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At dawn of the morning of the 21st of July, an officer in plain undress was busily writing at a table in a plainly-furnished apartment of a farm-house near Manassas. He was of middle age and medium size, with dark complexion, bold, prominent features, and steady, piercing black eyes. His manner and the respectful demeanor of several officers in attendance, rather than any insignia of office which he wore, bespoke him of high rank; and the earnest attention which he bestowed upon his labor, together with the numerous orders, written and verbal, which he delivered at intervals to members of his staff, denoted that an affair of importance was in hand. Several horses, ready caparisoned, were held by orderlies at the door-way, and each aid, as he received instructions, mounted and dashed away at a gallop.
The building was upon a slight elevation of land, and along the plain beneath could be seen the long rows of tents and the curling smoke of camp-fires; while the hum of many voices in the distance, with here and there a bugle-blast and the spirit-stirring roll of drums, denoted the site of the Confederate army. The reveille had just sounded, and the din of active preparation could be heard throughout the camp. Regiments were forming, and troops of horse were marshalling in squadron, while others were galloping here and there; while, through the ringing of sabres and the strains of marshal music, the low rumbling of the heavy-wheeled artillery was the most ominous sound.
An orderly entered the apartment where General Beauregard was writing, and spoke with one of the members of the staff in waiting.
"What is it, colonel?" asked the general, looking up.
"An officer from the outposts, with two prisoners, general." And he added something in a lower tone.
"Very opportune," said Beauregard. "Let them come in."
The orderly withdrew and reentered with Captain Weems, followed by Philip Searle and Rawbon. A glance of recognition passed between the latter and Beauregard, and Seth, obeying a gesture of the general, advanced and placed a small package on the table. The general opened it hastily and glanced over its contents.
"As I thought," he muttered. "You are sure as to the disposition of the advance?"
"Quite sure of the main features."
"When did you get in?"
"Only an hour ago. Their vanguard was close behind. Before noon, I think they will be upon you in three columns from the different roads."
"Very well, you may go now. Come to me in half an hour. I shall have work for you. Who is that with you?"
"Captain Searle."
"Of whom we spoke?"
"The same."
The general nodded, and Seth left the apartment. Beauregard for a second scanned Philip's countenance with a searching glance.
"Approach, sir, if you please. We have little time for words. Have you information to impart?"
"Nothing beyond what I think you know already. You may expect at every moment to hear the boom of McDowell's guns."
"On the right?"
"I think the movement will be on your left. Richardson remains on the southern road, in reserve. Tyler commands the centre. Carlisle, Bicket and Ayre will give you trouble there with their batteries. Hunter and Heintzelman, with fourteen thousand, will act upon your left."
"Then we are wrong, Taylor," said Beauregard, turning to an officer at his side; and rising, the two conversed for a moment in low but earnest tone.
"It is plausible," said Beauregard, at length. "Taylor, ride down to Bee and see about it. Captain Searle, you will report yourself to Colonel Hampton at once. He will have orders for you. Captain Weems, you will please see him provided for. Come, gentlemen, to the field!"
The general and his staff were soon mounted and riding rapidly toward the masses and long lines of troops that were marshalling on the plain below.
Beverly stood at the doorway alone with Philip Searle. He was grave and sad, although the bustle and preparation of an expected battle lent a lustre to his eye. To his companion he was stern and distant, and they both walked onward for some moments without a word. At a short distance from the building, they came upon a black groom holding two saddled horses.
"Mount, sir, if you please," said Beverly, and they rode forward at a rapid pace. Philip was somewhat surprised to observe that their course lay away from the camp, and in fact the sounds of military life were lessening as they went on. They passed the brow of the hill and descended by a bridle-path into a little valley, thick with shrubbery and trees. At the gateway of a pleasant looking cottage Beverly drew rein.
"I must ask you to enter here," he said, dismounting. "Within a few hours we shall both be, probably, in the ranks of battle; but first I have a duty to perform."
They entered the cottage, within which all was hushed and still; the sounds of an active household were not heard. They ascended the little stair, and Beverly pushed gently open the door of an apartment and motioned to Philip to enter. He paused at first, for as he stood on the threshold a low sob reached his ear.
"Pass in," said Beverly, in a grave, stern tone. "I have promised that I would bring you, else, be assured, I would not linger in your presence."
They entered. It was a small, pleasant room, and through the lattice interwoven with woodbine the rising sun looked in like a friendly visitor. Upon a bed was stretched the form of a young girl, sleeping or dead, it would be hard to tell, the features were so placid and beautiful in repose. One ray of sunlight fell among the tangles of her golden hair, and glowed like a halo above the marble-white brow. The long dark lashes rested upon her cheek with a delicate contrast like that of the velvety moss when it peeps from the new-fallen snow. Her hands were folded upon her bosom above the white coverlet; they clasped a lily, that seemed as if sculptured upon a churchyard stone, so white was the flower, so white the bosom that it pressed. One step nearer revealed that she was dead; earthly sleep was never so calm and beautiful. By the bedside Oriana Weems was seated, weeping silently. She arose when her brother entered, and went to him, putting her hands about his neck. Beverly tenderly circled his arm about her waist, and they stood together at the bedside, gazing on all that death had left upon earth of their young cousin, Miranda.
"She died this morning very soon after you left," said Oriana, "without pain and I think without sorrow, for she wore that same sweet smile that you see now frozen upon her lips. Oh, Beverly, I am sorry you brought _him_ here!" she added, in a lower tone, glancing with a shudder at Philip Searle, who stood looking with a frown out at the lattice, and stopping the sunbeam from coming into the room. "It seems," she continued, "as if his presence brought a curse that would drag upon the angels' wings that are bearing her to heaven. Though, thank God, she is beyond his power to harm her now!" and she knelt beside the pillow and pressed her lips upon the cold, white brow.
"She wished to see him, Oriana, before she died," said Beverly, "and I promised to bring him; and yet I am glad she passed away before his coming, for I am sure he could bring no peace with him for the dying, and his presence now is but an insult to the dead."
When he had spoken, there was silence for a while, which was broken by the sudden boom of a distant cannon. They all started at the sound, for it awakened them from mournful memories, to yet perhaps more solemn thoughts of what was to come before that bright sun should rise upon the morrow. Beverly turned slowly to where Philip stood, and pointed sternly at the death-bed.
"You have seen enough, if you have dared to look at all," he said. "I have not the power, nor the will, to punish. A soldier's death to-day is what you can best pray for, that you may not live to think of this hereafter. She sent for you to forgive you, but died and you are unforgiven. Bad as you are, I pity you that you must go to battle haunted by the remembrance of this murder that you have done."
Philip half turned with an angry curl upon his lip, as if prepared for some harsh answer; but he saw the white thin face and folded hands, and left the room without a word.
"Farewell! dear sister," said Beverly, clasping the weeping girl in his arms. "I have already overstaid the hour, and must spur hard to be at my post in time. God bless you! it may be I shall never see you again; if so, I leave you to God and my country. But I trust all will be well."
"Oh, Beverly! come back to me, my brother; I am alone in the world without you. I would not have you swerve from your duty, although death came with it; but yet, remember that I am alone without you, and be not rash or reckless. I will watch and pray for you beside this death-bed, Beverly, while you are fighting, and may God be with you."
Beverly summoned an old negress to the room, and consigned his sister to her care. Descending the stairs rapidly, he leaped upon his horse, and waving his hand to Philip, who was already mounted, they plunged along the valley, and ascending the crest of the hill, beheld, while they still spurred on, the vast army in motion before them, while far off in the vanward, from time to time, the dull, heavy booming of artillery told that the work was already begun.
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On the evening of the 20th July, Hunter's division, to which Harold Hare was attached, was bivouacked on the old Braddock Road, about a mile and a half southeast of Centreville. It was midnight. There was a strange and solemn hush throughout the camp, broken only by the hail of the sentinel and the occasional trampling of horses hoofs, as some aid-de-camp galloped hastily along the line. Some of the troops were sleeping, dreaming, perhaps, of home, and far away, for the time, from the thought of the morrow's danger. But most were keeping vigil through the long hours of darkness, communing with themselves or talking in low murmurs with some comrade; for each soldier knew that the battle-hour was at hand. Harold was stretched upon his cloak, striving in vain to win the boon of an hour's sleep, for he was weary with the toil of the preceding day; but he could not shut out from his brain the whirl of excitement and suspense which that night kept so many tired fellows wakeful when they most needed rest. It was useless to court slumber, on the eve, perhaps, of his eternal sleep; he arose and walked about into the night.
Standing beside the dying embers of a watchfire, wrapped in his blanket, and gazing thoughtfully into the little drowsy flames that yet curled about the blackened fagots, was a tall and manly form, which Harold recognized as that of his companion in arms, a young lieutenant of his company. He approached, and placed his hand upon his fellow-soldier's arm.
"What book of fate are you reading in the ashes, Harry?" he asked, in a pleasant tone, anxious to dispel some portion of his own and his comrade's moodiness.
The soldier turned to him and smiled, but sorrowfully and with effort.
"My own destiny, perhaps," he answered. "Those ashes were glowing once with light and warmth, and before the dawn they will be cold, as you or I may be to-morrow, Harold."
"I thought you were too old a soldier to nurse such fancies upon the eve of battle. I must confess that I, who am a novice in this work, am as restless and nervous as a woman; but you have been seasoned by a Mexican campaign, and I came to you expressly to be laughed into fortitude again."
"You must go on till you meet one more lighthearted than myself," answered the other, with a sigh. "Ah! Harold, I have none of the old elasticity about me to-night. I would I were back under my father's roof, never to hear the roll of the battle-drum again. This is a cruel war, Harold."
"A just one."
"Yes, but cruel. Have you any that you love over yonder, Harold? Any that are dear to you, and that you must strike at on the morrow?"
"Yes, Harry, that is it. It is, as you say, a cruel war."
"I have a brother there," continued his companion; and he looked sadly into the gloom, as if he yearned through the darkness and distance to catch a glimpse of the well-known form. "A brother that, when I last saw him, was a little rosy-cheeked boy, and used to ride upon my knee. He is scarce more than a boy now, and yet he will shoulder his musket to-morrow, and stand in the ranks perhaps to be cut down by the hand that has caressed him. He was our mother's darling, and it is a mercy that she is not living to see us armed against each other."
"It is a painful thought," said Harold, "and one that you should dismiss from contemplation. The chances are thousands to one that you will never meet in battle."
"I trust the first bullet that will be fired may reach my heart, rather than that we should. But who can tell? I have a strange, gloomy feeling upon me; I would say a presentiment, if I were superstitious."
"It is a natural feeling upon the eve of battle. Think no more of it. Look how prettily the moon is creeping from under the edge of yonder cloud. We shall have a bright day for the fight, I think."
"Yes, that's a comfort. One fights all the better in the warm sunlight, as if to show the bright heavens what bloodthirsty devils we can be upon occasion. Hark!"
It was the roll of the drum, startling the stillness of the night; and presently, the brief, stern orders of the sergeants could be heard calling the men into the ranks. There is a strange mingled feeling of awe and excitement in this marshalling of men at night for a dangerous expedition. The orders are given instinctively in a more subdued and sterner tone, as if in unison with the solemnity of the hour. The tramp of marching feet strikes with a more distinct and hollow sound upon the ear. The dark masses seem to move more compactly, as if each soldier drew nearer to his comrade for companionship. The very horses, although alert and eager, seem to forego their prancing, and move with sober tread. And when the word "forward!" rings along the dark column, and the long and silent ranks bend and move on as with an electric impulse, there is a thrill in every vein, and each heart contracts for an instant, as if the black portals of a terrible destiny were open in the van.
A half hour of silent hurry and activity passed away, and at last the whole army was in motion. It was now three o'clock; the moon shone down upon the serried ranks, gleaming from bayonet and cannon, and stretching long black shadows athwart the road. From time to time along the column could be heard the ringing voice of some commander, as he galloped to the van, cheering his men with some well-timed allusion, or dispelling the surrounding gloom with a cheerful promise of victory. Where the wood road branched from the Warrentown turnpike, Gen. McDowell, standing in his open carriage, looked down upon the passing columns, and raised his hat, when the excited soldiers cheered as they hurried on. Here Hunter's column turned to the right, while the main body moved straight on to the centre. Then all became more silent than before, and the light jest passing from comrade to comrade was less frequent, for each one felt that every step onward brought him nearer to the foe.
The eastern sky soon paled into a greyish light, and ruddy streaks pushed out from the horizon. The air breathed fresher and purer than in the darkness, and the bright sun, with an advance guard of thin, rosy clouds, shot upward from the horizon in a blaze of splendor. It was the Sabbath morn.
The boom of a heavy gun is heard from the centre. Carlisle has opened the ball. The day's work is begun. Another! The echoes spring from the hillsides all around, like a thousand angry tongues that threaten death. But on the right, no trace of an enemy is to be seen. Burnside's brigade was in the van; they reached the ford at Sudley's Springs; a momentary confusion ensues as the column prepares to cross. Soon the men are pushing boldly through the shallow stream, but the temptation is too great for their parched throats; they stoop to drink and to fill their canteens from the cool wave. But as they look up they see a cloud of dust rolling up from the plain beyond, and their thirst has passed away--they know that the foe is there.
An aid comes spurring down the bank, waving his hand and splashing into the stream.
"Forward, men! forward!"
Hunter gallops to meet him, with his staff clattering at his horse's heels.
"Break the heads of regiments from the column and push on--push on!"
The field officers dash along the ranks, and the men spring to their work, as the word of command is echoed from mouth to mouth.
Crossing the stream, their course extended for a mile through a thick wood, but soon they came to the open country, with undulating fields, rolling toward a little valley through which a brooklet ran. And beyond that stream, among the trees and foliage which line its bank and extend in wooded patches southward, the left wing of the enemy are in battle order.
From a clump of bushes directly in front, came a puff of white smoke wreathed with flame; the whir of the hollow ball is heard, and it ploughs the moist ground a few rods from our advance.
Scarcely had the dull report reverberated, when, in quick succession, a dozen jets of fire gleamed out, and the shells came plunging into the ranks. Burnside's brigade was in advance and unsupported, but under the iron hail the line was formed, and the cry "Forward!" was answered with a cheer. A long grey line spread out upon the hillside, forming rapidly from the outskirts of the little wood. It was the Southern infantry, and soon along their line a deadly fire of musketry was opened.
Meanwhile the heavy firing from the left and further on, announced that the centre and extreme left were engaged. A detachment of regulars was sent to Burnside's relief, and held the enemy in check till a portion of Porter's and Heintzelman's division came up and pressed them back from their position.
The battle was fiercely raging in the centre, where the 69th had led the van and were charging the murderous batteries with the bayonet. We must leave their deeds to be traced by the historic pen, and confine our narrative to the scene in which Harold bore a part. The nearest battery, supported by Carolinians, had been silenced. The Mississippians had wavered before successive charges, and an Alabama regiment, after four times hurling back the serried ranks that dashed against them, had fallen back, outflanked and terribly cut up. On the left was a farm-house, situated on an elevated ridge a little back from the road. Within, while the fiercest battle raged, was its solitary inmate, an aged and bed-ridden lady, whose paralyzed and helpless form was stretched upon the bed where for fourscore years she had slept the calm sleep of a Christian. She had sent her attendants from the dwelling to seek a place of safety, but would not herself consent to be removed, for she heard the whisper of the angel of death, and chose to meet, him there in the house of her childhood. For the possession of the hill on which the building stood, the opposing hosts were hotly struggling. The fury of the battle seemed to concentre there, and through the time-worn walls the shot was plunging, splintering the planks and beams, and shivering the stone foundation. Sherman's battery came thundering up the hill upon its last desperate advance. Just as the foaming horses were wheeled upon its summit, the van of Hampton's legion sprang up the opposite side, and the crack of a hundred rifles simultaneously sounded. Down fell the cannoneers beside their guns before those deadly missiles, and the plunging horses were slaughtered in the traces, or, wounded to the death, lashed out their iron hoofs among the maimed and writhing soldiers and into the heaps of dead. The battery was captured, but held only fop an instant, when two companies of Rhode Islanders, led on by Harold Hare, charged madly up the hill.
"Save the guns, boys!" he cried, as the gallant fellows bent their heads low, and sprang up the ascent right in the face of the blazing rifles.
"Fire low! stand firm! drive them back once again, my brave Virginians!" shouted a young Southern officer, springing to the foremost rank.
The mutual fire was delivered almost at the rifles' muzzles, and the long sword-bayonets clashed together. Without yielding ground, for a few terrible seconds they thrust and parried with the clanging steel, while on either side the dead were stiffening beneath their feet, and the wounded, with shrieks of agony, were clutching at their limbs. Harold and the young Southron met; their swords clashed together once in the smoke and dust, and but once, when each drew back and lowered his weapon, while all around were striking. Then, amid that terrible discord, their two left hands were pressed together for an instant, and a low "God bless you!" came from the lips of both.
"To the right, Beverly, keep you to the right!" said Harold, and he himself, straight through the hostile ranks, sprang in an opposite direction.
When Harold's party had first charged up the hill, the young lieutenant with whom he had conversed beside the watch-fire on the previous evening, was at the head of his platoon, and as the two bodies met, he sent the last shot from his revolver full in the faces of the foremost rank. So close were they, that the victim of that shot, struck in the centre of the forehead, tottered forward, and fell into his arms. There was a cry of horror that pierced even above the shrieks of the wounded and the yells of the fierce combatants. One glance at that fair, youthful face sufficed;--it was his brother--dead in his arms, dead by a brother's hand. The yellow hair yet curled above the temples, but the rosy bloom upon the cheek was gone; already the ashen hue of death was there. There was a small round hole just where the golden locks waved from the edge of the brow, and from it there slowly welled a single globule of black gore. It left the face undisfigured--pale, but tranquil and undistorted as a sleeping child's--not even a clot of blood was there to mar its beauty. The strong and manly soldier knelt upon the dust, and holding the dead boy with both arms clasped about his waist, bent his head low down upon the lifeless bosom, and gasped with an agony more terrible than that which the death-wound gives.
"Charley! Oh God! Charley! Charley!" was all that came from his white lips, and he sat there like stone, with the corpse in his arms, still murmuring "Charley!" unconscious that blades were flashing and bullets whistling around him. The blood streamed from his wounds, the bayonets were gleaming round, and once a random shot ploughed into his thigh and shivered the bone. He only bent a little lower and his voice was fainter; but still he murmured "Charley! Oh God! Charley," and never unfolded his arms from its embrace. And there, when the battle was over, the Southrons found him, dead--with his dead brother in his arms.
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At the door-way of the building on the hill, where the aged invalid was yielding her last breath amid the roar of battle, a wounded officer sat among the dying and the dead, while the conflict swept a little away from that quarter of the field. The blood was streaming from the shattered bosom, and feebly he strove to staunch it with his silken scarf. He had dragged himself through gore and dust until he reached that spot, and now, rising again with a convulsive effort, he leaned his red hands against the wall, and entered over the fragments of the door, which had been shivered by a shell. With tottering steps he passed along the hall and up the little stairway, as one who had been familiar with the place. Before the door of the aged lady's chamber he paused a moment and listened; all was still there, although the terrible tumult of the battle was sounding all around. He entered; he advanced to the bed-side; the dying woman was murmuring a prayer. A random shot had torn the shrivelled flesh upon her bosom and the white counterpane was stained with blood. She did not see him--her thoughts were away from earth, she was already seeking communion with the spirits of the blest. The soldier knelt by that strange death-bed and leaned his pale brow upon the pillow.
"Mother!"
How strangely the word sounded amid the shouts of combatants and the din of war. It was like a good angel's voice drowning the discords of hell.
"Mother!"
She heard not the cannon's roar, but that one word, scarce louder than the murmur of a dreaming infant, reached her ear. The palsied head was turned upon the pillow and the light of life returned to her glazing eyes.
"Who speaks?" she gasped, while her thin hands were tremulously clasped together with emotion. " 'Tis I, mother. Philip, your son."
"Philip, my son!" and the nerveless form, that had scarce moved for years, was raised upon the bed by the last yearning effort of a mother's love.
"Is it you, Philip, is it you, indeed? I can scarce see your form, but surely I have heard the voice of my boy;--my long absent boy. Oh! Philip! why have I not heard it oftener to comfort my old age?"
"I am dying, mother. I have been a bad son and a guilty man. But I am dying, mother. Oh! I am punished for my sin! The avenging bullet struck me down at the gate of the home I had deserted--the home I have made desolate to you. Mother, I have crawled here to die."
"To die! O God! your hand is cold--or is it but the chill of death upon my own? Oh! I had thought to have said farewell to earth forever, but yet let me linger but a little while, O Lord! if but to bless my son." She sank exhausted upon the pillow, but yet clasped the gory fingers of the dying man.
"Philip, are you there? Let me hear your voice. I hear strange murmurs afar off; but not the voice of my son. Are you there, Philip, are you there?"
Philip Searle was crouching lower and lower by the bed-side, and his forehead, upon which the dews of death were starting, lay languidly beside the thin, white locks that rested on the pillow.
"Look, mother!" he said, raising his head and glaring into the corner of the room. "Do you see that form in white? --there--she with the pale cheeks and golden hair! I saw her once before to-day, when she lay stretched upon the bed, with a lily in her white fingers. And once again I saw her in that last desperate charge, when the bullet struck my side. And now she is there again, pale, motionless, but smiling. Does she smile in mockery or forgiveness? I could rather bear a frown than that terrible--that frozen smile. O God! she is coming to me, mother, she is coming to me--she will lay her cold hand upon me. No--it is not she! it is Moll--look, mother, it is Moll, all blackened with smoke and seared with living fire. O God! how terrible! But, mother, I did not do that. When I saw the flames afar off, I shuddered, for I knew how it must be. But I did not do it, Moll, by my lost soul, I did not!" He started to his feet with a convulsive effort. The hot blood spurted from his wound with the exertion and spattered upon the face and breast of his mother--but she felt it not, for she was dead. The last glimmering ray of reason seemed to drive away the phantoms. He turned toward those sharp and withered features, he saw the fallen jaw and lustreless glazed eye. A shudder shook his frame at every point, and with a groan of pain and terror, he fell forward upon the corpse--a corpse himself.
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The Federal troops, with successive charges, had now pushed the enemy from their first position, and the torn battalions were still being hurled against the batteries that swept their ranks. The excellent generalship of the Confederate leaders availed itself of the valor and impetuosity of their assailants to lure them, by consecutive advance and backward movement, into the deadly range of their well planted guns. It was then that, far to the right, a heavy column could be seen moving rapidly in the rear of the contending hosts. Was it a part of Hunter's division that had turned the enemy's rear? Such was the thought at first, and with the delusion triumphant cheers rang from the parched throats of the weary Federals. They were soon to be undeceived. The stars and bars flaunted amid those advancing ranks, and the constant yells of the Confederates proclaimed the truth. Johnston was pouring his fresh troops upon the battle-field. The field was lost, but still was struggled for in the face of hope. It was now late in the afternoon, and the soldiers, exhausted with their desperate exertions, fought on, doggedly, but without that fiery spirit which earlier in the day had urged them to the cannon's mouth. There was a lull in the storm of carnage, the brief pause that precedes the last terrific fury of the tempest. The Confederates were concentrating their energies for a decisive effort. It came. From the woods that skirted the left centre of their position, a squadron of horsemen came thundering down upon our columns. Right down upon Carlisle's battery they rode, slashing the cannoneers and capturing the guns. Then followed their rushing ranks of infantry, and full upon our flank swooped down another troop of cavalry, dashing into the road where the baggage-train had been incautiously advanced. Our tired and broken regiments were scattered to the right and left. In vain a few devoted officers spurred among them, and called on them to rally; they broke from the ranks in every quarter of the field, and rushed madly up the hillsides and into the shelter of the trees. The magnificent army that had hailed the rising sun with hopes of victory was soon pouring along the road in inextricable confusion and disorderly retreat. Foot soldier and horseman, field-piece and wagon, caisson and ambulance, teamster and cannoneer, all were mingled together and rushing backward from the field they had half won, with their backs to the pursuing foe. That rout has been traced, to our shame, in history; the pen of the novelist shuns the disgraceful theme.
Harold, although faint with loss of blood, which oozed from a flesh-wound in his shoulder, was among the gallant few who strove to stem the ebbing current; struck at last by a spent ball in the temple, he fell senseless to the ground. He would have been trampled upon and crushed by the retreating column, had not a friendly hand dragged him from the road to a little mound over which spread the branches of an oak. Here he was found an hour afterward by a body of Confederate troops and lifted into an ambulance with others wounded and bleeding like himself.
While the vehicle, with its melancholy freight, was being slowly trailed over the scene of the late battle, Harold partially recovered his benumbed senses. He lay there as in a dream, striving to recall himself to consciousness of his position. He felt the dull throbbing pain upon his brow and the stinging sensation in his shoulder, and knew that he was wounded, but whether dangerously or not he could not judge. He could feel the trickling of blood from the bosom of a wounded comrade at his side, and could hear the groans of another whose thigh was shattered by the fragment of a shell; but the situation brought no feeling of repugnance, for he was yet half stunned and lay as in a lethargy, wishing only to drain one draught of water and then to sleep. The monotonous rumbling of the ambulance wheels sounded distinctly upon his ear, and he could listen, with a kind of objectless curiosity, to the casual conversation of the driver, as he exchanged words here and there with others, who were returning upon the same dismal errand from the scene of carnage. The shadows of night spread around him, covering the field of battle like a pall flung in charity by nature over the corpses of the slain. Then his bewildered fancies darkened with the surrounding gloom, and he thought that he was coffined and in a hearse, being dragged to the graveyard to be buried. He put forth his hand to push the coffin lid, but it fell again with weakness, and when his fingers came in contact with the splintered bone that protruded from his neighbor's thigh, and he felt the warm gushing of the blood that welled with each throb of the hastily bound artery, he puzzled his dreamy thoughts to know what it might mean. At last all became a blank upon his brain, and he relapsed once more into unconsciousness.
And so, from dreamy wakefulness to total oblivion he passed to and fro, without an interval to part the real from the unreal. He was conscious of being lifted into the arms of men, and being borne along carefully by strong arms. Whither? It seemed to his dull senses that they were bearing him into a sepulchre, but he was not terrified, but careless and resigned; or if he thought of it at all, it was to rejoice that when laid there, he should be undisturbed. Presently a vague fancy passed athwart his mind, that perhaps the crawling worms would annoy him, and he felt uneasy, but yet not afraid. Afterward, there was a sensation of quiet and relief, and his brain, for a space, was in repose. Then a bright form bent over him, and he thought it was an angel. He could feel a soft hand brushing the dampness from his brow, and fingers, whose light touch soothed him, parting his clotted hair. The features grew more distinct, and it pleased him to look upon them, although he strove in vain to fix them in his memory, until a tear-drop fell upon his cheek, and recalled his wandering senses; then he knew that Oriana was bending over him and weeping.
He was in the cottage where Beverly had last parted from his sister; not in the same room, for they feared to place him there, where Miranda was lying in a shroud, with a coffin by her bed-side, lest the sad spectacle should disturb him when he woke. But he lay upon a comfortable bed in another room, and Beverly and Oriana stood beside, while the surgeon dressed his wounds.
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No need to say that Harold was well cared for by his two friendly foes. Beverly had given his personal parole for his safe keeping, and he was therefore free from all surveillance or annoyance on that score. His wounds were not serious, although the contusion on the temple, which, however, had left the skull uninjured, occasioned some uneasiness at first. But the third day he was able to leave his bed, and with his arm in a sling, sat comfortably in an easy-chair, and conversed freely with his two excellent nurses.
"Did Beverly tell you of Arthur's imprisonment?" he asked of Oriana, breaking a pause in the general conversation.
"Yes," she answered, looking down, with a scarcely perceptible blush upon her cheek. "Poor Arthur! Yours is a cruel government, Harold, that would make traitors of such men. His noble heart would not harbor a dangerous thought, much less a traitorous design."
"I think with you," said Harold. "There is some strange mistake, which we must fathom. I received his letter only the day preceding the battle. Had there been no immediate prospect of an engagement, I would have asked a furlough, and have answered it in person. I have small reason to regret my own imprisonment," he added, "my jailers are so kind; yet I do regret it for his sake."
"You know that we are powerless to help him," said Beverly, "or even to shorten your captivity, since your government will not exchange with us. However, you must write, both to Arthur and to Mr. Lincoln, and I will use my best interest with the general to have your letters sent on with a flag."
"I know that you will do all in your power, and I trust that my representations may avail with the government, for I judge from Arthur's letter that he is not well, although he makes no complaint. He is but delicate at the best, and what with the effects of his late injuries, I fear that the restraint of a prison may go ill with him."
"How unnatural is this strife that makes us sorrow for our foes no less than for our friends?" said Oriana. "I seem to be living in a strange clime, and in an age that has passed away. And how long can friendship endure this fiery ordeal? How many scenes of carnage like this last terrible one can afflict the land, without wiping away all trace of brotherhood, and leaving in the void the seed of deadly hate?"
"If this repulse," said Beverly, "which your arms have suffered so early in the contest, will awaken the North to a sense of the utter futility of their design of subjugation, the blood that flowed at Manassas will not have been shed in vain."
"No, not in vain," replied Harold, "but its fruits will be other than you anticipate. The North will be awakened, but only to gird up its loins and put forth its giant strength. The shame of that one defeat will be worth to us hereafter a hundred victories. The North has been smitten in its sleep; it will arouse from its lethargy like a lion awakening under the smart of the hunter's spear. Beverly, base no vain hopes upon the triumph of the hour; it seals your doom, for it serves but to throw into the scale against you the aroused energies that till now have been withheld."
"You count upon your resources, Harold, like a purse-proud millionaire, who boasts his bursting coffers. We depend rather upon our determined hearts and resolute right hands. Upon our power to endure, greater than yours to inflict, reverse. Upon our united people, and the spirit that animates them, which can never be subdued. The naked Britons could defend their native soil against Caesar's legions, the veterans of a hundred fights. Shall we do less, who have already tasted the fruits of liberty so dearly earned? Harold, your people have assumed an impossible task, and you may as well go cast your treasures into the sea as squander them in arms to smite your kith and kin. We are Americans, like yourselves; and when you confess that _you_ can be conquered by invading armies, then dream of conquering us."
"And we will startle you from your dream with the crack of our Southern rifles," added Oriana, somewhat maliciously, while Harold smiled at her enthusiasm.
"There is a great deal of romance in both your natures," he replied. "But it is not so good as powder for a fighting medium. The spirit you boast of will not support you long without the aid of good round dollars."
"Thank heaven we have less faith in their efficacy than you Northern gold-worshippers," observed Oriana, with playful sarcasm. "While our soldiers have good round corn-cakes, they will ask for no richer metals than lead and steel. Have you never heard of the regiment of Mississippians, who, having received their pay in government certificates, to a man tore up the documents as they took up the line of march, saying 'we do not fight for money?'"
Harold smiled, thinking perhaps that nothing better could have been done with the currency in question.
"I think," said Beverly, "you are far out of the way in your estimate of our resources. The South is strictly an agricultural country, and as such, best able to support itself under the exhaustion consequent upon a lengthened warfare, especially as it will remain in the attitude of resistance to invasion. From the bosom of its prolific soil it can draw its natural nourishment and retain its vigor throughout any period of isolation, while you are draining your resources for the means of providing an active aggressive warfare. The rallying of our white population to the battle field will not interrupt the course of agricultural pursuit, while every enlistment in the North will take one man away from the tillage of the land or from some industrial avocation."
"Not so," replied Harold. "Our armies for the most part will be recruited from the surplus population, and abundant hands will remain behind for the purposes of industry."
"At first, perhaps. But not after a few more such fields as were fought on Sunday last. To carry out even a show of your project of subjugation, you must keep a million of men in the field from year to year. Your manufacturing interests will be paralyzed, your best customers shut out. You will be spending enormously and producing little beyond the necessities of consumption. We, on the contrary, will be producing as usual, and spending little more than before."
"Can your armies be fed, clothed, and equipped without expense?"
"No. But all our means will be applied to military uses, and our operations will be necessarily much less expensive than yours. In other matters, we will forget our habits of extravagance. We will become, by the law of necessity, economists in place of spendthrifts. We will gather in rich harvests, but will stint ourselves to the bare necessities of life, that our troops may be fed and clothed. The money that our wealthy planters have been in the habit of spending yearly in Northern cities and watering places, will be circulated at home. Some fifty millions of Southern dollars, heretofore annually wasted in fashionable dissipation, will thus be kept in our own pockets and out of yours. The spendthrift sons of our planters, and their yet more extravagant daughters, will be found studying economy in the rude school of the soldier, and plying the needle to supply the soldiers' wants, in place of drawing upon the paternal estates for frivolous enjoyments. Our spending population will be on the battle-field, and the laborer will remain in the cotton and corn-field. There will be suffering and privation, it is true, but rest assured, Harold, we will bear it all without a murmur, as our fathers did in the days of '76. And we will trust to the good old soil we are defending to give us our daily bread."
"Or if it should not," said Oriana, "we can at least claim from it, each one, a grave, over which the foot of the invader may trample, but not over our living bodies."
"I have no power to convince you of your error," answered Harold. "Let us speak of it no more, since it is destined that the sword must decide between us. Beverly, you promised that I should go visit my wounded comrades, who have not yet been removed. Shall we go now? I think it would do me good to breathe the air."
They prepared for the charitable errand, and Oriana went with them, with a little basket of delicacies for the suffering prisoners.
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It was a fair morning in August, the twentieth day after the eventful 21st of July. Beverly was busy with his military duties, and Harold, who had already fully recovered from his wounds, was enjoying, in company with Oriana, a pleasant canter over the neighboring country. They came to where the rolling meadow subsided into a level plain of considerable extent on either side of the road. At its verge a thick forest formed a dark background, beyond which the peering summits of green hills showed that the landscape was rugged and uneven. Oriana slackened her pace, and pointed out over the broad expanse of level country.
"You see this plain that stretches to our right and left?"
"Of course I do," replied Harold.
"Yes; but I want you to mark it well," she continued, with a significant glance; "and also that stretch of woodland yonder, beyond which, you see, the country rises again."
"Yes, a wild country, I should judge, like that to the left, where we fought your batteries a month ago."
"It is, indeed, a wild country as you say. There are ravines there, and deep glens, fringed with almost impenetrable shrubbery, and deep down in these recesses flows many a winding water-course, lined and overarched with twisted foliage. Are you skillful at threading a woodland labyrinth?"
"Yes; my surveying expeditions have schooled me pretty well. Why do you ask? Do you want me to guide you through the wilderness, in search of a hermit's cave."
"Perhaps; women have all manner of caprices, you know. But I want you to pay attention to those landmarks. Over yonder, there are some nooks that would do well to hide a runaway. I have explored some of them myself, for I passed some months here formerly, before the war. Poor Miranda's family resided once in the little cottage where we are stopping now. That is why I came from Richmond to spend a few days and be with Beverly. I little thought that my coming would bring me to Miranda's death-bed. Look there, now: you have a better view of where the forest ascends into the hilly ground."
"Why are you so topographical to-day? One would think you were tempting me to run away," said Harold, smiling, as he followed her pointing finger with his eyes.
"No; I know you would not do that, because Beverly, you know, has pledged himself for your safe-keeping."
"Very true; and I am therefore a closer prisoner than if I were loaded down with chains. When do you return to Richmond?"
"I shall return on the day after to-morrow. Beverly has been charged with an important service, and will be absent for several weeks. But he can procure your parole, if you wish, and you can come to the old manor-house again."
"I think I shall not accept parole," replied Harold, thoughtfully. "I must escape, if possible, for Arthur's sake. Beverly, of course, will release himself from all obligations about me, before he goes?"
"Yes, to-morrow; but you will be strictly guarded, unless you give parole. See here, I have a little present for you; it is not very pretty, but it is useful."
She handed him a small pocket-compass, set in a brass case.
"You can have this too," she added, drawing a small but strong and sharp poignard from her bosom. "But you must promise me never to use it except to save your life?"
"I will promise that cheerfully," said Harold, as he received the precious gifts.
"To-morrow we will ride out again. We will have the same horses that bear us so bravely now. Do you note how strong and well-bred is the noble animal you ride?"
"Yes," said Harold, patting the glorious arch of his steed's neck. "He's a fine fellow, and fleet, I warrant."
"Fleet as the winds. There are few in this neighborhood that can match him. Let us go home now. You need not tell Beverly that I have given you presents. And be ready to ride to-morrow at four o'clock precisely."
He understood her thoroughly, and they cantered homeward, conversing upon indifferent subjects and reverting no further to their previous somewhat enigmatical theme.
On the following afternoon, at four o'clock precisely, the horses were at the door, and five minutes afterward a mounted officer, followed by two troopers, galloped up the lane and drew rein at the gateway.
Harold was arranging the girths of Oriana's saddle, and she herself was standing in her riding-habit beside the porch. The officer, dismounting, approached her and raised his cap in respectful salute. He was young and well-looking, evidently one accustomed to polite society.
"Good afternoon, Captain Haralson," said Oriana, with her most gracious smile. "I am very glad to see you, although, as you bring your military escort, I presume you come to see Beverly upon business, and not for the friendly visit you promised me. But Beverly is not here."
"I left him at the camp on duty, Miss Weems," replied the captain. "It is my misfortune that my own duties have been too strict of late to permit me the pleasure of my contemplated visit."
"I must bide my time, captain. Let me introduce my friend. Captain Hare, our prisoner, Mr. Haralson; but I know you will help me to make him forget it, when I tell you that he was my brother's schoolmate and is our old and valued friend."
The young officer took Harold frankly by the hand, but he looked grave and somewhat disconcerted as he answered: "Captain Hare, as a soldier, will forgive me that my duty compels me to play a most ungracious part upon our first acquaintance. I have orders to return with him to headquarters, where I trust his acceptance of parole will enable me to avail myself of your introduction to show him what courtesy our camp life admits, in atonement for the execution of my present unpleasant devoir."
"I shall esteem your acquaintance the more highly," answered Harold, "that you know so well to blend your soldiership with kindness. I am entirely at your disposition, sir, having only to apologize to Miss Weems for the deprivation of her contemplated ride."
"Oh, no, we must not lose our ride," said Oriana. "It is perhaps the last we shall enjoy together, and such a lovely afternoon. I am sure that Captain Haralson is too gallant to interrupt our excursion."
She turned to him with an arch smile, but he looked serious as he replied: "Alas! Miss Weems, our gallantry receives some rude rebuffs in the harsh school of the soldier. It grieves me to mar your harmless recreation, but even that mortification I must endure when it comes in the strict line of my duty."
"But your duty does not forbid you to take a canter with us this charming afternoon. Now put away that military sternness, which does not become you at all, and help me to mount my pretty Nelly, who is getting impatient to be off. And so am I. Come, you will get into camp in due season, for we will go only as far as the Run, and canter all the way."
She took his arm, and he assisted her to the saddle, won into acquiescence by her graceful obstinacy, and, in fact, seeing but little harm the tufted hills rolled into one another like the waves of a swelling sea, their crests tipped with the slant rays of the descending sun, and their graceful slopes alternating among purple shadows and gleams of floating light.
"It is indeed so beautiful," answered Harold, "that I should deem you might be content to live there as of old, without inviting the terrible companionship of Mars."
"We do not invite it," said the young captain. "Leave us in peaceful possession of our own, and no war cries shall echo among those hills. If Mars has driven his chariot into our homes, he comes at your bidding, an unwelcome intruder, to be scourged back again."
"At our bidding! No. The first gun that was fired at Sumter summoned him, and if he should leave his foot-prints deep in your soil, you have well earned the penalty."
"It will cost you, to inflict it, many such another day's work as that at Manassas a month ago."
The taunt was spoken hastily, and the young Southron colored as if ashamed of his discourtesy, and added: "Forgive me my ungracious speech. It was my first field, sir, and I am wont to speak of it too boastingly. I shall become more modest, I hope, when I shall have a better right to be a boaster."
"Oh," replied Harold, "I admit the shame of our discomfiture, and take it as a good lesson to our negligence and want of purpose. But all that has passed away. One good whipping has awakened us to an understanding of the work we have in hand. Henceforth we will apply ourselves to the task in earnest."
"You think, then, that your government will prosecute the war more vigorously than before?"
"Undoubtedly. You have heard but the prelude of a gale that shall sweep every vestige of treason from the land."
"Let it blow on," said the Southron, proudly. "There will be counter-blasts to meet it. You cannot raise a tempest that will make us bow our heads."
"Do you not think," interrupted Oriana, "that a large proportion of your Northern population are ready at least to listen to terms of separation?"
"No," replied Harold, firmly. "Or if there be any who entertain such thoughts, we will make them outcasts among us, and the finger of scorn will be pointed at them as recreant to their holiest duty."
"That is hardly fair," said Oriana. "Why should you scorn or maltreat those who honestly believe that the doctrine in support of which so many are ready to stake their lives and their fortunes, may be worthy of consideration? Do you believe us all mad and wicked people in the South--people without hearts, and without brains, incapable of forming an opinion that is worth an argument? If there are some among you who think we are acting for the best, and Heaven knows we are acting with sincerity, you should give them at least a hearing, for the sake of liberty of conscience. Remember, there are millions of us united in sentiment in the South, and millions, perhaps, abroad who think with us. How can you decide by your mere impulses where the right lies?"
"We decide by the promptings of our loyal hearts, and by our reason, which tells us that secession is treason, and that treason must be crushed."
"Heart and brain have been mistaken ere now," returned Oriana. "But if you are a type of your countrymen, I see that hard blows alone will teach you that God has given us the right to think for ourselves."
"Do you believe, then," asked Haralson, "that there can be no peace between us until one side or the other shall be exhausted and subdued?"
"Not so," replied Harold. "I think that when we have retrieved the disgrace of Bull Run and given you in addition, some wholesome chastisement, your better judgment will return to you, and you will accept forgiveness at our hands and return to your allegiance."
"You are mistaken," said the Southron. "Even were we ready to accept your terms, you would not be ready to grant them. Should the North succeed in striking some heavy blow at the South, I will tell you what will happen; your abolitionists will seize the occasion of the peoples' exultation to push their doctrine to a consummation. Whenever you shall hear the tocsin of victory sounding in the North, then listen for the echoing cry of emancipation--for you will hear it. You will see it in every column of your daily prints; you will hear your statesmen urging it in your legislative halls, and your cabinet ministers making it their theme. And, most dangerous of all, you will hear your generals and colonels, demagogues, at heart, and soldiers only of occasion, preaching it to their battalions, and making converts of their subordinates by the mere influences of their rank and calling. And when your military chieftains harangue their soldiers upon political themes, think not of our treason as you call it, but look well to the political freedom that is still your own. With five hundred thousand armed puppets, moving at the will of a clique of ambitious epauletted politicians and experimentalists, you may live to witness, whether we be subdued or not, a _coup d'etat_ for which there is a precedent not far back in the annals of republics."
"Have you already learned to contemplate the danger that you are incurring? Do you at last fear the monster that you have nursed and strengthened in your midst? Well, if your slaves should rise against you, surely you cannot blame us for the evil of your own creation."
"It is the hope of your abolitionists, not our fear, that I am rehearsing. Should your armies obtain a foothold on our soil, we know that you will put knives and guns into the hands of our slaves, and incite them to emulate the deeds of their race in San Domingo. You will parcel out our lands and wealth to your victorious soldiery, not so much as a reward for their past services, but to seal the bond between them and the government that will seek to rule by their bayonets. You see, we know the peril and are prepared to meet it. Should you conquer us, at the same time you would conquer the liberties of the Northern citizen. You will be at the mercy of the successful general whose triumph may make him the idol of the armed millions that alone can accomplish our subjugation. In the South, butchery and rapine by hordes of desperate negroes--in the North anarchy and political intrigue, to be merged into dictatorship and the absolutism of military power. Such would be the results of your triumph and our defeat."
"Those are the visions of a heated brain," said Harold. "I must confess that your fighting is better than your logic. There is no danger to our country that the loyalty of its people cannot overcome--as it will your rebellion."
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They had now approached the edge of the plain which Oriana had pointed out on the preceding day. The sun, which had been tinging the western sky with gorgeous hues, was peering from among masses of purple and golden clouds, within an hour's space of the horizon. Captain Haralson, interested and excited by his disputation, had been riding leisurely along by the side of his prisoner, taking but little note of the route or of the lapse of time.
"Cease your unprofitable argument," cried Oriana, "and let us have a race over this beautiful plain. Look! 'tis as smooth as a race-course, and I will lay you a wager, Captain Haralson, that my Nelly will lead you to yonder clump, by a neck."
She touched her horse lightly with the whip, and turned from the road into the meadows.
"It is late, Miss Weems," said the Southron, "and I must report at headquarters before sundown. Besides, I am badly mounted, and it would be but a sorry victory to distance me. I pray you, let us return."
"Nonsense! Nelly is not breathed. I must have one fair run over this field; and, gentlemen, I challenge you both to outstrip Nelly if you can."
With a merry shout, she struck the fleet mare smartly on the flank, and the spirited animal, more at the sound of her voice than aroused by the whip-lash, stretched forward her neck and sprang over the tufted level. Harold waved his hand, as if in invitation, to his companion, and was soon urging his powerful horse in the same direction. Haralson shouted to them to stop, but they only turned their heads and beckoned to him gaily, and plunging the spurs into the strong but heavy-hoofed charger that he rode, he followed them as best he could. He kept close in their rear very well at first, but he soon observed that he was losing distance, and that the two swift steeds in front, that had been held in check a little at the start, were now skimming the smooth meadow at a tremendous pace.
"Halt!" he cried, at the top of his lungs; but either they heard it not or heeded it not, for they still swept on, bending low forward in the saddle, almost side by side.
A vague suspicion crossed his mind.
"Halt, there!"
Oriana glanced over her shoulder, and could see a sunray gleaming from something that he held in his right hand. He had drawn a pistol from his holster. She slackened her pace a little, and allowing Harold to take the lead, rode on in the line between him and the pursuer. Harold turned in his saddle. She could hear the tones of his voice rushing past her on the wind.
"Come no further with me, lest suspicion attach to yourself. The good horse will bear me beyond pursuit. Remember, it is for Arthur's sake I have consented you should make this sacrifice. God bless you! and farewell!"
A pistol-shot resounded in the air. Oriana knew it was fired but to intimidate--the distance was too great to give the leaden messenger a deadlier errand. Yet she drew rein, and waited, breathless with excitement and swift motion, till Haralson came up. He turned one reproachful glance upon her as he passed, and spurred on in pursuit. Harold turned once again, to assure himself that she was unhurt, then waved his hand, and urging his swift steed to the utmost, sped on toward the forest which was now close at hand. The two troopers soon came galloping up to where Oriana still sat motionless upon her saddle, watching the race with strained eyes and heaving bosom.
"Your prisoner has escaped," she said; "spur on in pursuit."
She knew that it was of no avail, for Harold had already disappeared among the mazes of the wood, and the sun was just dipping below the horizon. Darkness would soon shroud the fugitive in its friendly mantle. She turned Nelly's head homeward, and cantered silently away in the gathering twilight.
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When Captain Haralson and the two troopers reached the verge of the forest, they could trace for a short distance the hoof-prints of Harold's horse, and followed them eagerly among the labyrinthine paths which the fugitive had made through the tangled shrubbery and among the briery thickets. But soon the gloom of night closed in upon them in the depth of the silent wood, and they were left without a sign by which to direct the pursuit. It was near midnight when they reached the further edge of the forest, and there, throwing fantastic gleams of red light among the shadows of the tall trees, they caught sight of what seemed to be the glimmer of a watchfire. Soon after, the growl of a hound was heard, followed by a deep-mouthed bay, and approaching cautiously, they were hailed by the watchful sentinel. It was a Confederate picket, posted on the outskirt of the forest, and Haralson, making himself known, rode up to where the party, awakened by their approach, had roused themselves from their blankets, and were standing with ready rifles beside the blazing fagots.
Haralson made known his errand to the officer in command, and the sentries were questioned, but all declared that nothing had disturbed their watch; if the fugitive had passed their line, he had succeeded in eluding their vigilance.
"I must send one of my men back to camp to report the escape," said Haralson, "and will ask you to spare me a couple of your fellows to help me hunt the Yankee down. Confound him, I deserve to lose my epaulettes for my folly, but I'll follow him to the Potomac, rather than return to headquarters without him."
"Who was it?" asked the officer; "was he of rank?"
"A captain, Captain Hare, well named for his fleetness; but he was mounted superbly, and I suspect the whole thing was cut and dried."
"Hare?" cried a hoarse voice; and the speaker, a tall, lank man, who had been stretched by the fire, with the head of a large, gaunt bloodhound in his lap, rose suddenly and stepped forward.
"Harold Hare, by G--d!" he exclaimed; "I know the fellow. Captain, I'm with you on this hunt, and Bully there, too, who is worth the pair of us. Hey, Bully?"
The dog stretched himself lazily, and lifted his heavy lip with a grin above the formidable fangs that glistened in the gleam of the watchfire.
"You may go," said his officer, "but I can't spare another. You three, with the dog, will be enough. Rawbon's as good a man as you can get, captain. Set a thief to catch a thief, and a Yankee to outwit a Yankee. You'd better start at once, unless you need rest or refreshment."
"Nothing," replied Haralson. "Let your man put something into his haversack. Good night, lieutenant. Come along, boys, and keep your eyes peeled, for these Yankees are slippery eels, you know."
Seth Rawbon had already bridled his horse that was grazing hard by, and the party, with the hound close at his master's side, rode forth upon their search.
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Harold had perceived the watchfire an hour earlier than his pursuers, having obtained thus much the advantage of them by the fleetness of his steed. He moved well off to the right, riding slowly and cautiously, until another faint glimmer in that direction gave him to understand that he was about equi-distant between two pickets of the enemy. He dismounted at the edge of the forest, and securing his steed to the branch of a tree, crept forward a few paces beyond the shelter of the wood, and looked about earnestly in the darkness. Nothing could be seen but the long, straggling line of the forest losing itself in the gloom, and the black outlines, of the hills before him; but his quick ear detected the sound of coming hoof and the ringing of steel scabbards. A patrol was approaching, and fearful that his horse, conscious of the neighborhood of his kind, might betray his presence with a sign of recognition, he hurried back, and standing beside the animal, caressed his glossy neck and won his attention with the low murmurs of his voice. The good steed remained silent, only pricking up his ears and peering through the branches as the patrol went clattering by. Harold waited till the trampling of hoofs died away in the distance, and judging, from their riding on without a challenge or a pause, that there was no sentry within hail, he mounted and rode boldly out into the open country. The stars were mostly obscured by heavy clouds, but here and there was a patch of clear blue sky, and his eye, practised with many a surveying night-tramp, discovered at last a twinkling guide by which to shape his path in a northerly direction. It was a wild, rough country over which he passed. With slow and careful steps, his sagacious steed moved on, obedient to the rein, at one time topping the crest of a rugged hill, and then winding at a snail's pace down the steep declivity, or following the tortuous course of the streamlet through deep ravines, whose jagged and bush-clad sides frowned down upon them on either side, deepening the gloom of night.
So all through the long hours of darkness, Harold toiled on his lonely way, startled at times by the shriek of the night bird, and listening intently to catch the sign of danger. At last the dawn, welcome although it enhanced the chances of detection, blushed faintly through the clouded eastern sky, and Harold, through the mists of morning, could see a fair and rolling landscape stretched before him. The sky was overcast, and presently the heavy drops began to fall. Consulting the little friendly compass which Oriana had given him, he pushed on briskly, turning always to the right or left, as the smoke, circling from some early housewife's kitchen, betrayed the dangerous neighborhood of a human habitation.
Crossing a rivulet, he dismounted, and filled a small leathern bottle that he carried with him, his good steed and himself meanwhile satisfying their thirst from the cool wave. His appetite, freshened by exercise, caused him to remember a package which Oriana's forethought had provided for him on the preceding afternoon. He drew it from, his pocket, and while his steed clipped the tender herbage from the streamlet's bank, he made an excellent breakfast of the corn bread and bacon, and other substantial edibles, which his kind friend had bountifully supplied. Man and horse thus refreshed, he remounted, and rode forward at a gallant pace, the strong animal he bestrode seeming as yet to show no signs of fatigue.
The rain was now falling in torrents, a propitious circumstance, since it lessened the probabilities of his encountering the neighboring inhabitants, most of whom must have sought shelter from the pelting storm. He occasionally came up with a trudging negro, sometimes a group of three or four, who answered timidly whenever he accosted them, and glanced at him askance, but yet gave the information he requested. Once, indeed, he could discern a troop of cavalry plashing along at same distance through the muddy road, but he screened himself in a cornfield, and was unobserved. His watch had been injured in the battle, and he had no means, except conjecture, of judging of the hour; but by the flagging pace of his horse, and his own fatigue, he knew that he must have been many hours in the saddle. Surely the Potomac must be at hand! Yet there was no sign of it, and over interminable hill and dale, through corn-fields, and over patches of woodland and meadow, the weary steed was urged on, slipping and sliding in the saturated soil. What was that sound which caused his horse to prick up his ears and quicken his pace with the instinct of danger? He heard it himself distinctly. It was the baying of a bloodhound.
"They are on my track!" muttered Harold; "and unless the river is at hand, I am lost. Forward, sir! forward, good fellow!" he shouted cheerily to his horse, and the noble animal, snorting and tossing his silken mane, answered with an effort, and broke into a gallop.
Down one hill into a little valley they pushed on, and up the ascent of another. They reached the crest, and then, thank Heaven! there was the broad river, winding through the valley. Dull and leaden hued as it looked, reflecting the clouded sky, he had never hailed it so joyfully when sparkling with sunbeams as he did at the close of that weary day. Yet the danger was not past; up and down the stream he gazed, and far to the right he could distinguish a group of tents peering from among the foliage of a grove, and marking the site of a Confederate battery. But just in front of him was a cheering sight; an armed schooner swung lazily at anchor in the channel, and the wet bunting that drooped listlessly over her stern, revealed the stars and stripes.
The full tones of the bloodhound's voice aroused him to the necessity of action; he turned in the saddle and glanced over the route he had come. On the crest of the hill beyond that on which he stood, the forms of three horsemen were outlined against the greyish sky. They distinguished him at the same moment, for he could hear their shouts of exultation, borne to him on the humid air.
It was yet a full mile to the river bank, and his horse was almost broken down with fatigue. Dashing his armed heels against the throbbing flanks of the jaded animal, he rushed down the hill in a straight line for the water. The sun was already below the horizon, and darkness was coming on apace. As he pushed on, the shouts of his pursuers rang louder upon his ear at every rod; it was evident that they were fresh mounted, while his own steed was laboring, with a last effort, over the rugged ground, stumbling among stones, and groaning at intervals with the severity of exertion. He could hear the trampling behind him, he could catch the words of triumph that seemed to be shouted almost in his very ear. A bullet whizzed by him, and then another, and with each report there came a derisive cheer. But it was now quite dark, and that, with the rapid motion, rendered him comparatively fearless of being struck. He spurred on, straining his eyes to see what was before him, for it seemed that the ground in front became suddenly and curiously lost in the mist and gloom. Just then, simultaneously with the report of a pistol, he felt his good steed quiver beneath him; a bullet had reached his flank, and the poor animal fell upon his knees and rolled over in the agony of death.
It was well that he had fallen; Harold, thrown forward a few feet, touched the earth upon the edge of the rocky bank that descended precipitously a hundred feet or more to the river--a few steps further, and horse and rider would have plunged over the verge of the bluff.
Harold, though bruised by his fall, was not considerably hurt; without hesitation, he commenced the hazardous descent, difficult by day, but perilous and uncertain in the darkness. Clinging to each projecting rock and feeling cautiously for a foothold among the slippery ledges, he had accomplished half the distance and could already hear the light plashing of the wave upon the boulders below. He heard a voice above, shouting: "Look out for the bluff there, we must be near it!"
The warning came too late. There was a cry of terror--the blended voice of man and horse, startling the night and causing Harold to crouch with instinctive horror close to the dripping rock. There was a rush of wind and the bounding by of a dark whirling body, which rolled over and over, tearing over the sharp angles of the cliff, and scattering the loose fragments of stone over him as he clung motionless to his support. Then there was a dull thump below, and a little afterward a terrible moan, and then all was still.
Harold continued his descent and reached the base of the bluff in safety. Through the darkness he could see a dark mass lying like a shadow among the pointed stones, with the waves of the river rippling about it. He approached it. There lay the steed gasping in the last agony, and the rider beneath him, crushed, mangled and dead. He stooped down by the side of the corpse; it was bent double beneath the quivering body of the dying horse, in such a manner as must have snapped the spine in twain. Harold lifted the head, but let it fall again with a shudder, for his fingers had slipped into the crevice of the cleft skull and were all smeared with the oozing brain. Yet, despite the obscurity and the disfigurement, despite the bursting eyeballs and the clenched jaws through which the blood was trickling, he recognized the features of Seth Rawbon.
No time for contemplation or for revery. There was a scrambling overhead, with now and then a snarl and an angry growl. And further up, he heard the sound of voices, labored and suppressed, as of men who were speaking while toiling at some unwonted exercise. Harold threw off his coat and boots, and waded out into the river. The dark hull of the schooner could be seen looming above the gloomy surface of the water, and he dashed toward it through the deepening wave. There was a splash behind him and soon he could hear the puffing and short breathing of a swimming dog. He was then up to his arm-pits in the water, and a few yards further would bring him off his footing. He determined to wait the onset there, while he could yet stand firm upon the shelving bottom. He had not long to wait. The bloodhound made directly for him; he could see his eyes snapping and glaring like red coals above the black water. Harold braced himself as well as he could upon the yielding sand, and held his poignard, Oriana's welcome gift, with a steady grasp. The dog came so close that his fetid breath played upon Harold's cheek; then he aimed a swift blow at his neck, but the brute dodged it like a fish. Harold lost his balance and fell forward into the water, but in falling, he launched out his left hand and caught the tough loose skin above the animal's shoulder. He held it with the grasp of a drowning man, and over and over they rolled in the water, like two sea monsters at their sport. With all his strength, Harold drew the fierce brute toward him, circling his neck tightly with his left arm, and pressed the sharp blade against his throat. The hot blood gushed out over his hand, but he drove the weapon deeper, slitting the sinewy flesh to the right and left, till the dog ceased to struggle. Then Harold flung the huge carcass from him, and struck out, breathless as he was, for the schooner. It was time, for already his pursuers were upon the bank, aiming their pistol shots at the black spot which they could just distinguish cleaving through the water. But a few vigorous strokes carried him beyond their vision and they ceased firing. Soon he heard the sound of muffled oars and a dark shape seemed to rise from the water in front of him. The watch on board the schooner, alarmed by the firing, had sent a boat's crew to reconnoitre. Harold divined that it was so, and hailing the approaching boat, was taken in, and ten minutes afterward, stood, exhausted but safe, upon the schooner's deck.
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{
"id": "12452"
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With the earliest opportunity, Harold proceeded to Washington, and sought an interview with the President, in relation to Arthur's case. Mr. Lincoln received him kindly, but could give no information respecting the arrest or alleged criminality of his friend. "There were so many and pressing affairs of state that he could find no room for individual cases in his memory." However, he referred him to the Secretary of War, with a request that the latter would look into the matter. By dint of persistent inquiries at various sources, Harold finally ascertained that the prisoner had a few days previously been released, upon the assurance of the surgeon at the fort, that his failing health required his immediate removal. Inquiry had been made into the circumstances leading to his arrest; made too late, however, to benefit the victim of a State mistake, whose delicate health had already been too severely tried by the discomforts attendant upon his situation. However, enough had been ascertained to leave but little doubt as to his innocence; and Arthur, with the ghastly signs of a rapid consumption upon his wan cheek, was dismissed from the portals of a prison, which had already prepared him for the tomb.
Harold hastened to Vermont, whither he knew the invalid had been conveyed. It was toward the close of the first autumn day that he entered the little village, upon whose outskirts was situated the farm of his dying friend. The air was mild and balmy, but the voices of nature seemed to him more hushed than usual, as if in mournful unison with his own sad reveries. He had passed on foot from the village to the farm-house, and when he opened the little white wicket, and walked along the gravelled avenue that led to the flower-clad porch, the willows on either side seemed to droop lower than willows are used to droop, and the soft September air sighed through the swinging boughs, like the prelude of a dirge.
Arthur was reclining upon an easy-chair upon the little porch, and beside him sat a venerable lady, reading from the worn silver-clasped Bible, which rested on her lap. The lady rose when he approached; and Arthur, whose gaze had been wandering among the autumn clouds, that wreathed the points of the far-off mountains, turned his head languidly, when the footsteps broke his dream.
He did not rise. Alas! he was too weak to do so without the support of his aged mother's arm, which had so often cradled him in infancy and had now become the staff of his broken manhood. But a beautiful and happy smile illumined his pale lips, and spread all over the thin and wasted features, like sunlight gleaming on the grey surface of a church-yard stone. He lifted his attenuated hand, and when Harold clasped it, the fingers were so cold and deathlike that their pressure seemed to close about his heart, compressing it, and chilling the life current in his veins.
"I knew that you would come, Harold. Although I read that you were missing at the close of that dreadful battle, something told me that we should meet again. Whether it was a sick man's fancy, or the foresight of a parting soul, it is realized, for you are here. And you come not too soon, Harold," he added, with a pressure of the feeble hand, "for I am going fast--fast from the discords of earth--fast to the calm and harmony beyond."
"Oh, Arthur, how changed you are!" said Harold, who could not keep from fastening his gaze on the white, sunken cheek and hollow eyes of his dying comrade. "But you will get better now, will you not--now that you are home again, and we can nurse you?"
Arthur shook his head with a mournful smile, and the fit of painful coughing which overtook him answered his friend's vain hope.
"No, Harold, no. All of earth is past to me, even hope. And I am ready, cheerful even, to go, except for the sake of some loved ones that will sorrow for me."
He took his mother's hand as he spoke, and looked at her with touching tenderness, while the poor dame brushed away her tears.
"I have but a brief while to stay behind," she said, "and my sorrow will be less, to know that you have ever been a good son to me. Oh, Mr. Hare, he might have lived to comfort me, and close my old eyes in death, if they had not been so cruel with him, and locked him within prison walls. He, who never dreamed of wrong, and never injured willingly a worm in his path."
"Nay, mother, they were not unkind to me in the fort, and did what they could to make me comfortable. But, Harold, it is wrong. I have thought of it in the long, weary nights in prison, and I have thought of it when I knew that death was beckoning me to come and rest from the thoughts of earth. It is wrong to tamper with the sacred law that shields the citizen. I believe that many a man within those fortress walls is as innocent in the eyes of God as those who sent him there. Yet I accuse none of willful wrong, but only of unconscious error. If the sacrifice of my poor life could shed one ray upon the darkness, I would rejoice to be the victim that I am, of a violated right. But all, statesmen, and chieftains, and humble citizens, are being swept along upon the whirlwinds of passion; all hearts are ablaze with the fiery magnificence of war, and none will take warning till the land shall be desolate, and thousands, stricken in their prime, shall be sleeping--where I shall soon be--beneath the cold sod. I am weary, mother, and chill. Let us go in."
They bore him in and helped him to his bed, where he lay pale and silent, seeming much worse from the fatigue of conversation and the excitement of his meeting with his old college friend. Mrs. Wayne left him in charge of Harold, while she went below to prepare what little nourishment he could take, and to provide refreshment for her guest.
Arthur lay, for a space, with his eyes closed, and apparently in sleep. But he looked up, at last, and stretched out his hand to Harold, who pressed the thin fingers, whiter than the coverlet on which they rested.
"Is mother there?"
"No, Arthur," replied Harold. "Shall I call her?"
"No. I thought to have spoken to you, to-morrow, of something that has been often my theme of thought; but I know not what strange feeling has crept upon me; and perhaps, Harold--for we know not what the morrow may bring--perhaps I had better speak now."
"It hurts you, Arthur; you are too weak. Indeed, you must sleep now, and to-morrow we shall talk."
"No; now, Harold. It will not hurt me, or if it does, it matters little now. Harold, I would fain that no shadow of unkindness should linger between us twain when I am gone."
"Why should there, Arthur? You have been my true friend always, and as such shall I remember you."
"Yet have I wronged you; yet have I caused you much grief and bitterness, and only your own generous nature preserved us from estrangement. Harold, have you heard from _her_?"
"I have seen her, Arthur. During my captivity, she was my jailer; in my sickness, for I was slightly wounded, she was my nurse. I will tell you all about it to-morrow."
"Yes, to-morrow," replied Arthur, breathing heavily. "To-morrow! the word sounds meaningless to me, like something whose significance has left me. Is she well, Harold?"
"Yes."
"And happy?"
"I think so, Arthur. As happy as any of us can be, amid severed ties and dread uncertainties."
"I am glad that she is well. Harold, you will tell her, for I am sure you will meet again, you will tell her it was my dying wish that you two should be united. Will you promise, Harold?"
"I will tell her all that you wish, Arthur."
"I seem to feel that I shall be happy in my grave, to know that, she will be your wife; to know that my guilty love--for I loved her, Harold, and it _was_ guilt to love--to know that it left no poison behind, that its shadow has passed away from the path that you must tread."
"Speak not of guilt, my friend. There could live no crime between two such noble hearts. And had I thought you would have accepted the sacrifice, I could almost have been happy to have given her to you, so much was her happiness the aim of my own love."
"Yes, for you have a glorious heart, Harold; and I thank Heaven that she cannot fail to love you. And you do not think, do you, Harold, that it would be wrong for you two to speak of me when I am gone? I cannot bear to think that you should deem it necessary to drive me from your memories, as one who had stepped in between your hearts. I am sure she will love you none the less for her remembrance of me, and therefore sometimes you will talk together of me, will you not?"
"Yes, we will often talk of you, for what dearer theme to both could we choose; what purer recollections could our memories cherish than of the friend we both loved so much, and who so well deserved our love?"
"And I am forgiven, Harold?"
"Were there aught to be forgiven, I would forgive; but I have never harbored in my most secret heart one trace of anger or resentment toward you. Do not talk more, dear Arthur. To-morrow, perhaps, you will be stronger, and then we will speak again. Here comes your mother, and she will scold me for letting you fatigue yourself so much."
"Raise me a little on the pillow, please. I seem to breathe more heavily to-night. Thank you, I will sleep now. Good night, mother; I will eat the gruel when I wake. I had rather sleep now. Good night, Harold!"
He fell into a slumber almost immediately, and they would not disturb him, although his mother had prepared the food he had been used to take.
"I think he is better to-night. He seems to sleep more tranquilly," said Mrs. Wayne. "If you will step below, I have got a dish of tea for you, and some little supper."
Harold went down and refreshed himself at the widow's neat and hospitable board, and then walked out into the evening, to dissipate, if possible, the cloud that was lowering about his heart. He paced up and down the avenue of willows, and though the fresh night air soothed the fever of his brain, he could not chase away the gloom that weighed upon his spirit. His mind wandered among mournful memories--the field of battle, strewn with the dying and the dead; the hospital where brave suffering men were groaning under the surgeon's knife; the sick chamber, where his friend was dying.
"And I, too," he thought, "have become the craftsman of Death, training my arm and intellect to be cunning in the butchery of my fellows! Wearing the instrument of torture at my side, and using the faculties God gave me to mutilate His image. Yet, from the pulpit and the statesman's chair, and far back through ages from the pages of history, precept and example have sought to record its justification, under the giant plea of necessity. But is it justified? Has man, in his enlightenment, sufficiently studied to throw aside the hereditary errors that come from the past, clothed in barbarous splendors to mislead thought and dazzle conscience? Oh, for one glimpse of the Eternal Truth! to teach us how far is delegated to mortal man the right to take away the life he cannot give. When shall the sword be held accursed? When shall man cease to meddle with the most awful prerogative of his God? When shall our right hands be cleansed forever from the stain of blood, and homicide be no longer a purpose and a glory upon earth? I shudder when I look up at the beautiful serenity of this autumn sky, and remember that my deed has loosened an immortal soul from its clay, and hurled it, unprepared, into its Maker's presence. My conscience would rebuke my hand, should it willfully shatter the sculptor's marble wrought into human shape, or deface the artist's ideal pictured upon canvas, or destroy aught that is beautiful and costly of man's ingenuity and labor. And yet these I might replace with emptying a purse into the craftsman's hand. But will my gold recall the vital spark into those cold forms that, stricken by my steel or bullet, are rotting in their graves? The masterpiece of God I have destroyed. His image have I defaced; the wonderful mechanism that He alone can mold, and molded for His own holy purpose, have I shattered and dismembered; the soul, an essence of His own eternity, have I chased from its alotted earthly home, and I rely for my justification upon--what? --the fact that my victim differed from me in political belief. Must the hand of man be raised against the workmanship of God because an earthly bond has been sundered? Our statesmen teach us so, the ministers of our faith pronounce it just; but, oh God! should it be wrong! When the blood is hot, when the heart throbs with exaltation, when martial music swells, and the war-steed prances, and the bayonets gleam in the bright sunlight--then I think not of the doubt, nor of the long train of horrors, the tears, the bereavements, the agonies, of which this martial magnificence is but the vanguard. But now, in the still calmness of the night, when all around me and above me breathes of the loveliness and holiness of peace, I fear. I question nature, hushed as she is and smiling in repose, and her calm beauty tells me that Peace is sacred; that her Master sanctions no discords among His children. I question my own conscience, and it tells me that the sword wins not the everlasting triumph--that the voice of war finds no echo within the gates of heaven."
Ill-comforted by his reflections, he returned to the quiet dwelling, and entered the chamber of his friend.
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The sufferer was still sleeping, and Mrs. Wayne was watching by the bedside. Harold seated himself beside her, and gazed mournfully upon the pale, still features that already, but for the expression of pain that lingered there, seemed to have passed from the quiet of sleep to the deeper calm of death.
"Each moment that I look," said Mrs. Wayne, wiping her tears away, "I seem to see the grey shadows of the grave stealing over his brow. The doctor was here a few moments before you came. The minister, too, sat with him all the morning. I know from their kind warning that I shall soon be childless. He has but a few hours to be with me. Oh, my son! my son!"
She bent her head upon the pillow, and wept silently in the bitterness of her heart. Harold forebore to check that holy grief; but when the old lady, with Christian resignation, had recovered her composure, he pressed her to seek that repose which her aged frame so much needed.
"I will sit by Arthur while you rest awhile; you have already overtasked your strength with vigil. I will awake you should there be a change."
She consented to lie upon the sofa, and soon wept herself to sleep, for she was really quite broken down with watching. Everything was hushed around, save the monotones of the insects in the fields, and the breathing of those that slept. If there is an hour when the soul is lifted above earth and communes with holy things, it is in the stillness of the country night, when the solitary watcher sits beside the pillow of a loved one, waiting the coming of the dark angel, whose footsteps are at the threshold. Harold sat gazing silently at the face of the invalid; sometimes a feeble smile would struggle with the lines of suffering upon the pinched and haggard lineaments, and once from the white lips came the murmur of a name, so low that only the solemn stillness made the sound palpable--the name of Oriana.
Toward midnight, Arthur's breathing became more difficult and painful, and his features changed so rapidly that Harold became fearful that the end was come. With a sigh, he stepped softly to the sofa, and wakened Mrs. Wayne, taking her gently by the hand which trembled in his grasp. She knew that she was awakened to a terrible sorrow--that she was about to bid farewell to the joy of her old age. Arthur opened his eyes, but the weeping mother turned from them; she could not bear to meet them, for already the glassy film was veiling the azure depths whose light had been so often turned to her in tenderness.
"Give me some air, mother. It is so close--I cannot breathe."
They raised him upon the pillow, and his mother supported the languid head upon her bosom.
"Arthur, my son! are you suffering, my poor boy?"
"Yes. It will pass away. Do not grieve. Kiss me, dear mother."
He was gasping for breath, and his hand was tightly clasped about his mother's withered palm. She wiped the dampness from his brow, mingling her tears with the cold dews of death.
"Is Harold there?"
"Yes, Arthur."
"You will not forget? And you will love and guard her well?"
"Yes, Arthur."
"Put away the sword, Harold; it is accursed of God. Is not that the moonlight that streams upon the bed?"
"Yes. Does it disturb you, Arthur?"
"No. Let it come in. Let it all come in; it seems a flood of glory."
His voice grew faint, till they could scarce hear its murmur. His breathing was less painful, and the old smile began to wreathe about his lips, smoothing the lines of pain.
"Kiss me, dear mother! You need not hold me. I am well enough--I am happy, mother. I can sleep now."
He slept no earthly slumber. As the summer air that wafts a rose-leaf from its stem, gently his last sigh stole upon the stillness of the night. Harold lifted the lifeless form from the mother's arms, and when it drooped upon the pillow, he turned away, that the parent might close the lids of the dead son.
THE END.
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{
"id": "12452"
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For half a century the housewives of Pont-l’Eveque had envied Madame Aubain her servant Felicite.
For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed, ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry, made the butter and remained faithful to her mistress--although the latter was by no means an agreeable person.
Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without any money, who died in the beginning of 1809, leaving her with two young children and a number of debts. She sold all her property excepting the farm of Toucques and the farm of Geffosses, the income of which barely amounted to 5,000 francs; then she left her house in Saint-Melaine, and moved into a less pretentious one which had belonged to her ancestors and stood back of the market-place. This house, with its slate-covered roof, was built between a passage-way and a narrow street that led to the river. The interior was so unevenly graded that it caused people to stumble. A narrow hall separated the kitchen from the parlour, where Madame Aubain sat all day in a straw armchair near the window. Eight mahogany chairs stood in a row against the white wainscoting. An old piano, standing beneath a barometer, was covered with a pyramid of old books and boxes. On either side of the yellow marble mantelpiece, in Louis XV. style, stood a tapestry armchair. The clock represented a temple of Vesta; and the whole room smelled musty, as it was on a lower level than the garden.
On the first floor was Madame’s bed-chamber, a large room papered in a flowered design and containing the portrait of Monsieur dressed in the costume of a dandy. It communicated with a smaller room, in which there were two little cribs, without any mattresses. Next, came the parlour (always closed), filled with furniture covered with sheets. Then a hall, which led to the study, where books and papers were piled on the shelves of a book-case that enclosed three quarters of the big black desk. Two panels were entirely hidden under pen-and-ink sketches, Gouache landscapes and Audran engravings, relics of better times and vanished luxury. On the second floor, a garret-window lighted Felicite’s room, which looked out upon the meadows.
She arose at daybreak, in order to attend mass, and she worked without interruption until night; then, when dinner was over, the dishes cleared away and the door securely locked, she would bury the log under the ashes and fall asleep in front of the hearth with a rosary in her hand. Nobody could bargain with greater obstinacy, and as for cleanliness, the lustre on her brass sauce-pans was the envy and despair of other servants. She was most economical, and when she ate she would gather up crumbs with the tip of her finger, so that nothing should be wasted of the loaf of bread weighing twelve pounds which was baked especially for her and lasted three weeks.
Summer and winter she wore a dimity kerchief fastened in the back with a pin, a cap which concealed her hair, a red skirt, grey stockings, and an apron with a bib like those worn by hospital nurses.
Her face was thin and her voice shrill. When she was twenty-five, she looked forty. After she had passed fifty, nobody could tell her age; erect and silent always, she resembled a wooden figure working automatically.
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{
"id": "1253"
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Like every other woman, she had had an affair of the heart. Her father, who was a mason, was killed by falling from a scaffolding. Then her mother died and her sisters went their different ways; a farmer took her in, and while she was quite small, let her keep cows in the fields. She was clad in miserable rags, beaten for the slightest offence and finally dismissed for a theft of thirty sous which she did not commit. She took service on another farm where she tended the poultry; and as she was well thought of by her master, her fellow-workers soon grew jealous.
One evening in August (she was then eighteen years old), they persuaded her to accompany them to the fair at Colleville. She was immediately dazzled by the noise, the lights in the trees, the brightness of the dresses, the laces and gold crosses, and the crowd of people all hopping at the same time. She was standing modestly at a distance, when presently a young man of well-to-do appearance, who had been leaning on the pole of a wagon and smoking his pipe, approached her, and asked her for a dance. He treated her to cider and cake, bought her a silk shawl, and then, thinking she had guessed his purpose, offered to see her home. When they came to the end of a field he threw her down brutally. But she grew frightened and screamed, and he walked off.
One evening, on the road leading to Beaumont, she came upon a wagon loaded with hay, and when she overtook it, she recognised Theodore. He greeted her calmly, and asked her to forget what had happened between them, as it “was all the fault of the drink.”
She did not know what to reply and wished to run away.
Presently he began to speak of the harvest and of the notables of the village; his father had left Colleville and bought the farm of Les Ecots, so that now they would be neighbours. “Ah!” she exclaimed. He then added that his parents were looking around for a wife for him, but that he, himself, was not so anxious and preferred to wait for a girl who suited him. She hung her head. He then asked her whether she had ever thought of marrying. She replied, smilingly, that it was wrong of him to make fun of her. “Oh! no, I am in earnest,” he said, and put his left arm around her waist while they sauntered along. The air was soft, the stars were bright, and the huge load of hay oscillated in front of them, drawn by four horses whose ponderous hoofs raised clouds of dust. Without a word from their driver they turned to the right. He kissed her again and she went home. The following week, Theodore obtained meetings.
They met in yards, behind walls or under isolated trees. She was not ignorant, as girls of well-to-do families are--for the animals had instructed her;--but her reason and her instinct of honour kept her from falling. Her resistance exasperated Theodore’s love and so in order to satisfy it (or perchance ingenuously), he offered to marry her. She would not believe him at first, so he made solemn promises. But, in a short time he mentioned a difficulty; the previous year, his parents had purchased a substitute for him; but any day he might be drafted and the prospect of serving in the army alarmed him greatly. To Felicite his cowardice appeared a proof of his love for her, and her devotion to him grew stronger. When she met him, he would torture her with his fears and his entreaties. At last, he announced that he was going to the prefect himself for information, and would let her know everything on the following Sunday, between eleven o’clock and midnight.
When the time grew near, she ran to meet her lover.
But instead of Theodore, one of his friends was at the meeting-place.
He informed her that she would never see her sweetheart again; for, in order to escape the conscription, he had married a rich old woman, Madame Lehoussais, of Toucques.
The poor girl’s sorrow was frightful. She threw herself on the ground, she cried and called on the Lord, and wandered around desolately until sunrise. Then she went back to the farm, declared her intention of leaving, and at the end of the month, after she had received her wages, she packed all her belongings in a handkerchief and started for Pont-l’Eveque.
In front of the inn, she met a woman wearing widow’s weeds, and upon questioning her, learned that she was looking for a cook. The girl did not know very much, but appeared so willing and so modest in her requirements, that Madame Aubain finally said: “Very well, I will give you a trial.”
And half an hour later Felicite was installed in her house.
At first she lived in a constant anxiety that was caused by “the style of the household” and the memory of “Monsieur,” that hovered over everything. Paul and Virginia, the one aged seven, and the other barely four, seemed made of some precious material; she carried them pig-a-back, and was greatly mortified when Madame Aubain forbade her to kiss them every other minute.
But in spite of all this, she was happy. The comfort of her new surroundings had obliterated her sadness.
Every Thursday, friends of Madame Aubain dropped in for a game of cards, and it was Felicite’s duty to prepare the table and heat the foot-warmers. They arrived at exactly eight o’clock and departed before eleven.
Every Monday morning, the dealer in second-hand goods, who lived under the alley-way, spread out his wares on the sidewalk. Then the city would be filled with a buzzing of voices in which the neighing of horses, the bleating of lambs, the grunting of pigs, could be distinguished, mingled with the sharp sound of wheels on the cobble-stones. About twelve o’clock, when the market was in full swing, there appeared at the front door a tall, middle-aged peasant, with a hooked nose and a cap on the back of his head; it was Robelin, the farmer of Geffosses. Shortly afterwards came Liebard, the farmer of Toucques, short, rotund and ruddy, wearing a grey jacket and spurred boots.
Both men brought their landlady either chickens or cheese. Felicite would invariably thwart their ruses and they held her in great respect.
At various times, Madame Aubain received a visit from the Marquis de Gremanville, one of her uncles, who was ruined and lived at Falaise on the remainder of his estates. He always came at dinner-time and brought an ugly poodle with him, whose paws soiled their furniture. In spite of his efforts to appear a man of breeding (he even went so far as to raise his hat every time he said “My deceased father”), his habits got the better of him, and he would fill his glass a little too often and relate broad stories. Felicite would show him out very politely and say: “You have had enough for this time, Monsieur de Gremanville! Hoping to see you again!” and would close the door.
She opened it gladly for Monsieur Bourais, a retired lawyer. His bald head and white cravat, the ruffling of his shirt, his flowing brown coat, the manner in which he took snuff, his whole person, in fact, produced in her the kind of awe which we feel when we see extraordinary persons. As he managed Madame’s estates, he spent hours with her in Monsieur’s study; he was in constant fear of being compromised, had a great regard for the magistracy and some pretensions to learning.
In order to facilitate the children’s studies, he presented them with an engraved geography which represented various scenes of the world; cannibals with feather head-dresses, a gorilla kidnapping a young girl, Arabs in the desert, a whale being harpooned, etc.
Paul explained the pictures to Felicite. And, in fact, this was her only literary education.
The children’s studies were under the direction of a poor devil employed at the town-hall, who sharpened his pocket-knife on his boots and was famous for his penmanship.
When the weather was fine, they went to Geffosses. The house was built in the centre of the sloping yard; and the sea looked like a grey spot in the distance. Felicite would take slices of cold meat from the lunch basket and they would sit down and eat in a room next to the dairy. This room was all that remained of a cottage that had been torn down. The dilapidated wall-paper trembled in the drafts. Madame Aubain, overwhelmed by recollections, would hang her head, while the children were afraid to open their mouths. Then, “Why don’t you go and play?” their mother would say; and they would scamper off.
Paul would go to the old barn, catch birds, throw stones into the pond, or pound the trunks of the trees with a stick till they resounded like drums. Virginia would feed the rabbits and run to pick the wild flowers in the fields, and her flying legs would disclose her little embroidered pantalettes. One autumn evening, they struck out for home through the meadows. The new moon illumined part of the sky and a mist hovered like a veil over the sinuosities of the river. Oxen, lying in the pastures, gazed mildly at the passing persons. In the third field, however, several of them got up and surrounded them. “Don’t be afraid,” cried Felicite; and murmuring a sort of lament she passed her hand over the back of the nearest ox; he turned away and the others followed. But when they came to the next pasture, they heard frightful bellowing.
It was a bull which was hidden from them by the fog. He advanced towards the two women, and Madame Aubain prepared to flee for her life. “No, no! not so fast,” warned Felicite. Still they hurried on, for they could hear the noisy breathing of the bull behind them. His hoofs pounded the grass like hammers, and presently he began to gallop! Felicite turned around and threw patches of grass in his eyes. He hung his head, shook his horns and bellowed with fury. Madame Aubain and the children, huddled at the end of the field, were trying to jump over the ditch. Felicite continued to back before the bull, blinding him with dirt, while she shouted to them to make haste.
Madame Aubain finally slid into the ditch, after shoving first Virginia and then Paul into it, and though she stumbled several times she managed, by dint of courage, to climb the other side of it.
The bull had driven Felicite up against a fence; the foam from his muzzle flew in her face and in another minute he would have disembowelled her. She had just time to slip between two bars and the huge animal, thwarted, paused.
For years, this occurrence was a topic of conversation in Pont-l’Eveque. But Felicite took no credit to herself, and probably never knew that she had been heroic.
Virginia occupied her thoughts solely, for the shock she had sustained gave her a nervous affection, and the physician, M. Poupart, prescribed the salt-water bathing at Trouville. In those days, Trouville was not greatly patronised. Madame Aubain gathered information, consulted Bourais, and made preparations as if they were going on an extended trip.
The baggage was sent the day before on Liebard’s cart. On the following morning, he brought around two horses, one of which had a woman’s saddle with a velveteen back to it, while on the crupper of the other was a rolled shawl that was to be used for a seat. Madame Aubain mounted the second horse, behind Liebard. Felicite took charge of the little girl, and Paul rode M. Lechaptois’ donkey, which had been lent for the occasion on the condition that they should be careful of it.
The road was so bad that it took two hours to cover the eight miles. The two horses sank knee-deep into the mud and stumbled into ditches; sometimes they had to jump over them. In certain places, Liebard’s mare stopped abruptly. He waited patiently till she started again, and talked of the people whose estates bordered the road, adding his own moral reflections to the outline of their histories. Thus, when they were passing through Toucques, and came to some windows draped with nasturtiums, he shrugged his shoulders and said: “There’s a woman, Madame Lehoussais, who, instead of taking a young man--” Felicite could not catch what followed; the horses began to trot, the donkey to gallop, and they turned into a lane; then a gate swung open, two farm-hands appeared and they all dismounted at the very threshold of the farm-house.
Mother Liebard, when she caught sight of her mistress, was lavish with joyful demonstrations. She got up a lunch which comprised a leg of mutton, tripe, sausages, a chicken fricassee, sweet cider, a fruit tart and some preserved prunes; then to all this the good woman added polite remarks about Madame, who appeared to be in better health, Mademoiselle, who had grown to be “superb,” and Paul, who had become singularly sturdy; she spoke also of their deceased grandparents, whom the Liebards had known, for they had been in the service of the family for several generations.
Like its owners, the farm had an ancient appearance. The beams of the ceiling were mouldy, the walls black with smoke and the windows grey with dust. The oak sideboard was filled with all sorts of utensils, plates, pitchers, tin bowls, wolf-traps. The children laughed when they saw a huge syringe. There was not a tree in the yard that did not have mushrooms growing around its foot, or a bunch of mistletoe hanging in its branches. Several of the trees had been blown down, but they had started to grow in the middle and all were laden with quantities of apples. The thatched roofs, which were of unequal thickness, looked like brown velvet and could resist the fiercest gales. But the wagon-shed was fast crumbling to ruins. Madame Aubain said that she would attend to it, and then gave orders to have the horses saddled.
It took another thirty minutes to reach Trouville. The little caravan dismounted in order to pass Les Ecores, a cliff that overhangs the bay, and a few minutes later, at the end of the dock, they entered the yard of the Golden Lamb, an inn kept by Mother David.
During the first few days, Virginia felt stronger, owing to the change of air and the action of the sea-baths. She took them in her little chemise, as she had no bathing suit, and afterwards her nurse dressed her in the cabin of a customs officer, which was used for that purpose by other bathers.
In the afternoon, they would take the donkey and go to the Roches-Noires, near Hennequeville. The path led at first through undulating grounds, and thence to a plateau, where pastures and tilled fields alternated. At the edge of the road, mingling with the brambles, grew holly bushes, and here and there stood large dead trees whose branches traced zigzags upon the blue sky.
Ordinarily, they rested in a field facing the ocean, with Deauville on their left, and Havre on their right. The sea glittered brightly in the sun and was as smooth as a mirror, and so calm that they could scarcely distinguish its murmur; sparrows chirped joyfully and the immense canopy of heaven spread over it all. Madame Aubain brought out her sewing, and Virginia amused herself by braiding reeds; Felicite wove lavender blossoms, while Paul was bored and wished to go home.
Sometimes they crossed the Toucques in a boat, and started to hunt for sea-shells. The outgoing tide exposed star-fish and sea-urchins, and the children tried to catch the flakes of foam which the wind blew away. The sleepy waves lapping the sand unfurled themselves along the shore that extended as far as the eye could see, but where land began, it was limited by the downs which separated it from the “Swamp,” a large meadow shaped like a hippodrome. When they went home that way, Trouville, on the slope of a hill below, grew larger and larger as they advanced, and, with all its houses of unequal height, seemed to spread out before them in a sort of giddy confusion.
When the heat was too oppressive, they remained in their rooms. The dazzling sunlight cast bars of light between the shutters. Not a sound in the village, not a soul on the sidewalk. This silence intensified the tranquility of everything. In the distance, the hammers of some calkers pounded the hull of a ship, and the sultry breeze brought them an odour of tar.
The principal diversion consisted in watching the return of the fishing-smacks. As soon as they passed the beacons, they began to ply to windward. The sails were lowered to one third of the masts, and with their fore-sails swelled up like balloons they glided over the waves and anchored in the middle of the harbour. Then they crept up alongside of the dock and the sailors threw the quivering fish over the side of the boat; a line of carts was waiting for them, and women with white caps sprang forward to receive the baskets and embrace their men-folk.
One day, one of them spoke to Felicite, who, after a little while, returned to the house gleefully. She had found one of her sisters, and presently Nastasie Barette, wife of Leroux, made her appearance, holding an infant in her arms, another child by the hand, while on her left was a little cabin-boy with his hands in his pockets and his cap on his ear.
At the end of fifteen minutes, Madame Aubain bade her go.
They always hung around the kitchen, or approached Felicite when she and the children were out walking. The husband, however, did not show himself.
Felicite developed a great fondness for them; she bought them a stove, some shirts and a blanket; it was evident that they exploited her. Her foolishness annoyed Madame Aubain, who, moreover did not like the nephew’s familiarity, for he called her son “thou”;--and, as Virginia began to cough and the season was over, she decided to return to Pont-l’Eveque.
Monsieur Bourais assisted her in the choice of a college. The one at Caen was considered the best. So Paul was sent away and bravely said good-bye to them all, for he was glad to go to live in a house where he would have boy companions.
Madame Aubain resigned herself to the separation from her son because it was unavoidable. Virginia brooded less and less over it. Felicite regretted the noise he made, but soon a new occupation diverted her mind; beginning from Christmas, she accompanied the little girl to her catechism lesson every day.
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After she had made a curtsey at the threshold, she would walk up the aisle between the double lines of chairs, open Madame Aubain’s pew, sit down and look around.
Girls and boys, the former on the right, the latter on the left-hand side of the church, filled the stalls of the choir; the priest stood beside the reading-desk; on one stained window of the side-aisle the Holy Ghost hovered over the Virgin; on another one, Mary knelt before the Child Jesus, and behind the altar, a wooden group represented Saint Michael felling the dragon.
The priest first read a condensed lesson of sacred history. Felicite evoked Paradise, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the blazing cities, the dying nations, the shattered idols; and out of this she developed a great respect for the Almighty and a great fear of His wrath. Then, when she had listened to the Passion, she wept. Why had they crucified Him who loved little children, nourished the people, made the blind see, and who, out of humility, had wished to be born among the poor, in a stable? The sowings, the harvests, the wine-presses, all those familiar things which the Scriptures mention, formed a part of her life; the word of God sanctified them; and she loved the lambs with increased tenderness for the sake of the Lamb, and the doves because of the Holy Ghost.
She found it hard, however, to think of the latter as a person, for was it not a bird, a flame, and sometimes only a breath? Perhaps it is its light that at night hovers over swamps, its breath that propels the clouds, its voice that renders church-bells harmonious. And Felicite worshipped devoutly, while enjoying the coolness and the stillness of the church.
