of the day Robert Bolton endeavoured to get an order from the magistrates for the removal of Caldigate by the police. But the mayor would not assent either to that. Old Mr. Bolton was the owner of the house, and if there was a nuisance to be complained of, it was he that must complain. The mayor during these days was much tried. The steady married people of the borough,--the shopkeepers and their wives, the doctors and lawyers and clergymen,--were in favour of Mr. and Mrs. Bolton. It was held to be fitting that a poor lady in Hester's unfortunate position should be consigned to the care of her parents till the matter had been settled. But the people generally sympathised with the young husband and young wife, and were loud in denouncing the illegality of the banker's proceedings. And it was already rumoured that among the undergraduates Caldigate's side was favoured. It was generally known that Crinkett and the woman had asked for money before they had brought their accusation, and on that account sympathy ran with the Squire of Folking. The mayor, therefore, did not dare to give an order that Caldigate should be removed from off the premises at Puritan Grange, knowing that he was there in search of a wife who was only anxious to place herself in his custody.
But nothing was done all that day. About four in the afternoon, while Caldigate was still there, and at a moment in which poor Hester had been reduced by the continuance of her efforts to a state of hysterical prostration, the old man summoned his wife upstairs. She, with a motion to the cook, who still guarded the stairs, obeyed the order, and for a moment left her watch.
'You must let her go,' said the old man, with tremulous anxiety, beating with his fingers on his knees as he spoke. 'You must let her go.'
'No; no!'
'It will kill her.'
'If I let her go, I shall kill her soul,' said the determined woman. 'Is not her soul more than her body?'
'They will say we--murdered her.'
'Who will say it? And what would that be but the breath of a man? Does not our Father who is in heaven know that I would die to do her a service, if the service accorded with His will? Does He not know that I am cruel to her here in order that she may be saved from eternal----' She was going to say, in the natural fervour of her speech, 'from eternal cruelty to come,' but she checked herself. To have admitted that such a judgment could be worse than just, worse even than merciful, would be blasphemy to her. 'Oh, He knows! He knows! And if He knows, what matters what men say that I have done to her.'
'I cannot have it go on like this,' said he, still whispering.
'She will be wearied out, and then we will take her to her bed.'
But Mr. Bolton succeeded in demanding that a telegram should be sent up to William requesting him to come down to the Grange as early as possible on the following morning. This was sent, and also a message to Robert Bolton in Cambridge, telling him that William had been summoned. During these two days he had not been seen at the Grange, though he knew much of what was being done there. Had he, however, been aware of all that his sister and step-mother were enduring, he would probably have appeared upon the scene. As it was, he had justified his absence by pleading to himself Mrs. Bolton's personal enmity, and the understanding which existed that he should not visit the house. Then, when it was dark, Caldigate with the carriage again returned to the town, where he slept as he had done on the previous night. Again their food was brought to the two women in the hall, and again each of them swallowed a cup of tea as they prepared themselves for the work of the night.
In the hall there was a gas-stove, which was kept burning, and gave a faint glimmer, so that each could see the outline of the other. Light beyond that there was none. In the weary long hours of nights such as these, nights passed on the seats of railway carriages, or rougher nights, such as some of us remember, on the outside of coaches, or sitting by the side of the sick, sleep will come early and will early go. The weariness of the past day will produce some forgetfulness for an hour or two, and then come the slow, cold, sad hours through which the dawn has to be expected. Between two and three these unfortunates were both awake, the poor baby having been but lately carried back from its mother to its cradle. Then suddenly Mrs. Bolton heard rather than saw her daughter slip down from her chair on to the ground and stretch herself along upon the hard floor. 'Hester,' she said; but Hester did not answer. 'Hester, are you hurt?' When there was still no answer, the mother got up, with limbs so stiff that she could hardly use them, and stood over her child. 'Hester, speak to me.'
'I will never speak to you more,' said the daughter.
'My child, why will you not go to your comfortable wholesome bed?'
'I will not go; I will die here.'
'The door shall not be locked. You shall have the key with you. I will do nothing to hurt you if you will go to your bed.'
'I will not go; leave me alone. You cannot love me, mamma, or you would not treat me like this.'
'Love you! Oh, my child! If you knew! If you could understand! Why am I doing this? Is it not because I feel it to be my duty? Will you let me take you to your bed?'
'No, never. I, too, can do my duty,--my duty to my husband. It is to remain here till I can get to him, even though I should die.' Then she turned her poor limbs on the hard floor, and the mother covered her with a cloak and placed a cushion beneath her head. Then, after standing a while over her child, she returned to her chair, and did not move or speak again till the old cook came, with the first glimmer of the morning, to inquire how the night had been passed.
'I cannot allow this; I cannot allow this,' said Mr. Bolton, when he shuffled down in his slippers. The old servant had been up to him and had warned him that such sufferings as these might have a tragic end,--too probably an end fatal to the infant. If the mother's strength should altogether fail her, would it not go badly with the baby? So the cook had argued, who had been stern enough herself, anxious enough to secure 'Miss Hester' from the wickedness of John Caldigate. But she was now cowed and frightened, and had acknowledged to herself that if 'Miss Hester' would not give way, then she must be allowed to go forth, let the wickedness be what it might.
'There must be an end to this,' said the old man.
'What end?' asked his wife. 'Let her obey her parents.'
'I will obey only my husband,' said Hester.
'Of course there must be an end. Let her go to her bed, and, weary as I am, I will wait upon her as only a mother can wait upon her child. Have I not prayed for her through the watches of the night, that she might be delivered from this calamity, that she might be comforted by Him in her sorrow? What have I done these two last weary days but pray to the Lord God that He might be merciful to her?'
'Let me go,' said Hester.
'I will not let you go,' said the mother, rising from her seat. 'I too can suffer. I too can endure. I will not be conquered by my own child.' There spoke the human being. That was the utterance natural to the woman. 'In this struggle, hard as it is, I will not be beat by one who has been subject to my authority.' In all those prayers,--and she had prayed,--there had been the prayer in her heart, if not in her words, that she might be saved from the humiliation of yielding.
Early in the day Caldigate was again in front of the house, and outside there was a close carriage with a pair of horses, standing at the gardener's little gate. And at the front gate, which was still chained, there was again the crowd. At about one both William and Robert Bolton came upon the scene, and were admitted by the gardener and cook through the kitchen-door into the house. They were close to Caldigate as they entered; neither did they speak to him or he to them. At that moment Hester was standing with the baby at the window, and saw them. 'Now I shall be allowed to go,' she exclaimed. Mrs. Bolton was still seated with her back to the windows; but she had heard the steps on the gravel, and the opening of the kitchen-door; and she understood Hester's words, and was aware that her husband's sons were in the house.
They had agreed as to what should be done, and at once made their way up into the hall. 'William, you will make them let me go. You will make them let me go,' said Hester, rushing at once to the elder of the two, and holding out her baby as though for him to take. She was now in a state so excited, so nervous, so nearly hysterical, that she was hardly able to control herself. 'You will not let them kill me, William,--me and my baby.' He kissed her and said a kind word or two, and then, inquiring after his father, passed on up-stairs. Then Mrs. Bolton followed him, leaving Robert in the hall with Hester. 'I know that you have turned against me,' said Hester.
'Indeed no. I have never turned against you. I have thought that you would be better here than at Folking for the present.'
'That is being against me. A woman should be with her husband. You told them to do this. And they have nearly killed me,--me and my baby.'
In the meantime William Bolton up-stairs was very decided in his opinion that they must at once allow Caldigate to take her back to Folking. She had, as he said, proved herself to be too strong for them. The experiment had been tried and had failed. No doubt it would be better,--so he thought,--that she should remain for the present at the Grange; so much better that a certain show of force had been justified. But as things were going, no further force would be justified. She had proved her power, and must be allowed to go. Mrs. Bolton, however, would not even yet acknowledge that she was beaten. In a few more hours, she thought, Hester would allow herself to be taken to her bed, and then all might be well. But she could not stand against the combined force of her husband and his two sons; and so it was decided that the front door should be opened for the prisoner, and that the chains should be removed from the gate. 'I should be afraid of the people,' William Bolton said to his father.
It was not till this decision had been given that Mrs. Bolton felt that the struggle of the last three days had been too much for her. Now, at last, she threw herself upon her bed, weeping bitter tears, tears of a broken spirit, and there she lay prostrate with fatigue and misery. Nor would she go down to say a word of farewell. How could she say adieu to her daughter, leaving her house in such circumstances 'I will give her your love,' said William Bolton.
'Say nothing to her. She does not care for my love, nor for the love of her Father in heaven. She cares only for that adulterer.'
The door was opened from within, and the chains were taken away from the gate. 'Oh, John,--oh, my husband,' she exclaimed, as she leaped down the steps into his arms, 'never let me go again; not for a day,--not for an hour!' Then her boxes were brought down, and the nurse came with the child, whom the mother at once took and placed in his father's arms. And the carriage was brought in, and the luggage was placed on it, and the nurse and the baby were seated. 'I will go up to poor mamma for one moment,' she said. She did go to her mother's room, and throwing herself upon the wretched woman, wept over her and kissed her. But the mother, though in some sort she returned the caress, said not a word as her daughter left the room. And she went also to her father and asked his blessing. He muttered a word or two, blessing her, no doubt, with inarticulate words. He also had been thoroughly vanquished.
Then she got into the carriage, and was taken back to Folking lying in John Caldigate's arms.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
37 | None | Again at Folking Thus Hester prevailed, and was taken back to the house of the man who had married her. By this time very much had been said about the matter publicly. It had been impossible to keep the question,--whether John Caldigate's recent marriage had been true or fraudulent,--out of the newspapers; and now the attempt that had been made to keep them apart by force gave an additional interest to the subject. There was an opinion, very general among elderly educated people, that Hester ought to have allowed herself to be detained at the Grange. 'We do not mean to lean heavily on the unfortunate young lady,' said the 'Isle-of-Ely-Church-Intelligencer'; 'but we think that she would have better shown a becoming sense of her position had she submitted her self to her parents till the trial is over. Then the full sympathy of all classes would have been with her; and whether the law shall restore her to a beloved husband, or shall tell her that she has become the victim of a cruel seducer, she would have been supported by the approval and generous regard of all men.' It was thus for the most part that the elderly and the wise spoke and thought about it. Of course, they pitied her; but they believed all evil of Caldigate, declaring that he too was bound by a feeling of duty to restore the unfortunate one to her father and mother until the matter should have been set at rest by the decision of a jury.
But the people,--especially the people of Utterden and Netherden, and of Chesterton, and even of Cambridge,--were all on the side of Caldigate and Hester as a married couple. They liked the persistency with which he had claimed his wife, and applauded her to the echo for her love and firmness. Of course the scene at Puritan Grange had been much exaggerated. The two nights were prolonged to intervals varying from a week to a fortnight. During that time she was said always to have been at the window holding up her baby. And Mrs. Bolton was accused of cruelties which she certainly had not committed. Some details of the affair made their way into the metropolitan Press,--so that the expected trial became one of those _causes célèbres_ by which the public is from time to time kept alive to the value and charm of newspapers.
During all this John Caldigate was specially careful not to seclude himself from public view, or to seem to be afraid of his fellow-creatures. He was constantly in Cambridge, generally riding thither on horseback, and on such occasions was always to be seen in Trumpington Street and Trinity Street. Between him and the Boltons there was, by tacit consent, no intercourse whatever after the attempted imprisonment. He never showed himself at Robert Bolton's office, nor when they met in the street did they speak to each other. Indeed at this time no gentleman or lady held any intercourse with Caldigate, except his father and Mr. Bromley the clergyman. The Babingtons were strongly of opinion that he should have surrendered the care of his wife; and Aunt Polly went so far as to write to him when she first heard of the affair at Chesterton, recommending him very strongly to leave her at the Grange. Then there was an angry correspondence, ended at last by a request from Aunt Polly that there might be no further intercourse between Babington and Folking till after the trial.
Caldigate, though he bore all this with an assured face, with but little outward sign of inward misgiving, suffered much,--much even from the estrangement of those with whom he had hitherto been familiar. To be 'cut' by any one was a pain to him. Not to be approved of, not to be courted, not to stand well in the eyes of those around him, was to him positive and immediate suffering. He was supported no doubt by the full confidence of his father, by the friendliness of the parson, and by the energetic assurances of partisans who were all on his side,--such as Mr. Ralph Holt, the farmer. While Caldigate had been in Cambridge waiting for his wife's escape, Holt and one or two others were maturing a plan for breaking into Puritan Grange, and restoring the wife to her husband. All this supported him. Without it he could hardly have carried himself as he did. But with all this, still he was very wretched. 'It is that so many people should think me guilty,' he said to Mr. Bromley.
She bore it better--though, of course, now that she was safe at Folking, she had but little to do as to outward bearing. In the first place, no doubt as to his truth ever touched her for a moment,--and not much doubt as to the result of the trial. It was to her an assured fact that John Caldigate was her husband, and she could not realise the idea that, such being the fact, a jury should say that he was not. But let all that be as it might, they two were one; and to adhere to him in every word, in every thought, in every little action, was to her the only line of conduct possible. She heard what Mr. Bromley said, she knew what her father-in-law thought, she was aware of the enthusiasm on her side of the folk at Folking. It seemed to her that this opposition to her happiness was but a continuation of that which her mother had always made to her marriage. The Boltons were all against her. It was a terrible sorrow to her. But she knew how to bear it bravely. In the tenderness of her husband, who at this time was very tender to her, she had her great consolation.
On the day of her return she had been very ill,--so ill that Caldigate and his father had been much frightened. During the journey home in the carriage, she had wept and laughed hysterically, now clutching her baby, and then embracing her husband. Before reaching Folking she had been so worn with fatigue that he had hardly been able to support her on the seat. But after rest for a day or two, she had rallied completely. And she herself had taken pleasure and great pride in the fact that through it all her baby had never really been ill. 'He is a little man,' she said, boasting to the boy's father, 'and knows how to put up with troubles. And when his mamma was so bad he didn't peak and pine and cry, so as to break her heart. Did he, my own, own brave little man?' And she could boast of her own health too. 'Thank God I am strong, John. I can bear things which would break down other women. You shall never see me give way because I am a poor creature.' Certainly she had a right to boast that she was not a poor creature.
Caldigate no doubt was subject to troubles of which she knew nothing. It was quite clear to him that Mr. Seely, his own lawyer, did in truth believe that there had been some form of marriage between him and Euphemia Smith. The attorney had never said so much,--had never accused him. It would probably have been opposed to all the proprieties in such a matter that any direct accusation should have been made against him by his own attorney. But he could understand from the man's manner that his mind was not free from a strong suspicion. Mr. Seely was eager enough as to the defence; but seemed to be eager as against opposing evidence rather than on the strength of evidence on his own side. He was not apparently desirous of making all the world know that such a marriage certainly never took place; but that, whether such a marriage had taken place or not, the jury ought not to trust the witnesses. He relied, not on the strength of his own client, but on the weakness of his client's adversaries. It might probably be capable of proof that Crinkett and Adamson and the woman had conspired together to get money from John Caldigate; and if so, then their evidence as to the marriage would be much weakened. And he showed himself not averse to any tricks of trade which might tend to get a verdict. Could it be proved that John Crinkett had been dishonest in his mining operations? Had Euphemia Smith allowed her name to be connected with that of any other man in Australia? What had been her antecedents? Was it not on the cards that Allan, the minister, had never undergone any ceremony of ordination? And, if not, might it not be shown that a marriage service performed by him would be no marriage service at all? Could not the jury be made to think,--or at least some of the jury,--that out there, in that rough lawless wilderness, marriage ceremonies were very little understood? These were the wiles to which he seemed disposed to trust; whereas Caldigate was anxious that he should instruct some eloquent indignant advocate to declare boldly that no English gentleman could have been guilty of conduct so base, so dastardly, and so cruel! 'You see, Mr. Caldigate,' the lawyer said on one occasion, 'to make the best of it, our own hands are not quite clean. You did promise the other lady marriage.'
'No doubt. No doubt I was a fool; and I paid for my folly. I bought her off. Having fallen into the common scrape,--having been pleased by her prettinesses and clevernesses and women's ways,--I did as so many other men have done. I got out of it as best I could without treachery and without dishonour. I bought her off. Had she refused to take my money, I should probably have married her,--and probably have blown my brains out afterwards. All that has to be acknowledged,--much to my shame. Most of us would have to blush if the worst of our actions were brought out before us in a court of law. But there was an end of it. Then they come over here and endeavour to enforce their demand for money by a threat.'
'That envelope is so unfortunate,' said the lawyer.
'Most unfortunate.'
'Perhaps we shall get some one before the day comes who will tell the jury that any marriage up at Ahalala must have been a farce.'
All this was unsatisfactory, and became so more and more as the weeks went by. The confidential clerk whom the Boltons had sent out when the first threat reached them early in November,--the threat conveyed in that letter from the woman which Caldigate had shown to Robert Bolton,--returned about the end of March. The two brothers, Robert and William, decided upon sending him to Mr. Seely, so that any information obtained might be at Caldigate's command, to be used, if of any use, in his defence. But there was in truth very little of it. The clerk had been up to Nobble and Ahalala, and had found no one there who knew enough of the matter to give evidence about it. The population of mining districts in Australia is peculiarly a shifting population, so that the most of those who had known Caldigate and his mode of life there were gone. The old woman who kept Henniker's Hotel at Nobble had certainly heard that they were married; but then she had added that many people there called themselves man and wife from convenience. A woman would often like a respectable name where there was no parson near at hand to entitle her to it. Then the parsons would be dilatory and troublesome and expensive, and a good many people were apt to think that they could do very well without ceremonies. She evidently would have done no good to either side as a witness. This clerk had found Ahalala almost deserted,--occupied chiefly by a few Chinese, who were contented to search for the specks of gold which more ambitious miners had allowed to slip through their fingers. The woman had certainly called herself Mrs. Caldigate, and had been called so by many. But she had afterwards been called Mrs. Crinkett, when she and Crinkett had combined their means with the view of buying the Polyeuka mine. She was described as an enterprising, greedy woman, upon whom the love of gold had had almost more than its customary effect. And she had for a while been noted and courted for her success, having been the only female miner who was supposed to have realised money in these parts. She had been known to the banks at Nobble, also even at Sydney; and had been supposed at one time to have been worth twenty or thirty thousand pounds. Then she had joined herself with Crinkett, and all their money had been supposed to vanish in the Polyeuka mine. No doubt there had been enough in that to create animosity of the most bitter kind against Caldigate. He in his search for gold had been uniformly successful,--was spoken of among the Nobble miners as the one man who in gold-digging had never had a reverse. He had gone away just before the bad time came on Polyeuka; and then had succeeded, after he had gone, in extracting from these late unfortunate partners of his every farthing that he had left them! There was ample cause for animosity.
Allan, the minister, who certainly had been at Ahalala, was as certainly dead. He had gone out from Scotland as a Presbyterian clergyman, and no doubt had ever been felt as to his being that which he called himself;--and a letter from him was produced which had undoubtedly been written by himself. Robert Bolton had procured a photograph of the note which the woman produced as having been written by Allan to Caldigate. The handwriting did not appear to him to be the same, but an expert had given an opinion that they both might have been written by the same person. Of Dick Shand no tidings had been found. It was believed that he had gone from Queensland to some of the Islands,--probably to the Fijis; but he had sunk so low among men as to have left no trace behind him. In Australia no one cares to know whence a shepherd has come or whither he goes. A miner belongs to a higher class, and is more considered. The result of all which was, in the opinion of the Boltons, adverse to John Caldigate. And in discussing this with his client, Mr. Seely acknowledged that nothing had as yet come to light sufficient to shake the direct testimony of the woman, corroborated as it was by three persons, all of whom would swear that they had been present at the marriage.
'No doubt they endeavoured to get money from you,' said Mr. Seely; 'and I may be well assured in my own mind that money was their sole object. But then it cannot be denied that their application to you for money had a sound basis,--one which, though you might fairly refuse to allow it, takes away from the application all idea of criminality. Crinkett has never asked for money as a bribe to hold his tongue. In a matter of trade between them and you, you were very successful; they were very unfortunate. A man asking for restitution in such circumstances will hardly be regarded as dishonest.'
It was to no purpose that Caldigate declared that he would willingly have remitted a portion of the money had he known the true circumstances. He had not done so, and now the accusation was made. The jury, feeling that the application had been justifiable, would probably keep the two things distinct. That was Mr. Seely's view; and thus, in these days, Caldigate gradually came to hate Mr. Seely. There was no comfort to be had from Mr. Seely.
Mr. Bromley was much more comfortable, though, unfortunately, in such a matter less to be trusted.
'As to the minister's handwriting,' he said, 'that will go for nothing. Even if he had written the note----' 'Which he didn't,' said Caldigate.
'Exactly. But should it be believed to have been his, it would prove nothing. And as to the envelope, I cannot think that any jury would disturb the happiness of a family on such evidence as that. It all depends on the credibility of the people who swear that they were present; and I can only say that were I one of the jury, and were the case brought before me as I see it now, I certainly should not believe them. There is here one letter to you, declaring that if you will comply with her demands, she will not annoy you, and declaring also her purpose of marrying some one else. How can any juryman believe her after that?'
'Mr. Seely says that twelve men will not be less likely to think me a bigamist because she has expressed her readiness to commit bigamy; that, if alone, she would not have a leg to stand upon, but that she is amply corroborated; whereas I have not been able to find a single witness to support me. It seems to me that in this way any man might be made the victim of a conspiracy.'
Then Mr. Bromley said that all that would be too patent to a jury to leave any doubt upon the matter. But John Caldigate himself, though he took great comfort in the society of the clergyman, did in truth rely rather on the opinion of the lawyer.
The old squire never doubted his son for a moment, and in his intercourse with Hester showed her all the tenderness and trust of a loving parent. But he, too, manifestly feared the verdict of a jury. According to him, things in the world around him generally were very bad. What was to be expected from an ordinary jury such as Cambridgeshire would supply but prejudice, thick-headed stupidity, or at the best a strict obedience to the dictum of a judge. 'It is a case,' he said, 'in which no jury about here will have sense enough to understand and weigh the facts. There will be on one side the evidence of four people, all swearing the same thing. It may be that one or more of them will break down under cross-examination, and that all will then be straight. But if not, the twelve men in a box will believe them because they are four, not understanding that in such a case four may conspire as easily as two or three. There will be the Judge, no doubt; but English judges are always favourable to convictions. The Judge begins with the idea that the man before him would hardly have been brought there had he not been guilty.'
In all this, and very much more that he said both to Mr. Bromley and his son, he was expressing his contempt for the world around him rather than any opinion of his own on this particular matter. 'I often think,' said he, 'that we have to bear more from the stupidity than from the wickedness of the world.'
It should be mentioned that about a week after Hester's escape from Chesterton there came to her a letter from her mother.
'DEAREST HESTER,--You do not think that I do not love you because I tried to protect you from what I believe to be sin and evil and temptation? You do not think that I am less your mother because I caused you suffering? If your eye offend you, pluck it out. Was I not plucking out my own eye when I caused pain to you? You ought to come back to me and your father. You ought to do so even now. But whether you come back or not, will you not remember that I am the mother who bore you, and have always loved you? And when further distress shall come upon you, will you not return to me? --Your unhappy but most loving Mother, 'MARY BOLTON.'
In answer to this Hester, in a long letter, acknowledged her mother's love, and said that the memory of those two days at Chesterton should lessen neither her affection nor her filial duty; but, she went on to say that, in whatever distress might come upon her, she should turn to her husband for comfort and support, whether he should be with her, or whether he should be away from her. 'But,' she added, concluding her letter, 'beyond my husband and my child, you and papa will always be the dearest to me.'
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
38 | None | Bollum There was not much to enliven the house at Folking during these days. Caldigate would pass much of his time walking about the place, applying his mind as well as he could to the farm, and holding up his head among the tenants, with whom he was very popular. He had begun his reign over them with hands not only full but free. He had drained, and roofed, and put up gates, and repaired roads, and shown himself to be an active man, anxious to do good. And now in his trouble they were very true to him. But their sympathy could not ease the burden at his heart. Though by his words and deeds among them he seemed to occupy himself fully, there was a certain amount of pretence in every effort that he made. He was always affecting a courage in which he felt himself to be deficient. Every smile was false. Every brave word spoken was an attempt at deceit. When alone in his walks,--and he was mostly alone,--his mind would fix itself on his great trouble, and on the crushing sorrow which might only too probably fall upon that loved one whom he had called his wife. Oh, with what regret now did he think of the good advice which the captain had given him on board the Goldfinder, and of the sententious, timid wisdom of Mrs. Callender! Had she,--his Hester, ever uttered to him one word of reproach,--had she ever shuddered in his sight when he had acknowledged that the now odious woman had in that distant land been in his own hearing called by his own name,--it would have been almost better. Her absolute faith added a sting to his sufferings.
Then, as he walked alone about the estate, he would endeavour to think whether there might not yet be some mode of escape,--whether something might not be done to prevent his having to stand in the dock and abide the uncertain verdict of a jury. With Mr. Seely he was discontented. Mr. Seely seemed to be opposed to any great effort,--would simply trust to the chance of snatching little advantages in the Court. He had money at command, if fifty thousand pounds,--if double that sum,--would have freed him from this trouble, he thought that he could have raised it, and was sure that he would willingly pay it. Twenty thousand pounds two months since, when Crinkett appeared at the christening would have sent these people away. The same sum, no doubt, would send them away now. But then the arrangement might have been possible. But now,--how was it now? Could it still be done? Then the whole thing might have been hidden, buried in darkness. Now it was already in the mouths of all men. But still, if these witnesses were made to disappear,--if this woman herself by whom the charge was made would take herself away--then the trial must be abandoned. There would be a whispering of evil,--or, too probably, the saying of evil without whispering. A terrible injury would have been inflicted upon her and his boy;--but the injury would be less than that which he now feared.
And there was present to him through all this a feeling that the money ought to be paid independently of the accusation brought against him. Had he known at first all that he knew now,--how he had taken their all from these people, and how they had failed absolutely in the last great venture they had made,--he would certainly have shared their loss with them. He would have done all that Crinkett had suggested to him when he and Crinkett were walking along the dike. Crinkett had said that on receiving twenty thousand pounds he would have gone back to Australia, and would have taken a wife with him! That offer had been quite intelligible, and if carried out would have put an end to all trouble. But he had mismanaged that interview. He had been too proud, too desirous not to seem to buy off a threatening enemy. Now, as the trouble pressed itself more closely upon him,--upon him and his Hester,--he would so willingly buy off his enemy if it were possible! 'They ought to have the money,' he said to himself; 'if only I could contrive that it should be paid to them.'
One day as he was entering the house by a side door, Darvell the gardener told him that there was a gentleman waiting to see him. The gentleman was very anxious to see him, and had begged to be allowed to sit down. Darvell, when asked whether the gentleman was a gentleman, expressed an affirmative opinion. He had been driven over from Cambridge in a hired gig, which was now standing in the yard, and was dressed, as Darvell expressed it, 'quite accordingly and genteel.' So Caldigate passed into the house and found the man seated in the dining-room.
'Perhaps you will step into my study?' said Caldigate. Thus the two men were seated together in the little room which Caldigate used for his own purposes.
Caldigate, as he looked at the man, distrusted his gardener's judgment. The coat and hat and gloves, even the whiskers and head of hair, might have belonged to a gentleman; but not, as he thought, the mouth or the eyes or the hands. And when the man began to speak there was a mixture of assurance and intended complaisance, an effected familiarity and an attempt at ease, which made the master of the house quite sure that his guest was not all that Darvell had represented. The man soon told his story. His name was Bollum, Richard Bollum, and he had connections with Australia;--was largely concerned in Australian gold-mines. When Caldigate heard this, he looked round involuntarily to see whether the door was closed. 'We're tiled, of course,' said Bollum. Caldigate with a frown nodded his head, and Bollum went on. He hadn't come there, he said, to speak of some recent troubles of which he had heard. He wasn't the man to shove his nose into other people's matters. It was nothing to him who was married to whom. Caldigate shivered, but sat and listened in silence. But Mr. Bollum had had dealings,--many dealings,--with Timothy Crinkett. Indeed he was ready to say that Timothy Crinkett was his uncle. He was not particularly proud of his uncle, but nevertheless Timothy Crinkett was his uncle. Didn't Mr. Caldigate think that something ought to be done for Timothy Crinkett?
'Yes, I do,' said Caldigate, finding himself compelled to say something at the moment, and feeling that he could say so much with positive truth.
Then Bollum continued his story, showing that he knew all the circumstances of Polyeuka. 'It was hard on them, wasn't it, Mr. Caldigate?'
'I think it was.'
'Every rap they had among them, Mr. Caldigate! You left them as bare as the palm of my hand!'
'It was not my doing. I simply made him an offer, which every one at the time believed to be liberal.'
'Just so. We grants all that. But still you got all their money;--old pals of yours too, as they say out there.'
'It is a matter of most intense regret to me. As soon as I knew the circumstances, Mr. Bollum, I should have been most happy to have divided the loss with them--' 'That's it,--that's it. That's what'd be right between man and man,' said Mr. Bollum, interrupting him.
'Had no other subject been introduced.'
'I know nothing about other subjects. I haven't come here to meddle with other subjects. I'm, as it were, a partner of Crinkett's. Any way, I am acting as his agent. I'm quite above board, Mr. Caldigate, and in what I say I mean to stick to my own business and not go beyond it. Twenty thousand pounds is what we ask,--so that we and you may share the loss. You agree to that?'
'I should have agreed to it two months since,' said Caldigate, fearing that he might be caught in a trap,--anxious to do nothing mean, unfair, or contrary to the law,--craving in his heart after the bold, upright conduct of a thoroughly honourable English gentleman, and yet desirous also to use, if it might be used, the instrumentality of this man.
'And why not now? You see,' said Bollum, becoming a little more confidential, 'how difficult it is for me to speak. Things ain't altered. You've got the money. They've lost the money. There isn't any ill-will, Mr. Caldigate. As for Crinkett, he's a rough diamond, of course. What am I to say about the lady?'
'I don't see that you need say anything.'
'That's just it. Of course she's one of them. That's all. If there is to be money, she'll have her share. He's an old fool, and perhaps they'll make a match of it.' As he said this he winked. 'At any rate they'll be off to Australia together. And what I propose is this, Mr. Caldigate--' Then he paused.
'What do you propose?'
'Make the money payable in bills to their joint order at Sydney. They don't want to be wasting any more time here. They'll start at once. This is the 12th April, isn't it? Tuesday the 12th?' Caldigate assented. 'The old Goldfinder leaves Plymouth this day week.' From this he was sure that Bollum had heard all the story from Euphemia Smith herself, or he would not have talked of the 'old' Goldfinder. 'Let them have the bills handed to them on board, and they'll go. Let me have the duplicates here. You can remit the money by July to your agents,--to take up the bills when due. Just let me be with you when the order is given to your banker in London, and everything will be done. It's as easy as kiss.'
Caldigate sat silent, turning it over in his own mind, trying to determine what would be best. Here was another opportunity. But it was one as to which he must come to a decision on the spur of the moment. He must deal with the man now or never. The twenty thousand pounds were nothing. Had there been no question about his wife, he would have paid the money, moved by that argument as to his 'old pals,'--by the conviction that the result of his dealing with them had in truth been to leave them 'as bare as the palm of his hand.' They were welcome to the money; and if by giving the money he could save his Hester, how great a thing it would be! Was it not his duty to make the attempt? And yet there was in his bosom a strong aversion to have any secret dealing with such a man as this,--to have any secret dealing in such a matter. To buy off witnesses in order that his wife's name and his boy's legitimacy might be half,--only half,--established! For even though these people should be made absolutely to vanish, though the sea should swallow them, all that had been said would be known, and too probably believed for ever!
And then, too, he was afraid. If he did this thing alone, without counsel, would he not be putting himself into the hands of these wretches? Might he not be almost sure that when they had gotten his money they would turn upon him and demand more? Would not the payment of the money be evidence against him to any jury? Would it be possible to make judge or jury believe, to make even a friend believe, that in such an emergency he had paid away so large a sum of money because he had felt himself bound to do so by his conscience?
'Well, squire,' said Bollum, 'I think you see your way through it; don't you?'
'I don't regard the money in the least. They would be welcome to the money.'
'That's a great point, anyway.'
'But--' 'Ay; but! You're afraid they wouldn't go. You come down to Plymouth, and don't put the bills into their hands or mine till the vessel is under weigh, with them aboard. Then you and I will step into the boat, and be back ashore. When they know the money's been deposited at a bank in London, they'll trust you as far as that. The Goldfinder won't put back again when she's once off. Won't that make it square?'
'I was thinking of something else.'
'Well, yes; there's that trial a-coming on; isn't there?'
'These people have conspired together to tell the basest lie.'
'I know nothing about that, Mr. Caldigate. I haven't got so much as an opinion. People tell me that all the things look very strong on their side.'
'Liars sometimes are successful.'
'You can be quit of them,--and pay no more than what you say you kind of owes. I should have thought Crinkett might have asked forty thousand; but Crinkett, though he's rough,--I do own he's rough,--but he's honest after a fashion. Crinkett wants to rob no man; but he feels it hard when he's got the better of. Lies, or no lies, can you do better?'
'I should like to see my lawyer first,' said Caldigate almost panting in his anxiety.
'What lawyer? I hate lawyers.'
'Mr. Seely. My case is in his hands, and I should have to tell him.'
'Tell him when you come back from Plymouth, and hold your peace till that's done. No good can come of lawyers in such a matter as this. You might as well tell the town-crier. Why should he want to put bread out of his own mouth? And if there is a chance of hard words being said, why should he hear them? He'll work for his money, no doubt; but what odds is it to him whether your lady is to be called Mrs. Caldigate or Miss Bolton? He won't have to go to prison. His boy won't be! --you know what.' This was terrible, but yet it was all so true! 'I'll tell you what it is, squire. We can't make it lighter by talking about it all round. I used to do a bit of hunting once; and I never knew any good come of asking what there was the other side of the fence. You've got to have it, or you've got to leave it alone. That's just where you are. Of course it isn't nice.'
'I don't mind the money.'
'Just so. But it isn't nice for a swell like you to have to hand it over to such a one as Crinkett just as the ship's starting, and then to bolt ashore along with me. The odds are, it is all talked about. Let's own all that. But then it's not nice to have to hear a woman swear that she's your wife, when you've got another,--specially when she's got three men as can swear the same. It ain't nice for you to have me sitting here. I'm well aware of that. There's the choice of evils. You know what that means. I'm a-putting it about as fair as a man can put anything. It's a pity you didn't stump up the money before. But it's not altogether quite too late yet.'
'I'll give you an answer to-morrow, Mr. Bollum.'
'I must be in town to-night.'
'I will be with you in London to-morrow if you will give me an address. All that you have said is true; but I cannot do this thing without thinking of it.'
'You'll come alone?'
'Yes,--alone.'
'As a gentleman?'
'On my word as a gentleman I will come alone.'
Then Bollum gave him an address,--not the place at which he resided, but a certain coffee-house in the City, at which he was accustomed to make appointments. 'And don't you see any lawyer,' said Bollum, shaking his finger. 'You can't do any good that way. It stands to reason that no lawyer would let you pay twenty thousand pounds to get out of any scrape. He and you have different legs to stand upon.' Then Mr. Bollum went away, and was driven back in his gig to the Cambridge Hotel.
As soon as the front door was closed Hester hurried down to her husband, whom she found still in the hall. He took her into his own room, and told her everything that had passed,--everything, as accurately as he could. 'And remember,' he said, 'though I do not owe them money, that I feel bound by my conscience to refund them so much. I should do it, now I know the circumstances, if no charge had been brought against me.'
'They have perjured themselves, and have been so wicked.'
'Yes, they have been very wicked.'
'Let them come and speak the truth, and then let them have the money.'
'They will not do that, Hester.'
'Prove them to be liars, and then give it to them.'
'My own girl, I am thinking of you.'
'And I of you. Shall it be said of you that you bought off those who had dared to say that your wife was not your wife? I would not do that. What if the people in the Court should believe what they say?'
'It would be bad for you, then, dearest.'
'But I should still be your wife. And baby would still be your own, own honest boy. I am sometimes unhappy, but I am never afraid. Let the devil do his worst, but never speak him fair. I would scorn them till it is all over. Then, if money be due to them, let them have it.' As she said this, she had drawn herself a little apart from him,--a little away from the arm which had been round her waist, and was looking him full in the face. Never before, even during the soft happiness of their bridal tour, had she seemed to him to be so handsome.
But her faith, her courage, and her beauty did not alter the circumstances of the case. Because she trusted him, he was not the less afraid of the jury who would have to decide, or of the judge, who, with stern eyes, would probably find himself compelled to tell the jury that the evidence against the prisoner was overwhelming. In choosing what might be best to be done on her account, he could not allow himself to be guided by her spirit. The possibility that the whole gang of them might be made to vanish was present to his mind. Nor could he satisfy himself that in doing as had been proposed to him he would be speaking the devil fair. He would be paying money which he ought to pay, and would perhaps be securing his wife's happiness.
He had promised, at any rate, that he would see the man in London on the morrow, and that he would see him alone. But he had not promised not to speak on the subject to his attorney. Therefore, after much thought, he wrote to Mr. Seely to make an appointment for the next morning, and then told his wife that he would have to go to London on the following day.
'Not to buy those men off?' she said.
'Whatever is done will be done by the advice of my lawyer,' he said, peevishly. 'You may be sure that I am anxious enough to do the best. When one has to trust to a lawyer, one is bound to trust to him.' This seemed to be so true that Hester could say nothing against it.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
39 | None | Restitution He had still the whole night to think about it,--and throughout the whole night he was thinking about it. He had fixed a late hour in the afternoon for his appointment in London, so that he might have an hour or two in Cambridge before he started by the mid-day train. It was during his drive into the town that he at last made up his mind that he would not satisfy himself with discussing the matter with Mr. Seely, but that he would endeavour to explain it all to Robert Bolton. No doubt Robert Bolton was now his enemy, as were all the Boltons. But the brother could not but be anxious for his sister's name and his sister's happiness. If a way out of all this misery could be seen, it would be a way out of misery for the Boltons as well as for the Caldigates. If only he could make the attorney believe that Hester was in truth his wife, still, even yet, there might be assistance on that side. But he went to Mr. Seely first, the hour of his appointment requiring that it should be so.
But Mr. Seely was altogether opposed to any arrangement with Mr. Bollum. 'No good was ever done,' he said, 'by buying off witnesses. The thing itself is disreputable, and would to a certainty be known to every one.'
'I should not buy them off. I regard the money as their own. I will give Crinkett the money and let him go or stay as he pleases. When giving him the money, I will tell him that he may do as he pleases.'
'You would only throw your money away. You would do much worse than throw it away. Their absence would not prevent the trial. The Boltons will take care of that.'
'They cannot want to injure their own side, Mr. Seely.'
'They want to punish you, and to take her away. They will take care that the trial shall go on. And when it was proved, as it would be proved, that you had given these people a large sum of money, and had so secured their absence, do you think that the jury would refuse to believe their sworn depositions and whatever other evidence would remain? The fact of your having paid them money would secure a verdict against you. The thing would, in my mind, be so disreputable that I should have to throw up the case. I could not defend you.'
It was clear to him that Bollum had understood his own side of the question in deprecating any reference to an attorney. The money should have been paid and the four witnesses sent away without a word to any one,--if any attempt in that direction were made at all. Nevertheless he went to Robert Bolton's office and succeeded in obtaining an interview with his wife's brother. But here, as with the other attorney he failed to make the man understand the state of his own mind. He had failed in the same way even with his wife. If it were fit that the money should be paid, it could not be right that he should retain it because the people to whom it was due had told lies about him. And if this could be explained to the jury, surely the jury would not give a verdict against him on insufficient evidence, simply because he had done his duty in paying the money!
Robert Bolton listened to him with patience and without any quick expression of hot anger; though before the interview was over he had used some very cruel words. 'We should think ourselves bound to prevent their going, if possible.'
'Of course; I have no idea of going down to Plymouth as the man proposed, or of taking any steps to secure their absence.'
'Your money is your own, and you can do what you like with it. It certainly is not for me to advise you. If you tell me that you are going to pay it, I can only say that I shall look very sharp after them.'
'Why should you want to ruin your sister?'
'You have ruined her. That is our idea. We desire now to rescue her as far as we can from further evil. You have opposed us in every endeavour that we have made. When in the performance of a manifest duty we endeavoured to separate you till after the trial, you succeeded in thwarting us by your influence.'
'I left it to her.'
'Had you been true and honest and upright, you would have known that as long as there was a doubt she ought to have been away from you.'
'I should have sent her away?'
'Certainly.'
'So as to create a doubt in her mind, so as to disturb her peace, so as to make her think that I, having been found out, was willing to be rid of her? It would have killed her.'
'Better so than this.'
'And yet I am as truly her husband as you are the husband of your wife. If you would only teach yourself to think that possible, then you would feel differently.'
'Not as to a temporary separation.'
'If you believed me, you would,' said Caldigate.
'But I do not believe you. In a matter like this, as you will come to me, I must be plain. I do not believe you. I think that you have betrayed and seduced my sister. Looking at all the evidence and at your own confession, I can come to no other conclusion. I have discussed the matter with my brother, who is a clear, cool-headed, most judicious man, and he is of the same opinion. In our own private court we have brought you in guilty,--guilty of an offence against us all which necessarily makes us as bitter against you as one man can be against another. You have destroyed our sister, and now you come here and ask me my advice as to buying off witnesses.'
'It is all untrue. As there is a God above me I am her loyal, loving husband. I will buy off no witness.'
'If I were you I would make no such attempt. It will do no good. I do not think that you have a chance of being acquitted,--not a chance; and then how much worse it will be for Hester when she finds herself still in your house!'
'She will remain there.'
'Even she will feel that to be impossible. Your influence will then probably be removed, and I presume that for a time you will have no home. But we need not discuss that. As you are here, I should not do my duty were I not to assure you that as far as we are concerned,--Hester's family,--nothing shall be spared either in trouble or money to insure the conviction and punishment of the man whom we believe to have brought upon us so terrible a disgrace.'
Caldigate, when he got out into the street, felt that he was driven almost to despair. At first he declared to himself, most untruly, that there was no one to believe him,--no, not one. Then he remembered how faithful was his wife; and as he did so, in his misery, he told himself that it might have been better for her had she been less faithful. Looking at it all as he now looked at it, after hearing the words of that hard man, he almost thought that it would have been so. Everybody told him that he would be condemned; and if so, what would be the fate of that poor young mother and her child? It was very well for her to declare, with her arms round his neck, that even should he be dragged away to prison, she would still be his true wife, and that she would wait,--in sorrow indeed and mourning, but still with patience,--till the cruel jailers and the harsh laws had restored him to her. If the law declared him a bigamist, she could not then be his wife. The law must decide,--whether rightly or wrongly, still must decide. And then how could they live together? An evil done must be endured, let it be ever so unendurable. But against fresh evils a man may guard. Was it not his duty, his manifest, his chief duty, to save her, as far as she could be saved, from further suffering and increased disgrace? Perhaps, after all, Robert Bolton was right when he told him that he ought to have allowed Hester to remain at Chesterton.
Whatever he might do when he got to London, he felt it to be his duty to go up and keep his appointment with Bollum. And he brought with him from home securities and certificates for stock by which he knew that he could raise the sum named at a moment's warning, should he at last decide upon paying the money. When he got into the train, and when he got out of the train, he was still in doubt. Those to whom he had gone for advice had been so hard to him, that he felt himself compelled to put on one side all that they had said. Bollum had suggested, in his graphic manner, that a lawyer and his client stood upon different legs. Caldigate acknowledged to himself that Bollum was right. His own lawyer had been almost as hard to him as his brother-in-law, who was his declared enemy. But what should he do? As to precautions to be taken in reference to the departure of the gang, all that was quite out of the question. They should go to Australia or stay behind, as they pleased. There should be no understanding that they were to go--or even that they were to hold their tongues because the money was paid to them. It should be fully explained to them that the two things were distinct. Then as he was taken to the inn at which he intended to sleep that night, he made up his mind in the cab that he would pay the money to Crinkett.
He got to London just in time to reach the bank before it was closed, and there made his arrangements. He deposited his documents and securities, and was assured that the necessary sum should be placed to his credit on the following day. Then he walked across a street or two in the City to the place indicated by Bollum for the appointment. It was at the Jericho Coffee House, in Levant Court,--a silent, secluded spot, lying between Lombard Street and Cornhill. Here he found himself ten minutes before the time, and, asking for a cup of coffee, sat down at a table fixed to the ground in a little separate box. The order was given to a young woman at a bar in the room. Then an ancient waiter hobbled up to him and explained that coffee was not quite ready. In truth, coffee was not often asked for at the Jericho Coffee House. The house, said the waiter, was celebrated for its sherry. Would he take half a pint of sherry? So he ordered the sherry, which was afterwards drunk by Bollum.
Bollum came, punctual to the moment, and seated himself at the table with good-humoured alacrity. 'Well, Mr. Caldigate, how is it to be? I think you must have seen that what I have proposed will be for the best.'
'I will tell you what I mean to do, Mr. Bollum,' said Caldigate, very gravely. 'It cannot be said that I owe Mr. Crinkett a shilling.'
'Certainly not. But it comes very near owing, doesn't it?'
'So near that I mean to pay it.'
'That's right.'
'So near that I don't like to feel that I have got his money in my pocket. As far as money goes, I have been a fortunate man.'
'Wonderful!' said Bollum, enthusiastically.
'And as I was once in partnership with your uncle, I do not like to think that I enriched myself by a bargain which impoverished him.'
'It ain't nice, is it,--that you should have it all, and he nothing?'
'Feeling that very strongly,' continued Caldigate, merely shaking his head in token of displeasure at Bollum's interruption, 'I have determined to repay Mr. Crinkett an amount that seems to me to be fair. He shall have back twenty thousand pounds.'
'He's a lucky fellow, and he'll be off like a shot;--like a shot.'
'He and others have conspired to rob me of all my happiness, thinking that they might so most probably get this money from me. They have invented a wicked lie,--a wicked damnable lie,--a damnable lie! They are miscreants,--foul miscreants!'
'Come, come, Mr. Caldigate.'
'Foul miscreants! But they shall have their money, and you shall hear me tell them when I give it to them,--and they must both be here to take it from my hands,--that I do not at all require their absence. There is to be no bargain between us. They are free to remain and swear their false oaths against me. Whether they go or whether they stay will be no affair of mine.'
'They'll go, of course, Mr. Caldigate.'
'Not at my instance. I will take care that that shall be known. They must both come; and into their joint hands will I give the cheque, and they must come prepared with a receipt declaring that they accept the money as restitution of the loss incurred by them in purchasing the Polyeuka mine from me. Do you understand? And I shall bring a witness with me to see them take the money.' Bollum who was considerably depressed by his companion's manner, said that he did understand.
'I suppose I can have a private room here, at noon to-morrow?' asked Caldigate, turning to the woman at the bar.
When that was settled he assured Bollum that a cheque for the amount should be placed in the joint hands of Timothy Crinkett and Euphemia Smith if he, and they with him, would be there at noon on the following day. Bollum in vain attempted to manage the payment without the personal interview, but at last agreed that the man and the woman should be forthcoming.
That night Caldigate dined at his Club, one of the University Clubs, at which he had been elected just at the time of his marriage. He had seldom been there, but now walked into the dinner-room, resolving that he would not be ashamed to show himself. He fancied that everybody looked at him, and probably there were some present who knew that he was about to stand his trial for bigamy. But he got his dinner, and smoked his cigar; and before the evening was over he had met an old College friend. He was in want of a friend, and explained his wants. He told something of his immediate story, and then asked the man to be present at the scene on the morrow.
'I must have a witness, Gray,' said he, 'and you will do me a kindness if you will come.' Then Mr. Gray promised to be present on the occasion.
On the following morning he met Gray at the Club, having the cheque ready in his pocket, and together they proceeded to Levant Court. Again he was a little before his time, and the two sat together in the gloomy little room up-stairs. Bollum was the first to come, and when he saw the stranger, was silent,--thinking whether it might not be best to escape and warn Crinkett and the woman that all might not be safe. But the stranger did not look like a detective; and, as he told himself, why should there be danger? So he waited, and in a few minutes Crinkett entered the room, with the woman veiled.
'Well, Caldigate,' said Crinkett, 'how is it with you?'
'If you please, Mrs. Smith,' said Caldigate, 'I must ask you to remove your veil,--so that I may be sure that it is you.'
She removed her veil very slowly, and then stood looking him in the face,--not full in the face, for she could not quite raise her eyes to meet his. And though she made an effort to brazen it out, she could not quite succeed. She attempted to raise her head, and carry herself with pride; but every now and again there was a slight quiver,--slight, but still visible. The effort, too, was visible. But there she stood, looking at him, and to be looked at,--but without a word. During the whole interview she never once opened her lips.
She had lost all her comeliness. It was now nearly seven years since they two had been on the Goldfinder together, and then he had found her very attractive. There was no attraction now. She was much aged; and her face was coarse, as though she had taken to drinking. But there was still about her something of that look of intellect which had captivated him more, perhaps, than her beauty. Since those days she had become a slave to gold,--and such slavery is hardly compatible with good looks in a woman. There she stood,--ready to listen to him, ready to take his money, but determined not to utter a word.
Then he took the cheque out of his pocket, and holding it in his hand, spoke to them as follows: 'I have explained to Mr. Bollum, and have explained to my friend here, Mr. Gray, the reasons which induce me to pay to you, Timothy Crinkett, and to you, Euphemia Smith, the large sum of twenty thousand pounds. The nature of our transactions has been such that I feel bound in honour to repay so much of the price you paid for the Polyeuka mine.'
'All right, Caldigate; all right,' said Crinkett.
'And I have explained also to both of them that this payment has nothing whatever to do with the base, false, and most wicked charge which you are bringing against me. It is not because that woman, by a vile perjury, claims me as her husband, and because I wish to buy her silence or his, that I make this restitution. I restore the money of my own free will, without any base bargain. You can go on with your perjury or abstain from it, as you may think best.'
'We understand, squire,' said Crinkett, affecting to laugh. 'You hand over the money,--that's all.' Then the woman looked round at her companion, and a frown came across her face; but she said nothing, turning her face again upon Caldigate, and endeavouring to keep her eyes steadfastly fixed upon him.
'Have you brought a receipt signed by both of you?' Then Bollum handed him a receipt signed 'Timothy Crinkett, for self and partners.' But Caldigate demanded that the woman also should sign it.
'There is a difficulty about the name, you see,' said Bollum. There was a difficulty about the name, certainly. It would not be fair, he thought, that he should force her to the use of a name she disowned, and he did not wish to be hindered from what he was doing by her persistency in calling herself by his own name.
