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From Blackwood's Magazine.

THE MAID OF SKER.

CHAPTER XXV.

A LONG GOOD-BYE.

Ir is an irksome task for a man who has always stood upon his position, and justified the universal esteem and respect of the neighbourhood, to have to recount his own falling off, and loss of proper station, without being able to render for it any cause or reason, except indeed his own great folly, with fortune too ready to second it. However, as every downfall has a slope which leads towards it, so in my case small downhills led treacherously to the precipice. In the first place, the dog-fish and the sting-rays (which alone came into the nets of our new association) set me swearing very hard; which, of course, was a trifling thing, and must have befallen St. Peter himself, whose character I can well understand. But what was wrong in me was this, that after it went on for a fortnight, and not even a conger turned up, I became proud of my swearing with practice, instead of praying to be forgiven which I always feel done to me, if desired. For my power of words began to please which was a bait of the devil, no doubt as every tide I felt more and more that married life had not deprived me of my gift of language; or, at any rate that widowship had restored my vigour promptly.

me

After this, being a little exhausted, for two days and two nights I smoked pipes. Not in any mood soever unfit for a Christian; quite the contrary, and quite ready to submit to any discipline; being ordered also to lay by, and expect a sign from heaven. And at this time came several preachers; although I had very little for them, and was grieved to disappoint their remembrance of the ham that my wife used to keep in cut. And in so many words I said that now I was bound to the Church by a contract of a shilling a-week, and if they waited long enough, they might hear the clock strike-something. This, combined with a crab whose substance had relapsed to water, and the sign of nothing in my locker except a pint of peppermint, induced these excellent pastors to go; and if they shook off (as they declared) the dirt of their feet at me, it must have been much to their benefit. This trifle, however, heaped up my grievance, although I thought scorn to think of it; and on the back of it there came another wrong far more serious. Tidings, to

wit, of a wretched warrant being likely to issue against me from that low tyrant Anthony Stew, on a thoroughly lying information by one of his own gamekeepers. It was true enough that I went through his wood, with a couple of sailors from Porthcawl; by no means with any desire to harm, but to see if his game was healthy. Few things occur that exalt the mind more than natural history; and if a man dare not go into a wood, how can he be expected to improve his knowledge? The other men perhaps employed their means to obtain a more intimate acquaintance with the structure and methods of various creatures, going on two legs, or going on four; but as for myself, not so much as a gun did any one see in my hands that day.

At first I thought of standing it out on the strength of all my glory; but knowing what testimony is, when it gets into the mouths of gamekeepers, and feeling my honour concerned, to say nothing of the other fellows (who were off to sea), also cherishing much experience of the way Stew handled me, upon the whole I had half a mind to let the neighbourhood and the county learn to feel the want of me.

Also what Joe Jenkins said perhaps had some effect on me. This was a young fellow of great zeal, newly appointed to Zoar Chapel, instead of the steady Nathaniel Edwards, who had been caught sheepstealing; and inasmuch as the chapel stood at the western end of the village, next door to the "Welcome to Town, my Lads," all the maids of Newton ran mightily to his doctrine. For he happened to be a smart young fellow, and it was largely put abroad that an uncle of his had a butter-shop, without any children, and bringing in four pounds a-week, at Chepstow.

There is scarcely a day of my life on which I do not receive a lesson and the difference betwixt me and a fool is that I receive, and he scorns it. And a finer lesson I have rarely had than for letting Joe Jenkins into my well-conducted cottage, for no better reason than that the "Welcome to Town" was out of beer. I ought to have known much better, of course, with a fellow too young to shave himself, and myself a good hearty despiser of schism, and above all having such a fine connection with the Church of England. But that fellow had such a tongue-they said it must have come out of the butter. I gave him a glass of my choicest rum, when all he deserved was a larruping. And I nearly lost the church-clock through it.

When I heard of this serious consequence,

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I began to call to mind, too late, what the worse than gall and wormwood to his chaplain of the Spitfire-32-gun razy wife or else he must give up all medalways used to say to us; and a finer fel-dling with pen and ink and the patterns low to stand to his guns, whenever it came of chicken-pox. How could he hesitate, to close quarters, I never saw before or when he knew that the very worst tailor since. "Go down, parson, go down," we can make in a day as much as the best said; "sir, this is no place for your cloth." writer can in a month? "Sneaking schismatics may skulk," he answered, with the powder-mop in his hand; for we had impressed a Methody, who bolted below at exceeding long range; but if my cloth is out of its place, I'll fight the devil naked." This won over to the side of the Church every man of our crew that was gifted with any perception of reasoning.