As for the dogma, she could not understand it and did not even try. The priest discoursed, the children recited, and she went to sleep, only to awaken with a start when they were leaving the church and their wooden shoes clattered on the stone pavement.
In this way, she learned her catechism, her religious education having been neglected in her youth; and thenceforth she imitated all Virginia’s religious practices, fasted when she did, and went to confession with her. At the Corpus-Christi Day they both decorated an altar.
She worried in advance over Virginia’s first communion. She fussed about the shoes, the rosary, the book and the gloves. With what nervousness she helped the mother dress the child!
During the entire ceremony, she felt anguished. Monsieur Bourais hid part of the choir from view, but directly in front of her, the flock of maidens, wearing white wreaths over their lowered veils, formed a snow-white field, and she recognised her darling by the slenderness of her neck and her devout attitude. The bell tinkled. All the heads bent and there was a silence. Then, at the peals of the organ the singers and the worshippers struck up the Agnes Dei; the boys’ procession began; behind them came the girls. With clasped hands, they advanced step by step to the lighted altar, knelt at the first step, received one by one the Host, and returned to their seats in the same order. When Virginia’s turn came, Felicite leaned forward to watch her, and through that imagination which springs from true affection, she at once became the child, whose face and dress became hers, whose heart beat in her bosom, and when Virginia opened her mouth and closed her lids, she did likewise and came very near fainting.
The following day, she presented herself early at the church so as to receive communion from the cure. She took it with the proper feeling, but did not experience the same delight as on the previous day.
Madame Aubain wished to make an accomplished girl of her daughter; and as Guyot could not teach English or music, she decided to send her to the Ursulines at Honfleur.
The child made no objection, but Felicite sighed and thought Madame was heartless. Then, she thought that perhaps her mistress was right, as these things were beyond her sphere. Finally, one day, an old fiacre stopped in front of the door and a nun stepped out. Felicite put Virginia’s luggage on top of the carriage, gave the coachman some instructions, and smuggled six jars of jam, a dozen pears and a bunch of violets under the seat.
At the last minute, Virginia had a fit of sobbing; she embraced her mother again and again, while the latter kissed her on the forehead, and said: “Now, be brave, be brave!” The step was pulled up and the fiacre rumbled off.
Then Madame Aubain had a fainting spell, and that evening all her friends, including the two Lormeaus, Madame Lechaptois, the ladies Rochefeuille, Messieurs de Houppeville and Bourais, called on her and tendered their sympathy.
At first the separation proved very painful to her. But her daughter wrote her three times a week and the other days she, herself, wrote to Virginia. Then she walked in the garden, read a little, and in this way managed to fill out the emptiness of the hours.
Each morning, out of habit, Felicite entered Virginia’s room and gazed at the walls. She missed combing her hair, lacing her shoes, tucking her in her bed, and the bright face and little hand when they used to go out for a walk. In order to occupy herself she tried to make lace. But her clumsy fingers broke the threads; she had no heart for anything, lost her sleep and “wasted away,” as she put it.
In order to have some distraction, she asked leave to receive the visits of her nephew Victor.
He would come on Sunday, after church, with ruddy cheeks and bared chest, bringing with him the scent of the country. She would set the table and they would sit down opposite each other, and eat their dinner; she ate as little as possible, herself, to avoid any extra expense, but would stuff him so with food that he would finally go to sleep. At the first stroke of vespers, she would wake him up, brush his trousers, tie his cravat and walk to church with him, leaning on his arm with maternal pride.
His parents always told him to get something out of her, either a package of brown sugar, or soap, or brandy, and sometimes even money. He brought her his clothes to mend, and she accepted the task gladly, because it meant another visit from him.
In August, his father took him on a coasting-vessel.
It was vacation time and the arrival of the children consoled Felicite. But Paul was capricious, and Virginia was growing too old to be thee-and-thou’d, a fact which seemed to produce a sort of embarrassment in their relations.
Victor went successively to Morlaix, to Dunkirk, and to Brighton; whenever he returned from a trip he would bring her a present. The first time it was a box of shells; the second, a coffee-cup; the third, a big doll of ginger-bread. He was growing handsome, had a good figure, a tiny moustache, kind eyes, and a little leather cap that sat jauntily on the back of his head. He amused his aunt by telling her stories mingled with nautical expressions.
One Monday, the 14th of July, 1819 (she never forgot the date), Victor announced that he had been engaged on a merchant-vessel and that in two days he would take the steamer at Honfleur and join his sailer, which was going to start from Havre very soon. Perhaps he might be away two years.
The prospect of his departure filled Felicite with despair, and in order to bid him farewell, on Wednesday night, after Madame’s dinner, she put on her pattens and trudged the four miles that separated Pont-l’Eveque from Honfleur.
When she reached the Calvary, instead of turning to the right, she turned to the left and lost herself in coal-yards; she had to retrace her steps; some people she spoke to advised her to hasten. She walked helplessly around the harbour filled with vessels, and knocked against hawsers. Presently the ground sloped abruptly, lights flitted to and fro, and she thought all at once that she had gone mad when she saw some horses in the sky.
Others, on the edge of the dock, neighed at the sight of the ocean. A derrick pulled them up in the air, and dumped them into a boat, where passengers were bustling about among barrels of cider, baskets of cheese and bags of meal; chickens cackled, the captain swore and a cabin-boy rested on the railing, apparently indifferent to his surroundings. Felicite, who did not recognise him, kept shouting: “Victor!” He suddenly raised his eyes, but while she was preparing to rush up to him, they withdrew the gangplank.
The packet, towed by singing women, glided out of the harbour. Her hull squeaked and the heavy waves beat up against her sides. The sail had turned and nobody was visible;--and on the ocean, silvered by the light of the moon, the vessel formed a black spot that grew dimmer and dimmer, and finally disappeared.
When Felicite passed the Calvary again, she felt as if she must entrust that which was dearest to her to the Lord; and for a long while she prayed, with uplifted eyes and a face wet with tears. The city was sleeping; some customs officials were taking the air; and the water kept pouring through the holes of the dam with a deafening roar. The town clock struck two.
The parlour of the convent would not open until morning, and surely a delay would annoy Madame, so, in spite of her desire to see the other child, she went home. The maids of the inn were just arising when she reached Pont-l’Eveque.
So the poor boy would be on the ocean for months! His previous trips had not alarmed her. One can come back from England and Brittany; but America, the colonies, the islands, were all lost in an uncertain region at the very end of the world.
From that time on, Felicite thought solely of her nephew. On warm days she feared he would suffer from thirst, and when it stormed, she was afraid he would be struck by lightning. When she harkened to the wind that rattled in the chimney and dislodged the tiles on the roof, she imagined that he was being buffeted by the same storm, perched on top of a shattered mast, with his whole body bend backward and covered with sea-foam; or,--these were recollections of the engraved geography--he was being devoured by savages, or captured in a forest by apes, or dying on some lonely coast. She never mentioned her anxieties, however.
Madame Aubain worried about her daughter.
The sisters thought that Virginia was affectionate but delicate. The slightest emotion enervated her. She had to give up her piano lessons. Her mother insisted upon regular letters from the convent. One morning, when the postman failed to come, she grew impatient and began to pace to and fro, from her chair to the window. It was really extraordinary! No news since four days!
In order to console her mistress by her own example, Felicite said: “Why, Madame, I haven’t had any news since six months! --” “From whom? --” The servant replied gently: “Why--from my nephew.”
“Oh, yes, your nephew!” And shrugging her shoulders, Madame Aubain continued to pace the floor as if to say: “I did not think of it. --Besides, I do not care, a cabin-boy, a pauper! --but my daughter--what a difference! just think of it! --” Felicite, although she had been reared roughly, was very indignant. Then she forgot about it.
It appeared quite natural to her that one should lose one’s head about Virginia.
The two children were of equal importance; they were united in her heart and their fate was to be the same.
The chemist informed her that Victor’s vessel had reached Havana. He had read the information in a newspaper.
Felicite imagined that Havana was a place where people did nothing but smoke, and that Victor walked around among negroes in a cloud of tobacco. Could a person, in case of need, return by land? How far was it from Pont-l’Eveque? In order to learn these things, she questioned Monsieur Bourais. He reached for his map and began some explanations concerning longitudes, and smiled with superiority at Felicite’s bewilderment. At last, he took a pencil and pointed out an imperceptible black point in the scallops of an oval blotch, adding: “There it is.” She bent over the map; the maze of coloured lines hurt her eyes without enlightening her; and when Bourais asked her what puzzled her, she requested him to show her the house Victor lived in. Bourais threw up his hands, sneezed, and then laughed uproariously; such ignorance delighted his soul; but Felicite failed to understand the cause of his mirth, she whose intelligence was so limited that she perhaps expected to see even the picture of her nephew!
It was two weeks later that Liebard came into the kitchen at market-time, and handed her a letter from her brother-in-law. As neither of them could read, she called upon her mistress.
Madame Aubain, who was counting the stitches of her knitting, laid her work down beside her, opened the letter, started, and in a low tone and with a searching look said: “They tell you of a--misfortune. Your nephew--” He had died. The letter told nothing more.
Felicite dropped on a chair, leaned her head against the back, and closed her lids; presently they grew pink. Then, with drooping head, inert hands and staring eyes she repeated at intervals: “Poor little chap! poor little chap!”
Liebard watched her and sighed. Madame Aubain was trembling.
She proposed to the girl to go to see her sister in Trouville.
With a single motion, Felicite replied that it was not necessary.
There was a silence. Old Liebard thought it about time for him to take leave.
Then Felicite uttered: “They have no sympathy, they do not care!”
Her head fell forward again, and from time to time, mechanically, she toyed with the long knitting-needles on the work-table.
Some women passed through the yard with a basket of wet clothes.
When she saw them through the window, she suddenly remembered her own wash; as she had soaked it the day before, she must go and rinse it now. So she arose and left the room.
Her tub and her board were on the bank of the Toucques. She threw a heap of clothes on the ground, rolled up her sleeves and grasped her bat; and her loud pounding could be heard in the neighbouring gardens. The meadows were empty, the breeze wrinkled the stream, at the bottom of which were long grasses that looked like the hair of corpses floating in the water. She restrained her sorrow and was very brave until night; but, when she had gone to her own room, she gave way to it, burying her face in the pillow and pressing her two fists against her temples.
A long while afterward, she learned through Victor’s captain, the circumstances which surrounded his death. At the hospital they had bled him too much, treating him for yellow fever. Four doctors held him at one time. He died almost instantly, and the chief surgeon had said: “Here goes another one!”
His parents had always treated him barbarously; she preferred not to see them again, and they made no advances, either from forgetfulness or out of innate hardness.
Virginia was growing weaker.
A cough, continual fever, oppressive breathing and spots on her cheeks indicated some serious trouble. Monsieur Popart had advised a sojourn in Provence. Madame Aubain decided that they would go, and she would have had her daughter come home at once, had it not been for the climate of Pont-l’Eveque.
She made an arrangement with a livery-stable man who drove her over to the convent every Tuesday. In the garden there was a terrace, from which the view extends to the Seine. Virginia walked in it, leaning on her mother’s arm and treading the dead vine leaves. Sometimes the sun, shining through the clouds, made her blink her lids, when she gazed at the sails in the distance, and let her eyes roam over the horizon from the chateau of Tancarville to the lighthouses of Havre. Then they rested on the arbour. Her mother had bought a little cask of fine Malaga wine, and Virginia, laughing at the idea of becoming intoxicated, would drink a few drops of it, but never more.
Her strength returned. Autumn passed. Felicite began to reassure Madame Aubain. But, one evening, when she returned home after an errand, she met M. Boupart’s coach in front of the door; M. Boupart himself was standing in the vestibule and Madame Aubain was tying the strings of her bonnet. “Give me my foot-warmer, my purse and my gloves; and be quick about it,” she said.
Virginia had congestion of the lungs; perhaps it was desperate.
“Not yet,” said the physician, and both got into the carriage, while the snow fell in thick flakes. It was almost night and very cold.
Felicite rushed to the church to light a candle. Then she ran after the coach which she overtook after an hour’s chase, sprang up behind and held on to the straps. But suddenly a thought crossed her mind: “The yard had been left open; supposing that burglars got in!” And down she jumped.
The next morning, at daybreak, she called at the doctor’s. He had been home, but had left again. Then she waited at the inn, thinking that strangers might bring her a letter. At last, at daylight she took the diligence for Lisieux.
The convent was at the end of a steep and narrow street. When she arrived about at the middle of it, she heard strange noises, a funeral knell. “It must be for some one else,” thought she; and she pulled the knocker violently.
After several minutes had elapsed, she heard footsteps, the door was half opened and a nun appeared. The good sister, with an air of compunction, told her that “she had just passed away.” And at the same time the tolling of Saint-Leonard’s increased.
Felicite reached the second floor. Already at the threshold, she caught sight of Virginia lying on her back, with clasped hands, her mouth open and her head thrown back, beneath a black crucifix inclined toward her, and stiff curtains which were less white than her face. Madame Aubain lay at the foot of the couch, clasping it with her arms and uttering groans of agony. The Mother Superior was standing on the right side of the bed. The three candles on the bureau made red blurs, and the windows were dimmed by the fog outside. The nuns carried Madame Aubain from the room.
For two nights, Felicite never left the corpse. She would repeat the same prayers, sprinkle holy water over the sheets, get up, come back to the bed and contemplate the body. At the end of the first vigil, she noticed that the face had taken on a yellow tinge, the lips grew blue, the nose grew pinched, the eyes were sunken. She kissed them several times and would not have been greatly astonished had Virginia opened them; to souls like this the supernatural is always quite simple. She washed her, wrapped her in a shroud, put her into the casket, laid a wreath of flowers on her head and arranged her curls. They were blond and of an extraordinary length for her age. Felicite cut off a big lock and put half of it into her bosom, resolving never to part with it.
The body was taken to Pont-l’Eveque, according to Madame Aubain’s wishes; she followed the hearse in a closed carriage.
After the ceremony it took three quarters of an hour to reach the cemetery. Paul, sobbing, headed the procession; Monsieur Bourais followed, and then came the principal inhabitants of the town, the women covered with black capes, and Felicite. The memory of her nephew, and the thought that she had not been able to render him these honours, made her doubly unhappy, and she felt as if he were being buried with Virginia.
Madame Aubain’s grief was uncontrollable. At first she rebelled against God, thinking that he was unjust to have taken away her child--she who had never done anything wrong, and whose conscience was so pure! But no! she ought to have taken her South. Other doctors would have saved her. She accused herself, prayed to be able to join her child, and cried in the midst of her dreams. Of the latter, one more especially haunted her. Her husband, dressed like a sailor, had come back from a long voyage, and with tears in his eyes told her that he had received the order to take Virginia away. Then they both consulted about a hiding-place.
Once she came in from the garden, all upset. A moment before (and she showed the place), the father and daughter had appeared to her, one after the other; they did nothing but look at her.
During several months she remained inert in her room. Felicite scolded her gently; she must keep up for her son and also for the other one, for “her memory.”
“Her memory!” replied Madame Aubain, as if she were just awakening, “Oh! yes, yes, you do not forget her!” This was an allusion to the cemetery where she had been expressly forbidden to go.
But Felicite went there every day. At four o’clock exactly, she would go through the town, climb the hill, open the gate and arrive at Virginia’s tomb. It was a small column of pink marble with a flat stone at its base, and it was surrounded by a little plot enclosed by chains. The flower-beds were bright with blossoms. Felicite watered their leaves, renewed the gravel, and knelt on the ground in order to till the earth properly. When Madame Aubain was able to visit the cemetery she felt very much relieved and consoled.
Years passed, all alike and marked by no other events than the return of the great church holidays: Easter, Assumption, All Saints’ Day. Household happenings constituted the only data to which in later years they often referred. Thus, in 1825, workmen painted the vestibule; in 1827, a portion of the roof almost killed a man by falling into the yard. In the summer of 1828, it was Madame’s turn to offer the hallowed bread; at that time, Bourais disappeared mysteriously; and the old acquaintances, Guyot, Liebard, Madame Lechaptois, Robelin, old Gremanville, paralysed since a long time, passed away one by one. One night, the driver of the mail in Pont-l’Eveque announced the Revolution of July. A few days afterward a new sub-prefect was nominated, the Baron de Larsonniere, ex-consul in America, who, besides his wife, had his sister-in-law and her three grown daughters with him. They were often seen on their lawn, dressed in loose blouses, and they had a parrot and a negro servant. Madame Aubain received a call, which she returned promptly. As soon as she caught sight of them, Felicite would run and notify her mistress. But only one thing was capable of arousing her: a letter from her son.
He could not follow any profession as he was absorbed in drinking. His mother paid his debts and he made fresh ones; and the sighs that she heaved while she knitted at the window reached the ears of Felicite who was spinning in the kitchen.
They walked in the garden together, always speaking of Virginia, and asking each other if such and such a thing would have pleased her, and what she would probably have said on this or that occasion.
All her little belongings were put away in a closet of the room which held the two little beds. But Madame Aubain looked them over as little as possible. One summer day, however, she resigned herself to the task and when she opened the closet the moths flew out.
Virginia’s frocks were hung under a shelf where there were three dolls, some hoops, a doll-house, and a basic which she had used. Felicite and Madame Aubain also took out the skirts, the handkerchiefs, and the stockings and spread them on the beds, before putting them away again. The sun fell on the piteous things, disclosing their spots and the creases formed by the motions of the body. The atmosphere was warm and blue, and a blackbird trilled in the garden; everything seemed to live in happiness. They found a little hat of soft brown plush, but it was entirely moth-eaten. Felicite asked for it. Their eyes met and filled with tears; at last the mistress opened her arms and the servant threw herself against her breast and they hugged each other and giving vent to their grief in a kiss which equalised them for a moment.
It was the first time that this had ever happened, for Madame Aubain was not of an expansive nature. Felicite was as grateful for it as if it had been some favour, and thenceforth loved her with animal-like devotion and a religious veneration.
Her kind-heartedness developed. When she heard the drums of a marching regiment passing through the street, she would stand in the doorway with a jug of cider and give the soldiers a drink. She nursed cholera victims. She protected Polish refugees, and one of them even declared that he wished to marry her. But they quarrelled, for one morning when she returned from the Angelus she found him in the kitchen coolly eating a dish which he had prepared for himself during her absence.
After the Polish refugees, came Colmiche, an old man who was credited with having committed frightful misdeeds in ‘93. He lived near the river in the ruins of a pig-sty. The urchins peeped at him through the cracks in the walls and threw stones that fell on his miserable bed, where he lay gasping with catarrh, with long hair, inflamed eyelids, and a tumour as big as his head on one arm.
She got him some linen, tried to clean his hovel and dreamed of installing him in the bake-house without his being in Madame’s way. When the cancer broke, she dressed it every day; sometimes she brought him some cake and placed him in the sun on a bundle of hay; and the poor old creature, trembling and drooling, would thank her in his broken voice, and put out his hands whenever she left him. Finally he died; and she had a mass said for the repose of his soul.
That day a great joy came to her: at dinner-time, Madame de Larsonniere’s servant called with the parrot, the cage, and the perch and chain and lock. A note from the baroness told Madame Aubain that as her husband had been promoted to a prefecture, they were leaving that night, and she begged her to accept the bird as a remembrance and a token of her esteem.
Since a long time the parrot had been on Felicite’s mind, because he came from America, which reminded her of Victor, and she had approached the negro on the subject.
Once even, she had said: “How glad Madame would be to have him!”
The man had repeated this remark to his mistress who, not being able to keep the bird, took this means of getting rid of it.
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{
"id": "1253"
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He was called Loulou. His body was green, his head blue, the tips of his wings were pink and his breast was golden.
But he had the tiresome tricks of biting his perch, pulling his feathers out, scattering refuse and spilling the water of his bath. Madame Aubain grew tired of him and gave him to Felicite for good.
She undertook his education, and soon he was able to repeat: “Pretty boy! Your servant, sir! I salute you, Marie!” His perch was placed near the door and several persons were astonished that he did not answer to the name of “Jacquot,” for every parrot is called Jacquot. They called him a goose and a log, and these taunts were like so many dagger thrusts to Felicite. Strange stubbornness of the bird which would not talk when people watched him!
Nevertheless, he sought society; for on Sunday, when the ladies Rochefeuille, Monsieur de Houppeville and the new habitues, Onfroy, the chemist, Monsieur Varin and Captain Mathieu, dropped in for their game of cards, he struck the window-panes with his wings and made such a racket that it was impossible to talk.
Bourais’ face must have appeared very funny to Loulou. As soon as he saw him he would begin to roar. His voice re-echoed in the yard, and the neighbours would come to the windows and begin to laugh, too; and in order that the parrot might not see him, Monsieur Bourais edged along the wall, pushed his hat over his eyes to hide his profile, and entered by the garden door, and the looks he gave the bird lacked affection. Loulou, having thrust his head into the butcher-boy’s basket, received a slap, and from that time he always tried to nip his enemy. Fabu threatened to ring his neck, although he was not cruelly inclined, notwithstanding his big whiskers and tattooings. On the contrary, he rather liked the bird, and, out of devilry, tried to teach him oaths. Felicite, whom his manner alarmed, put Loulou in the kitchen, took off his chain and let him walk all over the house.
When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted his right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such feats would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat. There was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens are sometimes afflicted with. Felicite pulled it off with her nails and cured him. One day, Paul was imprudent enough to blow the smoke of his cigar in his face; another time, Madame Lormeau was teasing him with the tip of her umbrella and he swallowed the tip. Finally he got lost.
She had put him on the grass to cool him and went away only for a second; when she returned, she found no parrot! She hunted among the bushes, on the bank of the river, and on the roofs, without paying any attention to Madame Aubain who screamed at her: “Take care! you must be insane!” Then she searched every garden in Pont-l’Eveque and stopped the passers-by to inquire of them: “Haven’t you perhaps seen my parrot?” To those who had never seen the parrot, she described him minutely. Suddenly she thought she saw something green fluttering behind the mills at the foot of the hill. But when she was at the top of the hill she could not see it. A hod-carrier told her that he had just seen the bird in Saint-Melaine, in Mother Simon’s store. She rushed to the place. The people did not know what she was talking about. At last she came home, exhausted, with her slippers worn to shreds, and despair in her heart. She sat down on the bench near Madame and was telling of her search when presently a light weight dropped on her shoulder--Loulou! What the deuce had he been doing? Perhaps he had just taken a little walk around the town!
She did not easily forget her scare; in fact, she never got over it. In consequence of a cold, she caught a sore throat; and some time later she had an earache. Three years later she was stone deaf, and spoke in a very loud voice even in church. Although her sins might have been proclaimed throughout the diocese without any shame to herself, or ill effects to the community, the cure thought it advisable to receive her confession in the vestry-room.
Imaginary buzzings also added to her bewilderment. Her mistress often said to her: “My goodness, how stupid you are!” and she would answer: “Yes, Madame,” and look for something.
The narrow circle of her ideas grew more restricted than it already was; the bellowing of the oxen, the chime of the bells no longer reached her intelligence. All things moved silently, like ghosts. Only one noise penetrated her ears; the parrot’s voice.
As if to divert her mind, he reproduced for her the tick-tack of the spit in the kitchen, the shrill cry of the fish-vendors, the saw of the carpenter who had a shop opposite, and when the door-bell rang, he would imitate Madame Aubain: “Felicite! go to the front door.”
They held conversations together, Loulou repeating the three phrases of his repertory over and over, Felicite replying by words that had no greater meaning, but in which she poured out her feelings. In her isolation, the parrot was almost a son, a love. He climbed upon her fingers, pecked at her lips, clung to her shawl, and when she rocked her head to and fro like a nurse, the big wings of her cap and the wings of the bird flapped in unison. When clouds gathered on the horizon and the thunder rumbled, Loulou would scream, perhaps because he remembered the storms in his native forests. The dripping of the rain would excite him to frenzy; he flapped around, struck the ceiling with his wings, upset everything, and would finally fly into the garden to play. Then he would come back into the room, light on one of the andirons, and hop around in order to get dry.
One morning during the terrible winter of 1837, when she had put him in front of the fire-place on account of the cold, she found him dead in his cage, hanging to the wire bars with his head down. He had probably died of congestion. But she believed that he had been poisoned, and although she had no proofs whatever, her suspicion rested on Fabu.
She wept so sorely that her mistress said: “Why don’t you have him stuffed?”
She asked the advice of the chemist, who had always been kind to the bird.
He wrote to Havre for her. A certain man named Fellacher consented to do the work. But, as the diligence driver often lost parcels entrusted to him, Felicite resolved to take her pet to Honfleur herself.
Leafless apple-trees lined the edges of the road. The ditches were covered with ice. The dogs on the neighbouring farms barked; and Felicite, with her hands beneath her cape, her little black sabots and her basket, trotted along nimbly in the middle of the sidewalk. She crossed the forest, passed by the Haut-Chene, and reached Saint-Gatien.
Behind her, in a cloud of dust and impelled by the steep incline, a mail-coach drawn by galloping horses advanced like a whirlwind. When he saw a woman in the middle of the road, who did not get out of the way, the driver stood up in his seat and shouted to her and so did the postilion, while the four horses, which he could not hold back, accelerated their pace; the two leaders were almost upon her; with a jerk of the reins he threw them to one side, but, furious at the incident, he lifted his big whip and lashed her from her head to her feet with such violence that she fell to the ground unconscious.
Her first thought, when she recovered her senses, was to open the basket. Loulou was unharmed. She felt a sting on her right cheek; when she took her hand away it was red, for the blood was flowing.
She sat down on a pile of stones, and sopped her cheek with her handkerchief; then she ate a crust of bread she had put in her basket, and consoled herself by looking at the bird.
Arriving at the top of Ecquemanville, she saw the lights of Honfleur shining in the distance like so many stars; further on, the ocean spread out in a confused mass. Then a weakness came over her; the misery of her childhood, the disappointment of her first love, the departure of her nephew, the death of Virginia; all these things came back to her at once, and, rising like a swelling tide in her throat, almost choked her.
Then she wished to speak to the captain of the vessel, and without stating what she was sending, she gave him some instructions.
Fellacher kept the parrot a long time. He always promised that it would be ready for the following week; after six months he announced the shipment of a case, and that was the end of it. Really, it seemed as if Loulou would never come back to his home. “They have stolen him,” thought Felicite.
Finally he arrived, sitting bold upright on a branch which could be screwed into a mahogany pedestal, with his foot in the air, his head on one side, and in his beak a nut which the naturalist, from love of the sumptuous, had gilded. She put him in her room.
This place, to which only a chosen few were admitted, looked like a chapel and a second-hand shop, so filled was it with devotional and heterogeneous things. The door could not be opened easily on account of the presence of a large wardrobe. Opposite the window that looked out into the garden, a bull’s-eye opened on the yard; a table was placed by the cot and held a wash-basin, two combs, and a piece of blue soap in a broken saucer. On the walls were rosaries, medals, a number of Holy Virgins, and a holy-water basin made out of a cocoanut; on the bureau, which was covered with a napkin like an altar, stood the box of shells that Victor had given her; also a watering-can and a balloon, writing-books, the engraved geography and a pair of shoes; on the nail which held the mirror, hung Virginia’s little plush hat! Felicite carried this sort of respect so far that she even kept one of Monsieur’s old coats. All the things which Madame Aubain discarded, Felicite begged for her own room. Thus, she had artificial flowers on the edge of the bureau, and the picture of the Comte d’Artois in the recess of the window. By means of a board, Loulou was set on a portion of the chimney which advanced into the room. Every morning when she awoke, she saw him in the dim light of dawn and recalled bygone days and the smallest details of insignificant actions, without any sense of bitterness or grief.
As she was unable to communicate with people, she lived in a sort of somnambulistic torpor. The processions of Corpus-Christi Day seemed to wake her up. She visited the neighbours to beg for candlesticks and mats so as to adorn the temporary altars in the street.
In church, she always gazed at the Holy Ghost, and noticed that there was something about it that resembled a parrot. The likenesses appeared even more striking on a coloured picture by Espinal, representing the baptism of our Saviour. With his scarlet wings and emerald body, it was really the image of Loulou. Having bought the picture, she hung it near the one of the Comte d’Artois so that she could take them in at one glance.
They associated in her mind, the parrot becoming sanctified through the neighbourhood of the Holy Ghost, and the latter becoming more lifelike in her eyes, and more comprehensible. In all probability the Father had never chosen as messenger a dove, as the latter has no voice, but rather one of Loulou’s ancestors. And Felicite said her prayers in front of the coloured picture, though from time to time she turned slightly towards the bird.
She desired very much to enter in the ranks of the “Daughters of the Virgin.” But Madame Aubain dissuaded her from it.
A most important event occurred: Paul’s marriage.
After being first a notary’s clerk, then in business, then in the customs, and a tax collector, and having even applied for a position in the administration of woods and forests, he had at last, when he was thirty-six years old, by a divine inspiration, found his vocation: registrature! and he displayed such a high ability that an inspector had offered him his daughter and his influence.
Paul, who had become quite settled, brought his bride to visit his mother.
But she looked down upon the customs of Pont-l’Eveque, put on airs, and hurt Felicite’s feelings. Madame Aubain felt relieved when she left.
The following week they learned of Monsieur Bourais’ death in an inn. There were rumours of suicide, which were confirmed; doubts concerning his integrity arose. Madame Aubain looked over her accounts and soon discovered his numerous embezzlements; sales of wood which had been concealed from her, false receipts, etc. Furthermore, he had an illegitimate child, and entertained a friendship for “a person in Dozule.”
These base actions affected her very much. In March, 1853, she developed a pain in her chest; her tongue looked as if it were coated with smoke, and the leeches they applied did not relieve her oppression; and on the ninth evening she died, being just seventy-two years old.
People thought that she was younger, because her hair, which she wore in bands framing her pale face, was brown. Few friends regretted her loss, for her manner was so haughty that she did not attract them. Felicite mourned for her as servants seldom mourn for their masters. The fact that Madame should die before herself perplexed her mind and seemed contrary to the order of things, and absolutely monstrous and inadmissible. Ten days later (the time to journey from Besancon), the heirs arrived. Her daughter-in-law ransacked the drawers, kept some of the furniture, and sold the rest; then they went back to their own home.