'So be it,' said he. 'There is the cheque. Mr. Gray will see that I put it into both their hands.' This he did, each of them stretching out a hand to take it. 'And now you can go where you please and act as you please. You have combined to rob me of all that I value most by the basest of lies; but not on that account have I abstained from doing what I believe to be an act of justice.' Then he left the room, and paying for the use of it to the woman at the bar, walked off with his friend Gray, leaving Crinkett, Bollum, and the woman still within the house.
| {
"id": "11643"
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40 | None | Waiting For The Trial As he returned to Cambridge Caldigate was not altogether contented with himself. He tried to persuade himself, in reference to the money which he had refunded, that in what he had done he had not at all been actuated by the charge made against him. Had there been no such accusation he would have felt himself bound to share the loss with these people as soon as he had learned the real circumstances. The money had been a burden to him. For the satisfaction of his own honour, of his own feelings, it had become necessary that the money should be refunded. And the need of doing so was not lessened by the fact that a base conspiracy had been made by a gang of villains who had thought that the money might thus be most readily extracted from him. That was his argument with himself, and his defence for what he had done. But nevertheless he was aware that he had been driven to do it now,--to pay the money at this special moment,--by an undercurrent of hope that these enemies would think it best for themselves to go as soon as they had his money in their hands. He wished to be honest, he wished to be honourable, he wished that all that he did could be what the world calls 'above board'; but still it was so essential for him and for his wife that they should go! He had been very steady in assuring these wretched ones that they might go or stay, as they pleased. He had been careful that there should be a credible witness of his assurance. He might succeed in making others believe that he had not attempted to purchase their absence; but he could not make himself believe it.
Even though a jury should not convict him, there was so much in his Australian life which would not bear the searching light of cross-examination! The same may probably be said of most of us. In such trials as this that he was anticipating, there is often a special cruelty in the exposure of matters which are for the most part happily kept in the background. A man on some occasion inadvertently takes a little more wine than is good for him. It is an accident most uncommon with him, and nobody thinks much about it. But chance brings the case to the notice of the police courts, and the poor victim is published to the world as a drunkard in the columns of all the newspapers. Some young girl fancies herself in love, and the man is unworthy. The feeling passes away, and none but herself, and perhaps her mother, are the wiser. But if by some chance, some treachery, a letter should get printed and read, the poor girl's punishment is so severe that she is driven to wish herself in the grave.
He had been foolish, very foolish, as we have seen, on board the Goldfinder,--and wicked too. There could be no doubt about that. When it would all come out in this dreaded trial he would be quite unable to defend himself. There was enough to enable Mrs. Bolton to point at him with a finger of scorn as a degraded sinner. And yet,--yet there had been nothing which he had not dared to own to his wife in the secrecy of their mutual confidence, and which, in secret, she had not been able to condone without a moment's hesitation. He had been in love with the woman,--in love after a fashion. He had promised to marry her. He had done worse than that. And then, when he had found that the passion for gold was strong upon her, he had bought his freedom from her. The story would be very bad as told in Court, and yet he had told it all to his wife! She had admitted his excuse when he had spoken of the savageness of his life, of the craving which a man would feel for some feminine society, of her undoubted cleverness, and then of her avarice. And then when he swore that through it all he had still loved her,--her, Hester Bolton,--whom he had but once seen, but whom, having seen, he had never allowed to pass out of his mind, she still believed him, and thought that the holiness of that love had purified him. She believed him;--but who else would believe him? Of course he was most anxious that those people should go.
Before he left London he wrote both to Mr. Seely and to Robert Bolton, saying what he had done. The letter to his own attorney was long and full. He gave an account in detail of the whole matter, declaring that he would not allow himself to be hindered from paying a debt which he believed to be due, by the wickedness of those to whom it was owing. 'The two things have nothing to do with each other,' he said, 'and if you choose to throw up my defence, of course you can do so. I cannot allow myself to be debarred from exercising my own judgment in another matter because you think that what I decide upon doing may not tally with your views as to my defence.' To Robert Bolton he was much shorter. 'I think you ought to know what I have done,' he said; 'at any rate, I do not choose that you should be left in ignorance.' Mr. Seely took no notice of the communication, not feeling himself bound to carry out his threat by withdrawing his assistance from his client. But Robert and William Bolton agreed to have Crinkett's movements watched by a detective policeman. They were both determined that if possible Crinkett and the woman should be kept in the country.
In these days the old Squire made many changes in his residence, vacillating between his house in Cambridge and the house at Folking. His books were at Cambridge, and he could not have them brought back; and yet he felt that he ought to evince his constancy to his son, his conviction of his son's innocence, by remaining at Folking. And he was aware, too, that his presence there was a comfort both to his son and Hester. When John Caldigate had gone up to London, his father had been in Cambridge, but on his return he found the old Squire at his old house. 'Yes,' he said, telling the story of what he had just done, 'I have paid twenty thousand pounds out of hand to those rascals, simply because I thought I owed it to them!' The Squire shook his head, not being able to approve of the act.' I don't see why I should have allowed myself to be hindered from doing what I thought to be right because they were doing what they knew to be wrong.'
'They won't go, you know.'
'I daresay not, sir. Why should they?'
'But the jury will believe that you intended to purchase their absence.'
'I think I have made all that clear.'
'I am afraid not, John. The man applied to you for the money, and was refused. That was the beginning of it. Then the application was repeated by the woman with a threat; and you again refused. Then they present themselves to the magistrates, and make the accusation; and, upon that, you pay the money. Of course it will come out at the trial that you paid it immediately after this renewed application from Bollum. It would have been better to have defied them.'
'I did defy them,' said John Caldigate. But all that his father said seemed to him to be true, so that he repented himself of what he had done.
He made no inquiry on the subject, but, early in May he heard from Mr. Seely that Crinkett and the woman were still in London, and that they had abandoned the idea of going at once to Australia. According to Mr. Seely's story,--of the truth of which he declared himself to be by no means certain,--Crinkett had wished to go, but had been retained by the woman. 'As far as I can learn,' said Mr. Seely, 'she is in communication with the Boltons, who will of course keep her if it be possible. He would get off if he could; but she, I take it, has got hold of the money. When you made the cheque payable to her order, you effectually provided for their remaining here. If he could have got the money without her name, he would have gone, and she would have gone with him.'
'But that was not my object,' said Caldigate angrily. Mr. Seely thereupon shrugged his shoulders. Early in June the man came back who had been sent out to Sydney in February on behalf of Caldigate. He also had been commissioned to seek for evidence, and to bring back with him, almost at any cost, whatever witness or witnesses he might find whose presence in England would serve Caldigate's cause. But he brought no one, and had learned very little. He too had been at Ahalala and at Nobble. At Nobble the people were now very full of the subject and were very much divided in opinion. There were Crinketters and anti-Crinketters, Caldigatites and anti-Caldigatites. A certain number of persons were ready to swear that there had been a marriage, and an equal number, perhaps, to swear that there had been none. But no new fact had been brought to light. Dick Shand had not been found,--who had been living with Caldigate when the marriage was supposed to have been solemnised. Nor had that register been discovered from which the copy of the certificate was supposed to have been taken. All through the Colony,--so said this agent,--a very great interest was felt in the matter. The newspapers from day to day contained paragraphs about it. But nobody had appeared whom it was worth while to bring home. Mrs. Henniker, of the hotel at Nobble, had offered to swear that there had been no marriage. This offer she made and repeated when she had come to understand accurately on whose behalf this last agent had come to the Colony. But then, before she had understood this, she had offered to swear the reverse; and it became known that she was very anxious to be carried back to the old country free of expense. No credible witness could be found who had heard Caldigate call the woman Mrs. Smith after the date assigned to the marriage. She no doubt had used various names, had called herself sometimes Mrs. Caldigate, sometimes Mrs. Smith, but generally, in such documents as she had to sign in reference to her mining shares, Euphemia Cettini. It was by that name that she had been known in Sydney when performing on the stage, and it was now alleged on her behalf that she had bought and sold shares in that name under the idea that she would thus best secure to herself their separate and undisturbed possession. Proof was brought home that Caldigate himself had made over to her shares in that name; but Mr. Seely did not depend much on this as proof against the marriage.
Mr. Seely seemed to depend very little on anything,--so little that Caldigate almost wished that he had carried out his threat and thrown up the case. 'Does he not believe you when you tell him?' his wife asked. Caldigate was forced to confess that apparently the lawyer did not believe him. In fact, Mr. Seely had even said as much. 'In such cases a lawyer should never believe or disbelieve; or, if he does, he should never speak of his belief. It is with your acquittal or conviction that I am concerned, in which matter I can better assist you by cool judgment than by any fervid assurance.' All this made Caldigate not only angry but unhappy, for he could not fail to perceive that the public around him were in the same mind as Mr. Seely. In his own parish they believed him, but apparently not beyond his parish. It might be possible that he should escape,--that seemed to be the general opinion; but then general opinion went on to declare that there was no reason for supposing that he had not married the woman merely because he said that he had not done so.
Then gradually there fell upon poor Hester's mind a doubt,--and, after that, almost a conviction. Not a doubt as to her husband's truth! No suspicion on that score ever troubled her for a moment. But there came upon her a fear, almost more than a fear, that these terrible enemies would be strong enough to override the truth, and to carry with them both a judge and a jury. As the summer months ran on, they all became aware that for any purpose of removing the witnesses the money had been paid in vain. Crinkett was living in all opulence at a hotel at Brighton; and the woman, calling herself Mrs. Caldigate, had taken furnished apartments in London. Rumour came that she was frequently seen at the theatres, and that she had appeared more than once in an open carriage in the parks. There was no doubt but that Caldigate's money had made them very comfortable for the present. The whole story of the money had been made public, and of course there were various opinions about it. The prevailing idea was, that an attempt had been made to buy off the first wife, but that the first wife had been clever enough to get the money without having to go. Caldigate was thought to have been very foolish; on which subject Bollum once expressed himself strongly to a friend. 'Clever!' he said; 'Caldigate clever! The greatest idiot I ever came across in my life! I'd made it quite straight for him,--so that there couldn't have been a wrinkle. But he wouldn't have it. There are men so soft that one can't understand 'em.' To do Bollum justice it should be said that he was most anxious to induce his uncle and the woman to leave the country when they had got the money.
Though very miserable, Hester was very brave. In the presence of her husband she would never allow herself to seem to doubt. She would speak of their marriage as a thing so holy that nothing within the power of man could disturb it. Of course they were man and wife, and of course the truth would at last prevail. Was not the Lord able, in His own good time, to set all these matters right? And in discussing the matter with him she would always seem to imply that the Lord's good time would be the time of the trial. She would never herself hint to him that there might be a period of separation coming. Though in secrecy she was preparing for what might befall him, turning over in her woman's mind how she might best relieve the agony of his jail, she let no sign escape her that she looked forward to such misery. She let no such sign escape her in her intercourse with him. But with his father she could speak more freely. It had, indeed, come to be understood between her and the old Squire, that it would be best that they should discuss the matter openly. Arrangements must be made for their future life, so that when the blow came they might not be unprepared. Hester declared that nothing but positive want of shelter should induce her to go back to Chesterton. 'They think him to be all that's bad,' she said. 'I know him to be all that's good. How is it possible that we should live together?' The old man had, of course, turned it over much in his mind. If it could be true that that woman had in truth become his son's wife, and that this dear, sweet, young mother had been deceived, betrayed, and cheated out of her very existence, then that house at Folking could be no proper home for her. Her grave would be best, but till that might be reached any home would be better than Folking. But he was almost sure that it was not so, and her confidence,--old as he was, and prone to be suspicious,--made him confident.
When the moment came he could not doubt how he would answer her. He could not crush her spirit by seeming for a moment to have a suspicion. 'Your home, of course, shall be here,' he said. 'It shall be your own house.'
'And you?'
'It shall be my house too. If it should come to that, we will be, at any rate, together. You shall not be left without a friend.'
'It is not for myself,' she said; 'but for his boy and for him;--what will be best for them. I would take a cabin at the prison-gate, so as to be nearest to him,--if it were only myself.' And so it was settled between them, that should that great misery fall upon them, she would remain at Folking and he would remain with her. Nothing that judge or jury could do would deprive her of the right to occupy her husband's house.
In this way the months of May and June and the first fortnight of July wore themselves away, and then the time for the trial had come. Up to the last it had been hoped that tidings might be heard either by letter or telegram from Dick Shand; but it seemed that he had vanished from the face of the earth. No suggestion of news as to his whereabouts was received on which it might have been possible to found an argument for the further postponement of the trial. Mr. Seely had been anxious for such postponement,--perhaps thinking that as the hotel at Brighton and the carriages in the park were expensive, Crinkett and the lady might take their departure for Australia without saying a word to the lawyer who had undertaken the prosecution. But there was no adequate ground for delay, and on Tuesday the 17th July the trial was to be commenced. On the previous day Caldigate, at his own request, was introduced to Sir John Joram, who had been brought down special to Cambridge for his defence. Mr. Seely had advised him not to see the barrister who was to defend him, leaving it, however, quite at his option to do so or not as he pleased. 'Sir John will see you, but I think he had rather not,' said Mr. Seely. But Caldigate had chosen to have the interview. 'I have thought it best to say just one word to you,' said Caldigate.
'I am quite at your service,' said Sir John.
'I want you to hear from my own lips that a falser charge than this was never made against a man.'
'I am glad to hear it,' said Sir John,--and then he paused. 'That is to say, Mr. Caldigate, I am bound in courtesy to you to make some such civil reply as I should have made had I not been employed in your case, and had circumstances then induced you to make such a statement to me. But in truth, as I am so employed, no statement from your lips ought to affect me in the least. For your own sake I will say that no statement will affect me. It is not for me to believe or disbelieve anything in this matter. If carried away by my feelings, I were to appeal to the jury for their sympathy because of my belief, I should betray your cause. It will be my duty not to make the jury believe you, who, in your position, will not be expected even to tell the truth; but to induce them, if possible, to disbelieve the witnesses against you who will be on their oath. Second-hand protestations from an advocate are never of much avail, and in many cases have been prejudicial. I can only assure you that I understand the importance of the interests confided to me, and that I will endeavour to be true to my trust.'
Caldigate, who wanted sympathy, who wanted an assurance of confidence in his word, was by no means contented with his counsellor; but he was too wise at the present moment to quarrel with him.
| {
"id": "11643"
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41 | None | The First Day Then came the morning on which Caldigate and Hester must part. Very little had been said about it, but a word or two had been absolutely necessary. The trial would probably take two days, and it would not be well that he should be brought back to Folking for the sad intervening night. And then,--should the verdict be given against him, the prison doors would be closed against her, his wife, more rigidly than against any other friend who might knock at them inquiring after his welfare. Her, at any rate, he would not be allowed to see. All the prison authorities would be bound to regard her as the victim of his crime and as the instrument of his vice. The law would have locked him up to avenge her injuries,--of her, whose only future joy could come from that distant freedom which the fraudulent law would at length allow to him. All this was not put into words between them, but it was understood. It might be that they were to be parted now for a term of years, during which she would be as a widow at Folking while he would be alone in his jail.
There are moments as to which it would be so much better that their coming should never be accomplished! It would have been better for them both had they been separated without that last embrace. He was to start from Folking at eight that he might surrender himself to the hands of justice in due time for the trial at ten. She did not come down with him to the breakfast parlour, having been requested by him not to be there among the servants when he took his departure; but standing there in her own room, with his baby in her arms, she spoke her last word, 'You will keep up your courage, John?'
'I will try, Hester.'
'I will keep up mine. I will never fail, for your sake and his,'--here she held the child a moment away from her bosom,--'I will never allow myself to droop. To be your wife and his mother shall be enough to support me even though you should be torn from both of us for a time.'
'I wish I were as brave as you,' he said.
'You will leave me here,' she continued, 'mistress of your house; and if God spares me, here you will find me. They can't move me from this. Your father says so. They may call me what they will, but they cannot move me. There is the Lord above us, and before Him they cannot make me other than your wife,--your wife,--your wife.' As she repeated the name, she put the boy out to him, and when he had taken the child, she stretched out her hands upwards, and falling on her knees at his feet, prayed to God for his deliverance. 'Let him come back to us, O my God. Deliver him from his enemies, and let him come back to us.'
'One kiss, my own,' he said, as he raised her from the ground.
'Oh yes;--and a thousand shall be in store for you when you come back to us. Yes; kiss him too. Your boy shall hear the praises of his father every day, till at last he shall understand that he may be proud of you even though he should have learned why it is that you are not with him. Now go, my darling. Go; and support yourself by remembering that I have got that within me which will support me.' Then he left her.
The old Squire had expressed his intention of being present throughout the trial, and now was ready for the journey. When counselled to remain at home, both by Mr. Seely and by his son, he had declared that only by his presence could he make the world around him understand how confident he was of his son's innocence. So it was arranged, and a place was kept for him next to the attorney. The servants all came out into the hall and shook hands with their young master; and the cook, wiping her eyes with her apron, declared that she would have dinner ready for him on the following day. At the front door Mr. Holt was standing, having come over the ferry to greet the young squire before his departure. 'They may say what they will there, squire, but they won't make none of us here believe that you've been the man to injure a lady such as she up there.' Then there was another shaking of hands, and the father and son got into the carriage.
The court was full, of course. Mr. Justice Bramber, by whom the case was to be tried, was reputed to be an excellent judge, a man of no softnesses,--able to wear the black cap without convulsive throbbings, anxious also that the law should run its course,--averse to mercy when guilt had been proved, but as clear-sighted and as just as Minos; a man whom nothing could turn one way or another,--who could hang his friend, but who would certainly not mulct his enemy because he was his enemy. It had reached Caldigate's ears that he was unfortunate in his judge; by which, they who had so said, had intended to imply that this judge's mind would not be perverted by any sentiments as to the prisoner, as to the sweet young woman who called herself his wife at home, or as to want of sweetness on the part of the other woman who claimed him.
The jury was sworn in without more than ordinary delay, and then the trial was commenced. That which had to be done for the prosecution seemed to be simple enough. The first witness called was the woman herself, who was summoned in the names of Euphemia Caldigate _alias_ Smith. She gave her evidence very clearly, and with great composure,--saying how she had become acquainted with the man on board the ship; how she had been engaged to him at Melbourne; how he had come down to her at Sydney; how, in compliance with his orders, she had followed him up to Ahalala; and how she had there been married to him by Mr. Allan. Then she brought forth the documents which professed to be the copy of the register of the marriage, made by the minister in his own book; and the envelope,--the damning envelope,--which Caldigate was prepared to admit that he had himself addressed to Mrs. Caldigate; and the letter which purported to have been written by the minister to Caldigate, recommending him to be married in some better established township than that existing at Ahalala. She did it well. She was very correct, and at the same time very determined, giving many details of her early theatrical life, which it was thought better to get from her in the comparative ease of a direct examination than to have them extracted afterwards by an adverse advocate. During her evidence in chief, which was necessarily long, she seemed to be quite at ease; but those around her observed that she never once turned her eyes upon him whom she claimed as her husband except when she was asked whether the man there before her was the man she had married at Ahalala. Then, looking at him for a moment in silence, she replied, very steadily, 'Yes; that is my husband, John Caldigate.'
To Caldigate and his friends,--and indeed to all those collected in the court,--the most interesting person of the day was Sir John Joram. In a sensational cause the leading barrister for the defence is always the hero of the plot,--the actor from whom the best bit of acting is expected,--the person who is most likely to become a personage on the occasion. The prisoners are necessarily mute, and can only be looked at, not heard. The judge is not expected to do much till the time comes for his charge, and even then is supposed to lower the dignity of the bench if he makes his charge with any view to effect on his own behalf. The barrister who prosecutes should be tame, or he will appear to be vindictive. The witnesses, however interesting they may be in detail, are but episodes. Each comes and goes, and there is an end of them. But the part of the defending advocate requires action through the whole of the piece. And he may be impassioned. He is bound to be on the alert. Everything seems to depend on him. They who accuse can have or should have no longing for the condemnation of the accused one. But in regard to the other, an acquittal is a matter of personal prowess, of professional triumph, and possibly of well simulated feeling.
Sir John Joram was at this time a man of considerable dignity, above fifty years of age, having already served the offices of Solicitor and Attorney-General to his party. To his compeers and intimate friends it seemed to be but the other day since he was Jacky Joram, one of the jolliest little fellows ever known at an evening party, up to every kind of fun, always rather short of money, and one of whom it was thought that, because he was good-looking, he might some day achieve the success of marrying a woman with money. On a sudden he married a girl without a shilling, and men shook their heads and sighed as they spoke of poor Jacky Joram. But, again, on a sudden,--quite as suddenly,--there came tidings that Jacky had been found out by the attorneys, and that he was earning his bread. As we grow old things seem to come so quickly! His friends had hardly realised the fact that Jacky was earning his bread before he was in Parliament and had ceased to be Jacky. And the celerity with which he became Sir John was the most astonishing of all. Years no doubt had passed by. But years at fifty are no more than months at thirty,--are less than weeks in boyhood. And now while some tongues, by dint of sheer habit, were still forming themselves into Jacky, Sir John Joram had become the leading advocate of the day, and a man renowned for the dignity of his manners.
In the House,--for he had quite got the ear of the House,--a certain impressive good sense, a habit of saying nothing that was not necessary to the occasion, had chiefly made for him the high character he enjoyed; but in the law courts it was perhaps his complaisance, his peculiar courtesy, of which they who praised him talked the most. His aptitude to get verdicts was of course the cause of his success. But it was observed of him that in perverting the course of justice,--which may be said to be the special work of a successful advocate,--he never condescended to bully anybody. To his own witnesses he was simple and courteous, as are barristers generally. But to adverse witnesses he was more courteous, though no doubt less simple. Even to some perjured comrade of an habitual burglar he would be studiously civil: but to a woman such as Euphemia Caldigate, _alias_ Smith, it was certain that he would be so smooth as to make her feel almost pleased with the amenities of her position.
He asked her very many questions, offering to provide her with the comfort of a seat if it were necessary. She said that she was not at all tired, and that she preferred to stand. As to the absolute fact of the marriage she did not hesitate at all. She was married in the tent at Ahalala in the presence of Crinkett and Adamson, and of her own female companion, Anna Young,--all of whom were there to give evidence of the fact. Whether any one else was in the tent, she could not say, but she knew that there were others at the entrance. The tent was hardly large enough for more than five or six. Dick Shand had not been there, because he had always been her enemy, and had tried to prevent the marriage. And she was quite clear about the letter. There was a great deal said about the letter. She was sure that the envelope with the letter had come to her at Ahalala by post from Sydney when her husband was at the latter place. The Sydney postmark with the date was very plain. There was much said as to the accuracy and clearness of the Sydney postmark, and something as to the absence of any postmark at Nobble. She could not account for the absence of the Nobble postmark. She was aware that letters were stamped at Nobble generally. Mr. Allan, she said, had himself handed to her the copy of the register almost immediately after the marriage, but she could not say by whom it had been copied. The letter purporting to be from Mr. Allan to her husband was no doubt, she said, in the minister's handwriting. Caldigate had showed it to her before their marriage, and she had kept it without any opposition from him. Then she was asked as to her residence after her marriage, and here she was less clear. She had lived with him first at Ahalala and then at Nobble, but she could not say for how long. It had been off and on. There had been quarrels, and after a time they had agreed to part. She had received from him a certain amount of mining shares and of money, and had undertaken in return never to bother him any more. There was a great deal said about times and dates, which left an impression upon those around her in the court that she was less sure of her facts than a woman in such circumstances naturally would have been.
Then Sir John produced the letter which she had written to Caldigate, and in which she had distinctly offered to marry Crinkett if the money demanded were paid. She must have expected the production of this letter, but still, for a few moments, it silenced her. 'Yes,' she said, at last, 'I wrote it.'
'And the money you demanded has been paid?'
'Yes, it has been paid. But not then. It was not paid till we came over.'
'But if it had been paid then you would have--married Mr. Crinkett?' Sir John's manner as he asked the question was so gentle and so soft that it was felt by all to contain an apology for intruding on so delicate a subject. But when she hesitated, he did, after a pause, renew his inquiry in another form. 'Perhaps this was only a threat, and you had no purpose of carrying it out.'
Then she plucked up her courage. 'I have not married him,' she said.
'But did you intend it?'
'I did. What were the laws to me out there? He had left me and had taken another wife. I had to do the best for myself. I did intend it. But I didn't do it. A woman can't be tried for her intentions.'
'No,' said Sir John. 'But she may be judged by her intentions.'
Then she was asked why she had not gone when she had got the money, according to her promise. 'He defied us,' she said, 'and called us bad names,--liars and perjurers. He knew that we were not liars. And then we were watched and told that we might not go. As he said that he was indifferent, I was willing enough to stay and see it out.'
'You cannot give us,' he asked again,--and this was his last question,--'any clearer record of those months which you lived with your husband?'
'No,' she said, 'I cannot. I kept no journal.' Then she was allowed to go, and though she had been under examination for three hours, it was thought she had escaped easily.
Crinkett was the next, who swore that he had been Caldigate's partner in sundry mining speculations,--that they had been in every way intimate,--that he had always recommended Caldigate to marry Mrs. Smith, thinking, as he said, 'that respectability paid in the long run,'--and that, having so advised him, he had become Caldigate's special friend at the time, to the exclusion of Dick Shand, who was generally drunk, and who, whether drunk or sober, was opposed to the marriage. He had been selected to stand by his friend at the marriage, and he, thinking that another witness would be beneficial, had taken Adamson with him. His only wonder was that any one should dispute a fact which was at the time so notorious both at Ahalala and at Nobble. He held his head high during his evidence in chief, and more than once called the prisoner 'Caldigate,'--'Caldigate knew this,'--and 'Caldigate did that.' It was past four when he was handed over for cross-examination; but when it was said that another hour would suffice for it, the judge agreed to sit for that other hour.
But it was nearly two hours before the gentleman who was with Sir John had finished his work, during which Mr. Crinkett seemed to suffer much. The gentleman was by no means so complacent as Sir John, and asked some very disagreeable questions. Had Crinkett intended to commit bigamy by marrying the last witness, knowing at the time that she was a married woman? 'I never said that I intended to marry her,' said Crinkett. 'What she wrote to Caldigate was nothing to me.' He could not be made to own, as she had done in a straightforward way, that he had intended to set the law at defiance. His courage failed him, and his presence of mind, and he was made to declare at last that he had only talked about such a marriage, with the view of keeping the woman in good humour, but that he had never intended to marry her. Then he was asked as to Bollum;--had he told Bollum that he intended to marry the woman? At last he owned that he might have done so. Of course he had been anxious to get his money, and he had thought that he might best do so by such an offer. He was reduced to much misery during his cross-examination; but on the one main statement that he had been present at the marriage he was not shaken.