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However, I never shall get on if I tell all the fine things I have seen. Only I must set forth how I came to disgrace myself so deeply that I could not hope for years and years to enjoy the luxury of despising so much as a lighterman again. The folk of our parish could hardly believe it; and were it to be done in any way consistent with my story, I would not put it on paper now. But here it is. Make the worst of it. You will find me redeem it afterwards. The famous David Llewellyn, of His Majesty's Royal Navy, took a berth in a tradingschooner, called the "Rose of Devon!"

Upon the whole I was pleased with this; for I never could bear that rogue of a snip, any more than he could put up with me for making my own clothes and Bunny's. I challenged him once on a button-hole, for I was his master without a thimble. And for this ninth part of a man to think of taking up my pen!

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The name of our schooner, or rather ketch for she was no more than that (to tell the truth), though I wished her to be called a "schooner " was, as I said, the "Rose of Devon," and the name of her captain was "Fuzzy." Not a bad man, I do believe, but one who almost drove me wicked, because I never could make him out. A tender and compassionate interest in the affairs of everybody, whom it pleases Providence that we should even hear of, has been (since our ancestors baffled the Flood, without consulting Noah) one of the most distinct and noblest national traits of Welshmen. Pious also; for if the Lord had not meant us to inquire, He never would have sent us all those fellow-creatures to arouse unallayed disquietude. But this man Fuzzy," as every one called him, although his true name was "Bethel Jose," seemed to be sent from Devonshire for the mere purpose of distracting us. Concerning the other two "stone-captains" (as we called those skippers who come for limestone, and steal it from Colonel Longher's rocks), we knew as much as would keep us going whenever their names were mentioned; but as to Fuzzy, though this was the third year of his trading over, there was not a woman in Newton who knew whether he had a wife or not! And the public eagerness over this subject grew as the question deepened; until there were seven of our best young women ready to marry him, at risk of bigamy, to find out the matter and to make it known.

After such a fall as this, if I happen to speak below my mark, or not describe the gentry well, everybody must excuse me: for I went so low in my own esteem, that I could not have knocked even Anthony Stew's under-keeper down! I was making notes, here and there, already, concerning the matters at Sker House, and the delicate sayings of Bardie, not with any view to a story perfect and clear as this is, but for my own satisfaction in case of anything worth going on with. And but for this fore-thought, you could not have learned both her sayings and doings so bright as above. And now being taken away from it, I tried to find some one with wit enough to carry it on in my absence. In a populous neighbourhood this might have been; but the only man near us who had the conceit to try to carry it on a bit, fell into such a condition of mind that his own wife did not know him. But in spite of the open state of his head, he held on Therefore, of course, he rose more and very stoutly, trying to keep himself up to more in public esteem, voyage after voythe mark with ale, and even hollands; age; and I became jealous, perhaps, of his until it pleased God that his second child fame, and resolved to expose its hollow should fall into the chicken-pox; and then basis, as compared with that of mine. Acall the neighbours spoke up so much on cordingly, when it came to pass that my account of his being a tailor that it glory, though still in its prime, was imcame to one thing or the other. Either perilled by that Irish Stew's proceedings he must give up his trade, and let his ap- for he must have been Irish by origin prentice have it-to think of which was having my choice (as a matter of

course) among the three stone-captains, I chose that very hard stone to crack; and every one all through the village rejoiced, though bitterly grieved to lose me, and dreading the price there would be for fish, with that extortionate Sandy Macraw left alone to create a monopoly. There was not a man in all Newton that feared to lay half-a-crown to a sixpence that I brought back the whole of old Fuzzy's concerns: but the women, having tried Skipper Jose with everything they could think of, and not understanding the odds of betting, were ready to lay a crooked sixpence on Fuzzy, whenever they had one.

the whole of which I bravely put into my will, and left them. And knowing that the proper thing is to subscribe a codicil, therein I placed a set of delf, and after that my blessing. Eighteenpence I was compelled to pay for this pious document to a man who had been turned out of the law because he charged too little. And a better shilling-and-sixpence worth of sense, with heads and tails to it, his lordship the Bishop of Llandaff will own that he never set seal upon; unless I make another one. Only I felt it just to leave my boat entire to Bardie.

Having done my duty thus, I found a To begin with, he caught me on the bracing strength upon me to go through hop; at a moment of rumours and serious with everything. No man should know warnings, and thoroughly pure indigna- how much I felt my violent degradation tion on my part. At the moment, I said from being captain of a gun, to have to (and he made me sign) that I was prepared tread mercantile boards! Things have to ship with him. After which he held me changed since then so much, through the fast, and frightened me with the land- parsimony of Government, that our very crabs, and gave me no chance to get out best sailors now tail off into the Merchant of his jaws. I tried to make him laugh service. But it was not so, when I was with some of the many jokes and stories, young; and even when I was turned of which everybody knows of mine, and likes fifty, we despised the traders. Even the them for long acquaintance' sake. How- largest of their vessels, of four or as much ever, not one of them moved him so much as five hundred tons, we royal tars reas to fetch one squirt of tobacco-juice.garded always as so many dust-bins with This alone enabled him to take a strong three of the clothes-props hoisted. And lead over me. Every time that he was now, as I looked in the glass, I beheld no bound to laugh, according to human na- more than the mate of a fifty-ton ketch, ture, and yet had neither a wag in his for a thirty-mile voyage out of Newton nose, nor a pucker upon his countenance, bay! nor even so much as a gleam in his eye, so many times I felt in my heart that this man was the wise man, and that laughter is a folly. And I had to bottle down the laughs (which always rise inside of me, whenever my joke has the cream on it) until I could find some other fellow fit to understand me; because I knew that my jokes were good.