Madame’s armchair, foot-warmer, work-table, the eight chairs, everything was gone! The places occupied by the pictures formed yellow squares on the walls. They had taken the two little beds, and the wardrobe had been emptied of Virginia’s belongings! Felicite went upstairs, overcome with grief.
The following day a sign was posted on the door; the chemist screamed in her ear that the house was for sale.
For a moment she tottered, and had to sit down.
What hurt her most was to give up her room,--so nice for poor Loulou! She looked at him in despair and implored the Holy Ghost, and it was this way that she contracted the idolatrous habit of saying her prayers kneeling in front of the bird. Sometimes the sun fell through the window on his glass eye, and lighted a spark in it which sent Felicite into ecstasy.
Her mistress had left her an income of three hundred and eighty francs. The garden supplied her with vegetables. As for clothes, she had enough to last her till the end of her days, and she economised on the light by going to bed at dusk.
She rarely went out, in order to avoid passing in front of the second-hand dealer’s shop where there was some of the old furniture. Since her fainting spell, she dragged her leg, and as her strength was failing rapidly, old Mother Simon, who had lost her money in the grocery business, came very morning to chop the wood and pump the water.
Her eyesight grew dim. She did not open the shutters after that. Many years passed. But the house did not sell or rent. Fearing that she would be put out, Felicite did not ask for repairs. The laths of the roof were rotting away, and during one whole winter her bolster was wet. After Easter she spit blood.
Then Mother Simon went for a doctor. Felicite wished to know what her complaint was. But, being too deaf to hear, she caught only one word: “Pneumonia.” She was familiar with it and gently answered:--“Ah! like Madame,” thinking it quite natural that she should follow her mistress.
The time for the altars in the street drew near.
The first one was always erected at the foot of the hill, the second in front of the post-office, and the third in the middle of the street. This position occasioned some rivalry among the women and they finally decided upon Madame Aubain’s yard.
Felicite’s fever grew worse. She was sorry that she could not do anything for the altar. If she could, at least, have contributed something towards it! Then she thought of the parrot. Her neighbours objected that it would not be proper. But the cure gave his consent and she was so grateful for it that she begged him to accept after her death, her only treasure, Loulou. From Tuesday until Saturday, the day before the event, she coughed more frequently. In the evening her face was contracted, her lips stuck to her gums and she began to vomit; and on the following day, she felt so low that she called for a priest.
Three neighbours surrounded her when the dominie administered the Extreme Unction. Afterwards she said that she wished to speak to Fabu.
He arrived in his Sunday clothes, very ill at ease among the funereal surroundings.
“Forgive me,” she said, making an effort to extend her arm, “I believed it was you who killed him!”
What did such accusations mean? Suspect a man like him of murder! And Fabu became excited and was about to make trouble.
“Don’t you see she is not in her right mind?”
From time to time Felicite spoke to shadows. The women left her and Mother Simon sat down to breakfast.
A little later, she took Loulou and holding him up to Felicite: “Say good-bye to him, now!” she commanded.
Although he was not a corpse, he was eaten up by worms; one of his wings was broken and the wadding was coming out of his body. But Felicite was blind now, and she took him and laid him against her cheek. Then Mother Simon removed him in order to set him on the altar.
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The grass exhaled an odour of summer; flies buzzed in the air, the sun shone on the river and warmed the slated roof. Old Mother Simon had returned to Felicite and was peacefully falling asleep.
The ringing of bells woke her; the people were coming out of church. Felicite’s delirium subsided. By thinking of the procession, she was able to see it as if she had taken part in it. All the school-children, the singers and the firemen walked on the sidewalks, while in the middle of the street came first the custodian of the church with his halberd, then the beadle with a large cross, the teacher in charge of the boys and a sister escorting the little girls; three of the smallest ones, with curly heads, threw rose leaves into the air; the deacon with outstretched arms conducted the music; and two incense-bearers turned with each step they took toward the Holy Sacrament, which was carried by M. le Cure, attired in his handsome chasuble and walking under a canopy of red velvet supported by four men. A crowd of people followed, jammed between the walls of the houses hung with white sheets; at last the procession arrived at the foot of the hill.
A cold sweat broke out on Felicite’s forehead. Mother Simon wiped it away with a cloth, saying inwardly that some day she would have to go through the same thing herself.
The murmur of the crowd grew louder, was very distinct for a moment and then died away. A volley of musketry shook the window-panes. It was the postilions saluting the Sacrament. Felicite rolled her eyes, and said as loudly as she could: “Is he all right?” meaning the parrot.
Her death agony began. A rattle that grew more and more rapid shook her body. Froth appeared at the corners of her mouth, and her whole frame trembled. In a little while could be heard the music of the bass horns, the clear voices of the children and the men’s deeper notes. At intervals all was still, and their shoes sounded like a herd of cattle passing over the grass.
The clergy appeared in the yard. Mother Simon climbed on a chair to reach the bull’s-eye, and in this manner could see the altar. It was covered with a lace cloth and draped with green wreaths. In the middle stood a little frame containing relics; at the corners were two little orange-trees, and all along the edge were silver candlesticks, porcelain vases containing sun-flowers, lilies, peonies, and tufts of hydrangeas. This mount of bright colours descended diagonally from the first floor to the carpet that covered the sidewalk. Rare objects arrested one’s eye. A golden sugar-bowl was crowned with violets, earrings set with Alencon stones were displayed on green moss, and two Chinese screens with their bright landscapes were near by. Loulou, hidden beneath roses, showed nothing but his blue head which looked like a piece of lapis-lazuli.
The singers, the canopy-bearers and the children lined up against the sides of the yard. Slowly the priest ascended the steps and placed his shining sun on the lace cloth. Everybody knelt. There was deep silence; and the censers slipping on their chains were swung high in the air. A blue vapour rose in Felicite’s room. She opened her nostrils and inhaled with a mystic sensuousness; then she closed her lids. Her lips smiled. The beats of her heart grew fainter and fainter, and vaguer, like a fountain giving out, like an echo dying away;--and when she exhaled her last breath, she thought she saw in the half-opened heavens a gigantic parrot hovering above her head.
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{
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Introduction of divers parties and a red-herring.
It was in the month of January, 1699, that a one-masted vessel, with black sides, was running along the coast near Beachy Head, at the rate of about five miles per hour. The wind was from the northward and blew keenly, the vessel was under easy sail, and the water was smooth. It was now broad daylight, and the sun rose clear of clouds and vapour; but he threw out light without heat. The upper parts of the spars, the hammock rails, and the small iron guns which were mounted on the vessel's decks, were covered with a white frost. The man at the helm stood muffled up in a thick pea-jacket and mittens, which made his hands appear as large as his feet. His nose was a pug of an intense bluish red, one tint arising from the present cold, and the other from the preventive checks which he had been so long accustomed to take to drive out such an unpleasant intruder. His grizzled hair waved its locks gently to the wind, and his face was distorted with an immoderate quid of tobacco which protruded his right cheek. This personage was second officer and steersman on board of the vessel, and his name was Obadiah Coble. He had been baptised Obadiah about sixty years before; that is to say if he had been baptised at all. He stood so motionless at the helm, that you might have imagined him to have been frozen there as he stood, were it not that his eyes occasionally wandered from the compass on the binnacle to the bows of the vessel, and that the breath from his mouth, when it was thrown out into the clear frosty air, formed a smoke like to that from the spout of a half-boiling tea-kettle.
The crew belonging to the cutter, for she was a vessel in the service of his Majesty, King William the Third, at this time employed in protecting his Majesty's revenue against the importation of alamodes and lutestrings, were all down below at their breakfasts, with the exception of the steersman and lieutenant-commandant, who now walked the quarter-deck, if so small an extent of plank could be dignified with such a name. He was a Mr Cornelius Vanslyperken, a tall, meagre-looking personage, with very narrow shoulders and very small head. Perfectly straight up and down, protruding in no part, he reminded you of some tall parish pump, with a great knob at its top. His face was gaunt, cheeks hollow, nose and chin showing an affection for each other, and evidently lamenting the gulf between them which prevented their meeting. Both appeared to have fretted themselves to the utmost degree of tenuity from disappointment in love: as for the nose, it had a pearly round tear hanging at its tip, as if it wept. The dress of Mr Vanslyperken was hidden in a great coat, which was very long, and buttoned straight down. This great coat had two pockets on each side, into which its owner's hands were deeply inserted, and so close did his arms lie to his sides, that they appeared nothing more than as would battens nailed to a topsail yard. The only deviation from the perpendicular was from the insertion of a speaking-trumpet under his left arm, at right angles with his body. It had evidently seen much service, was battered, and the clack Japan worn off in most parts of it. As we said before, Mr Vanslyperken walked his quarter-deck. He was in a brown study, yet looked blue. Six strides brought him to the taffrail of the vessel, six more to the bows, such was the length of his tether--and he turned, and turned again.
But there was another personage on the deck, a personage of no small importance, as he was all in all to Mr Vanslyperken, and Mr Vanslyperken was all in all to him; moreover, we may say, that he is the hero of the TAIL. This was one of the ugliest and most ill-conditioned curs which had ever been produced:--ugly in colour; for he was of a dirty yellow, like the paint served out to decorate our men-of-war by his Majesty's dock-yards:--ugly in face; for he had one wall-eye, and was so far under-jawed as to prove that a bull-dog had had something to do with his creation:--ugly in shape; for although larger than a pointer, and strongly built, he was coarse and shambling in his make, with his forelegs bowed out. His ears and tail had never been docked, which was a pity, as the more you curtailed his proportions, the better looking the cur would have been. But his ears, although not cut, were torn to ribbons by the various encounters with dogs on shore, arising from the acidity of his temper. His tail had lost its hair from an inveterate mange, and reminded you of the same appendage to a rat. Many parts of his body were bared from the same disease. He carried his head and tail low, and had a villanous sour look. To the eye of a casual observer, there was not one redeeming quality that would warrant his keep; to those who knew him well, there were a thousand reasons why he should be hanged. He followed his master with the greatest precision and exactitude, walking aft as he walked aft, and walking forward with the same regular motion, turning when his master turned, and moreover, turning in the same direction; and, like his master, he appeared to be not a little nipped with the cold, and, as well as he, in a state of profound meditation. The name of this uncouth animal was very appropriate to his appearance, and to his temper. It was Snarleyyow.
At last, Mr Vanslyperken gave vent to his pent-up feelings. "I can't, I won't stand this any longer," muttered the lieutenant, as he took his six strides forward. At this first sound of his master's voice the dog pricked up the remnants of his ears, and they both turned aft. "She has been now fooling me for six years;" and as he concluded this sentence, Mr Vanslyperken and Snarleyyow had reached the taffrail, and the dog raised his tail to the half cock.
They turned, and Mr Vanslyperken paused a moment or two, and compressed his thin lips--the dog did the same. "I will have an answer, by all that's blue!" was the ejaculation of the next six strides. The lieutenant stopped again, and the dog looked up in his master's face; but it appeared as if the current of his master's thoughts was changed, for the current of keen air reminded Mr Vanslyperken that he had not yet had his breakfast.
The lieutenant leant over the hatchway, took his battered speaking-trumpet from under his arm, and putting it to his mouth, the deck reverberated with, "Pass the word for Smallbones forward." The dog put himself in a baying attitude, with his forefeet on the coamings of the hatchway, and enforced his master's orders with a deep-toned and measured bow, wow, wow.
Smallbones soon made his appearance, rising from the hatchway like a ghost; a thin, shambling personage, apparently about twenty years old--a pale, cadaverous face, high cheek-bones, goggle eyes, with lank hair very thinly sown upon a head, which, like bad soil, would return but a scanty harvest. He looked like Famine's eldest son just arriving to years of discretion. His long lanky legs were pulled so far through his trousers, that his bare feet, and half way up to his knees, were exposed to the chilling blast. The sleeves of his jacket were so short, that four inches of bone above his wrist were bared to view--hat he had none--his ears were very large, and the rims of them red with cold, and his neck was so immeasurably long and thin, that his head appeared to topple for want of support. When he had come on deck, he stood with one hand raised to his forehead, touching his hair instead of his hat, and the other occupied with a half-roasted red-herring. "Yes, sir," said Smallbones, standing before his master.
"Be quick!" --commenced the lieutenant; but here his attention was directed to the red-herring by Snarleyyow, who raised his head and snuffed at its fumes. Among other disqualifications of the animal, be it observed, that he had no nose except for a red-herring, or a post by the way side. Mr Vanslyperken discontinued his orders, took his hand out of his great coat pocket, wiped the drop from off his nose, and then roared out, "How dare you appear on the quarter-deck of a king's ship, sir, with a red-herring in your fist?"
"If you please, sir," replied Smallbones, "if I were to come for to go to leave it in the galley, I shouldn't find it when I went back."
"What do I care for that, sir? It's contrary to all the rules and regulations of the service. Now, sir, hear me--" "O Lord, sir! let me off this time, it's only a _soldier_," replied Smallbones, deprecatingly; but Snarleyyow's appetite had been very much sharpened by his morning's walk; it rose with the smell of the herring, so he rose on his hind legs, snapped the herring out of Smallbones' hand, bolted forward by the lee gangway, and would soon have bolted the herring, had not Smallbones bolted after him and overtaken him just as he had laid it down on the deck preparatory to commencing his meal. A fight ensued; Smallbones received a severe bite in the leg, which induced him to seize a handspike, and make a blow with it at the dog's head, which, if it had been well aimed, would have probably put an end to all further pilfering. As it was, the handspike descended upon one of the dog's fore toes, and Snarleyyow retreated, yelling, to the other side of the forecastle, and as soon as he was out of reach, like all curs, bayed in defiance.
Smallbones picked up the herring, pulled up his trousers to examine the bite, poured down an anathema upon the dog, which was, "May you be starved, as I am, you beast!" and then turned round to go aft, when he struck against the spare form of Mr Vanslyperken, who, with his hands in his pocket, and his trumpet under his arm, looked unutterably savage.
"How dare you beat _my_ dog, you villain?" said the lieutenant at last, choking with passion.
"He's a-bitten my leg through and through, sir," replied Smallbones, with a face of alarm.
"Well, sir, why have you such thin legs, then?" " 'Cause I gets nothing to fill 'em up with."
"Have you not a herring there, you herring-gutted scoundrel? which, in defiance of all the rules of the service, you have brought on his Majesty's quarter-deck, you greedy rascal, and for which I intend--" "It ar'n't my herring, sir, it be yours--for your breakfast--the only one that is left out of the half-dozen."
This last remark appeared somewhat to pacify Mr Vanslyperken.
"Go down below, sir," said he, after a pause, "and let me know when my breakfast is ready."
Smallbones obeyed immediately, too glad to escape so easily.
"Snarleyyow," said his master, looking at the dog, who remained on the other side of the forecastle; "O Snarleyyow, for shame! Come here, sir. Come here, sir, directly."
But Snarleyyow, who was very sulky at the loss of his anticipated breakfast, was contumacious, and would not come. He stood at the other side of the forecastle, while his master apostrophised him, looking him in the face. Then, after a pause of indecision, he gave a howling sort of bark, trotted away to the main hatchway, and disappeared below. Mr Vanslyperken returned to the quarter-deck, and turned, and turned as before.
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Showing what became of the red-herring.
Smallbones soon made his re-appearance, informing Mr Vanslyperken that his breakfast was ready for him, and Mr Vanslyperken, feeling himself quite ready for his breakfast, went down below. A minute after he had disappeared, another man came up to relieve the one at the wheel, who, as soon as he had surrendered up the spokes, commenced warming himself after the most approved method, by flapping his arms round his body.
"The skipper's out o' sorts again this morning," said Obadiah, after a time. "I heard him muttering about the woman at the Lust Haus."
"Then, by Got, we will have de breeze," replied Jansen, who was a Dutch seaman of huge proportions, rendered still more preposterous by the multiplicity of his nether clothing.
"Yes, as sure as Mother Carey's chickens raise the gale, so does the name of the Frau Vandersloosh. I'll be down and get my breakfast, there may be keel-hauling before noon."
"Mein Got--dat is de tyfel."
"Keep her nor-east, Jansen, and keep a sharp look out for the boats."
"Got for dam--how must I steer the chip and look for de boats at de same time? --not possible."
"That's no consarn o' mine. Those are the orders, and I passes them--you must get over the unpossibility how you can." So saying, Obadiah Coble walked below.
We must do the same, and introduce the reader to the cabin of Lieutenant Vanslyperken, which was not very splendid in its furniture. One small table, one chair, a mattress in a standing bed-place, with curtains made of bunting, an open cupboard, containing three plates, one tea-cup and saucer, two drinking glasses, and two knives. More was not required, as Mr Vanslyperken never indulged in company. There was another cupboard, but it was carefully locked. On the table before the lieutenant was a white wash-hand basin, nearly half full of burgoo, a composition of boiled oatmeal and water, very wholesome, and very hot. It was the allowance, from the ship's coppers, of Mr Vanslyperken and his servant Smallbones. Mr Vanslyperken was busy stirring it about to cool it a little, with a leaden spoon. Snarleyyow sat close to him, waiting for his share, and Smallbones stood by, waiting for orders.
"Smallbones," said the lieutenant, after trying the hot mess before him, and finding that he was still in danger of burning his mouth, "bring me the red-herring."
"Red-herring, sir?" stammered Smallbones.
"Yes," replied his master, fixing his little grey eye sternly on him, "the red-herring."
"It's gone, sir!" replied Smallbones, with alarm.
"Gone! --gone where?"
"If you please, sir, I didn't a-think that you would have touched it after the dog had had it in his nasty mouth; and so, sir--if you please, sir--" "And so what?" said Vanslyperken, compressing his thin lips.
"I ate it myself--if you please--O dear--O dear!"
"You did, did you--you gluttonous scarecrow--you did, did you? Are you aware that you have committed a theft--and are you aware of the punishment attending it?"
"O sir--it was a mistake--dear sir," cried Smallbones, whimpering.
"In the first place, I will cut you to ribbons with the cat."
"Mercy, sir--O sir!" cried the lad, the tears streaming from his eyes.
"The thief's cat, with three knots in each tail."
Smallbones raised up his thin arms, and clasped his hands, pleading for mercy.
"And after the flogging--you shall be keel-hauled."
"O God!" screamed Smallbones, falling down on his knees, "mercy--mercy!"
But there was none. Snarleyyow, when he saw the lad go down on his knees, flew at him, and threw him on his back, growling over him, and occasionally looking at his master.
"Come here, Snarleyyow," said Mr Vanslyperken. "Come here, sir, and lie down." But Snarleyyow had not forgotten the red-herring; so in revenge, he first bit Smallbones in the thigh, and then obeyed his master.
"Get up, sir," cried the lieutenant.
Smallbones rose, but his temper now rose also; he forgot all that he was to suffer, from indignation against the dog: with flashing eyes, and whimpering with rage, he cried out, as the tears fell, and his arms swung round, "I'll not stand this--I'll jump overboard--that I will: fourteen times has that ere dog a-bitten me this week. I'd sooner die at once, than be made dog's-meat of in this here way."
"Silence, you mutinous rascal, or I'll put you in irons."
"I wish you would--irons don't bite, if they hold fast. I'll run away--I don't mind being hung--that I don't--starved to death, bitten to death in this here way--" "Silence, sir. It's over-feeding that makes you saucy."
"The Lord forgive you'" cried Smallbones, with surprise; "I've not had a full meal" "A full meal, you rascal! there's no filling a thing like you--hollow from top to bottom, like a bamboo."
"And what I does get," continued Smallbones, with energy, "I pays dear for; that ere dog flies at me, if I takes a bit o' biscuit. I never has a bite without getting a bite, and it's all my own allowance."
"A proof of his fidelity, and an example to you, you wretch," replied the lieutenant, fondly patting the dog on the head.
"Well, I wish you'd discharge me--or hang me, I don't care which. You eats so hearty, and the dog eats so hearty, that I gets nothing. We are only victualled for two."
"You insolent fellow! recollect the thief's cat."
"It's very hard," continued Smallbones, unmindful of the threat, "that that ere beast is to eat my allowance, and be allowed to half eat me too."
"You forget the keel-hauling, you scarecrow."
"Well, I hope I may never come up again, that's all."
"Leave the cabin, sir."
This order Smallbones obeyed.
"Snarleyyow," said the lieutenant, "you are hungry, my poor beast." Snarleyyow put his forepaw up on his master's knee. "You shall have your breakfast soon," continued his master, eating the burgoo between his addresses to the animal. "Yes, Snarleyyow, you have done wrong this morning--you ought to have no breakfast." Snarleyyow growled. "We are only four years acquainted, and how many scrapes you have got me into, Snarleyyow!" Snarleyyow here put both his paws upon his master's knee. "Well, you are sorry, my poor dog, and you shall have some breakfast;" and Mr Vanslyperken put the basin of burgoo on the floor, which the dog tumbled down his throat most rapidly. "Nay, my dog, not so fast; you must leave some for Smallbones, he will require some breakfast before his punishment. There, that will do;" and Mr Vanslyperken wished to remove the basin with a little of the burgoo remaining in it. Snarleyyow growled, would have snapped at his master, but Mr Vanslyperken shoved him away with the bell mouth of his speaking-trumpet, and recovering a portion of the mess, put it on the table for the use of poor Smallbones. "Now then, my dog, we will go on deck." Mr Vanslyperken left the cabin, followed by Snarleyyow; but as soon as his master was half way up the ladder, Snarleyyow turned back, leaped on the chair, from the chair to the table, and then finished the whole of the breakfast appropriated for Smallbones. Having effected this, the dog followed his master.
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A retrospect, and short description of a new character But we must leave poor Smallbones to lament his hard fate in the fore peak of the vessel, and Mr Vanslyperken and his dog to walk the quarter-deck, while we make our readers a little better acquainted with the times in which the scenes passed which we are now describing, as well as with the history of Mr Vanslyperken.
The date in our first chapter, that of the year 1699, will, if they refer back to history, show them that William of Nassau had been a few years on the English throne, and that peace had just been concluded between England with its allies and France. The king occasionally passed his time in Holland, among his Dutch countrymen, and the English and Dutch fleets, which but a few years before were engaging with such an obstinacy of courage, had lately sailed together, and turned their guns against the French. William, like all those continental princes who have been called to the English throne, showed much favour to his own countrymen, and England was overrun with Dutch favourites, Dutch courtiers, and peers of Dutch extraction. He would not even part with his Dutch guards, and was at issue with the Commons of England on that very account. But the war was now over, and most of the English and Dutch navy lay dismantled in port, a few small vessels only being in commission to intercept the smuggling from France that was carrying on, much to the detriment of English manufacture, of certain articles then denominated alamodes and lutestrings. The cutter we have described was on this service, and was named the _Yungfrau_, although built in England, and forming a part of the English naval force.
It may readily be supposed that Dutch interest, during this period, was in the ascendant. Such was the case: and the Dutch officers and seamen who could not be employed in their own marine were appointed in the English vessels, to the prejudice of our own countrymen. Mr Vanslyperken was of Dutch extraction, but born in England long before the Prince of Orange had ever dreamt of being called to the English throne. He was a near relation of King William's own nurse, and even in these days, that would cause powerful interest. Previous to the revolution he had been laid on the shelf for cowardice in one of the engagements between the Dutch and the English, he being then a lieutenant on board of a two-decked ship, and of long standing in the service; but before he had been appointed to this vessel, he had served invariably in small craft, and his want of this necessary qualification had never been discovered. The interest used for him on the accession of the Dutch king was sufficient for his again obtaining the command of a small vessel. In those days, the service was very different from what it is now. The commanders of vessels were also the pursers, and could save a great deal of money by defrauding the crew; and further, the discipline of the service was such as would astonish the modern philanthropist; there was no appeal for subordinates, and tyranny and oppression, even amounting to the destruction of life, were practised with impunity. Smollett has given his readers some idea of the state of the service a few years after the time of which we are now writing, when it was infinitely worse, for the system of the Dutch, notorious for their cruelty, had been grafted upon that of the English: the consequence was, a combination of all that was revolting to humanity was practised without any notice being taken of it by the superior powers, provided that the commanders of the vessels did their duty when called upon, and showed the necessary talent and courage.
Lieutenant Vanslyperken's character may be summed up in the three vices of avarice, cowardice, and cruelty. A miser in the extreme, he had saved up much money by his having had the command of a vessel for so many years, during which he had defrauded and pilfered both from the men and the government. Friends and connections he had none on this side of the water, and, when on shore, he had lived in a state of abject misery, although he had the means of comfortable support. He was now fifty-five years of age. Since he had been appointed to the _Yungfrau_, he had been employed in carrying despatches to the States-General from King William, and had, during his repeated visits to the Hague, made acquaintance with the widow Vandersloosh, who kept a Lust Haus[1], a place of resort for sailors, where they drank and danced. Discovering that the comfortably fat landlady was also very comfortably rich, Mr Vanslyperken had made advances, with the hope of obtaining her hand and handling her money. The widow had, however, no idea of accepting the offer, but was too wise to give him a decided refusal, as she knew it would be attended with his preventing the crew of the cutter from frequenting her house, and, thereby, losing much custom. Thus did she, at every return, receive him kindly and give him hopes, but nothing more. Since the peace, as we before observed, the cutter had been ordered for the prevention of smuggling.
[Footnote 1: Pleasure House.]
When and how Mr Vanslyperken had picked up his favourite Snarleyyow cannot be discovered, and must remain a secret. The men said that the dog had appeared on the deck of the cutter in a supernatural way, and most of them looked upon him with as much awe as ill-will.
This is certain, that the cutter had been a little while before in a state of mutiny, and a forcible entry attempted at night into the lieutenant's cabin. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that Vanslyperken felt that a good watch-dog might be a very useful appendage to his establishment, and had procured one accordingly. All the affection he ever showed to anything living was certainly concentrated on this one animal, and, next to his money, Snarleyyow had possession of his master's heart.
Poor Smallbones, cast on the world without father or mother, had become starved before he was on board the cutter, and had been starved ever since. As the reader will perceive, his allowance was mostly eaten up by the dog, and he was left to beg a precarious support from the good-will and charity of his shipmates, all of whom were equally disgusted with the commander's cruelty and the ungainly temper of his brute companion.
Having entered into this retrospect for the benefit of the reader, we will now proceed.
Mr Vanslyperken walked the deck for nearly a quarter of an hour without speaking: the men had finished their breakfasts, and were lounging about the deck, for there was nothing for them to do, except to look out for the return of the two boats which had been sent away the night before. The lieutenant's thoughts were, at one minute, upon Mrs Vandersloosh, thinking how he could persuade her, and, at another, upon Smallbones, thinking how he could render the punishment adequate, in his opinion, to the magnitude of the offence. While discussing these two important matters, one of the men reported the boats ahead, and broke up the commander's reverie.
"How far off?" demanded Mr Vanslyperken.
"About two miles."
"Pulling or sailing?"
"Pulling, sir; we stand right for them."
But Mr Vanslyperken was in no pleasant humour, and ordered the cutter to be hove-to.
"I tink de men have pull enough all night," said Jansen, who had just been relieved at the wheel, to Obadiah Coble, who was standing by him on the forecastle.
"I think so too: but there'll be a breeze, depend upon it--never mind, the devil will have his own all in good time."
"Got for dam," said Jansen, looking at Beachy Head, and shaking his own.
"Why, what's the matter now, old Schnapps?" said Coble.
"Schnapps--yes--the tyfel--Schnapps, I think how the French schnapped us Dutchmen here when you Englishmen wouldn't fight."
"Mind what you say, old twenty breeches--wouldn't fight--when wouldn't we fight?"
"Here, where we were now, by Got, you leave us all in the lurch, and not come down."
"Why, we couldn't come down."
"Bah!" replied Jansen, who referred to the defeat of the combined Dutch and English fleet by the French off Beachy Head in 1690.
"We wouldn't fight, heh?" exclaimed Obadiah in scorn, "what do you say to the Hogue?"
"Yes, den you fought well--dat was good."
"And shall I tell you why we fought well at the Hogue--you Dutch porpoise--just because we had no Dutchmen to help us."
"And shall I tell you why the Dutch were beat off this Head? --because the English wouldn't come down to help us."
Here Obadiah put his tongue into his right cheek. Jansen in return threw his into his left, and thus the argument was finished. These disputes were constant at the time, but seldom proceeded further than words-- certainly not between Coble and Jansen, who were great friends.
The boats were soon on board; from the time that the cutter had been hove-to, every stroke of their oars having been accompanied with a nautical anathema from the crews upon the head of their commander. The steersman and first officer, who had charge of the boats, came over the gangway and went up to Vanslyperken. He was a thickset, stout man, about five feet four inches high, and, wrapped up in Flushing garments, looked very much like a bear in shape as well as in skin. His name was Dick Short, and in every respect he answered to his name, for he was short in stature, short in speech, and short in decision and action.
Now when Short came up to the lieutenant, he did not consider it at all necessary to say as usual, "Come on board, sir," for it was self-evident that he had come on board. He therefore said nothing. So abrupt was he in his speech, that he never even said "Sir," when he spoke to his superior, which it may be imagined was very offensive to Mr Vanslyperken: so it was, but Mr Vanslyperken was afraid of Short, and Short was not the least afraid of Vanslyperken.
"Well, what have you done, Short?"
"Nothing."
"Did you see anything of the boat?"
"No."
"Did you gain any information?"
"No."
"What have you been doing all night?"
"Pulling."
"Did you land to obtain information?"
"Yes."
"And you got none?"
"No."
Here Short hitched up the waistband of his second pair of trousers, turned short round, and was going below, when Snarleyyow smelt at his heels. The man gave him a back kick with the heel of his heavy boot, which sent the dog off yelping and barking, and put Mr Vanslyperken in a great rage. Not venturing to resent this affront upon his first officer, he was reminded of Smallbones, and immediately sent for Corporal Van Spitter to appear on deck.
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In which there is a desperate combat.
Even at this period of the English history, it was the custom to put a few soldiers on board of the vessels of war, and the _Yungfrau_ cutter had been supplied with a corporal and six men, all of whom were belonging to the Dutch marine. To a person who was so unpopular as Mr Vanslyperken, this little force was a great protection, and both Corporal Van Spitter and his corps were well treated by him. The corporal was his purser and purveyor, and had a very good berth of it, for he could cheat as well as his commandant. He was, moreover, his prime minister, and an obedient executor of all his tyranny, for Corporal Van Spitter was without a shadow of feeling--on the contrary, he had pleasure in administering punishment; and if Vanslyperken had told him to blow any man's brains out belonging to the vessel, Van Spitter would have immediately obeyed the order without the change of a muscle in his fat, florid countenance. The corporal was an enormous man, tall, and so corpulent, that he weighed nearly twenty stone. Jansen was the only one who could rival him; he was quite as tall as the corporal, and as powerful, but he had not the extra weight of his carcass.
