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"We've told yarns by the camp-fire in the prairies; and dressed one
another's wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas; and drunk
healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told, and
other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won't you let
this be at my camp-fire to-morrow night? I have no hesitation in asking
you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner-party, and
that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the
Korea, Jack Seward. He's coming, too, and we both want to mingle our
weeps over the wine-cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to
the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart
that God has made and the best worth winning. We promise you a hearty
welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right
hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to
a certain pair of eyes. Come!
"Yours, as ever and always,
"QUINCEY P. MORRIS."
_Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey P. Morris._
"_26 May._
"Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears
tingle.
"ART."
CHAPTER VI
MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL
_24 July. Whitby._--Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and
lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in
which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the
Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the
harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the
view seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley is
beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land
on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to
see down. The houses of the old town--the side away from us--are all
red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the
pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby
Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of
"Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble
ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is
a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and
the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big
graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in
Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the
harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness
stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that
part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been
destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches
out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside
them, through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long
looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and
sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now, with my
book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men who are
sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit up here and
talk.
The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall
stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in
the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs along outside
of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crooked inversely,
and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a
narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens.
It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals away to
nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between
banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this
side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of
which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of
it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a
mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is
lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; he
is coming this way....
He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all
gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is
nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing
fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical
person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady
at the abbey he said very brusquely:--
"I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out.
Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn't in
my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an' the like,
but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and
Leeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's an' drinkin' tea an' lookin'
out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd be
bothered tellin' lies to them--even the newspapers, which is full of
fool-talk." I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting