Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

All his

it worth twice the money. speculations answered: the reversions he bought fell in to him speedily: he made money because he could not help it.

He had been present at some striking scenes, this money-making Speaker. It was he who was sitting under the painted canopy on that memorable day when the House was proposing to disband the army, and was on the point of coming to a vote. Suddenly, in upon their deliberations, without noise, marched that terrible figure, king of the realm in fact if not in name, with his broad, red, seamy face, his narrow linen band, his stiff black clothes and gray worsted stockings, and took his seat in ominous silence by St. John.

Presently, as Vane was speaking, Cromwell turned to St. John. "I am come to do that," he said, "which grieves me to the very soul, and that I have earnestly with tears prayed to God against-nay, I had rather be torn in pieces than do it, but there is a necessity laid upon me therein, in order to the glory of God and the good of the nation." To this sinister speech St. John, much mystified, said courteously that he knew not what he meant, but prayed it might have a happy issue for the general good.

As Vane's eloquence waxed higher, Cromwell became more and more restless, till suddenly he beckoned Harrison. "Now is the time," he said: "I must do it." "Sir," said Harrison anxiously, "the work is very great and dangerous." "You say well," answered Cromwell, and was silent for a quarter of an hour more, not, it may be confidently said, with any change of purpose, but with angry agitation, till Vane sate down and Lenthall, looking apologetically at Cromwell, rose to put the question.

ments that are more worthy. It is the Lord hath taken me by the hand and set me on to do this thing." Members rose everywhere in their seats, but he would not suffer them to speak. "You think perhaps " said, "that this is not parliamentary language. I know it—but expect no other from me."

Lenthall, half-paralysed by emotion, at last obtained a hearing for Wentworth, who unflinchingly gave Oliver one of the hardest downright raps he had ever received in public. He expressed himself horrified at the style of speech; "and it was the more horrid," he said, "as proceeding from their servant, whom they by their unprecedented bounty had made what he was." Then, "Come, come, we have had enough of this," said the Protector, springing into the centre of the house. "I'll put an end to your prating. Call them in!" And the file of musketeers entered, dropping their weapons with an ominous rattle on the floor. Then he turned on the poor Speaker. "Fetch him down," he said to Harrison, pointing contemptuously to the chair. Lenthall had just enough dignity to refuse. "Take him down!" said the tyrant. Harrison went up and laid his hand on the sleeve of his gown, and he came down. By this time Cromwell had burst out into a torrent of coarse abuse, hurling hard names right and left till the place was clear. "It is you," he said, "that have forced me to this, for I have sought the Lord night and day that he would rather slay me than put upon me the doing of this work." A fine chastened temper that, for the cleanser of the shrine! Then he put the Bill under his cloak and went out, locking the door, on which next morning the contemptuous notice appeared, "This house to be let unfurnished."

Lenthall went down to Burford to recruit his shattered nerves. It is probable that the tones of the second, "Take him down," rang somewhat

Then the great man stood up, and put off his hat, and spoke. Heavens! what a speech in the Hall of Liberty! "Your time is come," he said, after a long invective. "The Lord hath done with you: he hath chosen other instru- vividly in his ears, as he sate arrang

He

ing his revenues and looking out into the sunny valley. He never played a public part in the world again. At the Restoration he was spared, but in an uncomplimentary manner, as a man whom it was hardly worth while to waste death or dishonour upon; and indeed, in requesting as he did that his only epitaph might be Vermis sum, he seems to have shown a sympathetic insight into his own character. made somewhat of an edifying end, described in a couple of curious authentic letters preserved among Bishop Kennet's papers. Declaring himself a true son of the Church, he confessed his sins, saying that his share in the King's death troubled him like Saul, he had held the clothes of his murderers, while they despatched him, but, "God, thou knowest! I never consented to his death." After he had been absolved he died in apparent content. He was buried in the church of Burford, but no monument marks his resting-place, and perhaps it is better so.

:

The church lies at the bottom of the village, a grand, stately, but irregular block with a fine spire: the porch is most noble, with its high niches, groined roof, and wealth of ornament. It is a cross church with transepts, no two parts corresponding. In the centre there is a fine Norman lantern, the low-browed, heavy arch which supports it not rising half as high as the perpendicular nave; thus

from a lofty central aisle you pass beneath the round arch into a dark space under the tower, and out again into a high chancel. In the north transept stands a gorgeous, if barbaric, monument to Tanfield, with a gilt and painted canopy, crowded with obelisks. and hour-glasses and quaint Renaissance scrolls. A slow plentiful stream, sliding through water-meadows, forms the boundary of the churchyard. Lower down the houses abut on the water, which is flanked by gardenwalls and shady orchard-trees; and so it passes away to Minster Lovel and Sherborne and Northleach, to be absorbed at last in the volume of the Thames.

Such is Burford: a quiet gray town from which, as from the deserted house, life and thought have passed away. Its one fantastic hope of success, attested by ugly burrowings and miles of rubbish, lies buried beneath colt's-foot and fleabane, where some speculative company dug in vain for iron ore. It lies stranded now in this backwater of life, yet none the less lovely for that: a place to pass through, like a dream-city, on a peaceful day: a place that lingers in the memory, ever and again rising before the mind, drawn in neutral tints and loving, peaceful lines, when we have passed away over the hills into the roaring city and all the bewildering hurry of these unleisurely modern days.

No. 340.-VOL. LVII.

290

A NIGHT IN THE JUNGLE.

"THERE's nothing else for it now: we must leave the dingheys behind and go on in the canoes." Thus Easton, my companion, as he once more surveyed the rapids we had failed for the fifth time to pass in the heavy boats, and signed to the steersman of our craft to run it ashore.

We were making our way to a spot on the banks of the lovely Salween river, whither news of a tiger had attracted us. The place was difficult to reach at all times, utterly inaccessible during the rains and for two months after their cessation, for the great rainfall in Lower Burma swells the rivers to a height that is almost incredible. So the wild jungles of the Tenasserim Yomas are seldom disturbed by any but an occasional Karen hunter, who might fire a shot from his flint-lock perhaps once in ten days.

Now, in December, the swollen river had fallen nearly to its normal level, and we had arrived within ten miles of our destination, after much hard pulling and towing (when the rocky banks would allow of the latter) with frequent reminders of the dangers of our course from the hidden rocks below the surface. The place we had stopped at was a wide basin strewn with gigantic rugged boulders, round which the waters boiled and seethed as if rejoicing in their release from the gloomy rock-bound gorge above the rapid which was now to be the next stage of our journey. Clearly, there was nothing for it but to trust ourselves and our belongings to the Burmese canoes-a prospect I confess I hardly relished after eyeing the grand but turbulent stretch of water and the crank narrow craft in which we were to navigate it.

"Let's breakfast first," I said. "It must be nearly ten o'clock now, and it

will take some time to get the things transferred."

Easton agreed, and whilst we ate our meal the boatmen redistributed the baggage contained in the two dingheys amongst three canoes, in which some care was necessary to stow it safely.

In half an hour we were again under way. Being the slighter man of the two, the smallest canoe fell to my lot; so seating myself in the bottom (which every five minutes was washed throughout by the water we shipped) I possessed myself of a paddle, and prepared to give as much assistance as could be reasonably expected of a man who had embarked with the conviction that his least movement would inevitably cause an upset.

Four sturdy Burmans manned the canoe, which further contained my kit, my guns in their waterproof cases, and a share of our stores. There was also a decoy-cock, tied by the leg to one of the narrow seats, whose drooping tail and generally dejected look seemed to indicate that he was enjoying the voyage even less than I was. Easton followed in a larger canoe, which apparently leaked more than

was

conducive to comfort, for I noticed that he knelt in the bottom and was much occupied with a capacious tin bailer he held in both hands. The third carried our servants, two large goats intended as bait for the tiger, and the tent. The last-named luxury Easton insisted on taking, in spite of the risk entailed in conveying so bulky an article in such a boat. It proved valuable however, for the nights were very misty and unusually cold. for Burma.

I begin to feel more at ease as we glide up a backwater, past the foam at the foot of the rapid which rushes smoothly down in a wide unbroken

sheet for sixty or seventy yards after leaving the gorge. We are close to it now, and Oo Byike, the old steersman, seated on the upward-curving stern with one muscular leg curled round below it, takes a firmer grasp of his long paddle, and with two plunging downward strokes, which the crew instantly respond to, drives the canoe into the middle of the rapid.

"Heey, loolah! Hooh youkkya! Hlaw! Hlaw! Hlaw! Heey! (Hi, men! Hi, lads! Paddle! Paddle! Paddle! Hi!)" he shouts in tones of encouragement. The men chorus a deep-chested Heey! and I skin my knuckles against the bulwarks in a wild effort to help with my paddle. The men lean forward and dig with desperate energy into the roaring flood that hisses past the sides of the canoe and rises in a fountain of spray at her bow. No more shouting now: we are well on our way up the rapid and dare not relax our efforts for a moment. The naked backs and arms before me show every sinew taxed to its utmost: with heads down and faces set, the men make their plunging strokes in perfect time and with extraordinary rapidity. We are gaining way steadily but slowly, and I see that if we are to reach the gorge this time it will be without a stroke to spare, so I seize my paddle and work until the perspiration flows freely. "Thekin Hlawdeh! (his honour's paddling)" barks Oo Byike behind me.

The crew acknowledge the news with renewed efforts, and at length we feel the decreasing power of the current, and reach the pool for which our steersman has been directing our course for the past fifteen minutes. "Heeey," says Oo Byike, raising his paddle with a sigh of satisfaction. Aaah," echo the crew in a long-drawn breath as they also lay down their paddles to rest. "We could not have done it unless your honour paddled so hard," says Oo Byike to

66

[blocks in formation]

gentleman, who points out in his most impressive way that the canoe behind us has been swept back again; and that the other gentleman has not been paddling at all, which quite accounts for the failure.

The man at the bow finds a cleft in the rock into which he can stick his paddle and so moor the canoe, whilst the others turn to watch how our companions will accomplish the pass we have just overcome. It will take them some time to reach us, so I light a cheroot and study the view. From our nook it is wild and beautiful the broad brown river swirls past between two rugged walls of rock which, ninety or a hundred feet above, fall back and rise steeply in jungleclad mountains to the height of three or four thousand feet. Down the stream, across the basin, is a sloping green bank dotted with magnificent timber overgrown with luxuriant flowering creepers. Orchids, with their lovely scentless blossoms, are everywhere on the rocks and trees in wonderful profusion.

The Salween is one of the great highways from the teak forests to the port of Maulmain. Every fissure and resting-place amongst the rocks and boulders is occupied by immense teak logs which the swollen river has left there during the floods. Far out of reach, they lie heaped and piled in confusion, wedged hard and fast, though many look dangerous where they hang over the torrent a hundred feet below. During the south-west monsoon thousands of trunks are floated away up in the distant forests rarely visited by Europeans. Stripped of their bark, and branded all over with a hammer bearing the lessee's private mark, they are drawn to the water's edge by elephants, to be carried away by the rising floods which bear them down to the Government timber-depot two or three hundred miles off, near Maulmain. There they are identified and claimed by the lessee's agent, who pays the fee and removes his timber to ship or sell, as the case may be.

This apparently haphazard method of conducting the trade provides a means of livelihood for numbers of natives, who haunt the river with canoes and ropes to collect the drifting logs; for each of which they receive a reward of eight annas at the depot. The marks obviate the likelihood of the timber being stolen by the collectors, who however may sometimes get a windfall in the shape of an unbranded waif. On the upper reaches of the Salween, kyodans, enormous cables of bamboos lashed together, are stretched across from bank to bank and skim the surface of the water, arresting and detaining the drifting timber on its downward course. These the watchers at the kyodan collect and raft, to send on to the depot and claim the salvage due. Easton, whose knowledge of these matters qualified him. to judge, estimated that on our upward voyage we passed a quantity of stranded timber suffi cient to supply the Maulmain market (the largest in India) for at least two years. This represented a sum of about one million and a quarter sterling in inaccessible logs! Much of the lumber would of course be borne away by the next floods, which however in their turn would leave more in the same case.

Whilst I have been admiring the prospect and discussing the teak-trade, Easton has succeeded in getting up the rapid, and now runs in alongside my canoe, heated, breathless, and ruffled in temper at the delay. The sun is hot, and the men are exhausted by their efforts to work the boat up, and must have rest before continuing the laborious paddle through the gorge. The servants' canoe is still in the midst of its difficulties and, badly steered, sways about the stream in a manner that every moment threatens its destruction against the rocks.

"They'll lose the goats," says Easton, shading his eyes with his topee: "I wish I'd taken them in my own canoe. Hi, Shway Lee!" he

shouts to his servant, "hold the large goat, he will fall out."

The large goat is rolling about with such violence that Shway Lee has difficulty in securing its legs and throwing it on its back. It is safer that way, for whilst standing it had passed the time making half-hearted attempts to jump overboard.

The canoe eventually arrives in safety, and presently all three crews settle down to paddle again, and continue the slow but trying journey together.

By and by we reach the end of the gorge and emerge upon a wider part of the river, where the current is less powerful, and we can make better progress. From a long stretch of sand which now forms the left bank, we are hailed by some Burmans who have camped there to cut bamboos on the neighbouring hills, and crossing over to hear their tidings we learn that a large tiger (all tigers are large until they are shot!) has visited the locality every night since their arrival a week before. It roars so much that they are afraid and cannot sleep, and hope the white strangers will bring their guns and kill it. We listen to their

tale of woe and then run the canoes ashore. No mistake about it: numerous pugs on the sand confirm the bamboo-cutters' news, so the baggage is landed and the tent pitched in the shade of the jungle.

We have landed on a belt of forest which during the monsoon is an island, for behind it there is another broad curving sweep of sand, studded with rocks and pools and strewn with teak logs. Here and there the forest is divided by narrow creeks which mark the course of the river when in flood. Beyond the strip of sand are lofty hills, whose bamboo-covered slopes afford concealment to plentiful game, for sambhur tracks cross and recross the sand in every direction, the edge of one particular pool showing it to be a favourite resort of the deer for their nightly drink.

The place was beyond all doubt the

« VorigeDoorgaan »