About five minutes after the summons, the huge form of Corporal Van Spitter was seen to emerge slowly from the hatchway, which appeared barely wide enough to admit the egress of his broad shoulders. He had a flat foraging cap on his head, which was as large as a buffalo's, and his person was clothed in blue pantaloons, tight at the ankle, rapidly increasing in width as they ascended, until they diverged at the hips to an expanse which was something between the sublime and the ridiculous. The upper part of his body was cased in a blue jacket, with leaden buttons, stamped with the rampant lion, with a little tail behind, which was shoved up in the air by the protuberance of the parts. Having gained the deck, he walked to Vanslyperken, and raised the back of his right hand to his forehead.
"Corporal Van Spitter, get your cats up for punishment, and when you are ready fetch up Smallbones."
Whereupon, without reply, Corporal Van Spitter put his left foot behind the heel of his right, and by this manoeuvre turned his body round like a capstern, so as to bring his face forward, and then walked off in that direction. He soon re-appeared with all the necessary implements of torture, laid them down on one of the lee guns, and again departed to seek out his victim.
After a short time, a scuffle was heard below, but it was soon over, and once more appeared the corporal with the spare, tall body of Smallbones under his arm. He held him, grasped by the middle part, about where Smallbones' stomach ought to have been, and the head and heels of the poor wretch both hung down perpendicularly, and knocked together as the corporal proceeded aft.
As soon as Van Spitter had arrived at the gun he laid down his charge, who neither moved nor spoke. He appeared to have resigned himself to the fate which awaited him, and made no resistance when he was stripped by one of the marines, and stretched over the gun. The men, who were on deck, said nothing; they looked at each other expressively as the preparations were made. Flogging a lad like Smallbones was too usual an occurrence to excite surprise, and to show their disgust would have been dangerous. Smallbones' back was now bared, and miserable was the spectacle; the shoulder-blades protruded, so that you might put your hand sideways under the scapula, and every bone of the vertebræ, and every process was clearly defined through the skin of the poor skeleton. The punishment commenced, and the lad received his three dozen without a murmur, the measured sound of the lash only being broken in upon by the baying of Snarleyyow, who occasionally would have flown at the victim, had he not been kept off by one of the marines. During the punishment, Mr Vanslyperken walked the deck, and turned and turned again as before.
Smallbones was then cast loose by the corporal, who was twirling up his cat, when Snarleyyow, whom the marine had not watched, ran up to the lad, and inflicted a severe bite. Smallbones, who appeared, at the moment, to be faint and lifeless--not having risen from his knees after the marine had thrown his shirt over him, roused by this new attack, appeared to spring into life and energy; he jumped up, uttered a savage yell, and to the astonishment of everybody, threw himself upon the dog as he retreated, and holding him fast with his naked arms, met the animal with his own weapons, attacking him with a frenzied resolution with his teeth. Everybody started back at this unusual conflict, and no one interfered.
Long was the struggle, and such was the savage energy of the lad, that he bit and held on with the tenacity of a bull-dog, tearing the lips of the animal, his ears, and burying his face in the dog's throat, as his teeth were firmly fixed on his windpipe. The dog could not escape, for Smallbones held him like a vice. At last, the dog appeared to have the advantage, for as they rolled over and over, he caught the lad by the side of the neck; but Smallbones recovered himself, and getting the foot of Snarleyyow between his teeth, the dog threw up his head and howled for succour. Mr Vanslyperken rushed to his assistance, and struck Smallbones a heavy blow on the head with his speaking-trumpet, which stunned him, and he let go his hold.
Short, who had come on deck, perceiving this, and that the dog was about to resume the attack, saluted Snarleyyow with a kick on his side, which threw him down the hatchway, which was about three yards off from where the dog was at the time.
"How dare you strike my dog, Mr Short?" cried Vanslyperken.
Short did not condescend to answer, but went to Smallbones and raised his head. The lad revived. He was terribly bitten about the face and neck, and what with the wounds in front, and the lashing from the cat, presented a melancholy spectacle.
Short called some of the men to take Smallbones below, in which act they readily assisted; they washed him all over with salt water, and the smarting from his various wounds brought him to his senses. He was then put in his hammock.
Vanslyperken and the corporal looked at each other during the time that Short was giving his directions--neither interfered. The lieutenant was afraid, and the corporal waited for orders. So soon as the men had carried the lad below, Corporal Van Spitter put his hand up to his foraging cap, and with his cat and seizings under his arm, went down below. As for Vanslyperken, his wrath was even greater than before, and with hands thrust even further down in his pockets than ever, and the speaking-trumpet now battered flat with the blow which he had administered to Smallbones, he walked up and down, muttering every two minutes, "I'll keel-haul the scoundrel, by heavens! I'll teach him to bite my dog."
Snarleyyow did not re-appear on deck; he had received such punishment as he did not expect. He licked the wounds where he could get at them, and then remained in the cabin in a sort of perturbed slumber, growling every minute as if he were fighting the battle over again in his sleep.
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A consultat on in which there is much mutiny.
This consultation was held upon the forecastle of his Majesty's cutter _Yungfrau_, on the evening after the punishment of Smallbones. The major part of the crew attended; all but the Corporal Van Spitter, who, on these points, was known to split with the crew, and his six marines, who formed the corporal's tail, at which they were always to be found. The principal personage was not the most eloquent speaker, for it was Dick Short, who was supported by Obadiah Coble, Yack Jansen, and another personage, whom we must introduce, the boatswain or boatswain's mate of the cutter; for although he received the title of the former, he only received the pay of the latter. This person's real name was James Salisbury, but for reasons which will be explained he was invariably addressed or spoken of as Jemmy Ducks. He was indeed a very singular variety of human discrepancy as to form: he was handsome in face, with a manly countenance, fierce whiskers and long pigtail, which on him appeared more than unusually long, as it descended to within a foot of the deck. His shoulders were square, chest expanded, and, as far as half-way down, that is, to where the legs are inserted into the human frame, he was a fine, well-made, handsome, well-proportioned man. But what a falling off was there! --for some reason, some accident, it is supposed, in his infancy, his legs had never grown in length since he was three years old: they were stout as well as his body, but not more than eighteen inches from the hip to the heel; and he consequently waddled about a very ridiculous figure, for he was like a man _razeed_ or cut down. Put him on an eminence of a couple of feet, and not see his legs, and you would say at a distance, "What a fine looking sailor!" but let him get down and walk up to you, and you would find that nature had not finished what she had so well begun, and that you are exactly half mistaken. This malconformation below did not, however, affect his strength, it rather added to it; and there were but few men in the ship who would venture a wrestle with the boatswain, who was very appropriately distinguished by the cognomen of Jemmy Ducks. Jemmy was a sensible, merry fellow, and a good seaman: you could not affront him by any jokes on his figure, for he would joke with you. He was indeed the fiddle of the ship's company, and he always played the fiddle to them when they danced, on which instrument he was no mean performer; and, moreover, accompanied his voice with his instrument when he sang to them after they were tired of dancing. We shall only observe that Jemmy was a married man, and he had selected one of the tallest of the other sex: of her beauty the less that is said the better--Jemmy did not look to that, or perhaps, at such a height, her face did not appear so plain to him as it did who were to those more on a level with it. The effect of perspective is well known, and even children now have as playthings, castles, &c., laid down on card, which, when looked at in a proper direction, appear just as correct as they do preposterous when lying flat before you.
Now it happened that from the level that Jemmy looked up from to his wife's face, her inharmonious features were all in harmony, and thus did she appear--what is very advantageous in the marriage state--perfection to her husband, without sufficient charms in the eyes of others to induce them to seduce her from her liege lord. Moreover, let it be recollected, that what Jemmy _wanted_ was _height_, and he had gained what he required in his wife, if not in his own person: his wife was passionately fond of him, and very jealous, which was not to be wondered at, for, as she said, "there never was such a husband before or since."
We must now return to the conference, observing, that all these parties were sitting down on the deck, and that Jemmy Ducks had his fiddle in his hand, holding it with the body downwards like a bass viol, for he always played it in that way, and that he occasionally fingered the strings, pinching them as you do a guitar, so as to send the sound of it aft, that Mr Vanslyperken might suppose that they were all met for mirth. Two or three had their eyes directed aft, that the appearance of Corporal Van Spitter or the marines might be immediately perceived; for, although the corporal was not a figure to slide into a conference unperceived, it was well known that he was an eavesdropper.
"One thing's sartain," observed Coble, "that a dog's not an officer."
"No," replied Dick Short.
"He's not on the ship's books, so I can't see how it can be mutiny."
"No," rejoined Short.
"Mein Got--he is not a tog, he is te tyfel," observed Jansen.
"Who knows how he came into the cutter?"
"There's a queer story about that," said one of the men.
Tum tum, tumty tum--said the fiddle of Jemmy Ducks, as if it took part in the conference.
"That poor boy will be killed if things go on this way: the skipper will never be content till he has driven his soul out of his body--poor creature; only look at him as he lies in his hammock."
"I never seed a Christian such an object," said one of the sailors.
"If the dog ain't killed, Bones will be, that's sartain," observed Coble, "and I don't see why the preference should be given to a human individual, although the dog is the skipper's dog--now then, what d'ye say, my lads?"
Tum tum, tum tum, tumty tumty tum, replied the fiddle.
"Let's hang him at once."
"No," replied Short.
Jansen took out his snickerree, looked at Short, and made a motion with the knife, as if passing it across the dog's throat.
"No," replied Short.
"Let's launch him overboard at night," said one of the men.
"But how is one to get the brute out of the cabin?" said Coble; "if it's done at all it must be done by day."
Short nodded his head.
"I will give him a launch the first opportunity," observed Jemmy Ducks, "only--" (continued he in a measured and lower tone) "I should first like to know whether he really _is_ a dog or _not_."
"A tog is a tog," observed Jansen.
"Yes," replied one of the forecastle men, "we all know a dog is a dog, but the question is--is _this_ dog a dog?"
Here there was a pause, which Jemmy Ducks filled up by again touching the strings of his fiddle.
The fact was, that, although every one of the sailors wished the dog was overboard, there was not one who wished to commit the deed, not on account of the fear of its being discovered who was the party by Mr Vanslyperken, but because there was a great deal of superstition among them. It was considered unlucky to throw any dog or animal overboard; but the strange stories told about the way in which Snarleyyow first made his appearance in the vessel, added to the peculiarly diabolical temper of the animal, had often been the theme of midnight conversation, and many of them were convinced that it was an imp of Satan lent to Vanslyperken, and that, to injure or to attempt to destroy it would infallibly be followed up with terrible consequences to the party, if not to the vessel and all the crew. Even Short, Coble, and Jansen, who were the boldest and leading men, although when their sympathies were roused by the sufferings of poor Smallbones they were anxious to revenge him, had their own misgivings, and, on consideration, did not like to have anything to do with the business. But each of them kept their reflections to themselves, for, if they could not combat, they were too proud to acknowledge them.
The reader will observe that all their plans were immediately put an end to until this important question, and not a little difficult one, was decided--Was the dog a dog?
Now, although the story had often been told, yet, as the crew of the cutter had been paid off since the animal had been brought on board, there was no man in the ship who could positively detail, from his own knowledge, the facts connected with his first appearance--there was only tradition, and, to solve this question, to tradition they were obliged to repair.
"Now, Bill Spurey," said Coble, "you know more about this matter than any one, so just spin us the yarn, and then we shall be able to talk the matter over soberly."
"Well," replied Bill Spurey, "you shall have it just as I got it word for word, as near as I can recollect. You know I wasn't in the craft when the thing came on board, but Joe Geary was, and it was one night when we were boozing over a stiff glass at the new shop there, the Orange Boven, as they call it, at the Pint at Portsmouth--and so you see, falling in with him, I wished to learn something about my new skipper, and what sort of a chap I should have to deal with. When I learnt all about _him_, I'd half-a-dozen minds to shove off again, but then I was adrift, and so I thought better of it. It won't do to be nice in peace times you know, my lads, when all the big ships are rotting in Southampton and Cinque Port muds. Well, then, what he told me I recollect as well--ay, every word of it--as if he had whispered it into my ear but this minute. It was a blustering night, with a dirty southwester, and the chafing of the harbour waves was thrown up in foams, which the winds swept up the street, they chasing one another as if they were boys at play. It was about two bells in the middle watch, and after our fifth glass, that Joe Geary said as this: "It was one dark winter's night when we were off the Texel, blowing terribly, with the coast under our lee, clawing off under storm canvas, and fighting with the elements for every inch of ground, a hand in the chains, for we had nothing but the lead to trust to, and the vessel so flogged by the waves, that he was lashed to the rigging, that he might not be washed away; all of a sudden the wind came with a blast loud enough for the last trump, and the waves roared till they were hoarser than ever; away went the vessel's mast, although there was no more canvas on it than a jib pocket-handkerchief, and the craft rolled and tossed in the deep troughs for all the world like a wicked man dying in despair; and then she was a wreck, with nothing to help us but God Almighty, fast borne down upon the sands which the waters had disturbed, and were dashing about until they themselves were weary of the load; and all the seamen cried unto the Lord, as well they might.
"Now, they say, that _he_ did not cry as they did, like men and Christians, to Him who made them and the waters which surrounded and threatened them; for Death was then in all his glory, and the foaming crests of the waves were as plumes of feathers to his skeleton head beneath them; but he cried like a child--and swore terribly as well as cried--talking about his money, his dear money, and not caring about his more precious soul.
"And the cutter was borne down, every wave pushing her with giant force nearer and nearer to destruction, when the man at the chains shrieked out--'Mark three, and the Lord have mercy on our souls!" and all the crew, when they heard this, cried out--'Lord, save us, or we perish.' But still they thought that their time was come, for the breaking waves were under their lee, and the yellow waters told them that, in a few minutes, the vessel, and all who were on board, would be shivered in fragments; and some wept and some prayed as they clung to the bulwarks of the unguided vessel, and others in a few minutes thought over their whole life, and waited for death in silence. But _he_, he did all; he cried, and he prayed, and he swore, and he was silent, and at last he became furious and frantic; and when the men said again and again, 'The Lord save us!' he roared out at last, "Will the _devil_ help us, for--' In a moment, before these first words were out of his mouth, there was a flash of lightning, that appeared to strike the vessel, but it harmed her not, neither did any thunder follow the flash; but a ball of blue flame pitched upon the knight heads, and then came bounding and dancing aft to the taffrail, where _he_ stood alone, for the men had left him to blaspheme by himself. Some say he was heard to speak, as if in conversation, but no one knows what passed. Be it as it may, on a sudden he walked forward as brave as could be, and was followed by this creature, who carried his head and tail slouching, as he does now.
"And the dog looked up and gave one deep bark, and as soon as he had barked the wind appeared to lull--he barked again twice, and there was a dead calm--he barked again thrice, and the seas went down--and _he_ patted the dog on the head, and the animal then bayed loud for a minute or two, and then, to the astonishment and fear of all, instead of the vessel being within a cable's length of the Texel sands in a heavy gale, and without hope, the Foreland lights were but two miles on our beam with a clear sky and smooth water."
The seaman finished his legend, and there was a dead silence for a minute or two, broken first by Jansen, who in a low voice said, "Then te tog is not a tog."
"No," replied Coble, "an imp sent by the devil to his follower in distress."
"Yes," said Short.
"Well, but," said Jemmy Ducks, who for some time had left off touching the strings of his fiddle, "it would be the work of a good Christian to kill the brute."
"It's not a mortal animal, Jemmy."
"True, I forgot that."
"Gifen by de tyfel," observed Jansen.
"Ay, and christened by him too," continued Coble. "Who ever heard any Christian brute with such a damnable name?"
"Well, what's to be done?"
"Why," replied Jemmy Ducks, "at all events, imp o' Satan or not, that ere Smallbones fought him to-day with his own weapons."
"And beat him too," said Coble.
"Yes," said Short.
"Now, it's my opinion, that Smallbones ar'n't afraid of him," continued Jemmy Ducks, "and devil or no devil, he'll kill him if he can."
"He's the proper person to do it," replied Coble; "the more so, as you may say that he's his _natural_ enemy."
"Yes, mein Got, de poy is de man," said Jansen.
"We'll put him up to it at all events, as soon as he is out of his hammock," rejoined Jemmy Ducks.
A little more conversation took place, and then it was carried unanimously that Smallbones should destroy the animal, if it was possible to destroy it.
The only party who was not consulted was Smallbones himself, who lay fast asleep in his hammock. The consultation then broke up, and they all went below.
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{
"id": "12558"
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In which, as often happens at sea when signals are not made out, friends exchange broadsides.
Notwithstanding all the precautions of the party on the forecastle, this consultation had been heard by no less a person than the huge Corporal Van Spitter, who had an idea that there was some mystery going on forward, and had contrived to crawl up under the bulwark, and throw himself down on the forestaysail, which lay between two of the guns. Having so done without being perceived, for it was at the very moment that the party were all listening to Bill Spurey's legend of the dog's first appearance on board, he threw a part of the sail over his fat carcass, and thus remained undiscovered during the remainder of the colloquy. He heard them all descending below, and remained still quiet, till he imagined that the forecastle was clear. In the meantime Mr Vanslyperken, who had been walking the deck abaft, unaccompanied by his faithful attendant (for Snarleyyow remained coiled up on his master's bed), was meditating deeply how to gratify the two most powerful passions in our nature, love and revenge: at one moment thinking of the fat fair Vandersloosh, and of hauling in her guilders, at another reverting to the starved Smallbones and the comfort of a keel-hauling. The long conference on the forecastle had not been unperceived by the hawk's eye of the lieutenant, and as they descended, he walked forward to ascertain if he could not pick up some straggler who, unsupported by his comrades, might be induced by fear to acquaint him with the subject of the discussion. Now, just as Mr Vanslyperken came forward Corporal Van Spitter had removed the canvas from his body, and was about to rise from his bed, when he perceived somebody coming forward. Not making it out to be the lieutenant, he immediately dropped down again and drew the canvas over him. Mr Vanslyperken perceived this manoeuvre, and thought he had now caught one of the conspirators, and, moreover, one who showed such fear as to warrant the supposition that he should be able to extract from him the results of the night's unusually long conference.
Mr Vanslyperken walked up to where the corporal lay as quiet, but not quite so small, as a mouse. It occurred to Mr Vanslyperken that a little taste of punishment _in esse_ would very much assist the threats of what might be received _in posse_; so he laid aside his speaking-trumpet, looked round, picked up a handspike, and raising it above his head, down it came, with all the force of the lieutenant's arm, upon Corporal Van Spitter, whose carcass resounded like a huge kettle-drum.
"Tunder and flame," roared the corporal under the canvas, thinking that one of the seamen, having discovered him eavesdropping, had thus wreaked his revenge, taking advantage of his being covered up, and pretending not to know him. "Tunder and flame!" roared the corporal, muffled up in the canvas, and trying to extricate himself; but his voice was not recognised by the lieutenant, and, before he could get clear of his envelope, the handspike had again descended; when up rose the corporal, like a buffalo out of his muddy lair, half-blinded by the last blow, which had fallen on his head, ran full butt at the lieutenant, and precipitated his senior officer and commander headlong down the fore-hatchway.
Vanslyperken fell with great force, was stunned, and lay without motion at the foot of the ladder, while the corporal, whose wrath was always excessive when his blood was up, but whose phlegmatic blood could not be raised without some such decided stimulus as a handspike, now turned round and round the forecastle, like a bull looking for his assailants; but the corporal had the forecastle all to himself, and, as he gradually cooled down, he saw lying close to him the speaking-trumpet of his senior officer.
"Tousand tyfels," murmured Corporal Van Spitter, "but it must have been the skipper. Got for damn, dis is hanging matter!" Corporal Van Spitter was as cool as a cucumber as soon as he observed what a mistake he had made; in fact, he quivered and trembled in his fat. "But then," thought he, "perhaps he did not know me--no, he could not, or he never would have handspiked _me_." So Corporal Van Spitter walked down the hatchway, where he ascertained that his commandant lay insensible. "Dat is good," thought he, and he went aft, lighted his lanthorn, and, as a _ruse_, knocked at the cabin-door. Receiving no answer but the growl of Snarleyyow, he went in, and then ascended to the quarter-deck, looked round him, and inquired of the man at the wheel where Mr Vanslyperken might be. The man replied that he had gone forward a few minutes before, and thither the corporal proceeded. Of course, not finding him, he returned, telling the man that the skipper was not in the cabin or the forecastle, and wondering where he could be. He then descended to the next officer in command, Dick Short, and called him.
"Well," said Short.
"Can't find Mr Vanslyperken anywhere," said the corporal.
"Look," replied Dick, turning round in his hammock.
"Mein Got, I have looked de forecastle, de quarter-deck, and de cabin,--he not anywhere."
"Overboard," replied Dick.
"I come to you, sir, to make inquiry," said the corporal.
"Turn out," said Dick, suiting the action to the words, and lighting with his feet on the deck in his shirt.
While Short was dressing himself, the corporal summoned up all his marines; and the noise occasioned by this turn out, and the conversation overheard by those who were awake, soon gave the crew of the cutter to understand that some accident had happened to their commander. Even Smallbones had it whispered in his ear that Mr Vanslyperken had fallen overboard, and he smiled as he lay in the dark, smarting with his wounds, muttering to himself that Snarleyyow should soon follow his master. By the time that Short was on the quarter-deck, Corporal Van Spitter, who knew very well where to look for it, had, very much to the disappointment of the crew, found the body of Mr Vanslyperken, and the marines had brought it aft to the cabin, and would have laid it on the bed, had not Snarleyyow, who had no feeling in his composition, positively denied its being put there.
Short came down and examined his superior officer.
"Is he dead?" inquired the corporal with alarm.
"No," replied Short.
"Vat can it be then?" said the corporal.
"Stunned," replied Short.
"Mein Got! how could it happen?"
"Tumbled," replied Short.
"What shall we do, sir?" rejoined the corporal.
"Bed," replied Short, turning on his heel, and a minute after turning into his hammock.
"Mein Got, the dog will not let him go to bed," exclaimed the corporal.
"Let's put him in," said one of the marines, "the dog won't bite his master."
So the marines lifted up the still insensible Mr Vanslyperken, and almost tossed him into his standing bed-place, right on the body of the snarling dog, who, as soon as he could disengage himself from the weight, revenged himself by making his teeth meet more than once through the lanthorn cheek of his master, and then leaping off the bed, retreated growling under the table.
"Well, you _are_ a nice dog," exclaimed one of the marines, looking after Snarleyyow in his retreat.
Now, there was no medical assistance on board so small a vessel. Mr Vanslyperken, was allowed a small quantity of medicine, unguents, &c., but these he always sold to an apothecary, as soon as he had procured them from the authorities. The teeth of the dog had, however, their effect, and Mr Vanslyperken opened his eyes, and in a faint voice cried "Snarleyyow." Oh, if the dog had any spark of feeling, how must he then have been stung with remorse at his ingratitude to so kind a master! But he apparently showed none, at least, report does not say that any symptoms were manifest.
After a little burnt oakum had excoriated his nose, and a certain quantity of the cold salt-water from alongside had wetted through his bedclothes, Mr Vanslyperken was completely recovered, and was able to speak and look about him. Corporal Van Spitter trembled a little as his commandant fixed his eyes upon him, and he redoubled his attention.
"Mein Got, Mynheer Vanslyperken, how was this happen?" exclaimed the corporal in a pathetic tone. Whereupon Mr Vanslyperken ordered every one to leave the cabin but Corporal Van Spitter.
Mr Vanslyperken then communicated to the corporal that he had been knocked down the hatchway by one of the men when he went forward; that he could not distinguish who it was, but thought that it must have been Jansen from his size. Corporal Van Spitter, delighted to find that his skipper was on a wrong scent, expressed his opinion in corroboration of the lieutenant's: after which a long consultation took place relative to mutiny, disaffection, and the proper measures to be taken. Vanslyperken mentioned the consultation of the men during the first watch, and the corporal, to win his favour, was very glad to be able to communicate the particulars of what he had overheard, stating that he had concealed himself for that purpose.
"And where did you conceal yourself?" said Vanslyperken with a keen inquiring look: for it immediately occurred to him that, unless it was under the sail, there could be no concealment for such a huge body as that of the corporal; and he had his misgivings. But the corporal very adroitly observed, that he stood at the lower step of the fore-ladder, with his head level with the coamings; and had, by this means, overheard the conversation unperceived, and had only walked away when the party broke up. This restored the confidence of Mr Vanslyperken, and a long discussion took place, in which it was agreed between them, that the only way to prevent Snarleyyow from being destroyed, was to try some means to make away quietly with poor Smallbones. But this part of the conversation was not carried to any length: for Mr Vanslyperken, indignant at having received such injury in his face from his ungrateful cur, did not, at that moment, feel the current of his affection run so strong as usual in that direction. After this, the corporal touched his hat, swung round to the right about in military style, and left the cabin.
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{
"id": "12558"
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In which Mr Vanslyperken goes on shore to woo the Widow Vandersloosh.
Three weeks of comparative calm now passed away, during which Mr Vanslyperken recovered of his wounds and accident, and meditated how he should make away with Smallbones. The latter also recovered of his bites, and meditated how he should make away with Snarleyyow. Smallbones had returned to his avocations, and Vanslyperken, intending mischief, treated him more kindly, as a blind. Snarleyyow also, not forgetting his defeat on the quarter-deck, did not renew his attacks, even when the poor lad helped himself to biscuit.
The _Yungfrau_ anchored in the Downs, and Mr Vanslyperken received despatches for the Hague; King William having written some letters to his friends, and sent over to them a little English money, which he knew would be acceptable; for continental kings on the English throne have never appeared to have a clear sense of the honour conferred upon them. England, in their ideas, has always been a _parvenue_ kingdom; her nobles not able to trace farther back than the Conquest; while, in their country, the lowest baron will prove his sixteen quarters, and his descent from the darkest ages. But, nevertheless, upon the same principle that the poor aristocracy will condescend to unite themselves occasionally to city wealth, so have these potentates condescended to reign over us.
Mr Vanslyperken received his despatches, and made the best of his way to Amsterdam, where he anchored, delivered his credentials, and there waited for the letters of thanks from his Majesty's cousins.
But what a hurry and bustle there appears to be on board of the _Yungfrau_--Smallbones here, Smallbones there--Corporal Van Spitter pushing to and fro with the dog-trot of an elephant; and even Snarleyyow appears to be unusually often up and down the hatchway. What can it all be about? Oh! Mr Vanslyperken is going on shore to pay his respects, and continue his addresses, to the widow Vandersloosh. His boat is manned alongside, and he now appears on the cutter's quarter-deck.
Is it possible that this can be Mr Vanslyperken? Heavens, how gay! An uniform certainly does wonders with some people: that is to say, those who do not look well in plain clothes are invariably improved by it; while those, who look most like gentlemen in plain clothes, lose in the same proportion. At all events Mr Vanslyperken is wonderfully improved.
He has a loose pair of blue pantaloons, with boots rising above his knees pulled over them: his lower parts remind you of Charles the Twelfth. He has a long scarlet waiscoat, with large gilt buttons and flap pockets, and his uniform coat over all, of blue turned up with red, has a very commanding appearance. To a broad black belt over his shoulder hangs his cutlass, the sheath of which is mounted with silver, and the hilt of ivory and gold threads; and, above all, his small head is almost dignified by being surmounted with a three-cornered turned-up and gold-banded cocked hat, with one corner of the triangle in front parallel with his sharp nose. Surely the widow must strike her colours to scarlet, and blue, and gold. But although women are said, like mackerel, to take such baits, still widows are not fond of a man who is as thin as a herring: they are too knowing, they prefer stamina, and will not be persuaded to take the shadow for the substance.
Mr Vanslyperken was, nevertheless, very well pleased with himself, which was something, but still not quite enough on the present occasion, and he strutted the deck with great complacency, gave his final orders to Dick Short, who, as usual, gave a short answer; also to Corporal Van Spitter, who, as usual, received them with all military honour; and, lastly, to Smallbones, who received them with all humility. The lieutenant was about to step into the boat, when a doubt arose, and he stopped in his advance, perplexed. It was one of no small importance--was Snarleyyow to accompany him or not? That was the knotty question, and it really was a case which required some deliberation. If he left him on board after the conspiracy which had been formed against him, the dog would probably be overboard before he returned; that is, if Smallbones were also left on board; for Mr Vanslyperken knew that it had been decided that Smallbones alone could and should destroy the dog. He could not, therefore, leave the dog on board with safety; and, as for taking him on shore with him, in that there was much danger, for the widow Vandersloosh had set her face against the dog. No wonder: he had behaved in her parlour as bad as the dog Crab in the Two Gentlemen of Verona; and the Frau was a very clean person, and had no fancy for dogs comparing their legs with those of her polished mahogany chairs and tables. If Mr Vanslyperken's suit was to be decided according to the old adage, "love me, love my dog," he certainly had but a poor chance; for the widow detested the cur, and had insisted that it should never be brought into her house. Take the dog on shore, therefore, he could not; but, thought Mr Vanslyperken, I can take Smallbones on shore, that will do as well. I have some biscuit to dispose of, and he shall go with it and wait till I come off again. Smallbones was, therefore, ordered to put on his hat and step into the boat with two half bags of biscuit to carry up to the widow's house, for she did a little business with Mr Vanslyperken, as well as allowing him to make love to her; and was never so sweet or so gracious, as when closing a bargain. So Mr Vanslyperken waited for Smallbones, who was soon ready, for his best consisted only in a pair of shoes to his usually naked feet, and a hat for his generally uncovered head. And Mr Vanslyperken, and Smallbones, and the biscuit, were in the boat, when Snarleyyow intimated his intention to join the party; but this was refused, and the boat shoved off without him.
As soon as Mr Vanslyperken had shoved off, Dick Short, being in command, thought he might as well give himself leave, and go on shore also. So he went down, put on his best, and ordered the other boat to be manned, and leaving Obadiah Coble on board as the next officer, he took with him Jansen, Jemmy Ducks, and four or five others, to have a cruise. Now, as Snarleyyow had this time made up his mind that he would go on shore, and Short was willing to indulge him, for he knew that Smallbones, if he fell in with him, would do his best to launch him into one of the canals, so convenient in every street, the cur was permitted to get into the boat, and was landed with the rest of the party, who, as usual, repaired to the Lust Haus of the widow Vandersloosh; where we must leave them for the present, and return to our friend, Mr Vanslyperken.