When I found no means of backing out from that degrading contract, my very first thought was to do strict justice to our association, and atone for the loss of my services to it. Therefore, in case of anything undesirable befalling me-in short, if I should be ordered aloft with no leave to come down again-there I made my will, and left my property to establish credit, for a new start among them. Chairs and tables, knives and forks, iron spoons, brought into the family by my wife's grandfather, several pairs of duds of my own, and sundry poles, as before described, also nets to a good extent. though some had gone under usury bait-kettles, I forget how many, and even my character in a silk bag; item, a great many sundry things of almost equal value;

However, I had lived long enough then to be taught one simple thing. Whatever happens, one may descry (merely by using manly aspect) dawning glimpses of that light which the will of God intended to be joy for all of us; but so scattered now and vapoured by our own misdoings, still it will come home some time, and then we call it "comfort."

Accordingly, though so deeply fallen in my own regard, I did not find that people thought so very much the less of me. Nay, some of them even drove me wild, by talking of my "rise in life," as if I had been a pure nobody! But on the whole we learned my value, when I was going away from us. For all the village was stirred up with desire to see the last of me. My well-known narratives at the well would be missed all through the autumn; and those who had dared to call them "lies," were the foremost to feel the lack of them. Especially the children cried "Old Davy going to be drownded! No more stories at the well!" Until I vowed to be back almost before they could fill their pitchers.

These things having proved to me, in

THE MAID OF SKER.

spite of inordinate modesty, that I had a certain value, I made the very best of it; and let everybody know how much I wished to say "Good-bye" to them, although so short of money. From "Felix Farley" I had received no less than sevenand-tenpenee for saving the drowned black people-under initials "D. L." at the office; accruing to a great extent from domestic female servants. Some of these craved my candid opinion as to accepting the humble addresses of coloured gentlemen in good livery, and whether it made so much difference. And now I thought that Newton might have a mark of esteem prepared for me.

any one.

though heavily laden with the Colonel's rocks; and after rounding Porthcawl Point we came abreast of the old Sker House a little after sunset. Skipper Jose would never have ventured inside the Sker-weathers, only that I held the tiller, and knew every vein of sand and rock. And I kept se close in-shore, because one of the things that vexed me most in all this sudden departure, was to run away without proper ceremony from Bardie. She was certain to feel it much, and too young to perceive the necessity; and fried pudding had been promised her at my table come the very next Sunday.

But though they failed to think of that we want of experience -purely from everything else was done that could be done for a man who had no money, by his neighbours who had less; and sixpence never entered twice into the thoughts of Richard Matthews, the pilot, promised to mind the church clock for me, without even handling my salary. As for Bunny, glorification is the shortest word I know. A young man, who had never paid his bill, put her into two-inch ribbon from the Baptist preacher's shop. Also a pair of shoes upon her, which had right and left to them, although not marked by nature. And upon the front of her bosom, lace that made me think of smuggling; and such as that young man never could have expected to get booked to him, if he had felt himself to be more than a month converted.

to spy

The windows of the old grey mansion gleamed in the fading western light, but descried no smoke or movement, neither any life or variance, only a dreary pile of loneliness in the middle of yellow sands. Then I rigged out my perspective glass, and levelled it on the cuddy chimney for the ketch was a half-deckerif the little one might so chance to be making her solitary play, as she was used to do all day, and most of all ere bedtime. And if she should so happen, I knew how because whenwild her delight would be to discover a vessel so near the shore; ever a sail went by, even at two or three leagues of distance, there was no containOut she would rush with her ing her. face on fire, and curly hair all jogging, and Mammy up would go two little hands, spread to the sky and the vast wide sea. dear, I 'ants 'a so. Dear papa, I has yaited so yong. Ickle bother, such a lot of things Moreover, instead of Mother Jones (who Bardie's dot to tell 'a." And thus she was very well in her way, to be sure), the would run on the brink of the waves with foremost folk in all the village, and even hope and sadness fluctuating on her unMaster Charles Morgan himself, carpenter formed countenance, until the sail became and churchwarden, were beginning to vie a speck. However, now I saw no token of one with the other, in desire to entertain this little rover, unless it were her, without any word of her five-pound washed clothes flapping on the rushen note. In short, many kind things were tufts to dry; and Jose called me back to said and done; enough to make any un- my spell at the helm before I had finished bashful man desire to represent them. gazing. But I, for my part, was quite overcome, and delivered my speech with such power of doubt concerning my own worthiness, that they had to send back to the inn three times, before they could properly sayGood-bye."