At six o'clock the trial was adjourned till the next day, and the two Caldigates were taken in a fly to a neighbouring inn, at which rooms had been provided for them. Here they were soon joined by Mr. Seely, who explained, however, that he had come merely to make arrangements for the morrow. 'How is it going?' asked Caldigate.
The question was very natural, but it was one which Mr. Seely was not disposed to answer. 'I couldn't give an opinion,' he said. 'In such cases I never do give an opinion. The evidence is very clear, and has not been shaken; but the witnesses are people of a bad character. Character goes a long way with a jury. It will depend a good deal on the judge, I should say. But I cannot give an opinion.'
No opinion one way or the other was expressed to the father or son,--who indeed saw no one else the whole evening; but Robert Bolton, in discussing the matter with his father, expressed a strong conviction that Caldigate would be acquitted. He had heard it all, and understood the nature of such cases. 'I do not in the least doubt that they were married,' said Robert Bolton. 'All the circumstances make me sure of it. But the witnesses are just of that kind which a jury always distrusts. The jury will acquit him, not because they do not believe the marriage, but out of enmity to Crinkett and the woman.'
'What shall we do, then?' asked the old man. To this Robert Bolton could make no answer. He only shook his head and turned away.
| {
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42 | None | The Second Day The court had been very full on the first day of the trial, but on the following morning it was even more crowded, so that outsiders who had no friend connected with justice, had hardly a chance of hearing or seeing anything. Many of the circumstances of the case had long been known to the public, but matters of new and of peculiar interest had been elicited,--the distinct promise made by the woman to marry another man, so as to render her existing husband safe in his bigamy by committing bigamy herself,--the payment to these people by Caldigate of an immense sum of money,--the fact that they two had lived together in Australia whether married or not;--all this, which had now been acknowledged on both sides, added to the romance of the occasion. While it could hardly be doubted, on the one side, that Caldigate had married the woman,--so strong was the evidence,--it could not be at all doubted, on the other side, that the accusation had been planned with the view of raising money, and had been the result of a base conspiracy. And then there was the additional marvel, that though the money had been paid,--the whole sum demanded,--yet the trial was carried on. The general feeling was exactly that which Robert Bolton had attributed to the jury. People did believe that there had been a marriage, but trusted nevertheless that Caldigate might be acquitted,--so that his recent marriage might be established. No doubt there was a feeling with many that anything done in the wilds of Australia ought not 'to count' here at home in England.
Caldigate with his father was in court a little before ten, and at that hour punctually the trial was recommenced. The first business was the examination of Adamson, who was quite clear as to the marriage. He had been concerned with Crinkett in money operations for many years, and had been asked by him to be present simply as a witness. He had never been particularly intimate with Caldigate, and had had little or nothing to do with him afterwards. He was cross-examined by the second gentleman, but was not subjected to much annoyance. He had put what little money he possessed into the Polyeuka mine, and had come over to England because he had thought that, by so doing, he might perhaps get a portion of his money back. Had there been a conspiracy, and was he one of the conspirators? Well, he rather thought that there had been a conspiracy, and that he was one of the conspirators. But then he had only conspired to get what he thought to be his own. He had lost everything in the Polyeuka mine; and as the gentleman no doubt had married the lady, he thought he might as well come forward,--and that perhaps in that way he would get his money. He did not mind saying that he had received a couple of thousand pounds, which was half what he had put into Polyeuka. He hoped that, after paying all his expenses, he would be able to start again at the diggings with something above a thousand. This was all straight sailing. The purpose which he had in view was so manifest that it had hardly been worth while to ask him the questions.
Anna Young was the next, and she encountered the sweet courtesies of Sir John Joram. These sweet courtesies were prolonged for above an hour, and were not apparently very sweet to Miss Young. Of the witnesses hitherto examined she was the worst. She had been flippantly confident in her memories of the marriage ceremony when questioned on behalf of the prosecution, but had forgotten everything in reference to her friend's subsequent married life. She had forgotten even her own life, and did not quite know where she had lived. And at last she positively refused to answer questions though they were asked with the most engaging civility. She said that, 'Of course a lady had affairs which she could not tell to everybody.' 'No, she didn't mean lovers;--she didn't care for the men at all.' 'Yes; she did mean money. She had done a little mining, and hoped to do a little more.' 'She was to have a thousand pounds and her expenses, but she hadn't got the money yet,'--and so on. Probably of all the witnesses yet examined Miss Young had amused the court the most.
There were many others, no doubt necessary for the case, but hardly necessary for the telling of the story. Captain Munday was there, the captain of the Goldfinder, who spoke of Caldigate's conduct on board, and of his own belief that they two were engaged when they left the ship. 'As we are prepared to acknowledge that there was an engagement, I do not think that we need trouble you, Captain Munday,' said Sir John. 'We only deny the marriage.' Then the cheque for twenty thousand pounds was produced, and clerks from the bank to prove the payment, and the old waiter from the Jericho Coffee-house,--and others, of whom Sir John Joram refused to take any notice whatever. All that had been acknowledged. Of course the money had been paid. Of course the intimacy had existed. No doubt there had been those interviews both at Folking and up in London. But had there ever been a marriage in that tent at Ahalala? That, and that only, was the point to which Sir John Joram found it necessary to give attention.
A slight interval was allowed for lunch, and then Sir John rose to begin his speech. It was felt on all sides that his speech was to be the great affair of the trial. Would he be able so to represent these witnesses as to make a jury believe that they had sworn falsely, and that the undoubted and acknowledged conspiracy to raise money had been concocted without any basis of truth? There was a quarter of an hour during which the father remained with his son in the precincts of the prison, and then the judge and the lawyers, and all they whose places were assured to them trooped back into court. They who were less privileged had fed themselves with pocketed sandwiches, not caring to risk the loss of their seats.
Sir John Joram began by holding, extended in his fingers towards the jury, the envelope which had undoubtedly been addressed by Caldigate to 'Mrs. Caldigate, Ahalala, Nobble,' and in which a certain letter had been stated to have been sent by him to her. 'The words written on that envelope,' said he, 'are to my mind the strongest evidence I have ever met of the folly to which a man may be reduced by the softness of feminine intercourse. I acknowledge, on the part of my client, that he wrote these words. I acknowledge that if a man could make a woman his wife by so describing her on a morsel of paper, this man would have made this woman his wife. I acknowledge so much, though I do not acknowledge, though I deny, that any letter was ever sent to this woman in the envelope which I hold in my hand. His own story is that he wrote those words at a moment of soft and foolish confidence, when they two together were talking of a future marriage,--a marriage which no doubt was contemplated, and which probably had been promised. Then he wrote the address, showing the woman the name which would be hers should they ever be married;--and she has craftily kept the document. That is his story. That is my story. Now I must show you why I think it also should be your story. The woman,--I must describe her in this way lest I should do her an injustice by calling her Mrs. Smith, or do my client an injustice by calling her Mrs. Caldigate,--has told you that this envelope, with an enclosure which she produced, reached her at Nobble through the post from Sydney. To that statement I call upon you to give no credit. A letter so sent would, as you have been informed, bear two postmarks, those of Sydney and of Nobble. This envelope bears one only. But that is not all. I shall call before you two gentlemen experienced in affairs of the post-office, and they will tell you that the postmarks on this envelope, both that of the town, Sydney, and that by which the postage stamp is obliterated, are cleaner, finer, and better perceived than they would have been had it passed in ordinary course through the post-office. Letters in the post-office are hurried quickly through the operation of stamping, so that one passing over the other while the stamping ink is still moist, will to some extent blot and blur that with which it has come in contact. He will produce some dozens taken at random, and will show that with them all such has been the case. This blotting, this smudging, is very slight, but it exists; it is always there. He will tell you that this envelope has been stamped as one and alone,--by itself,--with peculiar care;--and I shall ask you to believe that the impression has been procured by fraud in the Sydney post-office. If that be so; if in such a case as this fraud be once discovered, then I say that the whole case will fall to the ground, and that I shall be justified in telling you that no word that you have heard from these four witnesses is worthy of belief.
'Nothing worthy of belief has been adduced against my client unless that envelope be so. That those four persons have conspired together for the sake of getting money is clear enough. To their evidence I shall come presently, and shall endeavour to show you why you should discredit them. At present I am concerned simply with this envelope, on which I think that the case hangs. As for the copy of the register, it is nothing. It would be odd indeed if in any conspiracy so much as that could not be brought up. Had such a register been found in the archives of any church, however humble, and had an attested copy been produced, that would have been much. But this is nothing. Nor is the alleged letter from Mr. Allan anything. Were the letter genuine it would show that such a marriage had been contemplated, not that it had been solemnised. We have, however, no evidence to make us believe that the letter is genuine. But this envelope,'--and he again stretched it out towards the jury,--'is evidence. The impression of a post-office stamp has often been accepted as evidence. But the evidence may be false evidence, and it is for us to see whether it may not probably be so now.
'In the first place, such evidence requires peculiar sifting, which unfortunately cannot be applied to it in the present case, because it has been brought to us from a great distance. Had the envelope been in our possession from the moment in which the accusation was first made, we might have tested it, either by sending it to Sydney or by obtaining from Sydney other letters or documents bearing the same stamp, affixed undoubtedly on the date here represented. But that has not been within our power. The gentlemen whom I shall bring before you will tell you that these impressions or stamps have a knack of verifying themselves, which makes it very dangerous indeed for fraudulent persons to tamper with them. A stamp used in June will be hardly the same as it will be in July. Some little bruise will have so altered a portion of the surface as to enable detection to be made with a microscope. And the stamp used in 1870 will certainly have varied its form in 1871. Now, I maintain that time and opportunity should have been given to us to verify this impression. Copies of all impressions from day to day are kept in the Sydney post-office, and if it be found that on this day named, the 10th of May, no impression in the Sydney office is an exact facsimile of this impression then I say that this impression has been subsequently and fraudulently obtained, and that the only morsel of corroborative evidence offered to you will be shown to be false evidence. We have been unable to get impressions of this date. Opportunities have not been given to us. But I do not hesitate to tell you that you should demand such opportunities before you accept that envelope as evidence on which you can send my client to jail, and deprive that young wife, whom he has made his own, of her husband, and afford the damning evidence of your verdict towards robbing his son of his legitimacy.'
He said very much more about the envelope, clearly showing his own appreciation of its importance and declaring again and again that if he could show that a stain of perjury affected the evidence in any one point all the evidence must fall to the ground, and that if there were ground to suspect that the envelope had been tampered with, then that stain of perjury would exist. After that he went on to the four conspirators, as he called them, justifying the name by their acknowledged object of getting money from his client. 'That they came to this country as conspirators, with a fraudulent purpose, my learned friend will not deny.'
'I acknowledge nothing of the kind,' said the learned friend.
'Then my learned friend must feel that his is a case in which he cannot safely acknowledge anything. I do not doubt, gentlemen, but that you have made up your mind on that point.' He went on to show that they clearly were conspirators;--that they had confessed as much themselves. 'It is no doubt possible that my client may have married this female conspirator, and she is not the less entitled to protection from the law because she is a conspirator. Nor, because she is a conspirator, should he be less amenable to the law for the terrible injury he would then have done to that other lady. But if they be conspirators,--if it be shown to you that they came to this country,--not that the woman might claim her husband, not that the others might give honest testimony against a great delinquent,--but in order that they might frighten him out of money, then I am entitled to tell you that you should not rest on their evidence unless it be supported, and that the fact of their conspiracy gives you a right, nay, makes it your imperative duty, to suspect perjury.'
The remainder of the day was taken up with Sir John's speech, and with the witnesses which he called for the defence. He certainly succeeded in strengthening the compassion which was felt for Caldigate and for the unfortunate young mother at Folking. 'It was very well,' he said, 'for my learned friend to tell you of the protection which is due to a married woman when a husband has broken the law, and betrayed his trust by taking another wife to himself, as this man is accused of having done. But there is another aspect in which you will regard the question. Think of that second wife and of her child, and of the protection which is due to her. You well know that she does not suspect her husband, that she fears nothing but a mistaken verdict from you,--that she will be satisfied, much more than satisfied, if you will leave her in possession of her home, her husband, and the unalloyed domestic happiness she has enjoyed since she joined her lot with his. Look at the one woman, and then at the other. Remember their motives, their different lives, their different joys, and what will be the effect of your verdict upon each of them. If you are satisfied that he did marry that woman, that vile woman, the nature of whose life has been sufficiently exposed to you, of course your verdict must be against him. The law is the law, and must be vindicated. In that case it will be your duty, your terrible duty, to create misery, to destroy happiness, to ruin a dear innocent young mother and her child, and to separate a loving couple, every detail of whose life is such as to demand your sympathy. And this you must do at the bidding of four greedy, foul conspirators. Innocent, sweet, excellent in all feminine graces as is the one wife,--unlovely unfeminine, and abhorrent as is the other,--you must do your duty. God forbid that I should ask you to break an oath, even for the sake of that young mother. But in such a case, I do think, I may ask you to be very careful as to what evidence you accept. I do think that I may again point out to you that those four witnesses, bound as they are together by a bond of avarice, should be regarded but as one,--and as one to whose sworn evidence no credit is due unless it be amply corroborated. I say that there is no corroboration. This envelope would be strong corroboration if it had been itself trustworthy.' When he sat down the feeling in court was certainly in favour of John Caldigate.
Then a cloud of witnesses were brought up for the defence, each of whom, however, was soon despatched. The two clerks from the post-office gave exactly the evidence which Sir John had described, and exposed to the jury their packet of old letters. In their opinion the impression on the envelope was finer and cleaner than that generally produced in the course of business. Each of them thought it not improbable that the impression had been surreptitiously obtained. But each of them acknowledged, on cross-examination, that a stamp so clean and perfect might be given and maintained without special care; and each of them said that it was quite possible that a letter passing through the post-office might escape the stamp of one of the offices in which it would be manipulated.
Then there came the witnesses as to character, and evidence was given as to Hester's determination to remain with the man whom she believed to be her husband. As to this there was no cross-examination. That Caldigate's life had been useful and salutary since his return to Folking no one doubted,--nor that he had been a loving husband. If he had committed bigamy, it was, no doubt, for the public welfare that such a crime should be exposed and punished. But that he should have been a bigamist, would be a pity,--oh, such a pity! The pity of it; oh, the pity of it! For now there had been much talk of Hester and her home at Folking, and her former home at Chesterton; and people everywhere concerned themselves for her peace, for her happiness, for her condition of life.
| {
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} |
43 | None | The Last Day After Sir John Joram's speech, and when the work of the second day had been brought to a close, Caldigate allowed his hopes to rise higher than they had ever mounted since he had first become aware that the accusation would in truth be brought against him. It seemed to be almost impossible that any jury should give a verdict in opposition to arguments so convincing as those Sir John had used. All those details which had appeared to himself to be so damning to his own cause now melted away, and seemed to be of no avail. And even Mr. Seely, when he came to see his client in the evening, was less oppressive than usual. He did not, indeed, venture to express hope, but in his hopelessness he was somewhat more hopeful than before. 'You must remember, Mr. Caldigate,' he said, 'that you have not yet heard the judge, and that with such a jury the Judge will go much further than any advocate. I never knew a Cambridgeshire jury refuse to be led by Judge Bramber.'
'Why a Cambridgeshire jury?' asked old Mr. Caldigate; 'and why Judge Bramber especially?'
'We are a little timid, I think, here in the eastern counties,--a little wanting in self-confidence. An advocate in the north of England has a finer scope, because the people like to move counter to authority. A Lancashire jury will generally be unwilling to do what a judge tells them. And then Judge Bramber has a peculiar way of telling a jury. If he has a strong opinion of his own he never leaves the jury in doubt about it. Some judges are--what I call flabby, Mr. Caldigate. They are a little afraid of responsibility, and leave the jury and the counsel to fight it out among them. Sir John did it very well, no doubt;--very well. He made the best he could of that postage stamp, though I don't know that it will go for much. The point most in our favour is that those Australians are a rough lot to look at. The woman has been drinking, and has lost her good looks,--so that the jurymen won't be soft about her.' Caldigate, when he heard this, thought of Euphemia Smith on board the Goldfinder, when she certainly did not drink, when her personal appearance was certainly such as might touch the heart of any juryman. Gold and drink together had so changed the woman that he could hardly persuade himself that she was that forlorn attractive female whom he had once so nearly loved.
Before he went to bed, Caldigate wrote to his wife as he had done also on the preceding evening. 'There is to be another long, tedious, terrible day, and then it may be that I shall be able to write no more. For your sake, almost more than for my own, I am longing for it to be over. It would be vain for me to attempt to tell you all that took place. I do not dare to give you hope which I know may be fallacious. And yet I feel my own heart somewhat higher than it was when I wrote last night.' Then he did tell her something of what had taken place, speaking in high praise of Sir John Joram. 'And now my own, own wife, my real wife, my beloved one, I have to call you so, perhaps for the last time for years. If these men shall choose to think that I married that woman, we shall have to be so parted that it would be better for us to be in our graves. But even then I will not give up all hope. My father has promised that the whole colony shall be ransacked till proof be found of the truth. And then, though I shall have been convicted, I shall be reinstated in my position as your husband. May God Almighty bless you, and our boy, till I may come again to claim my wife and my child without disgrace.'
The old man had made the promise. 'I would go myself,' said he, 'were it not that Hester will want my support here.' For there had been another promise made,--that by no entreaty, no guile, no force, should Hester be taken from Folking to Chesterton.
Early on the third day Judge Bramber began his charge, and in doing so he told the jury that it would occupy him about three hours. And in exactly three hours' time he had completed his task. In summing up the case he certainly was not 'flabby';--so little so, that he left no doubt on the minds of any who heard him of the verdict at which he had himself arrived. He went through the evidence of the four chief witnesses very carefully, and then said that the antecedents of these people, or even their guilt, if they had been guilty, had nothing to do with the case except in so far as it might affect the opinion of the jury as to their veracity. They had been called conspirators. Even though they had conspired to raise money by threats, than which nothing could be more abominable,--even though by doing so they should have subjected themselves to criminal proceedings, and to many penalties,--that would not lessen the criminality of the accused if such a marriage as that described had in truth taken place. 'This,' said the judge, 'is so much a matter of course that I should not insist upon it had it not been implied that the testimony of these four persons is worth nothing because they are conspirators. It is for you to judge what their testimony is worth, and it is for you to remember that they are four distinct witnesses, all swearing to the same thing.' Then he went into the question of the money. There could be no doubt that the four persons had come to England with the purpose of getting money out of the accused, and that they had succeeded. With their mode of doing this,--whether criminal or innocent,--the jury had nothing to do, except as it affected their credit. But they were bound to look to Caldigate's motive in paying so large a sum. It had been shown that he did not owe them a shilling, and that when the application for money reached him from Australia he had refused to give them a shilling. Then, when they had arrived here in England, accusation was made; and when they had offered to desert the case if paid the money, then the money was paid. The prisoner, when paying it, had no doubt intimated to those who received it that he made no bargain with them as to their going away. And he had taken a friend with him who had given his evidence in court, and this friend had manifestly been taken to show that the money was not secretly paid. The jury would give the prisoner the benefit of all that,--if there was benefit to be derived from it. But they were bound to remember, in coming to their verdict, that a very large sum of money had been paid to the witnesses by the prisoner, which money certainly was not due to them.
He dwelt, also, at great length on the stamp on the envelope, but contrived at last to leave a feeling on the minds of those who heard him, that Sir John had shown the weakness of his case by trusting so much to such allegations as he had made. 'It has been represented,' said Judge Bramber, 'that the impression which you have seen of the Sydney post-office stamp has been fraudulently obtained. Some stronger evidence should, I think, be shown of this before you believe it. Two clerks from the London post-office have told you that they believed the impression to be a false one; but I think they were hardly justified in their opinion. They founded it on the clearness and cleanness of the impression; but they both of them acknowledged afterwards that such clearness and cleanness is simply unusual, and by no means impossible,--not indeed improbable. But how would it have been if the envelope had been brought to you without any post-office impression, simply directed to Mrs. Caldigate, by the man who is alleged to have made the woman his wife shortly before the envelope was written? Would it not in that case have been strong evidence? If any fraud were proved,--such a fraud as would be that of getting some post-office official falsely to stamp the envelope,--then the stain of perjury would be there. But it will be for you to consider whether you can find such stain of perjury merely because the impression on the envelope is clear and clean.'
When he came to the present condition of Caldigate's wife and child at Folking, he was very tender in his speech,--but even his tenderness seemed to turn itself against the accused.
'Of that poor lady I can only speak with that unfeigned respect which I am sure you all feel. That she was happy in her marriage till this accusation reached her ears, no one can doubt. That he to whom she was given in marriage has done his duty by her, treating her with full affection and confidence, has been proved to us. Who can think that such a condition of things shall be disturbed, that happiness so perfect is to be turned to misery and misfortune, without almost an agony of regret? But not on that account can you be in any way released from your duty. In this case you are not entitled to think of the happiness or unhappiness of individuals. You have to confine yourself to the evidence, and must give your verdict in accordance with that.'
John Caldigate, as he heard the words, told himself at once that the judge had, in fact, desired the jury to find a verdict against him. Not a single point had been made in his favour, and every point had been made to tell against him. The judge had almost said that a man's promise to marry a woman should be taken as evidence of marriage. But the jury, at any rate, did not show immediate alacrity in obeying the judge's behest. They returned once or twice to ask questions; and at three o'clock Caldigate was allowed to go to his inn, with an intimation that he must hold himself in readiness to be brought back and hear the verdict at a moment's notice. 'I wish they would declare it at once,' he said to his father. 'The suspense is worse than all.'
During the afternoon the matter was discussed very freely throughout the borough. 'I thought they would have agreed almost at once,' said the mayor, at about four o'clock, to Mr. Seely, who, at this moment, had retired to his own office where the great magistrate of the borough was closeted with him. The mayor had been seated on the bench throughout the trial, and had taken much interest in the case. 'I never imagined that there could be much doubt after Judge Bramber's summing up.'
'I hear that there's one man holding out,' said the attorney in a low voice.
'Who is it?' whispered the mayor. The mayor and Mr. Seely were very intimate.
'I suppose it's Jones, the tanner at Ely. They say that the Caldigates have had dealings with his family from generation to generation. I knew all about it, and when they passed his name, I wondered that Burder hadn't been sharper.' Mr. Burder was the gentleman who had got up the prosecution on the part of the Crown.
'It must be something of that kind,' said the mayor. 'Nothing else would make a jury hesitate after such a charge as that. I suppose he did marry her.' Mr. Seely shrugged his shoulders. 'I have attended very closely to the case, and I know I should have been against him on a jury. God bless my soul! Did any man ever write to a woman as his wife without having married her?'
'It has been done, I should think.'
'And that nobody should have been got to say that they weren't man and wife.'
'I really have hardly formed an opinion,' said Mr. Seely, still whispering, 'I am inclined to think that there was probably some ceremony, and that Caldigate salved his conscience, when he married Bolton's daughter, by an idea that the ceremony wasn't valid. But they'll convict him at last. When he told me that he had been up to town and paid that money, I knew it was all up with him. How can any juryman believe that a man will pay twenty thousand pounds, which he doesn't owe, to his sworn enemy, merely on a point of conscience?'
At the same time the old banker was sitting in his room at the bank, and Robert Bolton was with him. 'There cannot be a doubt of his guilt,' said Robert Bolton.
'No, no,--not a doubt.'
'But the jury may disagree?'
'What shall we do then?' said the banker.
'There must be another trial. We must go on till we get a verdict.'
'And Hester? What can we do for Hester?'
'She is very obstinate, and I fear we have no power. Even though she is declared not to be his wife, she can choose her own place of living. If he is convicted, I think that she would come back. Of course she ought to come back.'
'Of course, of course.'
'Old Caldigate, too, is very obstinate; but it may be that we should be able to persuade him. He will know that she ought to be with her mother.'
'Her poor mother! Her poor mother! And when he comes out of prison?'
'Her very nature will have been altered by that time,' said the attorney. 'She will, I trust, have consented before that to take up her residence under your roof.'
'I shall be dead,' said the old man. 'Disgrace and years together will have killed me before that time comes.'
The Smirkies were staying at Babington, and the desire for news there was very intent. Mr. Smirkie was full of thought on the matter, but was manifestly in favour of a conviction. 'Yes; the poor young woman is very much to be pitied,' he said, in answer to the squire, who had ventured to utter a word in favour of Hester. 'A young woman who falls into the hands of an evil man must always be pitied; but it is to prevent the evil men from preying upon the weaker sex that examples such as these are needed. When we think what might have been the case here, in this house, we have all of us a peculiar reason to be thankful for the interposition of divine Providence.' Here Mr. Smirkie made a little gesture of thanksgiving, thanking Heaven for its goodness to his wife in having given her himself. 'Julia, my love, you have a very peculiar reason to be thankful, and I trust you are so. Yes,--we must pity the poor young lady; but it will be well that the offender should be made subject to the outraged laws of his country.' Mrs. Smirkie, as she listened to these eloquent words, closed her eyes and hands in token of her thankfulness for all that Providence had done for her.
If she knew how to compare her condition with that of poor Hester at this time, she had indeed cause for thankfulness. Hester was alone with her baby, and with no information but what had been conveyed to her by her husband's letters. As she read the last of the two she acknowledged to herself that too probably she would not even see his handwriting again till the period of his punishment should have expired. And then? What would come then? Sitting alone, at the open window of her bed-room, with her boy on her lap, she endeavoured to realise her own position. She would be a mother, without a husband,--with her bastard child. However innocent he might be, such would be her position under the law. It did not suffice that they too should be man and wife as thoroughly as any whom God had joined together, if twelve men assembled together in a jury-box should say otherwise. She had told him that she would be brave;--but how should she be brave in such a condition as this? What should she do? How should she look forward to the time of his release? Could anything ever again give her back her husband and make him her own in the eyes of men? Could anything make men believe that he had always been her own, and that there had been no flaw? She had been very brave when they had attempted to confine her, to hold her by force at Chesterton. Then she had been made strong, had always been comforted, by opposition. The determination of her purpose to go back had supported her. But now,--how should it be with her now? and with her boy? and with him?
The old man was very good, good and eager in her cause, and would let her live at Folking. But what would they call her? When they wrote to her from Chesterton how would they address her letters? Never, never would she soil her fingers by touching a document that called her by any other name than her own. Yes, her own;--let all the jurymen in all the counties, let all the judges on the bench, say what they would to the contrary. Though it should be for all her life,--though there should never come the day on which they,--they,--the world at large would do him justice and her, though they should call her by what hard name they would, still up there, in the courts of her God, she would be his wife. She would be a pure woman there, and there would her child be without a stain. And here, here in this world, though she could never more be a wife in all things, she would be a wife in love, a wife in care, a wife in obedience, a wife in all godly truth. And though it would never be possible for her to show her face again among mankind, never for her, surely the world would be kinder to her boy! They would not begrudge him his name! And when it should be told how it had come to pass that there was a blot upon his escutcheon, they would not remind him of his mother's misery. But, above all, there should be no shade of doubt as to her husband. 'I know,' she said, speaking aloud, but not knowing that she spoke aloud, 'I know that he is my husband.' Then there was a knock at the door. 'Well; yes;--has it come? Do you know?'
No; nothing was known there at that moment, but in another minute all would be known. The wheels of the old Squire's carriage had been heard upon the gravel. 'No, ma'am, no; you shall not leave the room,' said the nurse. 'Stay here and let him come to you.'
'Is he alone?' she asked. But the woman did not know. The wheels of the carriage had only been heard.
Alas, alas! he was alone. His heart too had been almost broken as he bore the news home to the wife who was a wife no longer.
'Father!' she said, when she saw him.
'My daughter;--O my daughter!' And then, with their hands clasped together, they sat speechless and alone, while the news was spread through the household which the old man did not dare to tell to his son's wife.
It was very slowly that the actual tidings reached her ears. Mr. Caldigate, when he tried to tell them, found that the power of words had left him. Old as he was, and prone to cynic indifference as he had shown himself, he was affected almost like a young girl. He sobbed convulsively as he hung over her, embracing her. 'My daughter!' he said, 'my daughter! my daughter!'
But at last it was all told. Caldigate had been declared guilty, and the judge had condemned him to be confined to prison for two years. Judge Bramber had told him that, in his opinion, the jury could have found no other verdict; but he went on to say that, looking for some excuse for so terrible a deed as that which had been done,--so terrible for that poor lady who was now left nameless with a nameless infant,--he could imagine that the marriage, though legally solemnised, had nevertheless been so deficient in the appearances of solemnity as to have imbued the husband with the idea that it had not meant all that a marriage would have meant if celebrated in a church and with more of the outward appurtenances of religion. On that account he refrained from inflicting a severer penalty.
| {
"id": "11643"
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44 | None | After the Verdict When the verdict was given, Caldigate was at once marched round into the dock, having hitherto been allowed to sit in front of the dock between Mr. Seely and his father. But, standing in the dock, he heard the sentence pronounced upon him. 'I never married the woman, my lord,' he said, in a loud voice. But what he said could be of no avail. And then men looked at him as he disappeared with the jailers down the steps leading to regions below, and away to his prison, and they knew that he would no more be seen or heard of for two years. He had vanished. But there was the lady who was not his wife out at Folking,--the lady whom the jury had declared not to be his wife. What would become of her?
There was an old gentleman there in the court who had known Mr. Caldigate for many years,--one Mr. Ryder, who had been himself a practising barrister but had now retired. In those days they seldom saw each other; but, nevertheless, they were friends. 'Caldigate,' he said, 'you had better let her go back to her own people.'
'She shall stay with me,' he replied.
'Better not. Believe me, she had better not. If so, how will it be with her when he is released? The two years will soon go by, and then she will be in his house. If that woman should die, he might marry her,--but till then she had better be with her own people.'
'She shall stay with me,' the old man said again, repeating the words angrily, and shaking his head. He was so stunned by the blow that he could not argue the matter, but he knew that he had made the promise, and that he was resolved to abide by it.
She had better go back to her own people! All the world was saying it. She had no husband now. Everybody would respect her misfortune. Everybody would acknowledge her innocence. All would sympathise with her. All would love her. But she must go back to her own people. There was not a dissentient voice. 'Of course she must go back to you now,' Nicholas Bolton said to her father, and Nicholas Bolton seldom interfered in anything. 'The poor lady will of course be restored to her family,' the judge had said in private to his marshal, and the marshal had of course made known what the judge had said. On the next morning there came a letter from William Bolton to Robert. 'Of course Hester must come back now. Nothing else is possible.' Everybody decided that she must come back. It was a matter which admitted of no doubt. But how was she to be brought to Chesterton?
None of them who decided with so much confidence as to her future, understood her ideas of her position as a wife. 'I am bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh,' she said to herself, 'made so by a sacrament which no jury can touch. What matters what the people say? They may make me more unhappy than I am. They may kill me by their cruelty. But they cannot make me believe myself not to be his wife. And while I am his wife, I will obey him, and him only.'
What she called 'their cruelty' manifested itself very soon. The first person who came to her was Mrs. Robert Bolton, and her visit was made on the day after the verdict. When Hester sent down word begging to be permitted in her misery to decline to see even her sister-in-law, Mrs. Robert sent her up a word or two written in pencil--'My darling, whom have you nearer? Who loves you better than I?' Then the wretched one gave way, and allowed her brother's wife to be brought to her. She was already dressed from head to foot in black, and her baby was with her.
The arguments which Mrs. Robert Bolton used need not be repeated, but it may be said that the words she used were so tender, and that they were urged with so much love, so much sympathy, and so much personal approval, that Hester's heart was touched. 'But he is my husband,' Hester said. 'The judge cannot alter it; he is my husband.'
'I will not say a word to the contrary. But the law has separated you, and you should obey the law. You should not even eat his bread now, because--because--. Oh, Hester, you understand.'
'I do understand,' she said, rising to her feet in her energy, 'and I will eat his bread though it be hard, and I will drink of his cup though it be bitter. His bread and his cup shall be mine, and none other shall be mine. I do understand. I know that these wicked people have blasted my life. I know that I can be nothing to him now. But his child shall never be made to think that his mother had condemned his father. Yes, Margaret,' she said again, 'I do love you, and I do trust you, and I know that you love me. But you do not love him; you do not believe in him. If they came to you and took Robert away, would you go and live with other people? I do love papa and mamma. But this is his house, and he bids me stay here. The very clothes which I wear are his clothes. I am his; and though they were to cut me apart from him, still I should belong to him. No,--I will not go to mamma. Of course I have forgiven her, because she meant it for the best; but I will never go back to Chesterton.'
Then there came letters from the mother, one letter hot upon the other, all appealing to those texts in Scripture by which the laws of nations are supposed to be supported. 'Give unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's.' It was for the law to declare who were and who were not man and wife, and in this matter the law had declared. After this how could she doubt? Or how could she hesitate as to tearing herself away from the belongings of the man who certainly was not her husband? And there were dreadful words in these letters which added much to the agony of her who received them,--words which were used in order that their strength might prevail. But they had no strength to convert, though they had strength to afflict. Then Mrs. Bolton, who in her anxiety was ready to submit herself to any personal discomfort, prepared to go to Folking. But Hester sent back word that, in her present condition, she would see nobody,--not even her mother.
But it was not only from the family of the Boltons that these applications and entreaties came. Even Mr. Seely took upon himself to tell Mr. Caldigate that under existing circumstances Hester should not be detained at Folking.
'I do not know that either she or I want advice in the matter,' Mr. Caldigate replied. But as a stone will be worn hollow in time by the droppings of many waters, so was it thought that if all Cambridge would continue firm in its purpose, then this stone might at last be made to yield. The world was so anxious that it resolved among itself that it would submit to any amount of snubbing in carrying out its object. Even the mayor wrote. 'Dear Mr. Caldigate, greatly as I object to all interference in families, I think myself bound to appeal to you as to the unfortunate condition of that young lady from Chesterton.' Then followed all the arguments, and some of the texts,--both of which were gradually becoming hackneyed in the matter. Mr. Caldigate's answer to this was very characteristic: 'Dear Mr. Mayor, if you have an objection to interfere in families, why do you do it?' The mayor took the rebuke with placid good-humour, feeling that his little drop might also have done something towards hollowing the stone.
But of all the counsellors, perhaps Mr. Smirkie was the most zealous and the most trusting. He felt himself to be bound in a peculiar manner to Folking,--by double ties. Was not the clergyman of the parish the brother of his dear departed one? And with whom better could he hold sweet counsel? And then that second dear one, who had just been vouchsafed to him,--had she not as it were by a miracle been rescued from the fate into which the other poor lady had fallen, and obtained her present thoroughly satisfactory position? Mr. Smirkie was a clergyman who understood it to be his duty to be urgent for the good cause, in season and out of season, and who always did his duty. So he travelled over to Utterden and discussed the matter at great length with Mr. Bromley. 'I do believe in my heart,' said Mr. Bromley, 'that the verdict is wrong.' But Mr. Smirkie, with much eloquence, averred that that had nothing to do with the question. Mr. Bromley opened his eyes very wide. 'Nothing at all,' said Mr. Smirkie. 'It is the verdict of the jury, confirmed by the judge, and the verdict itself dissolves the marriage. Whether the verdict be wrong or right, that marriage ceremony is null and void. They are not man and wife;--not now, even if they ever were. Of course you are aware of that.'
Mr. Smirkie was altogether wrong in his law. Such men generally are. Mr. Bromley in vain endeavoured to point out to him that the verdict could have no such power as was here claimed for it, and that if any claim was to be brought up hereafter as to the legitimacy of the child, the fact of the verdict could only be used as evidence, and that that evidence would or would not be regarded as true by another jury, according to the views which that other jury might take. Mr. Smirkie would only repeat his statements with increased solemnity,--'That marriage is no marriage. That poor lady is not Mrs. John Caldigate. She is Miss Hester Bolton, and, therefore, every breath of air which she draws under that roof is a sin.' As he said this out upon the dike-side he looked about him with manifest regret that he had no other audience than his brother-in-law.
And at last, after much persevering assiduity, Mr. Smirkie succeeded in reaching Mr. Caldigate himself, and expressed himself with boldness. He was a man who had at any rate the courage of his opinions. 'You have to think of her future life in this world and in the next,' he said. 'And in the next,' he repeated with emphasis, when Mr. Caldigate paused.
'As to what will affect her happiness in this world, sir,' said the old man very gravely, 'I think you can hardly be a judge.'
'Good repute,' suggested the clergyman.
'Has she done anything that ought to lessen the fair fame of a woman in the estimation of other women? And as to the next world, in the rewards and punishments of which you presume it to be your peculiar duty to deal, has she done anything which you think will subject her to the special wrath of an offended Deity?' This question he asked with a vehemence of voice which astounded his companion. 'She has loved her husband with a peculiar love,' he continued. 'She has believed herself to be joined to him by ties which you shall call romantic, if you will,--superstitious, if you will.'
'I hope not,--I hope not,' said Mr. Smirkie, holding up both his hands, not at all understanding the old man's meaning, but intending to express horror at 'superstition,' which he supposed to be a peculiar attribute of the Roman Catholic branch of the Christian Church. 'Not that I hope.'
'I cannot fathom, and you, apparently, cannot at all understand, her idea of the sanctity of the marriage vow. But if you knew anything about her, I think you would refrain from threatening her with divine wrath; and as you know nothing about her, I regard such threats, coming from you, as impertinent, unmanly, inhuman, and blasphemous.' Mr. Caldigate had commenced this conversation, though vehemently, still in so argumentative a manner, and in his allusions to the lady's romantic and superstitious ideas had seemed to yield so much, that the terrible vigour of his last words struck the poor clergyman almost to the ground. One epithet came out after another, very clearly spoken, with a pause between each of them; and the speaker, as he uttered them, looked his victim close in the face. Then he walked slowly away, leaving Mr. Smirkie fixed to the ground. What had he done? He had simply made a gentle allusion to the next world, as, surely, it was his duty to do. Whether this old pagan did or did not believe in a next world himself, he must at any rate be aware that it is the peculiar business of a clergyman to make such references. As to 'impertinent' and 'unmanly,' he would let them go by. He was, he conceived, bound by his calling to be what people called impertinent, and manliness had nothing to do with him. But 'inhuman' and blasphemous!' Why had he come all the way over from Plum-cum-Pippins, at considerable personal expense, except in furtherance of that highest humanity which concerns itself with eternity? And as for blasphemy, it might, he thought, as well be said that he was blasphemous whenever he read the Bible aloud to his flock! His first idea was to write an exhaustive letter on the subject to Mr. Caldigate, in which he would invite that gentleman to recall the offensive words. But as he drove his gig into the parsonage yard at Plum-cum-Pippins, he made up his mind that this, too, was among the things which a Christian minister should bear with patience.
But the dropping water always does hollow the stone,--hollow it a little though the impression may not be visible to the naked eye. Even when rising in his wrath, Mr. Caldigate had crushed the clergyman by the violence of his language,--having been excited to anger chiefly by the thick-headedness of the man in not having understood the rebuke intended to be conveyed by his earlier and gentler words,--even when leaving the man, with a full conviction that the man was crushed, the old Squire was aware that he, the stone, was being gradually hollowed. Hester was now very dear to him. From the first she had suited his ideas of a wife for his son. And her constancy in her misery had wound itself into his heart. He quite understood that her welfare should now be his great care. There was no one else from whom she would listen to a word of advice. From her husband, whose slightest word would have been a law to her, no word could now come. From her own family she was entirely estranged, having been taught to regard them simply as enemies in this matter. She loved her mother; but in this matter her mother was her declared enemy. His voice, and his voice alone, could now reach her ears. As to that great hereafter to which the clergyman had so flippantly alluded, he was content to leave that to herself. Much as he differed from her as to details of a creed, he felt sure that she was safe there. To his thinking, she was the purest human being that had ever come beneath his notice. Whatever portion of bliss there may be for mankind in a life after this life, the fullest portion of that bliss would be hers, whether by reason of her creed or in spite of it. Accustomed to think much of things, it was thus that he thought of her in reference to the world to come. But as to this world, he was not quite so sure. If she could die and have that other bliss at once, that would be best,--only for the child, only for the child! But he did doubt. Would it do for her to ignore that verdict altogether, when his son should be released from jail, and be to him as though there had been no verdict? Would not the finger of scorn be pointed at her;--and, as he thought of it,--possibly at future children? Might it not be better for her to bow to the cruelty of Fate, and consent to be apart from him at any rate while that woman should be alive? And again, if such would be better, then was it not clear that no time should be lost in beginning that new life? If at last it should be ruled that she must go back to her mother, it would certainly be well that she should do so now, at once, so that people might know that she had yielded to the verdict. In this way the stone was hollowed--though the hollowing had not been made visible to the naked eye of Mr. Smirkie.
He was a man whose conscience did not easily let him rest when he believed that a duty was incumbent on him. It was his duty now, he thought, not to bid her go, not to advise her to go,--but to put before her what reasons there might be for her going.
'I am telling you,' he said, 'what other people say.'
'I do not regard what other people say.'
'That might be possible for a man, Hester, but a woman has to regard what the world says. You are young, and may have a long life before you. We cannot hide from ourselves the fact that a most terrible misfortune has fallen upon you, altogether undeserved but very grievous.'
'God, when he gave me my husband,' she replied, 'did me more good than any man can do me harm by taking him away. I never cease to tell myself that the blessing is greater than the misfortune.'
'But, my dearest----' 'I know it all, father. I know what you would tell me. If I live here after he comes out of prison people will say that I am his mistress.'
'Not that, not that,' he cried, unable to bear the contumely of the word, even from her lips.
'Yes, father; that is what you mean. That is what they all mean. That is what mamma means, and Margaret. Let them call me what they will. It is not what they call me, but what I am. It is bad for a woman to have evil said of her, but it is worse for her to do evil. It is your house, and you, of course, can bid me go.'
'I will never do that.'
'But unless I am turned out homeless on to the roads, I will stay here where he left me. I have only one sure way of doing right, and that is to obey him as closely as I can. He cannot order me now, but he has left his orders. He has told me to remain under this roof, and to call myself by his name, and in no way to derogate from my own honour as his wife. By God's help I will do as he bids me. Nothing that any of them can say shall turn me an inch from the way he has pointed out. You are good to me.'
'I will try to be good to you.'
'You are so good to me that I can hardly understand your goodness. Trusting to that, I will wait here till he shall come again and tell me where and how I am to live.'
After that the old Squire made no further attempt in the same direction, finding that no slightest hollow had been made on that other stone.
| {
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45 | None | The Boltons Are Much Troubled The condition of the inhabitants of Puritan Grange during the six weeks immediately after the verdict was very sad indeed. I have described badly the character of the lady living there, if I have induced my readers to think that her heart was hardened against her daughter. She was a woman of strong convictions and bitter prejudices; but her heart was soft enough. When she married, circumstances had separated her widely from her own family, in which she had never known either a brother or a sister; and the burden of her marriage with an old man had been brightened to her by the possession of an only child,--of one daughter, who had been the lamp of her life, the solitary delight of her heart, the single relief to the otherwise solitary tedium of her monotonous existence. She had, indeed attended to the religious training of her girl with constant care;--but the yearnings of her maternal heart had softened even her religion, so that the laws, and dogmas, and texts, and exercises by which her husband was oppressed, and her servants afflicted, had been made lighter for Hester,--sometimes not without pangs of conscience on the part of the self-convicted parent. She had known, as well as other mothers, how to gloat over the sweet charms of the one thing which in all the world had been quite her own. She had revelled in kisses and soft touches. Her Hester's garments had been a delight to her, till she had taught herself to think that though sackcloth and ashes were the proper wear for herself and her husband, nothing was too soft, too silken, too delicate for her little girl. The roses in the garden, and the goldfish in the bowl, and the pet spaniel, had been there because such surroundings had been needed for the joyousness of her girl. And the theological hardness of the literature of the house had been somewhat mitigated as Hester grew into reading, so that Watt was occasionally relieved by Wordsworth, and Thomson's 'Seasons' was alternated with George Withers's 'Hallelujah.'
Then had come, first the idea of the marriage, and, immediately consequent upon the idea, the marriage itself. The story of that has been told, but the reader has perhaps hardly been made to understand the utter bereavement which it brought on the mother. It is natural that the adult bird should delight to leave the family nest, and that the mother bird should have its heart-strings torn by the separation. It must be so, alas! even when the divulsions are made in the happiest manner. But here the tearing away had nothing in it to reconcile the mother. She was suddenly told that her daughter was to be no longer her own. Her step-son had interfered and her husband had become powerful over her with a sudden obstinacy. She had had no hand in the choice. She would fain have postponed any choice, and would then fain have herself made the choice. But a man was brought who was distasteful to her at all points, and she was told that that man was to have her daughter! He was thoroughly distasteful. He had been a spendthrift and a gambler;--then a seeker after gold in wild, godless countries, and, to her thinking, not at all the better because he had been a successful seeker. She believed the man to be an atheist. She was told that his father was an infidel, and was ready to believe the worst of the son. And yet in this terrible emergency she was powerless. The girl was allowed to see the man, and declared almost at once that she would transfer herself from her mother's keeping to the keeping of this wicked one! She was transferred, and the mother had been left alone.
Then came the blow,--very quickly, the blow which, as she now told herself morning, noon, and night, was no worse than she had expected. Another woman claimed the man as her husband, and so claimed him that the world all around her had declared that the claim would be made good. And the man himself had owned enough to make him unfit,--as she thought,--to have the custody of any honest woman. Then she acknowledged to herself the full weight of the misfortune that had fallen upon them,--the misfortune which never would have fallen upon them had they listened to her counsel,--and she had immediately put her shoulders to the wheel with the object of rescuing her child from the perils, from the sin, from the degradation of her position. And could she have rescued her, could she have induced her daughter to remain at Puritan Grange, there would even then have been consolation. It was one of the tenets of her life,--the strongest, perhaps, of all those doctrines on which she built her faith,--that this world is a world of woe; that wailing and suffering, if not gnashing of teeth, is and should be the condition of mankind preparatory to eternal bliss. For eternal bliss there could, she thought, be no other preparation. She did not want to be happy here, or to have those happy around her whom she loved. She had stumbled and gone astray,--she told herself hourly now that she had stumbled and gone astray,--in preparing those roses and ribbons, and other lightnesses for her young girl. It should have been all sackcloth and ashes. Had it been all sackcloth and ashes there would not have been this terrible fall. But if the loved one would now come back to sackcloth and ashes,--if she would assent to the blackness of religious asceticism, to penitence and theological gloom, and would lead the life of the godly but comfortless here in order that she might insure the glories and joys of the future life, then there might be consolation;--then it might be felt that this tribulation had been a precious balm by which an erring soul had been brought back to its due humility.
But Wordsworth and Thomson, though upon the whole moral poets, had done their work. Or, if not done altogether by them, the work had been done by the latitude which had admitted them. So that the young wife, when she found herself breathing the free air with which her husband surrounded her, was able to burst asunder the remnants of those cords of fanaticism with which her mother had endeavoured to constrain her. She looked abroad, and soon taught herself to feel that the world was bright and merry, that this mortal life was by no means necessarily a place of gloom, and the companionship of the man to whom Providence had allotted her was to her so happy, so enjoyable, so sufficient, that she found herself to have escaped from a dark prison and to be roaming among shrubs and flowers, and running waters, which were ever green, which never faded, and the music of which was always in her ears. When the first tidings of Euphemia Smith came to Folking she was in all her thoughts and theories of life poles asunder from her mother. There might be suffering and tribulation,--suffering even to death. But her idea of the manner in which the suffering should be endured and death awaited was altogether opposed to that which was hot within her mother's bosom.
But not the less did the mother still pray, still struggle, and still hope. They, neither of them, quite understood each other, but the mother did not at all understand the daughter. She, the mother, knew what the verdict had been, and was taught to believe that by that verdict the very ceremony of her daughter's marriage had been rendered null and void. It was in vain that the truth of the matter came to her from Robert Bolton, diluted through the vague explanations of her husband. 'It does not alter the marriage, Robert says.' So it was that the old man told his tale, not perfectly understanding, not even quite believing, what his son had told him.
'How can he dare to say so?' demanded the indignant mother of the injured woman. 'Not alter the marriage when the jury have declared that the other woman is his wife! In the eyes of God she is not his wife. That cannot be imputed as sin to her,--not that,--because she did it not knowing. She, poor innocent, was betrayed. But now that she knows it, every mouthful that she eats of his bread is a sin.'
'It is the old man's bread,' said this older man, weakly.
'What matter? It is the bread of adultery.' It may certainly be said that at this time Mrs. Bolton herself would have been relieved from none of her sufferings by any new evidence which would have shown that Crinkett and the others had sworn falsely. Though she loved her daughter dearly, though her daughter's misery made her miserable, yet she did not wish to restore the husband to the wife. Any allusion to a possibility that the verdict had been a mistaken verdict was distasteful to her. Her own original opinion respecting Caldigate had been made good by the verdict. The verdict had proved her to be right, and her husband with all his sons to have been wrong. The triumph had been very dark to her; but still it had been a triumph. It was to her an established fact that John Caldigate was not her daughter's husband and therefore she was anxious, not to rehabilitate her daughter's position, but to receive her own miserable child once more beneath the shelter of her own wing. That they two might pray together, struggle together, together wear their sackcloth and ashes, and together console themselves with their hopes of eternal joys, while they shuddered, not altogether uncomfortably, at the torments prepared for others,--this was now the only outlook in which she could find a gleam of satisfaction; and she was so assured of the reasonableness of her wishes, so convinced that the house of her parents was now the only house in which Hester could live without running counter to the precepts of her own religion, and counter also to the rules of the wicked outside world, that she could not bring herself to believe but that she would succeed at last. Merely to ask her child to come, to repeat the invitation, and then to take a refusal, was by no means sufficient for her energy. She had failed grievously when she had endeavoured to make her daughter a prisoner at the Grange. After such an attempt as that, it could hardly be thought that ordinary invitations would be efficacious. But when that attempt had been made, it was possible that Hester should justify herself by the law. According to law she had then been Caldigate's wife. There had been some ground for her to stand upon as a wife, and as a wife she had stood upon it very firmly. But now there was not an inch of ground. The man had been convicted as a bigamist, and the other woman, the first woman, had been proved to be his wife. Mrs. Bolton had got it into her head that the two had been dissevered as though by some supernal power; and no explanation to the contrary, brought to her by her husband from Robert, had any power of shaking her conviction. It was manifest to all men and to all women, that she who had been seduced, betrayed, and sacrificed should now return with her innocent babe to the protection of her father's roof; and no stone must be left unturned till the unfortunate one had been made to understand her duty.
The old banker in these days had not a good time, nor, indeed, had the Boltons generally. Mrs. Bolton, though prone to grasp at power on every side, was apt, like some other women who are equally grasping, to expect almost omnipotence from the men around her when she was desirous that something should be done by them in accordance with her own bidding. Knowing her husband to be weak from age and sorrow, she could still jeer at him because he was not abnormally strong; and though her intercourse with his sons and their families was now scanty and infrequent, still by a word here and a line there she could make her reproaches felt by them all. Robert, who saw his father every day, heard very much of them. Daniel was often stung, and even Nicholas. And the reproaches reached as far as William, the barrister up in London.