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{
"id": "12558"
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In which the Widow lays a trap for Mr Vanslyperken, and Smallbones lays a trap for Snarleyyow, and both bag their game.
The widow Vandersloosh, as we have informed the reader, was the owner of a Lust Haus, or pleasure-house for sailors: we will describe that portion of her tenements more particularly by-and-bye: at present, we must advert to her own private house, which stood adjoining, and had a communication with the Lust Haus by a private door through the party wall. This was a very small, snug little habitation, with one window in each front, and two stories high; containing a front parlour and kitchen on the basement, two small rooms on the first, and two on the second floor. Nothing could be better arranged for a widow's residence. Moreover, she had a back-yard running the whole length of the wall of the Lust Haus in the rear, with convenient offices, and a back-door into the street behind.
Mr Vanslyperken had arrived, paid his humble devoirs to the widow, more humble, because he was evidently pleased with his own person, and had been followed by Smallbones, who laid the biscuit by the scraper at the door, watching it as in duty bound. The lieutenant imagined that he was more graciously received than usual. Perhaps he was, for the widow had not had so much custom lately, and was glad the crew of the cutter were arrived to spend their money. Already had Vanslyperken removed his sword and belt, and laid them with his three-cornered laced hat on the side-table; he was already cosily, as of wont, seated upon the widow's little fubsy sofa, with the lady by his side, and he had just taken her hand and was about to renew his suit, to pour forth the impromptu effusions of his heart, concocted on the quarter-deck of the _Yungfrau_, when who should bolt into the parlour but the unwelcome Snarleyyow.
"O that nasty brute! Mynheer Vanslyperken, how dare you bring him into my house?" cried the widow, jumping up from the sofa, with her full-moon-face red with anger.
"Indeed, widow," replied Vanslyperken, "I left him on board, knowing that you were not fond of animals; but some one has brought him on shore. However, I'll find out who it was, and keel-haul him in honour of your charms."
"I am fond of animals, Mr Vanslyperken, but I am not fond of such animals as that--such a filthy, ugly, disagreeable, snarling brute; nor can I think how you can keep him after what I have said about it. It don't prove much regard, Mr Vanslyperken, when such a dog as that is kept on purpose to annoy me."
"I assure you, widow--" "Don't assure me, Mr Vanslyperken, there's no occasion--your dog is your own--but I'll thank you to take him out of this house; and, perhaps, as he won't go without you, you had better go with him."
Now the widow had never spoken so indignantly before: if the reader wishes to know why she did so now, we will acquaint him; the widow Vandersloosh had perceived Smallbones, who sat like Patience on a monument, upon the two half bags of biscuit before her porch. It was a query to the widow whether they were to be a present, or an article to be bargained for: it was therefore very advisable to pick a quarrel, that the matter might be cleared up. The widow's ruse met with all the success which it deserved. In the first place, Mr Vanslyperken did what he never would have believed himself capable of, but the wrath of the widow had worked him also up to wrath, and he saluted Snarleyyow with such a kick on the side, as to send him howling into the back-yard, followed him out, and, notwithstanding an attempt at defence on the part of the dog, which the lieutenant's high boots rendered harmless, Snarleyyow was fairly or unfairly, as you may please to think it, kicked into an outhouse, the door shut, and the key turned upon him. After which Mr Vanslyperken returned to the parlour, where he found the widow, erect, with her back turned to the stove, blowing and bristling, her bosom heaving, reminding you of seas mountains high, as if she were still under the effect of a just resentment for the affront offered to her. There she stood waiting in all dignity for Mr Vanslyperken to repair the injury done, whether unintentional or not. In few words, there she waited, for the _biscuit_ to be presented to her. And it was presented, for Vanslyperken knew no other way of appeasing her wrath. Gradually the storm was allayed--the flush of anger disappeared, the corners of the scornfully-turned-down mouth, were turned up again--Cupid's bow was no longer bent in anger, and the widow's bosom slept as when the ocean sleeps, like "an unweaned child." The biscuit bags were brought in by Smallbones, their contents stored, and harmony restored. Once more was Mr Vanslyperken upon the little sofa by the side of the fat widow, and once more did he take her melting hand. Alas! that her heart was not made of the same soft materials.
But we must not only leave Short and his companions in the Lust Haus, but the widow and the lieutenant in their soft dalliance, and now occupy ourselves with the two principal personages of this our drama, Smallbones and Snarleyyow.
When Smallbones had retired, with the empty bread-bags under his arm, he remained some time reflecting at the porch, and then having apparently made up his mind, he walked to a chandler's shop just over the bridge of the canal opposite, and purchased a needle, some strong twine, and a red-herring. He also procured, "without purchase," as they say in our War Office Gazettes, a few pieces of stick. Having obtained all these, he went round to the door of the yard behind the widow's house, and let himself in. Little did Mr Vanslyperken imagine what mischief was brewing, while he was praising and drinking the beer of the widow's own brewing.
Smallbones had no difficulty in finding out where Snarleyyow was confined, for the dog was very busy gnawing his way through the door, which, however, was a work of time, and not yet a quarter accomplished. The place had been a fowl-house, and, at the bottom of the door, there was a small hatch for the ingress and egress of these bipeds, the original invention of some thrifty spinster, to prevent the maids from stealing eggs. But this hatch was closed, or Snarleyyow would have escaped through it. Smallbones took up his quarters in another outhouse, that he might not be observed, and commenced his operations.
He first took out the bottom of one bread-bag, and then sewed that on the other to make it longer; he then ran a string through the mouth, so as to draw it close when necessary, and cut his sticks so as to support it and keep it open. All this being arranged, he went to where Snarleyyow was busy gnawing wood with great pertinacity, and allowed him not only to smell, but to tear off the tail of the red-herring, under the door; and then gradually drew the herring along until he had brought it right under the hatch in the middle, which left it at the precise distance that the dog could snuff it but not reach it, which Snarleyyow now did, in preference to gnawing wood. When you lay a trap, much depends upon the bait; Smallbones knew his enemy's partiality for savoury comestibles. He then brought out his bag, set up his supporters, fixed it close to the hatch, and put the red-herring inside of it. With the string in one hand, he lifted up the hatch with the other. Snarleyyow rushed out and rushed in, and in a moment the strings were drawn, and as soon as drawn were tied tight round the mouth of the bag. Snarleyyow was caught; he tumbled over and over, rolling now to the right and now to the left, while Smallbones grinned with delight. After amusing himself a short time with the evolutions of his prisoner, he dragged him in his bag into the outhouse where he had made his trap, shut the door, and left him. The next object was to remove any suspicion on the part of Mr Vanslyperken; and to effect this, Smallbones tore off the hatch, and broke it in two or three pieces, bit parts of it with his own teeth, and laid them down before the door, making it appear as if the dog had gnawed his own way out. The reason for allowing the dog still to remain in prison, was that Smallbones dared not attempt anything further until it was dark, and there was yet an hour or more to wait for the close of the day.
Smallbones had but just finished his work in time; for the widow having been summoned to her guests in the Lust Haus, had left Vanslyperken alone, and the lieutenant thought this a good opportunity to look after his four-footed favourite. He came out into the yard, where he found Smallbones, and he had his misgivings.
"What are you doing here, sir?"
"Waiting for you, sir," replied Smallbones, humbly.
"And the dog?" said Vanslyperken, observing the strewed fragments of the door hatch.
"He's a-bitten himself out, sir, I believe."
"And where is he, then?"
"I don't know, sir; I suppose he's gone down to the boat."
Snarleyyow hearing his master's voice, had commenced a whine, and Smallbones trembled: fortunately, at that moment, the widow's ample form appeared at the back-door of the house, and she called to Mr Vanslyperken. The widow's voice drowned the whine of the dog, and his master did not hear it. At the summons, Vanslyperken but half convinced, but not daring to show any interest about the animal in the presence of his mistress, returned to the parlour, and very soon the dog was forgotten.
But as the orgies in the Lust Haus increased, so did it become more necessary for the widow to make frequent visits there; not only to supply her customers, but to restrain them by her presence; and as the evening wore away, so did the absences of the widow become more frequent. This Vanslyperken well knew, and he therefore always pressed his suit in the afternoon, and as soon as it was dark returned on board. Smallbones, who watched at the back-door the movements of his master, perceived that he was refixing his sword-belt over his shoulder, and he knew this to be the signal for departure. It was now quite dark, he therefore hastened to the outhouse, and dragged out Snarleyyow in the bag, swung him over his shoulder, and walked out of the yard-door, proceeded to the canal in front of the widow's house, looked round him, could perceive nobody, and then dragged the bag with its contents into the stagnant water below, just as Mr Vanslyperken, who had bidden adieu to the widow, came out of the house. There was a heavy splash--and silence. Had such been heard on the shores of the Bosphorus on such a night, it would have told some tale of unhappy love and a husband's vengeance; but, at Amsterdam, it was nothing more than the drowning of a cur.
"Who's there--is it Smallbones?" said Mr Vanslyperken.
"Yes, sir," said Smallbones, with alarm.
"What was that noise I heard?"
"Noise, sir? Oh, I kicked a paving-stone into the canal."
"And don't you know there is heavy fine for that, you scoundrel? And pray where are the bread-bags?"
"The bread-bags, sir? Oh, Mr Short took them to tie up some vegetables in them."
"Mr Short! O, very well. Come along, sir, and no more throwing stones into the canal; why you might have killed somebody--there is a boat down there now, I hear the people talking." And Mr Vanslyperken hastened to his boat, which was waiting for him; anxious to ascertain if Snarleyyow, as he fully expected, was in it. But to his grief and disappointment he was not there, and Mr Vanslyperken sat in the stern sheets, in no pleasant humour, thinking whether it was or was not a paving-stone which Smallbones had thrown into the canal, and resolving that if the dog did not appear, Smallbones should be keel-hauled. There was, however, one more chance, the dog might have been taken on board.
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A long chapter, in which there is lamentation, singing, bibbing, and dancing.
It may readily be supposed, that the first question asked by Mr Vanslyperken, on his gaining the quarter-deck, was, if Snarleyyow were on board. He was received with the military salute of Corporal Van Spitter, for Obadiah Coble, having been left commanding officer, had given himself leave, and, with a few men, had joined Dick Short and the first party at the Lust Haus, leaving the corporal as the next senior officer in charge. The answer in the negative was a great mortification to Mr Vanslyperken, and he descended to his cabin in no very good humour, and summoned Smallbones. But before Smallbones was summoned, he had time to whisper to one or two of the conspirators--"_He's gone_." It was enough; in less than a minute the whisper was passed throughout the cutter. "He's gone," was sibilated above and below, until it met the ears of even Corporal Van Spitter, who had it from a marine, who had it from another marine, who had it from a seaman, who--but it was, however, soon traced up to Smallbones by the indefatigable corporal--who considered it his duty to report the report to Mr Vanslyperken. Accordingly he descended to the cabin and knocked for admission.
In the meantime Vanslyperken had been venting his ill-humour upon Smallbones, having, as he took off from his person, and replaced in his drawers, his unusual finery, administered an unusual quantity of kicks, as well as a severe blow on the head with his sheathed cutlass to the unfortunate lad, who repeated to himself, by way of consolation, the magic words--"_He's gone_."
"If you please, sir," said Corporal Van Spitter, "I've discovered from the ship's company that the dog _is gone_."
"I know that, corporal," replied Vanslyperken.
"And, sir, the report has been traced to Smallbones."
"Indeed! --then it was you that said that the dog is gone--now, you villain, where is he?"
"If you please, I did say that the dog was gone, and so he is; but I didn't say that I knew where he was--no more I don't. He's runned away, and he'll be back to-morrow--I'm sure he will."
"Corporal Van Spitter, if the dog is not on board again by eight o'clock to-morrow morning, you will get all ready for keel-hauling this scoundrel."
"Yes, mynheer," replied the corporal, delighted at having something to do in the way of punishment.
Smallbones made up a lachrymal face.
"It's very hard," said he; "suppose the dog has fallen into the canal, is that my fault? If he's a-gone to the bottom of the canal, that's no reason why I'm to be dragged under the bottom of the cutter."
"Yes, yes," replied Vanslyperken, "I'll teach you to throw paving-stones off the wharf. Leave the cabin, sir."
Smallbones, whose guilty conscience flew into his pallid face at the mention of the paving-stones, immediately made a hasty retreat; and Vanslyperken turned into his bed and dreamt of vengeance.
We must now return to the Lust Haus, and the party on shore; and our first task must be, to give the reader an idea of what a Lust Haus may be. It is, as its name imports, a resort for pleasure and amusement; and in this respect the Dutch are certainly very much in advance of the English, who have, in the pot-houses and low inns resorted to by seamen, no accommodation of the kind. There is barely room for Jack to foot it in a reel, the tap-room is so small; and as Jack is soon reeling after he is once on shore, it is a very great defect. Now, the Lust Haus is a room as large as an assembly-room in a country-town, well lighted up with lamps and chandeliers, well warmed with stoves, where you have room to dance fifty reels at once, and still have plenty of accommodation at the chairs and tables ranged round on each side. At the end of the room is a raised chair, with a protecting railing, on which the musicians, to the number of seven or eight, are posted, and they continue during the evening to play when requested. The people of the Lust Haus furnish wine and spirits of every description, while cakes, nuts, walnuts, oranges, &c, are supplied from the baskets of numerous young women who hand them round, and press their customers to purchase. Police officers superintend these resorts to remove those who are violent, and interfere with the amusements of others. On the whole, it is a very gay scene, and is resorted to by seamen of all nations, with a sprinkling of those who are not sailors, but who like amusement, and there are plenty of females who are ready to dance with them, and to share their beer or grog. Be it further known, that there is a great deal of decorum in a Lust Haus, particularly among the latter sex; and altogether it is infinitely more rational and less debasing, than the low pot-houses of Portsmouth or Plymouth.
Such was the place of amusement kept by the Frau Vandersloosh, and in this large room had been seated, for some hours, Dick Short, Coble, Jansen, Jemmy Ducks, and some others of the crew of his Majesty's cutter _Yungfrau_.
The room was now full, but not crowded, it was too spacious well to be so. Some sixteen couples were dancing a quadrille to a lively tune played by the band, and among the dancers were to be seen old women, and children of ten or twelve: for it was not considered improper to be seen dancing at this humble assembly, and the neighbours frequently came in. The small tables and numerous chairs round the room were nearly all filled, beer was foaming from the mouths of the opened bottles, and there was the ringing of the glasses as they pledged each other. At several tables were assemblages of Dutch seamen, who smoked with all the phlegm of their nation, as they gravely looked upon the dancers. At another were to be seen some American seamen, scrupulously neat in their attire, and with an air _distinguee_, from the superiority of their education, and all of them quiet and sober. The basket-women flitted about displaying their stores, and invited every one to purchase fruit, and particularly hard-boiled eggs, which they had brought in at this hour, when those who dined at one might be expected to be hungry. Sailors' wives were also there, and perhaps some who could not produce the marriage certificates; but as these were not asked for at the door, it was of no consequence. About the centre of the room, at two small tables joined together, were to be seen the party from the _Yungfrau_: some were drinking beer, some grog, and Jemmy Ducks was perched on the table, with his fiddle as usual held like a bass viol. He was known by those who frequented the house by the name of the Manikin, and was a universal object of admiration and good-will. The quadrille was ended, and the music stopped playing.
"Come now," said Coble, tossing off his glass, "spell oh! --let's have a song while they take their breath. Jemmy, strike up."
"Hurrah for a song!" cries Jemmy. "Here goes."
Jemmy then tuned one string of his fiddle, which was a little out, and accompanying his voice, sang as follows: all those who were present immediately keeping silence, for they were used to Jemmy's melody.
Twas on the twenty-fourth of June, I sailed away to sea, I turned my pockets in the lap of Susan on my knee; Says I, my dear, 'tis all I have, I wish that it was more, It can't be helped, says Susan then, you know we've spent galore.
You know we've spent galore, my Bill, And merry have been we, Again you must your pockets fill, For Susan on your knee.
"Chorus, my boys--" For Susan on my knee, my boys, With Susan on my knee.
The gale came on in thunder, lads, in lightning, and in foam, Before that we had sail'd away three hundred miles from home; And on the Sunday morning, lads, the coast was on our lee, Oh, then I thought of Portsmouth, and of Susan on my knee.
For howling winds and waves to boot, With black rocks on the lee, Did not so well my fancy suit, As Susan on my knee.
_Chorus_. --With Susan on my knee, my boys, With Susan on my knee.
Next morning we were cast away upon the Frenchman's shore, We saved our lives, but not our all, for we could save no more; They marched us to a prison, so we lost our liberty, I peeped between the bars, and sighed for Susan on my knee.
For bread so black, and wine so sour, And a son a-day to me, Made me long ten times an hour, For Susan on my knee.
_Chorus_--For Susan on my knee, my boys, For Susan on my knee.
One night we smashed our jailer's skull and off our boat did steer, And in the offing were picked up by a jolly privateer; We sailed in her the cruise, my boys, and prizes did take we, I'll be at Portsmouth soon, thinks I, with Susan on my knee.
We shared three hundred pounds a man, I made all sail with glee, Again I danced and tossed my can, With Susan on my knee.
_Chorus_. --With Susan on my knee, my boys, With Susan on my knee.
"That's prime, Jemmy. Now, my boys, all together," cried Obadiah Coble.
_Chorus_. --Very good song, and very well sung, Jolly companions every one; We are all here for mirth and glee, We are all here for jollity. Very good song, and very well sung, Jolly companions every one; Put your hats on to keep your heads warm, A little more grog will do us no harm.
"Hurrah! now, Bill Spurey, suppose you tip us a stave. But I say, Babette, you Dutch-built galliot, tell old Frank Slush to send us another dose of the stuff; and d'ye hear, a short pipe for me, and a paper o' baccy."
The short, fat Babette, whose proportions all the exercise of waiting upon the customers could not reduce, knew quite enough English to require no further explanation.
"Come, Jemmy, my hearty, take your fingers off your fiddle, and hand in your pot," continued Coble; "and then if they are not going to dance, we'll have another song. Bill Spurey, wet your whistle, and just clear the cobwebs out of your throat. Here's more 'baccy, Short."
Short made no reply, but he shook out the ashes and filled his pipe. The music did not strike up again, so Bill Spurey sang as follows:-- Says the parson one day, as I cursed a Jew, Do you know, my lad, that we call it a sin? I fear of you sailors there are but few, St Peter, to heaven, will ever let in. Says I, Mr Parson, to tell you my mind, No sailors to knock were ever yet seen, Those who travel by land may steer 'gainst wind, But we shape a course for Fidler's Green.
For Fidler's Green, where seamen true, When here they've done their duty, The bowl of grog shall still renew And pledge to love and beauty.
Says the parson, I hear you've married three wives, Now do you not know, that that is a sin? You sailors, you lead such very bad lives, St Peter, to heaven, will ne'er let you in Parson, says I, in each port I've but _one_, And never had more, wherever I've been; Below I'm obliged to be chaste as a nun, But I'm promised a dozen at Fidler's Green.
At Fidler's Green, where seamen true, When here they've done their duty, The bowl of grog shall still renew, And pledge to love and beauty.
Says the parson, says he, you're drunk, my man, And do you not know that that is a sin? If you sailors will ever be swigging your can, To heaven you surely will never get in. (_Hiccup_.) Parson, you may as well be mum, 'Tis only on shore I'm this way seen; But oceans of punch, and rivers of rum, Await the sailor at Fidler's Green.
At Fidler's Green, where seamen true, When here they've done their duty, The bowl of grog shall still renew, And pledge to love and beauty.
"Well reeled off, Billy," cried Jemmy Ducks, finishing with a flourish on his fiddle, and a refrain of the air. I don't think we shall meet _him_ and his dog at Fidler's Green--heh!"
"No," replied Short, taking his pipe from his lip.
"No, no, Jemmy, a seaman true means one true in heart as well as in knowledge; but, like a blind fiddler, he'll be led by his dog somewhere else."
"From vere de dog did come from," observed Jansen.
The band now struck up again, and played a waltz--a dance new to our country, but older than the heptarchy. Jansen, with his pipe in his mouth, took one of the women by the waist, and steered round the room about as leisurely as a capstern heaving up. Dick Short also took another, made four turns, reeled up against a Dutchman who was doing it with _sang froid_, and then suddenly left his partner and dropped into his chair.
"I say, Jemmy," said Obadiah Coble, "why don't you give a girl a twist round?"
"Because I can't, Oby; my compasses arn't long enough to describe a circle. You and I are better here, old boy. I, because I've very little legs, and you, because you havn't a leg to stand upon."
"Very true--not quite so young as I was forty years ago. Howsomever I mean this to be my last vessel. I shall bear up for one of the London dock-yards as a rigger."
"Yes, that'll do; only keep clear of the girt-lines, you're too stiff for that."
"No, that would not exactly tell; I shall pick my own work, and that's where I can bring my tarry trousers to an anchor--mousing the mainstay, or puddening the anchor, with the best of any. Dick, lend us a bit of 'baccy."
Short pulled out his box without saying a word. Coble took a quid, and Short thrust the box again into his pocket.
In the meantime the waltz continued, and being a favourite dance, there were about fifty couples going round and round the room. Such was the variety in the dress, country, language, and appearance of the parties collected, that you might have imagined it a masquerade. It was, however, getting late, and Frau Vandersloosh had received the intimation of the people of the police who superintend these resorts, that it was the time for shutting up; so that, although the widow was sorry on her own account to disperse so merry and so thirsty a party as they were now becoming, so soon as the waltz was ended the musicians packed up their instruments and departed.
This was a signal for many, but by no means for all, to depart; for music being over, and the house doors closed, a few who remained, provided they made no disturbance, were not interfered with by the police. Among those who stayed were the party from the _Yungfrau_, one or two American, and some Prussian sailors. Having closed up together, "Come," cried Jemmy, "now that we are quiet again, let's have another song; and who is it to be--Dick Short?"
"Short, my boy, come, you must sing."
"No," replied Short.
"Yes, yes--one verse," said Spurey.
"He never sings more," replied Jemmy Ducks, "so he must give us that. Come, Short."
"Yes," replied Short, taking the pipe out of his mouth, and wetting his lips with the grog.
_Short_ stay apeak was the anchor, We had but a _short_ minute more, In _short_, I no longer could banker, For _short_ was the cash in my store. I gave one _short_ look, As Poll heaved a _short_ sigh One _short_ hug I took, _Short_ the matter cut I, And off I went to sea.
"Go on, Dick."
"No," replied Short, resuming his pipe.
"Well, then, chorus, my boys."
Very good song, and very well sung, Jolly companions every one; We all are here for mirth and glee, We all are here for jollity. Very good song, and very well sung, Jolly companions every one; Put your hats on, and keep your heads warm, A little more liquor will do us no harm.
"Now then, Jemmy Ducks, it's round to you again. Strike up, fiddle and all."
"Well, here goes," said Jemmy Ducks.
The captain stood on the carronade--first lieutenant, says he, Send all my merry men aft here, for they must list to me: I havn't the gift of the gab, my sons--because I'm bred to the sea, That ship there is a Frenchman, who means to fight with we. Odds blood, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, I've fought 'gainst every odds--but I've gained the victory.
That ship there is a Frenchman, and if we don't take _she,_ 'Tis a thousand bullets to one, that she will capture _me_; I havn't the gift of the gab, my boys, so each man to his gun, If she's not mine in half an hour, I'll flog each mother's son. Odds bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, I've fought 'gainst every odds--and I've gained the victory.
We fought for twenty minutes, when the Frenchman had enough, I little thought, said he, that your men were of such stuff; The captain took the Frenchman's sword, a low bow made to he, I havn't the gift of the gab, Mounsieur, but polite I wish to be. Odds bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea, I've fought 'gainst every odds--and I've gained the victory.
Our captain sent for all of us; my merry men, said he, I havn't the gift of the gab, my lads, but yet I thankful be; You've done your duty handsomely, each man stood to his gun, If you hadn't, you villains, as sure as day, I'd have flogged each mother's son. Odds bobs, hammer and tongs, as long as I'm at sea, I'll fight 'gainst every odds--and I'll gain the victory.
_Chorus_--Very good song, and very well sung, Jolly companions every one; We all are here for mirth and glee, We all are here for jollity. Very good song, and very well sung, Jolly companions every one; Put your hats on to keep your heads warm, A little more grog will do us no harm.
"Now, Coble, we must have yours," said Jemmy Ducks.
"Mine! well, if you please: but half my notes are stranded. You'll think that Snarleyyow is baying the moon: howsomever, take it as it is."
Oh, what's the use of piping, boys, I never yet could larn, The good of water from the eyes I never could disarn; Salt water we have sure enough without our pumping more, So let us leave all crying to the girls we leave on shore.
They may pump, As in we jump To the boat, and say, "Good-bye;" But as for men, Why, I say again, That crying's all my eye.
I went to school when quite a boy, and never larnt to read, The master tried both head and tail--at last it was agreed No larning he could force in me, so they sent me off to sea, My mother wept and wrung her hands, and cried most bitterly.
So she did pump, As I did jump In the boat, and said, "Good-bye;" But as for me, Who was sent to sea, To cry was all my eye.
I courted Poll, a buxom lass; when I returned A B, I bought her ear-rings, hat, and shawl, a sixpence did break we; At last 'twas time to be on board, so, Poll, says I, farewell; She roared and said, that leaving her was like a funeral knell.
So she did pump, As I did jump In the boat, and said, "Good-bye;" But as for me With the rate A B, To cry was all my eye.
I soon went back, I shoved on shore, and Polly I did meet, For she was watching on the shore, her sweetheart for to greet, She threw her arms around me then, and much to my surprise, She vowed she was so happy that she pumped with both her eyes.
So she did pump, As I did jump To kiss her lovingly, But, I say again, That as for men, Crying is all my eye.
Then push the can around, my boys, and let us merry be; We'll rig the pumps if a leak we spring, and work most merrily: Salt water we have sure enough, we'll add not to its store, But drink, and laugh, and sing and chat, and call again for more.
The girls may pump, As in we jump To the boat, and say, "Good-bye;" But as for we, Who sailors be, Crying is all my eye.
"Bravo, Obadiah! now one more song, and then we'll aboard. It won't do to bowse your jib up too tight here," said Jemmy; "for it's rather dangerous navigation among all these canals--no room for yawing."
"No," replied Dick Short.
"Then," said Jemmy, jumping off the table with his fiddle in his hand, "let's have the roarer by way of a finish--what d'ye say, my hearties?"
Up they all rose, and gathered together in the centre of the room, save Jemmy Ducks, who, flourishing with his fiddle, commenced.
Jack's alive and a merry dog, When he gets on shore, He calls for his glass of grog, He drinks, and he calls for more. So drink, and call for what you please, Until you've had your whack, boys; We think no more of raging seas, Now that we've come back, boys.
"Chorus, now--" With a _whip, snip_, high cum diddledy, The cog-wheels of life have need of much oiling; _Smack, crack_--this is our jubilee; Huzza, my lads! we'll keep the pot boiling.
All the seamen joined in the chorus, which they accompanied both with their hands and feet, snapping their fingers at _whip_ and _snip_, and smacking their hands at _smack_ and _crack_, while they danced round in the most grotesque manner, to Jemmy's fiddle and voice; the chorus ended in loud laughter, for they had now proved the words of the song to be true, and were all alive and merry. According to the rules of the song, Jemmy now called out for the next singer, Coble.
Jack's alive and merry, my boys, When he's on blue water, In the battle's rage and noise, And the main-deck slaughter. So drink and call for what you please, Until you've had your whack, boys; We'll think no more or angry seas, Until that we go back, boys.
_Chorus_. --With a _whip, snip_, high cum diddledy, The cog-wheels of life have need of much oiling; _Smack, crack_--this is our jubilee; Huzza my lads! we'll keep the pot boiling.
Jansen and Jemmy Ducks, after the dancing chorus had finished, Yack alive and merry, my boys, Ven he get him _frau_, And he vid her ringlet toys, As he take her paw. So drink, and call for vat you please. Until you hab your vack, boys; Ve'll think no more of angry seas, Till ve standen back, boys.
Chorus and laughter With a _whip, snip_, high cum diddledy, The cog-wheels of life have need of much oiling; _Smack, crack_--this is our jubilee; Huzza, my lads, we'll keep the pot boiling.
Bill Spurey-- Jack's alive and merry, boys, When he's got the shiners; Heh! for rattle, fun, and noise, Hang all grumbling whiners. Then drink, and call for what you please, Until you've had your whack, boys; We think no more of raging seas, Now that we've come back, boys.
_Chorus_. --With a _whip, snip_, high cum diddledy, The cog-wheels of life have need of much oiling; _Smack, crack_--this is our jubilee; Huzza, my lads! we'll keep the pot boiling.
"Dick Short must sing."
"Yes," replied Dick.
Jack's alive and full of fun, When his hulk is crazy, As he basks in Greenwich sun, Jolly still though lazy. So drink, and call for what you please, Until you've had your whack, boys; We'll think no more of raging seas, Now that we've come back, boys.
_Chorus_. --With a _whip, snip_, high cum diddledy, The cog-wheels of life have need of much oiling; _Smack, crack_--this is our jubilee; Huzza, my lads! we'll keep the pot boiling.
As this was the last chorus, it was repeated three or four times, and with hallooing, screaming, and dancing in mad gesticulation.
"Hurrah, my lads," cried Jemmy, "three cheers and a bravo."
It was high time that they went on board; so thought Frau Vandersloosh, who trembled for her chandeliers; so thought Babette, who had begun to yawn before the last song, and who had tired herself more with laughing at it; so thought they all, and they sallied forth out of the Lust Haus, with Jemmy Ducks having the advance, and fiddling to them the whole way down to the boat. Fortunately, not one of them fell into the canal, and in ten minutes they were all on board; they were not, however, permitted to turn into their hammocks without the important information being imparted to them, that Snarleyyow had disappeared.
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{
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In which is explained the sublime mystery of keel-hauling--Snarleyyow saves Smallbones from being drowned, although Smallbones would have drowned him.