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And in less than half an hour. the landmark of the ancient house was fading in the dew-fog.

Our ship's company amounted to no less than four, all hands told — viz., Captain Bethel Jose, alias Fuzzy; Isaac Hutchings, the mate; my humble self (who found it my duty to supersede Ìkey and appoint myself); and a boy of general incapacity, and of the name of Bang."

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Making fine weather as we did, and with myself at the helm all night, and taking command (as my skill required), we slanted across Channel very sweetly; and when the grey of morning broke, Lundy

quire

"Du 'e knaw thiccy peart over yanner? Them down-plasses, and them zandy

"My boy," I replied, "I have not the honour of knowing anything about them. Very likely you think a good deal of them."

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Whai, thee must be a born vule. Them be Braunton Burrusses!"

Isle was on our lee-bow. Hereupon I gave lence to give me a clumsy nudge, and inthe helm to old Ike, for beyond this was unknown to me, and Providence had never led me over Barnstaple bar as yet. So I tumbled in, and turned up no more until backs?" we were close on the bar itself, about ten o'clock of the forenoon. This is a thoroughly dangerous place, a meeting of treacherous winds and waters, in amongst uncertain shoaling, and would be worse! than our Sker-weathers if it lay open to south-west gales. We waited for the tide, and then slipped over very cleverly, with Hartland Point on our starboard beam; and presently we found ourselves in a fine broad open water, with plenty of grey stretch going along it, and green hills tufting away from it. Everything looked so mild and handsome, that I wondered whether these men of Devonshire might not be such fools for bragging after all, when tested.

Because, when I found no means to escape this degrading voyage to Devonshire, I had said to myself that at any rate it would enable me to peg down those people for the future. Not that they boasted, so to speak, but that they held their tongues at our boasts; as much as to say, You may talk if you please; it does you good; and our land is such that we never need contradict you."

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But now when I saw these ins and outs, and ups and downs, and cornering places, and the wrinkles of the valleys, and the cheeks of the very rocks, set with green as bright and lively (after a burning summer) as our own country can show in May, I began to think though I would not say it, through patriotic unwillingness- - that the people who lived in such land as this could well afford to hold their tongues, and hearken our talk with pleas

"Be them indeed? Take this, my boy. for such valuable information." And I gave him a cuff of an earnest nature, such as he rarely obtained, perhaps, and well calculated to be of timely service to him. He howled a good bit, and attempted to kick; whereupon I raised him from his natural level, and made his head acquainted with the nature of the foremast, preserving my temper quite admirably, but bearing in mind the great importance of impressing discipline at an early age. And I reaped a well-deserved reward in his life-long gratitude and respect.

While Bang went below to complete his weeping, and to find some plaster, I began to take accurate observation of these Braunton Burrows, of which I had often heard before from the Devonshire men, who frequent our coast for the purpose of stealing coal or limestone. An up-anddown sort of a place it appeared, as I made it out with my spy-glass; and I could not perceive that it beat our sands, as those good people declared of it. Only I noticed that these sand-hills were of a different hue from ours. Not so bare and yellow-faced, not so swept by western winds, neither with their tops thrown up like the peak of a new volcano. Rushes, spurge, and goose-foot grasses, and the rib-leaved iris, and in hollow places cat's mint, loose-strife, and low eye-bright Captain Fuzzy said no word, to show these and a thousand other plants seemed that he was home again; neither did he to hold the flaky surface so as not to fly care to ask my opinion about the look of like ours. Ike broke silence, which to him it. And old Ike treating me likewise, was worse than breaking his own winthough he ought to have known much bet-dows, and said that all for leagues around ter, there I found myself compelled by my was full of giants and great spectres. natural desire to know all about my fel- Moreover, that all of it long had been low-creatures, to carry on what must have found an unkid and unholy place, bad for been a most highly flattering patronage a man to walk in, and swarming with towards the boy who did our slop-work, great creatures, striped the contrary way and whose name was "Bang," because to all good-luck, and having eight legs everybody banged him. every side, and a great horn crawling af

ure.

This boy, forgetting the respect which ter them. And their food all night was is due to the mate of a ship of commerce. known to be travellers' skulls and sailors' for I now assumed that position legally, bones. Having seen a good deal of landover the head of old Ikey, who acknowl- crabs, I scarcely dared to deny the story, edged my rank when announced to and yet I could hardly make it out. Therehim this ignorant boy had the inso- 'fore, without giving vent to opinions of

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