'I am sure I don't know what we can do,' said the miserable father, sitting huddled up in his arm-chair one evening towards the end of August. It was very hot, but the windows were closed because he could not bear a draught, and he was somewhat impatiently waiting for the hour of prayers which were antecedent to bed, where he could be silent even if he could not sleep.
'There are five of you. One should be at the house every day to tell her of her duty.'
'I couldn't go.'
'They could go,--if they cared. If they cared they would go. They are her brothers.'
'Mr. Caldigate would not let them enter the house,' said the old man.
'Do you mean that he would separate her from her brother and her parents?'
'Not if she wished to see them. She is her own mistress, and he will abet her in whatever she may choose to do. That is what Robert says.'
'And what Robert says is to be law?'
'He knows what he is talking about.' Mr. Bolton as he said this shook his head angrily, because he was fatigued.
'And he is to be your guide even when your daughter's soul is in jeopardy?' This was the line of argument in reference to which Mr. Bolton always felt himself to be as weak as water before his wife. He did not dare to rebel against her religious supremacy, not simply because he was a weak old man in presence of a strong woman, but from fear of denunciation. He, too, believed her creed, though he was made miserable by her constant adherence to it. He believed, and would fain have let that suffice. She believed, and endeavoured to live up to her belief. And so it came to pass that when she spoke to him of his own soul, of the souls of those who were dear to him, or even of souls in general, he was frightened and paralysed. He had more than once attempted to reply with worldly arguments, but had suffered so much in the encounter that he had learned to abstain. 'I cannot believe that she would refuse to see us. I shall go myself; but if we all went we should surely persuade her.' In answer to this the poor man only groaned, till the coming in of the old servant to arrange the chairs and put the big Bible on the table relieved him from something of his misery.
'I certainly will not interfere,' Robert Bolton said to his father on the next morning. 'I will not go to Folking, because I am sure that I should do no good. Hester, no doubt, would be better at your house,--much better. There is nothing I would not do to get her back from the Caldigates altogether,--if there was a chance of success. But we have no power;--none whatever.'
'No power at all,' said the banker, shaking his head, and feeling some satisfaction at the possession of an intelligible word which he could quote to his wife.
'She is controller of her own actions as completely as are you and I. We have already seen how inefficacious with her are all attempts at persuasion. And she knows her position. If he were out of prison to-morrow he would be her husband.'
'But he has another wife.'
'Of that the civil law knows nothing. If money were coming to her he could claim it, and the verdict against him would only be evidence, to be taken for what it was worth. It would have been all very well had she wished to sever herself from him; but as she is determined not to do so, any interference would be useless.' The question as to the marriage or no marriage was not made quite clear to the banker's mind, but he did understand that neither he, nor his wife, nor his sons had 'any power,' and of that argument he was determined to make use.
William, the barrister in London, was induced to write a letter, a very lengthy and elaborate epistle having come from Mrs. Bolton to his wife, in which the religious duty of all the Boltons was set forth in strong language, and in which he was incited to do something. It was almost the first letter which Mrs. William Bolton had ever received from her step-mother, whatever trifling correspondence there might have been between them having been of no consequence. They, too, felt that it would be better that Hester should return to her old home, but felt also that they had no power. 'Of course, she won't,' said Mrs. William.
'She has a will of her own,' said the barrister.
'Why should she? Think of the gloom of that home at Chesterton, and her absolute independence at Folking. No doubt it would be better. The position is so frightful that even the gloom would be better. But she won't. We all know that.'
The barrister, however, feeling that it would be better, thought that he should perform his duty by expressing his opinion, and wrote a letter to Hester, which was intended to be if possible persuasive;--and this was the answer:-- 'DEAR WILLIAM,--If you were carried away to prison on some horrible false accusation, would Fanny go away from you, and desert your house and your affairs, and return to her parents? You ask her, and ask her whether she would believe anything that anybody could say against you. If they told her that her children were nameless, would she agree to make them so by giving up your name? Wouldn't she cling to you the more, the more all the world was against you?' ('I would,' said Fanny, with tearful energy. 'Fanny' was, of course, Mrs. William Bolton, and was the happy mother of five nearly grown-up sons and daughters, and certainly stood in no peril as to her own or their possession of the name of Bolton. The letter was being read aloud to her by her husband, whose mind was also stirred in his sister's favour by the nature of the arguments used.) 'If so,' continued the writer, 'why shouldn't I be the same? I don't believe a word the people said. I am sure I am his wife. And as, when he was taken away from me, he left a house for his wife and child to live in, I shall continue to live in it.
'All the same, I know you mean to be good to me. Give my best love to Fanny, and believe me your affectionate sister, 'HESTER CALDIGATE.'
In every letter and stroke of the name as she wrote it there was an assertion that she claimed it as her own, and that she was not ashamed of it.
'Upon my word,' said Mrs. William Bolton, through her tears, 'I am beginning to think that she is almost right.' There was so much of conjugal proper feeling in this that the husband could only kiss his wife and leave her without further argument on the matter.
| {
"id": "11643"
} |
46 | None | Burning Words 'No power at all; none whatever,' the banker said, when he was next compelled to carry on the conversation. This was immediately upon his return home from Cambridge, for his wife never allowed the subject to be forgotten or set aside. Every afternoon and every evening it was being discussed at all hours not devoted to prayers, and every morning it was renewed at the breakfast-table.
'That comes from Robert.' Mr. Bolton was not able to deny the assertion. 'What does he mean by "no power"?'
'We can't make her do it. The magistrates can't interfere.'
'Magistrates! Has it been by the interference of magistrates that men have succeeded in doing great things? Was it by order from the magistrates that the lessons of Christ have been taught over all the world? Is there no such thing as persuasion? Has truth no power? Is she more deaf to argument and eloquence than another?'
'She is very deaf, I think,' said the father, doubting his own eloquence.
'It is because no one has endeavoured to awaken her by burning words to a true sense of her situation When she said this she must surely have forgotten much that had occurred during those weary hours which had been passed by her and her daughter outside there in the hall. 'No power!' she repeated. 'It is the answer always made by those who are too sleepy to do the Lord's work. It was because men said that they had no power that the grain fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth. It is that aversion to face difficulties which causes the broad path to be crowded with victims. I, at any rate, will go. I may have no power, but I will make the attempt.'
Soon after that she did make the attempt. Mr. Bolton, though he was assured by Robert that such an attempt would produce no result, could not interfere to prevent it. Had he been far stronger than he was in his own house, he could hardly have forbidden the mother to visit the daughter. Hester had sent word to say that she did not wish to see even her mother. But this had been immediately after the verdict, when she was crushed and almost annihilated by her misery. Some weeks had now passed by, and it could not be that she would refuse to admit the visitor, when such a visitor knocked at her door. They had loved each other as mothers and daughters do love when there is no rival in the affection,--when each has no one else to love. There never had been a more obedient child, or a more loving parent. Much, no doubt, had happened since to estrange the daughter from the mother. A husband had been given to her who was more to her than any parent,--as a husband should be. And then there had been that terrible opposition, that struggle, that battle in the hall. But the mother's love had never waned because of that. She was sure that her child would not refuse to see her.
So the fly was ordered to take her out to Folking, and on the morning fixed she dressed herself in her blackest black. She always wore brown or black,--brown being the colour suitable for the sober and sad domesticities of her week-days, which on ceremonies and Sabbath was changed for a more solemn black. But in her wardrobe there were two such gowns, one of which was apparently blacker than the other, nearer to a guise of widowhood,--more fit, at any rate, for general funereal obsequies. There are women who seem always to be burying someone; and Mrs. Bolton, as she went forth to visit her daughter, was fit to bury any one short of her husband.
It was a hot day in August, and the fly travelled along the dusty road very slowly. She had intended to reach Folking at twelve, so that her interview might be over and that she might return without the need of eating. There is always some idea of festivity connected with food eaten at a friend's table, and she did not wish to be festive. She was, too, most unwilling to partake of John Caldigate's bread. But she did not reach the house till one, and when she knocked at the door Hester's modest lunch was about to be put upon the table.
There was considerable confusion when the servant saw Mrs. Bolton standing in the doorway. It was quite understood by everyone at Folking that for the present there was to be no intercourse between the Boltons and the Caldigates. It was understood that there should be no visitors of any kind at Folking, and it had been thought that Mr. Smirkie had forced an entrance in an impertinent manner. But yet it was not possible to send Mrs. Bolton from her own daughter's door with a mere 'not at home.' Of course she was shown in,--and was taken to the parlour, in which the lunch was prepared, while word was taken up to Hester announcing that her mother was there.
Mr. Caldigate was in the house,--in his own book-room, as it used to be called,--and Hester went to him first. 'Mamma is here,--in the dining-room.'
'Your mother!'
'I long to see mamma.'
'Of course you do.'
'But she will want me to go away with her.'
'She cannot take you unless you choose to go.'
'But she will speak of nothing else. I know it. I wish she had not come.'
'Surely, Hester, you can make her understand that your mind is made up.'
'Yes, I shall do that. I must do that. But, father, it will be very painful. You do not know what things she can say. It nearly killed me when I was at the Grange. You will not see her, I suppose?'
'If you wish it, I will. She will not care to see me; and as things are at present, what room is there for friendship?'
'You will come if I send for you?'
'Certainly. If you send for me I will come at once.'
Then she crept slowly out of the room, and very slowly and very silently made her way to the parlour-door. Though she was of a strong nature, unusually strong of heart and fixed of purpose, now her heart misgave her. That terrible struggle, with all its incidents of weariness and agony, was present to her mind. Her mother could not turn the lock on her now; but, as she had said, it would be very dreadful. Her mother would say words to her which would go through her like swords. Then she opened the door, and for a moment there was the sweetness of an embrace. There was a prolonged tenderness in the kiss which, even to Mrs. Bolton, had a charm for the moment to soften her spirit. 'Oh, mamma; my own mamma!'
'My child!'
'Yes, mamma;--every day when I pray for you I tell myself that I am still your child,--I do.'
'My only one! my only one! --all that I have!' Then again they were in each other's arms. Yet, when they had last met, one had been the jailer, and the other the prisoner; and they had fought it out between them with a determined obstinacy which at moments had almost amounted to hatred. But now the very memory of these sad hours increased their tenderness. 'Hester, through it all, do you not know that my heart yearns for you day and night? --that in my prayers I am always remembering you? that my dreams are happy because you are with me? that I am ever longing for you as Ruth longed for Naomi? I am as Rachel weeping for her children, who would not be comforted because they are not. Day and night my heart-strings are torn asunder because my eyes behold you not.'
It was true,--and the daughter knew it to be true. But what could be done? There had grown up something for her, holier, greater, more absorbing even than a mother's love. Happily for most young wives, though the new tie may surmount the old one, it does not crush it or smother it. The mother retains a diminished hold, and knowing what nature has intended is content. She, too, with some subsidiary worship, kneels at the new altar, and all is well. But here, though there was abundant love, there was no sympathy. The cause of discord was ever present to them both. Unless John Caldigate was acknowledged to be a fitting husband, not even the mother could be received with a full welcome. And unless John Caldigate were repudiated, not even the daughter could be accepted as altogether pure. Parental and filial feelings sufficed for nothing between them beyond the ecstasy of a caress.
As Hester was standing mute, still holding her mother's hand, the servant came to the door, and asked whether she would have her lunch.
'You will stay and eat with me, mamma? But you will come up to my room first?'
'I will go up to your room, Hester.'
'Then we will have our lunch,' Hester said, turning to the servant. So the two went together to the upper chamber, and in a moment the mother had fetched her baby, and placed it in her mother's arms.
'I wish he were at the Grange,' said Mrs. Bolton. Then Hester shook her head; but feeling the security of her position, left the baby with its grandmother. 'I wish he were at the Grange. It is the only fitting home for him at present.'
'No, mamma; that cannot be.'
'It should be so, Hester. It should be so.'
'Pray do not speak of it, dear mamma.'
'Have I not come here on purpose that I might speak of it? Sweet as it is to me to have you in my arms, do you not know that I have come for that purpose,--for that only?'
'It cannot be so.'
'I will not take such an answer, Hester. I am not here to speak of pleasure or delights,--not to speak of sweet companionship, or even of a return to that more godly life which, I think, you would find in your father's house. Had not this ruin come, unhappy though I might have been, and distrustful, I should not have interfered. Those whom God has joined together, let not man put asunder.'
'It is what I say to myself every hour. God has joined us, and no man, no number of men, shall put us asunder.'
'But, my own darling,--God has not joined you! When he pretended to be joined to you, he had a wife then living,--still living.'
'No.'
'Will you set up your own opinion against evidence which the jury has believed, which the judge has believed, which all the world has believed?'
'Yes, I will,' said Hester, the whole nature of whose face was now altered, and who looked as she did when sitting in the hall-chair at Puritan Grange,--'I will. Though I were almost to know that he had been false, I should still believe him to be true.'
'I cannot understand that, Hester.'
'But I know him to be true,--quite true,' she said, wishing to erase the feeling which her unguarded admission had made. 'Not to believe him to have been true would be death to me; and for my boy's sake, I would wish to live. But I have no doubt, and I will listen to no one,--not even to you, when you tell me that God did not join us together.'
'You cannot go behind the law, Hester. As a citizen, you must obey the law.'
'I will live here,--as a citizen,--till he has been restored to me.'
'But he will not then be your husband. People will not call you by his name. He cannot have two wives. She will be his wife. Oh, Hester, have you thought of it?'
'I have thought of it,' she said, raising her face, looking upwards through the open window, out away towards the heavens, and pressing her foot firmly upon the floor. 'I have thought of it,--very much; and I have asked--the Lord--for counsel. And He has given it me. He has told me what to believe, what to know, and how to live. I will never again lie with my head upon his bosom unless all that be altered. But I will serve him as his wife, and obey him; and if I can I will comfort him. I will never desert him. And not all the laws that were ever made, nor all the judges that ever sat in judgment shall make me call myself by another name than his.'
The mother had come there to speak burning words, and she had in some sort prepared them; but now she found herself almost silenced by the energy of her daughter. And when her girl told her that she had applied to her God for counsel, and that the Lord had answered her prayers--that the Lord had directed her as to her future life,--then the mother hardly knew how to mount to higher ground, so as to seem to speak from a more exalted eminence. And yet she was not at all convinced. That the Lord should give bad counsel she knew to be impossible. That the Lord would certainly give good counsel to such a suppliant, if asked aright, she was quite sure. But they who send others to the throne of heaven for direct advice are apt to think that the asking will not be done aright unless it be done with their spirit and their bias,--with the spirit and bias which they feel when they recommend the operation. No one has ever thought that direct advice from the Lord was sufficient authority for the doing of that of which he himself disapproved. It was Mrs. Bolton's daily custom to kneel herself and ask for such counsel, and to enjoin such asking upon all those who were subject to her influence. But had she been assured by some young lady to whom she had recommended the practice that heavenly warrant had thus been secured for balls and theatres, she would not have scrupled to declare that the Lord had certainly not been asked aright. She was equally certain of some defalcation now. She did not doubt that Hester had done as she had said. That the prayer had been put up with energetic fervour, she was sure. But energetic fervour in prayer was, she thought, of no use,--nay, was likely to be most dangerous, when used in furtherance of human prepossessions and desires. Had Hester said her prayers with a proper feeling of self-negation,--in that religious spirit which teaches the poor mortal here on earth to know that darkness and gloom are safer than mirth and comfort,--then the Lord would have told her to leave Folking, to go back to Puritan Grange, and to consent once more to be called Hester Bolton. This other counsel had not come from the Lord,--had come only from Hester's own polluted heart. But she was not at the moment armed with words sufficiently strong to explain all this.
'Hester,' she said, 'does not all this mean that your own proud spirit is to have a stronger dominion over you than the experience and wisdom of all your friends?'
'Perhaps it does. But, at any rate, my proud spirit will retain its pride.'
'You will be obstinate?'
'Certainly I will. Nothing on earth shall make me leave this house till I am told by its owner to go.'
'Who is its owner? Old Mr. Caldigate is its owner.'
'I hardly know. Though John has explained it again and again, I am so bad at such things that I am not sure. But I can do what I please with it. I am the mistress here. As you say that the Grange is your house, I can say that this is mine. It is the abode appointed for me, and here I will abide.'
'Then, Hester, I can only tell you that you are sinning. It is a heavy, grievous, and most obvious sin.'
'Dear mother,--dear mamma; I knew how it would be if you came. It is useless for me to say more. Were I to go away, that to me would be the sin. Why should we discuss it any more? There comes a time to all of us when we must act on our own responsibility. My husband is in prison, and cannot personally direct me. No doubt I could go, were I so pleased. His father would not hinder me, though he is most unwilling that I should go. I must judge a little for myself. But I have his judgment to fall back upon. He told me to stay, and I shall stay.'
Then there was a pause, during which Mrs. Bolton was thinking of her burning words,--was remembering the scorn with which she had treated her husband when he told her that they had 'no power.' She had endeavoured herself not to be sleepy in doing the Lord's work. But her seed, too, had fallen upon stony places. She was powerless to do, or even to say, anything further. 'Then I may go,' she muttered.
'You will come and eat with me, mamma?'
'No, my dear,--no.'
'You do not wish that there should be a quarrel?'
'There is very much, Hester, that I do not wish. I have long ceased to trust much to any wishes. There is a great gulf between us, and I will not attempt to bridge it by the hollow pretence of sitting at table with you. I will still pray that you may be restored to me.' Then she went to the door.
'Mamma, you will kiss me before you go?'
'I will cover you with kisses when you return to your own home.' But in spite of this, Hester went down with her into the hall, holding by her raiment; and as Mrs. Bolton got into the fly, she did succeed in kissing her mother's hand.
'She has gone,' said Hester, going to her father-in-law's room. 'Though I was so glad to see her, I wish she had not come. When people think so very, very differently on a matter which is so very, very important, it is better that they should not meet, let them love each other ever so.'
As far as Hester and Mr. Caldigate were concerned the visit had in truth been made without much inconvenience. There had been no absolute violence,--no repetition of such outward quarrelling as had made those two days at the Grange so memorable. There was almost a feeling of relief in Hester's bosom when her mother was driven away after that successful grasp at the parting hand. Though they had differed much, they had not hated each other during that last half-hour. Hester had been charged with sin;--which, however, had been a matter of course. But in Mrs. Bolton's heart there was a feeling which made her return home very uncomfortable. Having twitted her husband with his lack of power, she had been altogether powerless herself; and now she was driven to confess to herself that no further step could be taken. 'She is obstinate,' she said to her husband,--'stiff-necked in her sin, as are all determined sinners. I can say no more to her. It may be that the Lord will soften her heart when her sorrows have endured yet for a time.' But she said no more of burning words, or of eloquence, or of the slackness of the work of those who work as though they were not in earnest.
| {
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47 | None | Curlydown and Bagwax There had been a sort of pledge given at the trial by Sir John Joram that the matter of the envelope should be further investigated. He had complained in his defence that the trial had been hurried on,--that time had not been allowed for full inquiries, seeing that the character of the deed by which his client had been put in jeopardy depended upon what had been done on the other side of the globe. 'This crime,' he had said, 'if it be a crime, was no doubt committed in the parish church of Utterden in the early part of last year; but all the evidence which has been used or which could be used to prove it to have been a crime, has reference to things done long ago, and far away. Time has not been allowed us for rebutting this evidence by counter-evidence.' And yet much time had been allowed. The trial had been postponed from the spring to the summer assizes; and then the offence was one which, from its very nature, required speedy notice. The Boltons, who became the instigators of the prosecution, demanded that the ill-used woman should be relieved as quickly as possible from her degradation. There had been a general feeling that the trial should not be thrown over to another year; and, as we are aware, it had been brought to judgment and the convicted criminal was in jail. But Sir John still persevered, and to this perseverance he had been instigated very much by a certain clerk in the post-office.
Two post-office clerks had been used as witnesses at the trial, of whom the elder, Mr. Curlydown, had been by no means a constant or an energetic witness. A witness, when he is brought up for the defence, should not be too scrupulous, or he will be worse than useless. In a matter of fact a man can only say what he saw, or tell what he heard, or declare what he knew. He should at least do no more. Though it be to save his father, he should not commit perjury. But when it comes to opinion, if a man allows himself to waver, he will be taken as thinking the very opposite of what he does think. Such had been the case with Mr. Curlydown. He had intended to be very correct. He had believed that the impression of the Sydney stamp was on the whole adverse to the idea that it had been obtained in the proper way; and yet he had, when cross-examined, acknowledged that it might very probably have been obtained in the proper way. It certainly had not been 'smudged' at all, and such impressions generally did become 'smudged.' But then he was made to say also that impressions very often did not become smudged. And as to the word 'Nobble' which should have been stamped upon the envelope, he thought that in such a case its absence was very suspicious; but still he was brought to acknowledge that post-masters in provincial offices far away from inspection, frequently omit that part of their duty. All this had tended to rob the envelope of those attributes of deceit and conspiracy which Sir John Joram attributed to it, and had justified the judge in his opinion that Mr. Curlydown's evidence had told them little or nothing. But even Mr. Curlydown had found more favour with the judge than Samuel Bagwax, the junior of the two post-office witnesses. Samuel Bagwax had perhaps been a little too energetic. He had made the case his own, and was quite sure that the envelope had been tampered with. I think that the counsel for the Crown pressed his witness unfairly when he asked Mr. Bagwax whether he was absolutely certain that an envelope with such an impression could not have passed through the post-office in the ordinary course of business. 'Nothing is impossible,' Mr. Bagwax had replied. 'Is it not very much within the sphere of possibility?' the learned gentleman had asked. The phrase was misleading, and Mr. Bagwax was induced to say that it might be so. But still his assurance would probably have had weight with the jury but for the overstrained honesty of his companion. The judge had admonished the jury that in reference to such a point they should use their own common-sense rather than the opinion of such a man as Mr. Bagwax. A man of ordinary common-sense would know how the mark made by a die on a letter would be affected by the sort of manipulation to which the letter bearing it would be subjected;--and so on. From all which it came to pass that the judge was understood to have declared that that special envelope might very well have passed in ordinary course through the Sydney post-office.
But Samuel Bagwax was not a man to be put down by the injustice of lawyers. He knew himself to have been ill-treated. He was confident that no man alive was more competent than himself to form an opinion on such a subject; and he was sure, quite sure,--perhaps a little too sure,--that there had been some dishonesty with that envelope. And thus he became a strong partisan of John Caldigate and of Mrs. John Caldigate. If there had been tampering with that envelope, then the whole thing was fraudulent, false, and the outcome of a base conspiracy. Many points were present to his mind which the lawyers between them would not allow him to explain properly to a jury. When had that die been cut, by which so perfect an impression had been formed? If it could be proved that it had been cut since the date it bore, then of course the envelope would be fraudulent. But it was only in Sydney that this could be ascertained. He was sure that a week's ordinary use would have made the impression less perfect. Some letters must of course be subjected to new dies, and this letter might in due course have been so subjected. But it was more probable that a new stamp should have been selected for a surreptitious purpose. All this could be ascertained by the book of daily impressions kept in the Sydney post-office;--but there had not been time to get this evidence from Sydney since this question of the impression had been ventilated. It was he who had first given importance to the envelope; and being a resolute and almost heroic man, he was determined that no injustice on the part of a Crown prosecutor, no darkness in a judge's mind, no want of intelligence in a jury, should rob him of the delight of showing how important to the world was a proper understanding of post-office details. He still thought that that envelope might be made to prove a conspiracy on the part of Crinkett and the others, and he succeeded in getting Sir John Joram to share that belief.
The envelope itself was still preserved among the sacred archives of the trial. That had not been bodily confided to Samuel Bagwax. But various photographs had been made of the document, which no doubt reproduced exactly every letter, every mark, and every line which was to be seen upon it by the closest inspection. There was the direction, which was admitted to be in Caldigate's handwriting,--the postage-stamp, with its obliterating lines,--and the impression of the Sydney postmark. That was nearly all. The paper of the envelope had no water-marks. Bagwax thought that if he could get hold of the envelope itself something might be done even with that; but here Sir John could not go along with him, as it had been fully acknowledged that the envelope had passed from the possession of Caldigate into the hands of the woman bearing the written address. If anything could be done, it must be done by the postmarks,--and those postmarks Bagwax studied morning, noon, and night.
It had now been decided that Bagwax was to be sent out to Sydney at the expense of the Caldigates. There had been difficulty as to leave of absence for such a purpose. The man having been convicted, the postmaster-general was bound to regard him as guilty, and hesitated to allow a clerk to be absent so long on behalf of a man who was already in prison. But the Secretary of State overruled this scruple, and the leave was to be given. Bagwax was elate,--first and chiefly because he trusted that he would become the means of putting right a foul and cruel wrong. For in these days Bagwax almost wept over the hardships inflicted on that poor lady at Folking. But he was elated also by the prospect of his travels, and by the godsend of a six months' leave of absence. He was a little proud, too, at having had this personal attention paid to him by the Secretary of State. All this was very gratifying. But that which gratified him was not so charming to his brother clerks. They had never enjoyed the privilege of leaving that weary office for six months. They were not allowed to occupy themselves in contemplating an envelope. They were never specially mentioned by the Secretary of State. Of course there was a little envy, and a somewhat general feeling that Bagwax, having got to the weak side of Sir John Joram, was succeeding in having himself sent out as a first-class overland passenger to Sydney, merely as a job. Paris to be seen, and the tunnel, and the railways through Italy, and the Suez Canal,--all these places, not delightful to the wives of Indian officers coming home or going out, were an Elysium to the post-office mind. His expenses to be paid for six months on the most gentleman-like footing, and his salary going on all the time! Official human nature, good as it generally is, cannot learn that such glories are to be showered on one not specially deserving head without something akin to enmity. The general idea, therefore, in the office, was that Bagwax would do no good in Sydney, that others would have been better than Bagwax,--in fact, that of all the clerks in all the departments, Bagwax was the very last man who ought to have been selected for an enterprise demanding secrecy, discretion, and some judicial severity.
Curlydown and Bagwax occupied the same room at the office in St. Martin's-le-Grand; and there it was their fate in life to arrange, inspect, and generally attend to those apparently unintelligible hieroglyphics with which the outside coverings of our correspondence are generally bedaubed. Curlydown's hair had fallen from his head, and his face had become puckered with wrinkles, through anxiety to make these markings legible and intelligible. The popular newspaper, the popular member of Parliament, and the popular novelist,--the name of Charles Dickens will of course present itself to the reader who remembers the Circumlocution office,--have had it impressed on their several minds,--and have endeavoured to impress the same idea on the minds of the public generally,--that the normal Government clerk is quite indifferent to his work. No greater mistake was ever made, or one showing less observation of human nature. It is the nature of a man to appreciate his own work. The felon who is made simply to move shot, perishes because he knows his work is without aim. The fault lies on the other side. The policeman is ambitious of arresting everybody. The lawyer would rather make your will for you gratis than let you make your own. The General can believe in nothing but in well-trained troops. Curlydown would willingly have expended the whole net revenue of the post-office,--and his own,--in improving the machinery for stamping letters. But he had hardly succeeded in life. He had done his duty, and was respected by all. He lived comfortably in a suburban cottage with a garden, having some private means, and had brought up a happy family in prosperity;--but he had done nothing new. Bagwax, who was twenty years his junior, had with manifest effects, added a happy drop of turpentine to the stamping-oil,--and in doing so had broken Curlydown's heart. The 'Bagwax Stamping Mixture' had absolutely achieved a name, which was printed on the official list of stores. Curlydown's mind was vacillating between the New River and a pension,--between death in the breach and acknowledged defeat,--when a new interest was lent to his life by the Caldigate envelope. It was he who had been first sent by the Postmaster-General to Sir John Joram's chambers. But the matter had become too large for himself alone, and in an ill-fated hour Bagwax had been consulted. Now Bagwax was to be sent to Sydney,--almost with the appointments of a lawyer!
They still occupied the same room,--a fact which infinitely increased the torments of Curlydown's position. They ought to have been moved very far asunder. Curlydown was still engaged in the routine ordinary work of the day, seeing that the proper changes were made in all the stamps used during the various hours of the day,--assuring himself that the crosses and letters and figures upon which so much of the civilisation of Europe depended, were properly altered and arranged. And it may well be that his own labours were made heavier by the devotion of his colleagues to other matters. And yet from time to time Bagwax would ask him questions, never indeed taking his advice, but still demanding his assistance. Curlydown was not naturally a man of ill-temper or an angry heart. But there were moments in which he could hardly abstain from expressing himself with animosity.
On a certain morning in August, Bagwax was seated at his table, which as usual was laden with the envelopes of many letters. There were some hundreds before him, the marks on which he was perusing with a strong magnifying-glass. It had been arranged that he was to start on his great journey in the first week in September, and he employed his time before he went in scanning all the envelopes bearing the Sydney postmark which he had been able to procure in England. He spent the entire day with a magnifying-glass in his hand;--but as Curlydown was also always armed in the same fashion, that was not peculiar. They did much of their work with such tools.
The date on the envelope,--the date conveyed by the impression, to which so much attention had been given,--was 10th May 1873. Bagwax had succeeded in getting covers bearing dates very close to that. The 7th of May had been among his treasures for some time, and now he had acquired an entire letter, envelope and all, which bore the Sydney impression of the 13th May. This was a great triumph. 'I have brought it within a week,' he said to Curlydown, bending down over his glass, and inspecting at the same time the two dates.
'What's the good of that?' asked Curlydown, as he passed rapidly under his own glass the stamps which it was his duty to inspect from day to day.
'All the good in the world,' said Bagwax, brandishing his own magnifier with energy. 'It is almost conclusive.' Now the argument with Bagwax was this,--that if he found in the Sydney postmarks of 7th May, and in those of 13th May, the same deviations or bruises in the die, those deviations must have existed also on the days between these two dates;--and as the impression before him was quite perfect, without any deviation, did it not follow that it must have been obtained in some manner outside the ordinary course of business?
'There are a dozen stamps in use at the Sydney office,' said Curlydown.
'Perhaps so; or, at any rate, three or four. But I can trace as well as possible the times at which new stamps were supplied. Look here.' Then he threw himself over the multitude of envelopes, all of which had been carefully arranged as to dates, and began to point out the periods. 'Here, you see, in 1873, there is nothing that quite tallies with the Caldigate letter. I have measured them to the twentieth part of an inch, and I am sure that early in May '73 there was not a stamp in use in the Sydney office which could have made that impression. I have eighteen Mays '73, and not one of them could have been made by the stamp that did this.' As he spoke thus, he rapped his finger down on the copy of the sacred envelope which he was using. 'Is not that conclusive?'
'If it was not conclusive to keep a man from going to prison,' said Curlydown, remembering the failure of his own examination, 'it will not be conclusive to get him out again.'
'There I differ. No doubt further evidence is necessary and therefore I must go to Sydney.'
'If it is conclusive, I don't see why you should go to Sydney at all. If your proof is so perfect, why should that fellow be kept in prison while you are running about the world?'
This idea had also occurred to Bagwax, and he had thought whether it would be possible for him to be magnanimous enough to perfect his proof in England, so as to get a pardon from the Secretary of State at once, to his own manifest injury. 'What would satisfy you and me,' said Bagwax, 'wouldn't satisfy the ignorant.' To the conductor of an omnibus on the Surrey side of the river, the man who does not know what 'The Castle' means is ignorant. The outsider who is in a mist as to the 'former question,' or 'the order of the day,' is ignorant to the member of Parliament. To have no definite date conveyed by the term 'Rogation Sunday' is to the clerical mind gross ignorance. The horsey man thinks you have been in bed all your life if the 'near side' is not as descriptive to you as 'the left hand.' To Bagwax and Curlydown, not to distinguish postmarks was to be ignorant. 'I fear it wouldn't satisfy the ignorant,' said Bagwax, thinking of his projected journey to Sydney.
'Proof is proof,' said Curlydown. 'I don't think you'll ever get him out. The time has gone by. But you may do just as much here as there.'
'I'm sure we shall get him out. I'll never rest in my bed till we have got him out.'
'Mr. Justice Bramber won't mind whether you rest in your bed or not,--nor yet the Secretary of State.'
'Sir John Joram--' began Bagwax. In these discussions Sir John Joram was always his main staff.
'Sir John Joram has got other fish to fry before this time. It's a marvel to me, Bagwax, that they should give way to all this nonsense. If anything could be done, it could be done in half the time,--and if anything could be done, it could be done here. By the time you're back from Sydney, Caldigate's time will be half out. Why don't you let Sir John see your proof? You don't want to lose your trip, I suppose.'
Caldigate was languishing in prison, and that poor, nameless lady was separated from her husband, and he had the proof lying there on the table before him,--sufficient proof, as he did in his heart believe! But how often does it fall to the lot of a post-office clerk to be taken round the world free of expense? The way Curlydown put it was ill-natured and full of envy. Bagwax was well aware that Curlydown was instigated solely by envy. But still, these were his own convictions,--and Bagwax was in truth a soft-hearted, conscientious man.
'I do think it ought to be enough for any Secretary of State,' said he, 'and I'll go to Sir John Joram to-morrow. Of course, I should like to see the world;--who wouldn't? But I'd rather be the means of restoring that fellow to his poor wife, than be sent to all the four quarters of the globe with a guinea a-day for personal expenses.' In this way he nobly made up his mind to go at once to Sir John Joram.
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48 | None | Sir John Joram's Chambers Mr. Curlydown's insinuations had been very cruel, but also very powerful. Bagwax, as he considered the matter that night in his bed, did conscientiously think that a discreet and humane Secretary of State would let the unfortunate husband out of prison on the evidence which he (Bagwax) had already collected. My readers will not perhaps agree with him. The finding of a jury and the sentence of a judge must be regarded seriously by Secretaries of State, and it is probable that Bagwax's theory would not make itself clear to that great functionary. A good many 'ifs' were necessary. If the woman claiming Caldigate as her husband would swear falsely to anything in that matter, then she would swear falsely to everything. If this envelope had never passed through the Sydney post-office then she would have sworn falsely about the letter,--and therefore her evidence would have been altogether false. If this postmark had not been made in the due course of business, and on the date as now seen, then the envelope had not passed regularly through the Sydney office. So far it was all clear to the mind of Bagwax, and almost clear that the postmark could not have been made on the date it bore. The result for which he was striving with true faith had taken such a hold of his mind, he was so adverse to the Smith-Crinkett interest, and so generously anxious for John Caldigate and the poor lady at Folking, that he could not see obstacles;--he could not even clearly see the very obstacles which made his own going to Sydney seem to others to be necessary. And yet he longed to go to Sydney with all his heart. He would be almost broken-hearted if he were robbed of that delight.
In this frame of mind he packed all his envelopes carefully into a large hand-bag, and started in a cab for Sir John Joram's chambers. 'Where are you going with them now?' Curlydown asked, somewhat disdainfully, just as Bagwax was starting. Curlydown had taken upon himself of late to ridicule the envelopes, and had become almost an anti-Caldigatite. Bagwax vouchsafed to make him no reply. On the previous afternoon he had declared his purpose of going at once to Sir John, and had written, as Curlydown well knew, a letter to Sir John's clerk to make an appointment. Sir John was known to be in town though it was the end of August, being a laborious man who contented himself with a little partridge-shooting by way of holiday. It had been understood that he was to see Bagwax before his departure. All this had been known to Curlydown, and the question had been asked only to exasperate. There was a sarcasm in the 'now' which determined Bagwax to start without a word of reply.
As he went down to the Temple in the cab he turned over in his mind a great question which often troubles many of us. How far was he bound to sacrifice himself for the benefit of others? He had done his duty zealously in this matter, and now was under orders to continue the work in a manner which opened up to him a whole paradise of happiness. How grand was this opportunity of seeing something of the world beyond St. Martin's-le-Grand! And then the pecuniary gain would be so great! Hitherto he had received no pay for what he had done. He was a simple post-office clerk, and was paid for his time by the Crown,--very moderately. On this projected journey all his expenses would be paid for him, and still he would have his salary. Sir John Joram had declared the journey to be quite necessary. The Secretary of State had probably not occupied his mind much with the matter; but in the mind of Bagwax there was a fixed idea that the Secretary thought of little else, and that the Secretary had declared that his hands were tied till Bagwax should have been to Sydney. But his conscience told him that the journey was not necessary, and that the delay would be cruel. In that cab Bagwax made up his mind that he would do his duty like an honest man.
Sir John's chambers in Pump Court were gloomy without, though commodious and ample within. Bagwax was now well known to the clerk, and was received almost as a friend. 'I think I've got it all as clear as running water, Mr. Jones,' he said, feeling no doubt that Sir John's clerk, Mr. Jones, must feel that interest in the case which pervaded his own mind.
'That will be a good thing for the gentleman in prison, Mr. Bagwax.'
'And for the lady; poor lady! I don't know whether I don't think almost more of her than of him.' Mr. Jones was returning to his work, having sent in word to Sir John of this visitor's arrival. But Bagwax was too full of his subject, and of his own honesty, for that. 'I don't think that I need go out after all, Mr. Jones.'
'Oh indeed!'
'Of course it will be a great sell for me.'
'Will it, now?'
'Sydney, I am told, is an Elysium upon earth.'
'It's much the same as Botany Bay; isn't it?' asked Jones.
'Oh, not at all; quite a different place. I was reading a book the other day which said that Sydney harbour is the most beautiful thing God ever made on the face of the globe.'
'I know there used to be convicts there,' said Mr. Jones, very positively.
'Perhaps they had a few once, but never many. They have oranges there, and a Parliament almost as good as our own, and a beautiful new post-office. But I shan't have to go, Mr. Jones. Of course, a man has to do his duty.'
'Some do, and more don't. That's as far as I see, Mr. Bagwax.'
'I'm all for Nelson's motto, Mr. Jones,--"England expects that every man this day shall do his duty."' In repeating these memorable words Bagwax raised his voice.
'Sir John don't like to hear anything through the partition, Mr. Bagwax.'
'I beg pardon. But whenever I think of that glorious observation I am apt to become a little excited. It'll go a long way, Mr. Jones, in keeping a man straight if he'll only say it to himself often enough.'
'But not to roar it out in an eminent barrister's chambers. He didn't hear you, I daresay; only I thought I'd just caution you.'
'Quite right, Mr. Jones. Now I mean to do mine. I think we can get the party out of prison without any journey to Sydney at all; and I'm not going to stand in the way of it. I have devoted myself to this case, and I'm not going to let my own interest stand in the way. Mr. Jones, let a man be ever so humble, England does expect--that he'll do his duty.'
'By George, he'll hear you, Mr. Bagwax;--he will indeed.' But at that moment Sir John's bell was rung, and Bagwax was summoned into the great man's room. Sir John was sitting at a large office-table so completely covered with papers that a whole chaos of legal atoms seemed to have been deposited there by the fortuitous operation of ages. Bagwax, who had his large bag in his hand, looked forlornly round the room for some freer and more fitting board on which he might expose his documents. But there was none. There were bookshelves filled with books, and a large sofa which was covered also with papers, and another table laden with what seemed to be a concrete chaos,--whereas the chaos in front of Sir John was a chaos in solution. Sir John liked Bagwax, though he was generally opposed to zealous co-operators. There was in the man a mixture of intelligence and absurdity, of real feeling and affectation, of genuine humility as to himself personally and of thorough confidence in himself post-officially, which had gratified Sir John; and Sir John had been quite sure that the post-office clerk had intended to speak the absolute truth, with an honest, manly conviction in the innocence of his client, and in the guilt of the witnesses on the other side. He was therefore well disposed towards Bagwax. 'Well, Mr. Bagwax he said; 'so I understand you have got a little further in the matter since I saw you last.'
'A good deal further, Sir John.'
'As how? Perhaps you can explain it shortly.'
This was troublesome. Bagwax did not think that he could explain the matter very shortly. He could not explain the matter at all without showing his envelopes; and how was he to show them in the present condition of that room? He immediately dived into his bag and brought forth the first bundle of envelopes. 'Perhaps, Sir John, I had better put them out upon the floor,' he said.
'Must I see all those?'
There were many more bundles within which Bagwax was anxious that the barrister should examine minutely. 'It is very important, Sir John. It is indeed. It is really altogether a case of postmarks,--altogether. We have never in our branch had anything so interesting before. If we can show that that envelope certainly was not stamped with that postmark in the Sydney post-office on the 10th May 1873, then we shall get him out,--shan't we?'
'It will be very material, Mr. Bagwax,' said Sir John, cautiously.
'They will all have sworn falsely, and then somebody must have obtained the postmark surreptitiously. There must have been a regular plant. The stamp must have been made up and dated on purpose,--so as to give a false date. Some official in the Sydney post-office must have been employed.'
'That's what we want you to find out over there,' said Sir John, who was not quite so zealous, perhaps not quite so conscientious, as his more humble assistant,--whose mind was more occupied with other matters. 'You'll find out all that at Sydney.'
The temptation was very great. Sir John wanted him to go,--told him that he ought to go! Sir John was the man responsible for the whole matter. He, Bagwax, had done his best. Could it be right for him to provoke Sir John by contesting the matter,--contesting it so much to his own disadvantage? Had he not done enough for honesty? --enough to satisfy even that grand idea of duty? As he turned the bundle of documents round in his hand, he made up his mind that he had not done enough. There was a little gurgle in his throat, almost a tear in his eye, as he replied, 'I don't think I should be wanted to go if you would look at these envelopes.'
Sir John understood it all at once,--and there was much to understand. He knew how anxious the man was to go on this projected journey, and he perceived the cause which was inducing him to surrender his own interests. He remembered that the journey must be made at a great expense to his own client. He ran over the case in his mind, and acknowledged to himself that conclusive evidence,--evidence that should be quite conclusive,--of fraud as to the envelope, might possibly suffice to release his client at once from prison. He told himself also that he could not dare to express an opinion on the matter himself without a close inspection of those postmarks,--that a close inspection might probably take two hours, and that the two hours would finally have to be abstracted from the already curtailed period of his nightly slumbers. Then he thought of the state of his tables, and the difficulties as to space. Perhaps that idea was the one strongest in his mind against the examination.
But then what a hero was Bagwax! What self-abnegation was there! Should he be less ready to devote himself to his client,--he, who was paid for his work,--than this post-office clerk, who was as pure in his honesty as he was zealous in the cause? 'There are a great many of them, I suppose?' he said, almost whining.
'A good many, Sir John.'
'Have at it!' said the Queen's Counsel and late Attorney-General, springing up from his chair. Bagwax almost jumped out of the way, so startled was he by the quick and sudden movement. Sir John rang his bell; but not waiting for the clerk, began to hurl the chaos in solution on to the top of the concrete chaos. Bagwax naturally attempted to assist him. 'For G---'s sake, don't you touch them!' said Sir John, as though avenging himself by a touch of scorn for the evil thing which was being done to him. Then Jones hurried into the room, and with more careful hands assisted his master, trying to preserve some order with the disturbed papers. In this way the large office-table was within three minutes made clear for the Bagwaxian strategy. Mr. Jones declared afterwards that it was seven years since he had seen the entire top of that table. 'Now go ahead!' said Sir John, who seemed, during the operation, to have lost something of his ordinary dignity.
Bagwax, who since that little check had been standing perfectly still, with his open bag in his hands, at once began his work. The plain before him was immense, and he was able to marshal all his forces. In the centre, and nearest to Sir John, as he sat in his usual chair, were exposed all the Mays '73. For it was thus that he denominated the envelopes with which he was so familiar. There were 71's, and 72's, and 74's, and 75's. But the 73's were all arranged in months, and then in days. He began by explaining that he had obtained all these envelopes 'promiscuously,' as he said. There had been no selection, none had been rejected. Then courteously handing his official magnifying-glass to the barrister, he invited him to inspect them all generally,--to make, as it were, a first cursory inspection,--so that he might see that there was not one perfect impression perfect as that impression on the Caldigate envelope was perfect. 'Not one,' said Bagwax, beating his bosom in triumph.
'That seems perfect,' said Sir John, pointing with the glass to a selected specimen.
'Your eyes are very good, Sir John,--very good indeed. You have found the cleanest and truest of the whole lot. But if you'll examine the tail of the Y, you'll see it's been rubbed a little. And then if you'll follow with your eye the circular line which makes up the round of the postmark, you'll find a dent on the outside bar. I go more on the dents in those bars, Sir John, than I do on the figures. All the bars are dented more or less,--particularly the Mays '73. They don't remain quite true, Sir John,--not after a day's fair use. They've taken a new stamp out of the store to do the Caldigate envelope. They couldn't get at the stamps in use. That's how it has been.'
Sir John listened in silence as he continued to examine one envelope after another through the glass. 'Now, Sir John, if we come to the Mays '73, we shall find that just about that time there has been no new stamp brought into use. There isn't one, either, that is exactly the Caldigate breadth. I've brought a rule by which you can get to the fiftieth of an inch.' Here Bagwax brought out a little ivory instrument marked all over with figures. 'Of course they're intended to be of the same pattern. But gradually, very gradually, the circle has always become smaller. Isn't that conclusive? The Caldigate impression is a little, very little--ever so little--but a little smaller than any of the Mays '73. Isn't that conclusive?'
'If I understand it, Mr. Bagwax, you don't pretend to say that you have got impressions of all the stamps which may have been in use in the Sydney office at that time? But in Sydney, if I understand the matter rightly, they keep daily impressions of all the stamps in a book.'
'Just so--just so, Sir John,' said Bagwax, feeling that every word spoken to the lawyer renewed his own hopes of going out to Sydney,--but feeling also that Sir John would be wrong, very wrong, if he subjected his client to so unnecessarily prolonged a detention in the Cambridge county prison. 'They do keep a book which would be quite conclusive. I could have the pages photographed.'
'Would not that be best? and you might probably find out who it was who gave this fraudulent aid.'
'I could find out everything,' said Bagwax, energetically; 'but----' 'But what?'
'It is all found out there. It is indeed, Sir John. If I could get you to go along with me, you would see that that letter couldn't have gone through the Sydney post-office.'
'I think I do see it. But it is so difficult, Mr. Bagwax, to make others see things.'
'And if it didn't,--and it never did;--but if it didn't, why did they say it did? Why did they swear it did? Isn't that enough to make any Secretary let him go?'
The energy, the zeal, the true faith of the man, were admirable. Sir John was half disposed to rise from his seat to embrace the man, and hail him as his brother,--only that had he done so he would have made himself as ridiculous as Bagwax. Zeal is always ridiculous. 'I think I see it all,' he said.
'And won't they let the man go?'
'There were four persons who swore positively that they were present at the marriage, one of them being the woman who is said to have been married. That is direct evidence. With all our search, we have hitherto found no one to give us any direct evidence to rebut this. Then they brought forward, to corroborate these statements, a certain amount of circumstantial evidence,--and among other things this letter.'
'The Caldigate envelope,' said Bagwax, eagerly.
'What you call the Caldigate envelope. It was unnecessary, perhaps; and, if fraudulent, certainly foolish. They would have had their verdict without it.'
'But they did it,' said Bagwax, in a tone of triumph.
'It is a pity, Mr. Bagwax, you were not brought up to our profession. You would have made a great lawyer.'
'Oh, Sir John!'
'Yes, they did it. And if it can be proved that they have done it fraudulently, no doubt that fraud will stain their direct evidence. But we have to remember that the verdict has been already obtained. We are not struggling now with a jury, but with an impassive emblem of sovereign justice.'
'And therefore the real facts will go the further, Sir John.'
'Well argued, Mr. Bagwax,--admirably well argued. If you should ever be called, I hope I may not have you against me very often. But I will think of it all. You can take the envelopes away with you, because you have impressed me vividly with all that they can tell me. My present impression is, that you had better take the journey. But within the next few days I will give a little more thought to it, and you shall hear from me.' Then he put out his hand, which was a courtesy Mr. Bagwax had never before enjoyed. 'You may believe me, Mr. Bagwax, when I say that I have come across many remarkable men in many cases which have fallen into my hands,--but that I have rarely encountered a man whom I have more thoroughly respected than I do you.'
Mr. Bagwax went away to his own lodging exulting,--but more than ever resolved that the journey to Sydney was unnecessary. As usual, he spent a large portion of that afternoon in contemplating the envelopes; and then, as he was doing so, another idea struck him,--an idea which made him tear his hairs with disgust because it had not occurred to him before. There was now opened to him a new scope of inquiry, an altogether different matter of evidence. But the idea was by far too important to be brought in and explained at the fag-end of a chapter.
| {
"id": "11643"
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49 | None | All the Shands There had been something almost approaching to exultation at Babington when the tidings of Caldigate's alleged Australian wife were first heard there. As the anger had been great that Julia should be rejected, so had the family congratulation been almost triumphant when the danger which had been escaped was appreciated. There had been something of the same feeling at Pollington among the Shands--who had no doubt allowed themselves to think that Maria had been ill-treated by John Caldigate. He ought to have married Maria,--at least such was the opinion of the ladies of the family, who were greatly impressed with the importance of the little book which had been carried away. But in regard to the Australian marriage, they had differed among themselves. That Maria should have escaped the terrible doom which had befallen Mrs. Bolton's daughter, was, of course, a source of comfort. But Maria herself would never believe the evil story. John Caldigate had not been--well, perhaps not quite true to her. So much she acknowledged gently with the germ of a tear in her eye. But she was quite sure that he would not have married Hester Bolton while another wife was living in Australia. She arose almost to enthusiasm as she vindicated his character from so base a stain. He had been, perhaps, a little unstable in his affections,--as men are so commonly. But not even when the jury found their verdict, could she be got to believe that the John Caldigate whom she had known would have betrayed a girl whom he loved as he was supposed to have betrayed Hester Bolton. The mother and sisters, who knew the softness of Maria's disposition,--and who had been more angry than their sister with the man who had been wicked enough to carry away Thomson's 'Seasons' in his portmanteau without marrying the girl who had put it there,--would not agree to this. The verdict, at any rate, was a verdict. John Caldigate was in prison. The poor young woman with her infant was a nameless, unfortunate creature. All this might have happened to their Maria. 'I should always have believed him innocent,' said Maria, wiping away the germ of the tear with her knuckle.
The matter was very often discussed in the doctor's house at Pollington,--as it was, indeed, by the public generally, and especially in the eastern counties. But in this house there a double interest attached to it. In the first place, there was Maria's escape,--which the younger girls were accustomed to talk of as having been 'almost miraculous;' and then there was Dick's absolute disappearance. It had been declared at the trial, on behalf of Caldigate, that if Dick could have been put into the witness-box, he would have been able to swear that there had been no such marriage ceremony as that which the four witnesses had elaborately described. On the other hand, the woman and Crinkett had sworn boldly that Dick Shand, though not present at the marriage, had been well aware that it had taken place, and that Dick, could his evidence have been secured, would certainly have been a witness on their side. He had been outside the tent,--so said the woman,--when the marriage was being performed, and had refused to enter, by way of showing his continued hostility to an arrangement which he had always opposed. But when the woman said this, it was known that Dick Shand would not appear, and the opinion was general that Dick had died in his poverty and distress. Men who sink to be shepherds in Australia because they are noted drunkards, generally do die. The constrained abstinence of perhaps six months in the wilderness is agonising at first, and nearly fatal. Then the poor wretch rushes to the joys of an orgy with ten or fifteen pounds in his pocket; and the stuff which is given to him as brandy soon puts an end to his sufferings. There was but little doubt that such had been the fate of Dick,--unless, perhaps, in the bosom of Maria and of his mother.
It was known too at Pollington, as well as elsewhere in the month of August, that efforts were still to be made with the view of upsetting the verdict. Something had crept out to the public as to the researches made by Bagwax, and allusions had been frequent as to the unfortunate absence of Dick Shand. The betting, had there been betting, would no doubt have been in favour of the verdict. The four witnesses had told their tale in a straightforward way; and though they were, from their characters, not entitled to perfect credit, still their evidence had in no wise been shaken. They were mean, dishonest folk, no doubt. They had taken Caldigate's money, and had still gone on with the prosecution. Even if there had been some sort of a marriage, the woman should have taken herself off when she had received her money, and left poor Hester to enjoy her happiness, her husband, and her home at Bolton. That was the general feeling. But it was hardly thought that Bagwax, with his envelope, would prevail over Judge Bramber in the mind of the Secretary of State. Probably there had been a marriage. But it was singular that the two men who could have given unimpeachable evidence on the matter should both have vanished out of the world; Allan, the minister,--and Dick Shand, the miner and shepherd.
'What will she do when he comes out?' Maria asked. Mrs. Rewble,--Harriet,--the curate's wife, was there. Mr. Rewble, as curate, found it convenient to make frequent visits to his father-in-law's house. And Mrs. Posttlethwaite,--Matilda,--was with them, as Mr. Posttlethwaite's business in the soap line caused him to live at Pollington. And there were two unmarried sisters, Fanny and Jane. Mrs. Rewble was by this time quite the matron, and Mrs. Posttlethwaite was also the happy mother of children. But Maria was still Maria. Fanny already had a string to her bow,--and Jane was expectant of many strings.
'She ought to go back to her father and mother, of course,' said Mrs. Rewble, indignantly.
'I know I wouldn't,' said Jane.
'You know nothing about it, miss, and you ought not to speak of such a thing,' said the curate's wife. Jane at this made a grimace which was intended to be seen only by her sister Fanny.
'It is very hard that two loving hearts should be divided,' said Maria.
'I never thought so much of John Caldigate as you did,' said Mrs. Posttlethwaite. 'He seems to have been able to love a good many young women all at the same time.'
'It's like tasting a lot of cheeses, till you get the one that suits you,' said Jane. This offended the elder sister so grievously that she declared she did not know what their mother was about, to allow such liberty to the girls, and then suggested that the conversation should be changed.
'I'm sure I did not say anything wrong,' said Jane, 'and I suppose it is like that. A gentleman has to find out whom he likes best. And as he liked Miss Bolton best, I think it's a thousand pities they should be parted.'
'Ten thousand pities!' said Maria enthusiastically.
'Particularly as there is a baby,' said Jane,--upon which Mrs. Rewble was again very angry.
'If Dick were to come home, he'd clear it all up at once,' said Mrs. Posttlethwaite.
'Dick will never come home,' said Matilda mournfully.
'Never!' said Mrs. Rewble. 'I am afraid that he has expiated all his indiscretions. It should make us who were born girls thankful that we have not been subjected to the same temptations.'
'I should like to be a man all the same,' said Jane.
'You do not at all know what you are saying,' replied the monitor. 'How little have you realized what poor Dick must have suffered! I wonder when they are going to let us have tea. I'm almost famished.' Mrs. Rewble was known in the family for having a good appetite. They were sitting at this moment round a table on the lawn, at which they intended to partake of their evening meal. The doctor might or might not join them. Mrs. Shand, who did not like the open air, would have hers sent to her in the drawing-room. Mr. Rewble would certainly be there. Mr. Posttlethwaite, who had been home to his dinner, had gone back to the soap-works. 'Don't you think, Jane, if you were to go in, you could hurry them?' Then Jane went in and hurried the servant.
'There's a strange man with papa,' said Jane, as she returned.
'There are always strange men with papa,' said Fanny. 'I daresay he has come to have his tooth out.' For the doctor's practice was altogether general. From a baby to a back-tooth, he attended to everything now, as he had done forty years ago.
'But this man isn't like a patient. The door was half open, and I saw papa holding him by both hands.'
'A lunatic!' exclaimed Mrs. Rewble, thinking that Mr. Rewble ought to be sent at once to her father's assistance.
'He was quite quiet, and just for a moment I could see papa's face. It wasn't a patient at all. Oh, Maria!'
'What is it, child?' asked Mrs. Rewble.
'I do believe that Dick has come back.'
They all jumped up from their seats suddenly. Then Mrs. Rewble reseated herself. 'Jane is such a fool!' she said.
'I do believe it,' said Jane. 'He had yellow trousers on, as if he had come from a long way off. And I'm sure papa was very glad,--why should he take both his hands?'
'I feel as though my legs were sinking under me,' said Maria.
'I don't think it possible for a moment,' said Mrs. Rewble. 'Maria, you are so romantic! You would believe anything.'
'It is possible,' said Mrs. Posttlethwaite.
'If you will remain here, I will go into the house and inquire,' said Mrs. Rewble. But it did not suit the others to remain there. For a moment the suggestion had been so awful that they had not dared to stir; but when the elder sister slowly moved towards the door which led into the house from the garden, they all followed her. Then suddenly they heard a scream, which they knew to come from their mother. 'I believe it is Dick,' said Mrs. Rewble, standing in the doorway so as to detain the others. 'What ought we to do?'
'Let me go in,' said Jane, impetuously. 'He is my brother.'
Maria was already dissolved in tears. Mrs. Posttlethwaite was struck dumb by the awfulness of the occasion, and clung fast to her sister Matilda.
'It will be like one from the grave,' said Mrs. Rewble, solemnly.
'Let me go in,' repeated Jane, impetuously. Then she pushed by her sisters, and was the first to enter the house. They all followed her into the hall, and there they found their mother supported in the arms of the man who wore the yellow trousers. Dick Shand had in truth returned to his father's house.
The first thing to do with a returned prodigal is to kiss him, and the next to feed him; and therefore Dick was led away at once to the table on the lawn. But he gave no sign of requiring the immediate slaughter of a fatted calf. Though he had not exactly the appearance of a well-to-do English gentleman, he did not seem to be in want. The yellow trousers were of strong material, and in good order, made of that colour for colonial use, probably with the idea of expressing some contempt for the dingy hues which prevail among the legs of men at home. He wore a very large checked waistcoat, and a stout square coat of the same material. There was no look of poverty, and no doubt he had that day eaten a substantial dinner; but the anxious mother was desirous of feeding him immediately, and whispered to Jane some instructions as to cold beef, which was to be added to the tea and toast.
As they examined him, holding him by the arms and hands, and gazing up into his face, the same idea occurred to all of them. Though they knew him very well now, they would hardly have known him had they met him suddenly in the streets. He seemed to have grown fifteen years older during the seven years of his absence. His face had become thin and long and almost hollow. His beard went all round under his chin, and was clipped into the appearance of a stiff thick hedge--equally thick, and equally broad, and equally protrusive at all parts. And within this enclosure it was shorn. But his mouth had sunk in, and his eyes. In colour he was almost darker than brown. You would have said that his skin had been tanned black, but for the infusion of red across it here and there. He seemed to be in good present health, but certainly bore the traces of many hardships 'And here you are all just as I left you,' he said, counting up his sisters.
'Not exactly,' said Mrs. Rewble, remembering her family. 'And Matilda has got two.'
'Not husbands, I hope,' said Dick.
'Oh, Dick! that is so like you,' said Jane, getting up and kissing him again in her delight. Then Mr. Rewble came forward, and the brothers-in-law renewed their old acquaintance.
'It seems just like the other day,' said Dick, looking round upon the rose-bushes.
'Oh my boy! my darling, darling boy!' said the mother, who had hurried up-stairs for her shawl, conscious of her rheumatism even amidst the excitement of her son's return. 'Oh, Dick! This is the happiest day of all my life. Wouldn't you like something better than tea?' This she said with many memories and many thoughts; but still, with a mother's love, unable to refrain from offering what she thought her son would wish to have.
'There ain't anything better,' said Dick very solemnly.
'Nothing half so good to my thinking,' said Mrs. Rewble, imagining that by a word in season she might help the good work.
The mother's eyes were filled with tears, but she did not dare to speak a word. Then there was a silence for a few moments. 'Tell us all about it, Dick,' said the father. 'There's whisky inside if you like it.' Dick shook his head solemnly,--but, as they all thought, with a certain air of regret. Tell us what you have to say,' repeated the doctor.
'I'm sworn off these two years.'
'Touched nothing for two years?' said the mother exultingly, with her arms and shawl again round her son's neck.
'A teetotaller?' said Maria.
'Anything you like to call it. Only, what a gentleman's habits are in that respect needn't be made the subject of general remark.' It was evident he was a little sore, and Jane, therefore, offered him a dish full of gooseberries. He took the plate in his hand and ate them assiduously for a while in silence, as though unconscious of what he was doing. 'You know all about it now, don't you?'
'Oh my dearest boy!' ejaculated the mother.
'You didn't get better gooseberries than those on your travels,' said the doctor, calling him back to the condition of the world around him.
Then he told them of his adventures. For two terrible years he had been a shepherd on different sheep-runs up in Queensland. Then he had found employment on a sugar plantation, and had superintended the work of a gang of South Sea Islanders,--Canakers they are called,--men who are brought into the colony from the islands of the Pacific,--and who return thence to their homes generally every three years, much to the regret of their employers. In the transit of these men agents are employed, and to this service Dick had, after a term, found himself promoted. Then it had come to pass that he had remained for a period on one of these islands, with the view of persuading the men to emigrate and reemigrate; and had thus been resident among them for more than a couple of years. They had used him well, and he had liked the islands,--having lived in one of them without seeing another European for many months. Then the payments which had from time to time been made to him by the Queensland planters were stopped, and his business, such as it had been, came to an end. He had found himself with just sufficient money to bring him home; and here he was.
'My boy, my darling boy!' exclaimed his mother again, as though all their joint troubles were now over.
The doctor remembered the adage of the rolling stone, and felt that the return of a son at the age of thirty, without any means of maintaining himself, was hardly an unalloyed blessing. He was not the man to turn a son out of doors. He had always broadened his back to bear the full burden of his large family. But even at this moment he was a little melancholy as he thought of the difficulty of finding employment for the wearer of those yellow trousers. How was it possible that a man should continue to live an altogether idle life at Pollington and still remain a teetotaller? 'Have you any plans I can help you in now?' he asked.
'Of course he'll remain at home for a while before he thinks of anything,' said the mother.
'I suppose I must look about me,' said Dick. By-the-by, what has become of John Caldigate?'
They all at once gazed at each other. It could hardly be that he did not in truth know what had become of John Caldigate.
'Haven't you heard?' asked Maria.
'Of course he has heard,' said Mrs. Rewble.
'You must have heard,' said the mother.
'I don't in the least know what you are talking about. I have heard nothing at all.'
In very truth he had heard nothing of his old friend,--not even that he had returned to England. Then by degrees the whole story was told to him. 'I know that he was putting a lot of money together,' said Dick enviously. 'Married Hester Bolton? I thought he would! Bigamy! Euphemia Smith! Married before! Certainly not at the diggings.'
'He wasn't married up at Ahalala?' asked the doctor.
'To Euphemia Smith? I was there when they quarrelled, and when she went into partnership with Crinkett. I am sure there was no such marriage. John Caldigate in prison for bigamy? And he paid them twenty thousand pounds? The more fool he!'
'They all say that.'
'But it's an infernal plant. As sure as my name is Richard Shand, John Caldigate never married that woman.'
| {
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50 | None | Again at Sir John's Chambers And this was the man as to whom it had been acknowledged that his evidence, if it could be obtained, would be final. The return of Dick himself was to the Shands an affair so much more momentous than the release of John Caldigate from prison, that for some hours or so the latter subject was allowed to pass out of sight. The mother got him up-stairs and asked after his linen,--vain inquiry,--and arranged for his bed, turning all the little Rewbles into one small room. In the long run, grandmothers are more tender to their grand-children than their own offspring. But at this moment Dick was predominant. How grand a thing to have her son returned to her, and such a son,--a teetotaller of two years' growth, who had seen all the world of the Pacific Ocean! As he could not take whisky-and-water, would he like ginger-beer before he went to bed,--or arrowroot? Dick decided in favour of ginger-beer, and consented to be embraced again.
It was, I think, to Maria's credit that she was the first to bring back the conversation to John Caldigate's marriage. 'Was she a very horrible woman?' Maria asked, referring to Euphemia Smith.
'There were a good many of 'em out there, greedy after gold,' said Dick; 'but she beat 'em all; and she was awfully clever.'
'In what way, Dick?' asked Mrs. Rewble. Because she does not seem to me to have done very well with herself.'
'She knew more about shares than any man of them all. But I think she just drank a little. It was that which disgusted Caldigate.'
'He had been very fond of her?' suggested Maria.
'I never knew a man so taken with a woman.' Maria blushed, and Mrs. Rewble looked round at her younger sisters as though desirous that they should be sent to bed. 'All that began on board the ship. Then he was fool enough to run after her down to Sydney; and of course she followed him up to the mines.'
'I don't know why of course,' said Mrs. Posttlethwaite defending her sex generally.
'Well, she did. And he was going to marry her. He did mean to marry her;--there's no doubt of that. But it was a queer kind of life we lived up there.'
'I suppose so,' said the doctor. Mrs. Rewble again looked at the girls and then at her mother; but Mrs. Shand was older and less timid than her married daughter. Mrs. Rewble when a girl herself had never been sent away, and was now a pattern of female discretion.
'And she,' continued Dick, 'as soon as she had begun to finger the scrip, thought of nothing but gold. She did not care much for marriage just then, because she fancied the stuff wouldn't belong to herself. She became largely concerned in the "Old Stick-in-the-Mud." That was Crinkett's concern, and there were times at which I thought she would marry him. Then Caldigate got rid of her altogether. That was before I went away.'
'He never married her?' asked the doctor.
'He certainly hadn't married her when I left Nobble in June '73.'
'You can swear to that, Dick?'
'Certainly I can. I was with him every day. But there wasn't anyone round there who didn't know how it was. Crinkett himself knew it.'
'Crinkett is one of the gang against him.'
'And there was a man named Adamson. Adamson knew.'
'He's another of the conspirators,' said the doctor.
'They won't dare to say before me,' declared Dick, stoutly, 'that Mrs. Smith and John Caldigate had become man and wife before June '73. And they hated one another so much then that it is impossible they should have come together since. I can swear they were not married up to June '73.'
'You'll have to swear it,' said the doctor, 'and that with as little delay as possible.'
All this took place towards the end of August, about five weeks after the trial, and a day or two subsequent to the interview between Bagwax and the Attorney-General. Bagwax was now vehemently prosecuting his inquiries as to that other idea which had struck him, and was at this very moment glowing with the anticipation of success, and at the same time broken-hearted with the conviction that he never would see the pleasant things of New South Wales.
On the next morning, under the auspices of his father, Dick Shand wrote the following letter to Mr. Seely, the attorney.
'POLLINGTON, _30th August_, 187-.
Sir,--I think it right to tell you that I reached my father's house in this town late yesterday evening. I have come direct from one of the South Sea Islands _via_ Honolulu and San Francisco, and have not yet been in England forty-eight hours. I am an old friend of Mr. John Caldigate, and went with him from England to the gold diggings in New South Wales. My name will be known to you, as I am now aware that it was frequently mentioned in the course of the late trial. It will probably seem odd to you that I had never even heard of the trial till I reached my father's house last night. I did not know that Caldigate had married Miss Bolton, nor that Euphemia Smith had claimed him as her husband.
'I am able and willing to swear that they had not become man and wife up to June 1873, and that no one at Ahalala or Nobble conceived them to be man and wife. Of course, they had lived together. But everybody knew all about it. Some time before June,--early, I should say, in that autumn,--there had been a quarrel. I am sure they were at daggers drawn with each other all that April and May in respect to certain mining shares, as to which Euphemia Smith behaved very badly. I don't think it possible that they should ever have come together again; but in May '73,--which is the date I have heard named,--they certainly were not man and wife.
'I have thought it right to inform you of this immediately on my return, and am, your obedient servant, 'RICHARD SHAND.'
Mr. Seely, when he received this letter, found it to be his duty to take it at once to Sir John Joram, up in London. He did not believe Dick Shand. But then he had put no trust in Bagwax, and had been from the first convinced, in his own mind, that Caldigate had married the woman. As soon as it was known to him that his client had paid twenty thousand pounds to Crinkett and the woman, he was quite sure of the guilt of his client. He had done the best for Caldigate at the trial, as he would have done for any other client; but he had never felt any of that enthusiasm which had instigated Sir John. Now that Caldigate was in prison, Mr. Seely thought that he might as well be left there quietly, trusting to the verdict, trusting to Judge Bramber, and trusting still more strongly on his own early impressions. This letter from Dick,--whom he knew to have been a ruined drunkard, a disgrace to his family, and an outcast from society,--was to his thinking just such a letter as would be got up in such a case, in the futile hope of securing the succour of a Secretary of State. He was sure that no Secretary of State would pay the slightest attention to such a letter. But still it would be necessary that he should show it to Sir John, and as a trip to London was not disagreeable to his professional mind, he started with it on the very day of its receipt.
'Of course we must have his deposition on oath,' said Sir John.
'You think it will be worth while?'
'Certainly. I am more convinced than ever that there was no marriage. That post-office clerk has been with me,--Bagwax,--and has altogether convinced me.'
'I didn't think so much of Bagwax, Sir John.'
'I dare say not, Mr. Seely;--an absurdly energetic man,--one of those who destroy by their over-zeal all the credit which their truth and energy ought to produce. But he has, I think, convinced me that that letter could not have passed through the Sydney post-office in May '73.'
'If so, Sir John, even that is not much,--towards upsetting a verdict.'
'A good deal, I think, when the characters of the persons are considered. Now comes this man, whom we all should have believed, had he been present, and tells this story. You had better get hold of him and bring him to me, Mr. Seely.'
Then Mr. Seely hung up his hat in London for three or four days, and sent to Pollington for Dick Shand. Dick Shand obeyed the order, and both of them waited together upon Sir John. 'You have come back at a very critical point of time for your friend,' said the barrister.
Dick had laid aside the coat and waistcoat with the broad checks, and the yellow trousers, and had made himself look as much like an English gentleman as the assistance of a ready-made-clothes shop at Pollington would permit. But still he did not quite look like a man who had spent three years at Cambridge. His experiences among the gold diggings, then his period of maddening desolation as a Queensland shepherd, and after that his life among the savages in a South Sea island, had done much to change him. Sir John and Mr. Seely together almost oppressed him. But still he was minded to speak up for his friend. Caldigate had, upon the whole, been very good to him, and Dick was honest. 'He has been badly used any way,' he said.
'You have had no intercourse with any of his friends since you have been home, I think?' This question Sir John asked because Mr. Seely had suggested that this appearance of the man at this special moment might not improbably be what he called a 'plant.'
'I have had no intercourse with anybody, sir. I came here last Friday, and I hadn't spoken a word to anybody before that. I didn't know that Caldigate had been in trouble at all. My people at Pollington were the first to tell me about it.'
'Then you wrote to Mr. Seely? You have heard of Mr. Seely?'
'The governor,--that's my father,--he had heard of Mr. Seely. I wrote first as he told me. They knew all about it at Pollington as well as you do.'
'You were surprised, then, when you heard the story?'
'Knocked off my pins, sir. I never was so much taken aback in my life. To be told that John Caldigate had married Euphemia Smith after all that I had seen,--and that he had been married to her in May '73! I knew of course that it was all a got-up thing. And he's in prison?'
'He is in prison, certainly.'
'For bigamy?'
'Indeed he is, Mr. Shand.'
'And how about his real wife?'
'His real wife, as you call her----' 'She is, as sure as my name is Richard Shand.'
'It is on behalf of that lady that we are almost more anxious than for Mr. Caldigate himself. In this matter she has been perfectly innocent; and whoever may have been the culprit,--or culprits,--she has been cruelly ill-used.'
'She'll have her husband back again, of course,' said Dick.
'That will depend in part upon what faith the judge who tried the case may place in your story. Your deposition shall be taken, and it will be my duty to submit it to the Secretary of State. He will probably be actuated by the weight which this further evidence will have upon the judge who heard the former evidence. You will understand, Mr. Shand, that your word will be opposed to the words of four other persons.'
'Four perjured scoundrels,' said Dick, with energy.
'Just so,--if your story be true.'
'It is true, sir,' said Dick, with much anger in his tone.
'I hope so,--with all my heart. You are on the same side with us, you know. I only want to make you understand how much ground there may be for doubt. It is not easy to upset a verdict. And, I fear, many righteous verdicts would be upset if the testimony of one man could do it. Perhaps you will be able to prove that you only arrived at Liverpool on Saturday night.'
'Certainly I can.'
'You cannot prove that you had not heard of the case before.'
'Certainly I can. I can swear it.' Sir John smiled. 'They all knew that at Pollington. They told me of it. The governor told me about Mr. Seely, and made me write the letter.'
'That would not be evidence,' said Sir John.
'Heavens on earth! I tell you I was struck all on a heap when I heard it, just as much as if they had said he'd been hung for murder. You put Crinkett and me together and then you'll know. I suppose you think somebody's paying me for this,--that I've got a regular tip.'
'Not at all, Mr. Shand. And I quite understand that it should be difficult for you to understand. When a man sees a thing clearly himself he cannot always realise the fact that others do not see it also. I think I perceive what you have to tell us, and we are very much obliged to you for coming forward so immediately. Perhaps you would not mind sitting in the other room for five minutes while I say a word to Mr. Seely.'
'I can go away altogether.'
'Mr. Seely will be glad to see you again with reference to the deposition you will have to make. You shall not be kept waiting long.' Then Dick returned, with a sore heart, feeling half inclined to blaze out in wrath against the great advocate. He had come forward to tell a plain story, having nothing to gain, paying his railway fare and other expenses out of his own--or rather out of his father's pocket, and was told he would not be believed! It is always hard to make an honest witness understand that it may be the duty of others to believe him to be a liar, and Dick Shand did not understand it now.
'There was no Australian marriage,' Sir John said as soon as he was alone with Mr. Seely.
'You think not?'
'My mind is clear about it. We must get that man out, if it be only for the sake of the lady.'
'It is so very easy, Sir John, to have a story like that made up.'
'I have had to do with a good many made-up stories, Mr. Seely;--and with a good many true stories.'
'Of course, Sir John;--no man with more.'
'He might be a party to making up a story. There is nothing that I have seen in him to make me sure that he could not come forward with a determined perjury. I shouldn't think it, but it would be possible. But his father and mother and sisters wouldn't join him.' Dick had told the story of the meeting on the lawn at great length. 'And had it been a plot, he couldn't have imposed upon them. He wouldn't have brought them into it. And who would have got at him to arrange the plot?'
'Old Caldigate.'
Sir John shook his head. 'Neither old Caldigate nor young Caldigate knew anything of that kind of work. And then his story tallies altogether with my hero Bagwax. Of Bagwax I am quite sure. And as Shand corroborates Bagwax, I am nearly sure of him also. You must take his deposition, and let me have it. It should be rather full, as it may be necessary to hear the depositions also of the doctor and his wife. We shall have to get him out.'
'You know best, Sir John.'
'We shall have to get him out, Mr. Seely, I think,' said Sir John, rising from his chair. Then Mr. Seely took his leave, as was intended.
Mr. Seely was not at all convinced. He was quite willing that John Caldigate should be released from prison, and that the Australian marriage should be so put out of general credit in England as to allow the young people to live in comfort at Folking as man and wife. But he liked to feel that he knew better himself. He would have been quite content that Mrs. John Caldigate should be Mrs. John Caldigate to all the world,--that all the world should be imposed on,--so that he was made subject to no imposition. In this matter, Sir John appeared to him to be no wider awake than a mere layman. It was clear to Mr. Seely that Dick Shand's story was 'got up,'--and very well got up. He had no pang of conscience as to using it. But when it came to believing it, that was quite another thing. The man turning up exactly at the moment! And such a man! And then his pretending never to have heard of a case so famous! Never to have heard this story of his most intimate friend! And then his notorious poverty! Old Caldigate would of course be able to buy such a man. And then Sir John's fatuity as to Bagwax! He could hardly bring himself to believe that Sir John was quite in earnest. But he was well aware that Sir John would know,--no one better,--by what arguments such a verdict as had been given might be practically set aside. The verdict would remain. But a pardon, if a pardon could be got from the Secretary of State, would make the condition of the husband and wife the same as though there had been no verdict. The indignities which they had already suffered would simply produce for them the affectionate commendation of all England. Mr. Seely felt all that, and was not at all averse to a pardon. He was not at all disposed to be severe on Caldigate senior if, as he thought, Caldigate senior had bribed this convenient new witness. But it was too much to expect that he should believe it all himself.
'You must come with me, Mr. Shand,' he said, 'and we must take your story down in writing. Then you must swear to it before a magistrate.'
'All right, Mr. Seely.'
'We must be very particular, you know.'
'I needn't be particular at all;--and as to what Sir John Joram said, I felt half inclined to punch his head.'
'That wouldn't have helped us.'
'It was only that I thought of Caldigate in prison that I didn't do it. Because I have been roaming about the world, not always quite as well off as himself, he tells me that he doesn't believe my word.'
'I don't think he said that.'
'He didn't quite dare; but what he said was as bad. He told me that some one else wouldn't believe it. I don't quite understand what it is they're not to believe. All I say is, that they two were not married in May '73.'
'But about your never having heard of the case till you got home?'
'I never had heard a word about it. One would think that I had done something wrong in coming forward to tell what I know.' The deposition, however was drawn out in due form, at considerable length, and was properly attested before one of the London magistrates.
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