It is a dark morning; the wind is fresh from the northwest; flakes of snow are seen wafting here and there by the wind, the avant-couriers of a heavy fall; the whole sky is of one murky grey, and the sun is hidden behind a dense bank. The deck of the cutter is wet and slippery, and Dick Short has the morning watch. He is wrapt up in a Flushing pea-jacket, with thick mittens on his hands; he looks about him, and now and then a fragment of snow whirls into his eye; he winks it out, it melts and runs like a tear down his cheek. If it were not that it is contrary to man-of-war custom he would warm himself with the _double-shuffle_, but such a step would be unheard of on the quarter-deck of even the cutter _Yungfrau_.
The tarpaulin over the hatchway is pushed on one side, and the space between the coamings is filled with the bull head and broad shoulders of Corporal Van Spitter, who, at last, gains the deck; he looks round him and apparently is not much pleased with the weather. Before he proceeds to business, he examines the sleeves and front of his jacket, and having brushed off with the palm of his hand a variety of blanket-hairs, adhering to the cloth, he is satisfied, and now turns to the right and to the left, and forward and aft--in less than a minute he goes right round the compass. What can Corporal Van Spitter want at so early an hour? He has not come up on deck for nothing, and yet he appears to be strangely puzzled: the fact is, by the arrangements of last night, it was decided, that this morning, if Snarleyyow did not make his appearance in the boat sent on shore for fresh beef for the ship's company, the unfortunate Smallbones was to be _keel-hauled_.
What a delightful morning for a keel-hauling!
This ingenious process, which, however, like many other good old customs, has fallen into disuse, must be explained to the non-nautical reader. It is nothing more nor less than sending a poor navigator on a voyage of discovery under the bottom of the vessel, lowering him[2] down over the bows, and with ropes detaining him exactly in his position under the kelson, while he is drawn aft by a hauling line until he makes his appearance at the rudder-chains, generally speaking quite out of breath, not at the rapidity of his motion, but because, when so long under the water, he has expended all the breath in his body, and is induced to take in salt water _en lieu. _ There is much merit in this invention; people are very apt to be content with walking the deck of a man-of-war, and complain of it as a hardship, but when once they have learnt, by experience, the difference between being comfortable above board, and the number of deprivations which they have to submit to when under board and overboard at the same time, they find that there are worse situations than being on the deck of a vessel--we say privations when under board, for they really are very important:--you are deprived of the air to breathe, which is not borne with patience even by a philosopher, and you are obliged to drink salt water instead of fresh. In the days of keel-hauling, the bottoms of vessels were not coppered, and in consequence were well studded with a species of shell-fish which attached themselves, called barnacles, and as these shells were all open-mouthed and with sharp cutting points, those who underwent this punishment (for they were made by the ropes at each side, fastened to their arms, to hug the kelson of the vessel) were cut and scored all over their body, as if with so many lancets, generally coming up bleeding in every part, and with their faces, especially their noses, as if they had been gnawed by the rats; but this was considered rather advantageous than otherwise, as the loss of blood restored the patient if he was not quite drowned, and the consequence was, that one out of three, it is said, have been known to recover after their submarine excursion. The Dutch have the credit, and we will not attempt to take from them their undoubted right, of having invented this very agreeable description of punishment. They are considered a heavy, phlegmatic sort of people, but on every point in which the art of ingeniously tormenting is in request, it must be admitted that they have taken the lead of much more vivacious and otherwise more inventive nations.
[Footnote 2: The author has here explained keel-hauling as practised in those times in small _fore and aft_ vessels. In large and square-rigged vessels, the man was hauled up to one main-yard arm, and dropped into the sea, and hauled under the bottom of the vessel to the other; but this in small fore and aft vessels was not so easily effected, nor was it considered sufficient punishment.]
And now the reader will perceive why Corporal Van Spitter was in a dilemma. With all the good-will in the world, with every anxiety to fulfil his duty, and to obey his superior officer, he was not a seaman, and did not know how to commence operations. He knew nothing about foddering a vessel's bottom, much less how to fodder it with the carcass of one of his fellow-creatures. The corporal, as we said before, turned round and round the compass to ascertain if he could compass his wishes; at last, he commenced by dragging one-rope's end from one side and another from the other; those would do for the side ropes, but he wanted a long one from forward and another from aft, and how to get the one from aft under the cutter's bottom was a puzzle; and then there was the mast and the rigging in his way;--the corporal reflected--the more he considered the matter, the more his brain became confused; he was at a nonplus, and he gave it up in despair: he stood still, took out a blue cotton handkerchief from the breast of his jacket and wiped his forehead, for the intensity of thought had made him perspire--anything like reflection was very hard work for Corporal Van Spitter.
"Tousand tyfels!" at last exclaimed the corporal, and he paused and knocked his big head with his fist.
"Hundred thousand tyfels!" repeated the corporal after five minutes' more thought.
"Twenty hundred tousand tyfels!" muttered the corporal, once more knocking his head: but he knocked in vain; like an empty house, there was no one within to answer the appeal. The corporal could no more: so he returned his pocket-handkerchief to the breast of his jacket, and a heavy sigh escaped from his own breast. All the devils in hell were mentally conjured and summoned to his aid, but they were, it is to be presumed, better employed, for although the work in hand was diabolical enough, still, Smallbones was such a poor devil, that probably he might have been considered as remotely allied to the fraternity.
It may be inquired why, as this was _on service_, Corporal Van Spitter did not apply for the assistance of the seamen belonging to the vessel, particularly to the officer in charge of the deck; but the fact was, that he was unwilling to do this, knowing that his application would be in vain, for he was aware that the whole crew sided with Smallbones; it was only as a last resource that he intended to do this, and being now at his _wit's_ end, he walked up to Dick Short, who had been watching the corporal's motions in silence, and accosted him.
"If you please, Mynheer Short, Mynheer Vanslyperken give orders dat de boy be keel-hauled dis morning:--I want haben de rope and de way."
Short looked at the corporal, and made no reply.
"Mynheer Short, I haben tell de order of Mynheer Vanslyperken."
Dick Short made no reply, but leaning over the hatchway, called out, "Jemmy."
"Ay, ay," replied Jemmy Ducks, turning out of his hammock and dropping on the lower deck.
Corporal Van Spitter, who imagined that Mr Short was about to comply with his request after his own Harpocratic fashion, remained quietly on the deck until Jemmy Ducks made his appearance.
"Hands," quoth Short.
Jemmy piped the hands up.
"Boat," quoth Short, turning his head to the small boat hoisted up astern.
Now as all this was apparently preparatory to the work required, the corporal was satisfied. The men soon came up with their hammocks on their shoulders, which they put into the nettings, and then Jemmy proceeded to lower down the boat. As soon as it was down and hauled up alongside, Short turned round to Coble, and waving his hand towards the shore, said, "Beef."
Coble, who perfectly understood him, put a new quid into his cheek, went down the side, and pulled on shore to bring off the fresh beef and vegetables for the ship's company; after which Dick Short walked the deck and gave no further orders.
Corporal Van Spitter perceiving this, went up to him again.
"Mynheer Short, you please get ready."
"No!" thundered Short, turning away.
"Got for dam, dat is mutiny," muttered the corporal, who immediately backed stern foremost down the hatchway, to report to his commandant the state of affairs on deck. Mr Vanslyperken had already risen; he had slept but one hour during the whole night, and that one hour was so occupied with wild and fearful dreams that he awoke from his sleep unrefreshed. He had dreamed that he was making every attempt to drown Smallbones, but without effect, for, so soon as the lad was dead he came to life again; he thought that Smallbones' soul was incorporated in a small animal something like a mouse, and that he had to dislodge it from its tenement of clay; but as soon as he drove it from one part of the body it would force its way back again into another; if he forced it out by the mouth after incredible exertions, which made him perspire at every pore, it would run back again into the ear; if forced from thence, through the nostril, then in at the toe, or any other part; in short, he laboured apparently in his dream for years, but without success. And then the "change came o'er the spirit of his dream;" but still there was analogy, for he was now trying to press his suit, which was now a liquid in a vial, into the widow Vandersloosh, but in vain. He administered it again and again, but it acted as an emetic, and she could not stomach it, and then he found himself rejected by all--the widow kicked him, Smallbones stamped upon him, even Snarleyyow flew at him and bit him; at last, he fell with an enormous paving-stone round his neck, descending into a horrible abyss head foremost, and, as he increased his velocity, he awoke trembling and confused, and could sleep no more. This dream was not one to put Mr Vanslyperken into good humour, and two severe cuts on his cheek with the razor as he attempted to shave, for his hand still trembled, had added to his discontent, when it was raised to its climax by the entrance of Corporal Van Spitter, who made his report of the mutinous conduct of the first officer. Never was Mr Vanslyperken in such a tumult of rage; he pulled off some beaver from his hat to staunch the blood, and wiping off the remainder of the lather, for he put aside the operation of shaving till his hand was more steady, he threw on his coat and followed the corporal on deck, looked round with a savage air, spied out the diminutive form of Jemmy Ducks, and desired him to pipe "all hands to keel-haul."
Whereupon Jemmy put his pipe to his mouth, and after a long flourish, bawled out what appeared to Mr Vanslyperken to be--all hands to _be heel-hauled;_ but Jemmy slurred over quickly the little change made in the order, and, although the men tittered, Mr Vanslyperken thought it better to say nothing. But there is an old saying, that you may bring a horse to the pond, but you cannot make him drink. Mr Vanslyperken had given the order, but no one attempted to commence the arrangements. The only person who showed any activity was Smallbones himself, who, not aware that he was to be punished, and hearing all hands piped for something or another, came shambling, all legs and wings, up the hatchway, and looked around to ascertain what was to be done. He was met by the bulky form of Corporal Van Spitter, who, thinking that Smallbones' making his appearance in such haste was with the intention of jumping overboard to avoid his punishment, immediately seized him by the collar with the left hand, turned round on a pivot towards Mr Vanslyperken, and raising his right hand to his foraging cap, reported, "The prisoner on deck, Mynheer Vanslyperken." This roused the lieutenant to action, for he had been walking the deck for a half minute in deep thought.
"Is all ready there, forward?" cried Mr Vanslyperken.
No one replied.
"I say, boatswain, is all ready?"
"No, sir," replied Jemmy; "nobody knows how to set about it. I don't, anyhow--I never seed anything of the like since I've been in the service--the whole of the ship's company say the same." But even the flakes of snow, which now fell thick, and whitened the blue jacket of Mr Vanslyperken, could not assuage his wrath--he perceived that the men were refractory, so he summoned the six marines--who were completely under the control of their corporal.
Poor Smallbones had, in the meantime, discovered what was going on, and thought that he might as well urge something in his own defence.
"If you please, what are you going for to do with me?" said the lad, with a terrified look.
"Lead him forward," said Mr Vanslyperken; "follow me, marines;" and the whole party, headed by the lieutenant, went before the mast.
"Strip him," cried Mr Vanslyperken.
"Strip me, with the snow flying like this! An't I cold enough already?"
"You'll be colder when you're under the bottom of the cutter," replied his master.
"O Lord! then it is keel-hauling a'ter all; why what have I done?" cried Smallbones, as the marines divested him of his shirt, and exposed his emaciated body to the pitiless storm.
"Where's Snarleyyow, sir? --confess."
"Snarleyyow--how should I know, sir? it's very hard, because your dog is not to be found, that I'm to be dragged under the bottom of a vessel."
"I'll teach you to throw paving-stones in the canal."
"Paving-stones, sir!" and Smallbones' guilty conscience flew in his face. "Well, sir, do as you please, I'm sure I don't care; if I am to be killed, be quick about it--I'm sure I sha'n't come up alive."
Here Mr Vanslyperken remembered his dream, and the difficulty which he had in driving Smallbones' soul out of his body, and he was fearful that even keel-hauling would not settle Smallbones.
By the directions of Mr Vanslyperken, the hauling ropes and other tackle were collected by the marines, for the seamen stood by, and appeared resolved, to a man, to do nothing, and, in about half an hour, all was ready. Four marines manned the hauling line, one was placed at each side-rope fastened to the lad's arms, and the corporal, as soon as he had lifted the body of Smallbones over the larboard gunnel, had directions to attend the bow-line, and not allow him to be dragged on too fast: a better selection for this purpose could not have been made than Corporal Van Spitter. Smallbones had been laid without his clothes on the deck, now covered with snow, during the time that the lines were making fast to him; he remained silent, and as usual, when punished, with his eyes shut, and as Vanslyperken watched him with feelings of hatred, he perceived an occasional smile to cross the lad's haggard features. He knows where the dog is, thought Vanslyperken, and his desire to know what had become of Snarleyyow overcame his vengeance--he addressed the shivering Smallbones.
"Now, sir, if you wish to escape the punishment, tell me what has become of the dog, for I perceive that you know."
Smallbones grinned as his teeth chattered--he would have undergone a dozen keel-haulings rather than have satisfied Vanslyperken.
"I give you ten minutes to think of it," continued the lieutenant; "hold all fast at present."
The snow storm now came on so thick that it was difficult to distinguish the length of the vessel. Smallbones' naked limbs were gradually covered, and, before the ten minutes were expired, he was wrapped up in snow as in a garment--he shook his head occasionally to clear his face, but remained silent.
"Now, sir," cried Vanslyperken, "will you tell me, or overboard you go at once? Will you tell me?"
"No," replied Smallbones.
"Do you know, you scoundrel?"
"Yes," replied Smallbones, whose indignation was roused.
"And you won't tell?"
"No," shrieked the lad--"no, never, never, never!"
"Corporal Van Spitter, over with him," cried Vanslyperken in a rage, when a sudden stir was heard amongst the men aft, and as the corporal raised up the light frame of the culprit, to carry it to the gunnel, to the astonishment of Vanslyperken, of the corporal, and of Smallbones, Snarleyyow appeared on the forecastle, and made a rush at Smallbones, as he lay in the corporal's arms, snapped at his leg, and then set up his usual deep baying, "bow, bow, bow!"
The re-appearance of the dog created no small sensation--Vanslyperken felt that he had now no reason for keel-hauling Smallbones, which annoyed him as much as the sight of the dog gave him pleasure. The corporal, who had dropped Smallbones on the snow, was also disappointed. As for Smallbones, at the baying of the dog, he started up on his knees, and looked at it as if it were an apparition, with every demonstration of terror in his countenance; his eyes glared upon the animal with horror and astonishment, and he fell down in a swoon. The whole of the ship's company were taken aback--they looked at one another and shook their heads--one only remark was made by Jansen, who muttered, "De tog is no tog a'ter all."
Mr Vanslyperken ordered Smallbones to be taken below, and then walked aft; perceiving Obadiah Coble, he inquired whence the dog had come, and was answered that he had come off in the boat which he had taken on shore for fresh beef and vegetables. Mr Vanslyperken made no reply, but, with Snarleyyow at his heels, went down into the cabin.
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In which Snarleyyow does not at all assist his master's cause with the Widow Vandersloosh.
It will be necessary to explain to the reader by what means the life of our celebrated cur was preserved. When Smallbones had thrown him into the canal, tied up, as he supposed, in his winding-sheet, what Mr Vanslyperken observed was true, that there were people below, and the supposed paving-stone might have fallen upon them: the voices which he heard were those of father and son, who were in a small boat going from a galliot to the steps where they intended to land; for this canal was not like most others, with the water in it sufficiently high to enable people to step from the vessel's gunnel to the jetty. Snarleyyow fell in his bag a few yards ahead of the boat, and the splash naturally attracted their attention; he did not sink immediately, but floundered and struggled so as to keep himself partly above water.
"What is that?" exclaimed the father to his son, in Dutch.
"Mein Gott! who is to know? --but we will see;" and the son took the boat-hook, and with it dragged the bread-bags towards the boat, just as they were sinking, for Snarleyyow was exhausted with his efforts. The two together dragged the bags with their contents into the boat.
"It is a dog or something," observed the son.
"Very well, but the bread-bags will be useful," replied the father, and they pulled on to the landing-stairs. When they arrived there they lifted out the bags, laid them on the stone steps, and proceeded to unrip them, when they found Snarleyyow, who was just giving signs of returning animation. They took the bags with them, after having rolled his carcass out, and left it on the steps, for there was a fine for throwing anything into the canal. The cur soon after recovered, and was able to stand on his legs; so soon as he could walk he made his way to the door of the widow Vandersloosh, and howled for admittance. The widow had retired: she had been reading her book of _prières_, as every one should do, who has been cheating people all day long. She was about to extinguish her light, when this serenade saluted her ears; it became intolerable as the dog gained strength.
Babette had long been fast asleep, and was with difficulty roused up and directed to beat the cur away. She attempted to perform the duty, arming herself with the broom; but the moment she opened the door Snarleyyow dashed in between her legs, upsetting her on the brick pavement. Babette screamed, and her mistress came out in the passage to ascertain the cause; the dog not being able to run into the parlour, bolted up the stairs, and snapping at the widow as he passed, secured a berth underneath her bed.
"Oh, mein Gott! it is the dog of the lieutenant," exclaimed Babette, coming up the stairs in greater dishabille than her mistress, and with the broom in her hand. "What shall we do--how shall we get rid of him?"
"A thousand devils may take the lieutenant, and his nasty dog, too," exclaimed the widow, in great wrath; "this is the last time that either of them enter my house; try, Babette, with your broom--shove at him hard."
"Yes, ma'am," replied Babette, pushing with all her strength at the dog beneath the bed, who seized the broom with his teeth, and pulled it away from Babette. It was a struggle of strength between the girl and Snarleyyow--pull, Babette--pull, dog--one moment the broom, with two-thirds of the handle, disappeared under the bed, the next the maid recovered her lost ground. Snarleyyow was first tired of this contention, and to prove that he had no thoughts of abandoning his position, he let go the broom, flew at Babette's naked legs, and having inserted his teeth half through her ankle, he returned growling to his former retreat. "O dear, mein Gott!" exclaimed Babette, dropping her broom, and holding her ankle with both hands.
"What shall we do?" cried the widow, wringing her hands.
It was indeed a case of difficulty. Mynheer Vandersloosh, before he had quitted this transitory scene, had become a personage as bulky as the widow herself, and the bed had been made unusually wide; the widow still retained the bed for her own use, for there was no knowing whether she might not again be induced to enter the hymeneal state. It occupied more than one half of the room, and the dog had gained a position from which it was not easy for two women to dislodge him; and, as the dog snarled and growled under the bed, so did the widow's wrath rise as she stood shivering--and it was directed against the master. She vowed mentally, that so sure as the dog was under the bed, so sure should his master never get into it.
And Babette's wrath was also kindled, now that the first pain of the bite had worn off; she seized the broom again, and made some furious lunges at Snarleyyow, so furious, that he could not regain possession with his teeth. The door of the room had been left open that the dog might escape--so had the street-door; and the widow stood at the foot of the bed, waiting for some such effect being produced by Babette's vigorous attacks; but the effects were not such as she anticipated; the dog became more enraged, and at last sprang out at the foot of the bed, flew at the widow, tore her only garment, and bit her in the leg. Frau Vandersloosh screamed and reeled--reeled against the door left half open, and falling against it, slammed it to with her weight, and fell down shrieking. Snarleyyow, who probably had intended to make off, seeing that his escape was prevented, again retreated under the bed, and as soon as he was there he recommenced an attack upon Babette's legs.
Now, it appears, that what the united courage of the two females could not accomplish, was at last effected by their united fears. The widow Vandersloosh gained her legs as soon as she could, and at first opened the door to run out, but her night dress was torn to ribbons in front. She looked at her situation--modesty conquered every other feeling--she burst into tears, and exclaiming, "Mr Vanslyperken! Mr Vanslyperken!" she threw herself in an ecstasy of grief and rage on the centre of the bed. At the same moment the teeth of the dog were again fixed upon the ankles of Babette, who also shrieked, and threw herself on the bed, and upon her mistress. The bed was a good bed, and had for years done its duty; but you may even overload a bed, and so it proved in this instance. The united weights of the mistress and the maid coming down upon it with such emphasis, was more than the bed could bear--the sacking gave way altogether, and the mattress which they lay upon was now supported by the floor.
But this misfortune was their preservation--for when the mattress came down, it came down upon Snarleyyow. The animal contrived to clear his loins, or he would have perished; but he could not clear his long mangy tail, which was now caught and firmly fixed in a new species of trap, the widow's broadest proportions having firmly secured him by it. Snarleyyow pulled, and pulled, but he pulled in vain--he was fixed--he could not bite, for the mattress was between them--he pulled, and he howled, and barked, and turned himself every way, and yelped; and had not his tail been of coarse and thick dimensions, he might have left it behind him, so great were his exertions; but, no, it was impossible. The widow was a widow of substance, as Vanslyperken had imagined, and as she now proved to the dog--the only difference was, that the master wished to be in the very situation which the dog was now so anxious to escape from--to wit, tailed on to the widow. Babette, who soon perceived that the dog was so, now got out of the bed, and begging her mistress not to move an inch, and seizing the broom, she hammered Snarleyyow most unmercifully, without any fear of retaliation. The dog redoubled his exertions, and the extra weight of Babette being now removed, he was at last able to withdraw his appendage, and probably-feeling that there was now no chance of a quiet night's rest in his present quarters, he made a bolt out of the room, down the stairs, and into the street. Babette chased him down, threw the broom at his head as he cleared the threshold, and then bolted the door.
"O the beast!" exclaimed Babette, going up stairs again, out of breath; "he's gone at last, ma'am."
"Yes," replied the widow, rising up with difficulty from the hole made with her own centre of gravity; "and--and his master shall go too. Make love indeed--the atomy--the shrimp--the dried-up stock-fish. Love, quotha--and refuse to hang a cur like that. O dear! O dear! get me something to put on. One of my best chemises all in rags--and his nasty teeth in my leg in two places, Babette. Well, well, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see--I don't care for their custom. Mr Vanslyperken, you'll not sit on my sofa again, I can tell you;--hug your nasty cur--quite good enough for you. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken."
By this time the widow had received a fresh supply of linen from Babette; and as soon as she had put it on she rose from the bed, the fractured state of which again called forth her indignation.
"Thirty-two years have I had this bed, wedded and single, Babette!" exclaimed the widow. "For sixteen years did I sleep on that bed with the lamented Mr Vandersloosh--for sixteen years have I slept in it, a lone widow--but never till now did it break down. How am I to sleep to-night? What am I to do, Babette?" " 'Twas well it did break down, ma'am," replied Babette, who was smoothing down the jagged skin at her ankles; "or we should never have got the nasty biting brute out of the house."
"Very well--very well. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken--marriage, indeed, I'd as soon marry his cur."
"Mein Gott!" exclaimed Babette. "I think madame, if you did marry, you would soon find the master as cross as the dog; but I must make this bed."
Babette proceeded to examine the mischief, and found that it was only the cords which tied the sacking which had given way, and considering that they had done their office for thirty-two years, and the strain which had been put upon them after so long a period, there was not much to complain of. A new cord was procured, and, in a quarter of an hour, all was right again; and the widow, who had sat in the chair fuming and blowing off her steam, as soon as Babette had turned down the bed, turned in again, muttering, "Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken--marriage indeed. Well, well, we shall see. Stop till to-morrow, Mr Vanslyperken;" and as Babette has closed the curtains, so will we close this chapter.
|
{
"id": "12558"
}
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12
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None
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In which resolutions are entered into in all quarters, and Jemmy Ducks is accused of mutiny for singing a song in a snow-storm.
What were the adventures of Snarleyyow after this awkward interfence with his master's speculations upon the widow, until he jumped into the beef boat to go on board of the cutter, are lost for ever; but it is to be supposed that he could not have remained the whole night without making himself disagreeable in some quarter or another. But, as we before observed, we know nothing about it; and, therefore, may be excused if we do not tell.
The widow Vandersloosh slept but little that night: her soul was full of vengeance; but although smarting with the imprints of the cur's teeth, still she had an eye to business; the custom of the crew of the cutter was not to be despised, and, as she thought of this, she gradually cooled down. It was not till four o'clock in the morning that she came to her decision; and it was a very prudent one, which was to demand the dead body of the dog to be laid at her door before Mr Vanslyperken should be allowed admittance. This was her right, and if he was sincere, he would not refuse; if he did refuse, it was not at all clear that she should lose the custom of the seamen, over the major part of whom Vanslyperken then appeared to have very little control; and all of whom, she knew, detested him most cordially, as well as his dog. After which resolution the widow Vandersloosh fell fast asleep.
But we must return on board, where there was almost as much confusion as there had been on shore. The reappearance of Snarleyyow was considered supernatural, for Smallbones had distinctly told in what manner he had tied him up in the bread-bags, and thrown him into the canal. Whisperings and murmurings were heard all round the cutter's decks. Obadiah Coble shrugged up his shoulders, as he took an extra quid--Dick Short walked about with lips compressed, more taciturn than ever--Jansen shook his head, muttering, "Te tog is no tog"--Bill Spurey had to repeat to the ship's company the legend of his coming on board over and over again. The only persons who appeared not to have lost their courage were Jemmy Ducks and poor Smallbones, who had been put in his hammock to recover him from his refrigeration. The former said, "that if they were to sail with the devil, it could not be helped, pay and prize-money would still go on;" and the latter, who had quite recovered his self-possession, "vowed that dog or devil, he would never cease his attempts to destroy him--if he was the devil, or one of his imps, it was his duty as a Christian to oppose him, and he had no chance of better treatment if he were to remain quiet." The snow-storm continued, and the men remained below, all but Jemmy Ducks, who leaned against the lee side of the cutter's mast, and, as the snow fell, sang, to a slow air, the following ditty, it probably being called to his recollection by the state of the weather.
'Twas at the landing-place that's just below Mount Wyse, Poll leaned against the sentry's box, a tear in both her eyes, Her apron twisted round her arms, all for to keep them warm, Being a windy Christmas-day, and also a snow-storm.
And Bet and Sue Both stood there too, A-shivering by her side, They both were dumb, And both looked glum, As they watched the ebbing tide. Poll put her arms a-kimbo, At the admiral's house looked she, To thoughts before in limbo, She now a vent gave free. You have sent the ship in a gale to work, On a lee shore to be jammed, I'll give you a piece of my mind, old Turk, Port Admiral, you be d----d. _Chorus_. --We'll give you a piece of our mind, old Turk, Port Admiral, you be d----d.
Who ever heard in the sarvice of a frigate made to sail On Christmas-day, it blowing hard, with sleet, and snow, and hail? I wish I had the fishing of your back that is so bent, I'd use the galley poker hot unto your heart's content.
Here Bet and Sue Are with me too, A shivering by my side, They both are dumb, And both look glum, And watch the ebbing tide. Poll put her arms a-kimbo, At the admiral's house looked she, To thoughts that were in limbo, She now a vent gave free. You've got a roaring fire I'll bet, In it your toes are jammed, Let's give him a piece of our mind, my Bet, Port Admiral, you be d----d. _Chorus_. --Let's give him a piece of our mind, my Bet, Port Admiral, you be d----d. I had the flour and plums all picked, and suet all chopped fine, To mix into a pudding rich for all the mess to dine; I pawned my ear-rings for the beef, it weighed at least a stone, Now my fancy man is sent to sea, and I am left alone.
Here's Bet and Sue Who stand here too, A shivering by my side, They both are dumb, They both look glum, And watch the ebbing tide. Poll put her arms a-kimbo, At the admiral's house looked she, To thoughts that were in limbo, She now a vent gave free. You've got a turkey I'll be bound, With which you will be crammed, I'll give you a bit of my mind, old hound, Port Admiral, you be d----d. _Chorus_. --I'll give you a bit of my mind, old hound, Port Admiral, you be d----d. I'm sure that in this weather they cannot cook their meat, To eat it raw on Christmas-day will be a pleasant treat; But let us all go home, girls, it's no use waiting here, We'll hope that Christmas-day to come, they will have better cheer.
So Bet and Sue Don't stand here too, A shivering by my side, Don't keep so dumb, Don't look so glum, Nor watch the ebbing tide. Poll put her arms a-kimbo, At the admiral's house looked she, To thoughts that were in limbo, She now a vent gave free. So while they cut their raw salt junks, With dainties you'll be crammed, Here's once for all my mind, old hunks, Port Admiral, you be d----d. _Chorus_. --So once for all our mind, old hunks, Port Admiral you be d----d. "Mein Gott! but dat is rank mutiny, Mynheer Shemmy Tucks," observed Corporal Van Spitter, who had come upon the deck unperceived by Jemmy, and had listened to the song.
"Mutiny, is it?" replied Jemmy, "and report this also.
"I'll give you a bit of my mind, fat thief, You, corporal, may be d----d." "Dat is better and better--I mean to say, worser and worser," replied the corporal.
"Take care I don't pitch you overboard," replied Jemmy, in wrath.
"Dat is most worse still," said the corporal, stalking aft, and leaving Jemmy Ducks to follow up the train of his own thoughts.
Jemmy, who had been roused by the corporal, and felt the snow insinuating itself into the nape of the neck, thought he might as well go down below.
The corporal made his report, and Mr Vanslyperken made his comments, but he did no more, for he was aware that a mere trifle would cause a general mutiny. The recovery of Snarleyyow consoled him, and little thinking what had been the events of the preceding night, he thought he might as well prove his devotion to the widow, by paying his respects in a snow-storm--but not in the attire of the day before--Mr Vanslyperken was too economical for that; so he remained in his long threadbare great-coat and foul-weather hat. Having first locked up his dog in the cabin, and entrusted the key to the corporal, he went on shore, and presented himself at the widow's door, which was opened by Babette, who with her person barred entrance: she did not wait for Vanslyperken to speak first.
"Mynheer Vanslyperken, you can't come in. Frau Vandersloosh is very ill in bed--the doctor says it's a bad case--she cannot be seen."
"Ill!" exclaimed Vanslyperken; "your dear, charming mistress ill! Good heavens! what is the matter, my dear Babette?" replied Vanslyperken, with all the pretended interest of a devoted lover.
"All through you, Mr Vanslyperken," replied Babette.
"Me!" exclaimed Vanslyperken.
"Well, all through your nasty cur, which is the same thing."
"My dog! I little thought that he was left here," replied the lieutenant; "but, Babette, let me in, if you please, for the snow falls fast, and--" "And you must not come in, Mr Vanslyperken," replied Babette, pushing him back.
"Good heavens! what is the matter?"
Babette then narrated what had passed, and as she was very prolix, Mr Vanslyperken was a mass of snow on the windward side of him before she had finished, which she did, by pulling down her worsted stockings, and showing the wounds which she had received as her portion in the last night's affray. Having thus given ocular evidence of the truth of what she had asserted, Babette then delivered the message of her mistress; to wit, "that until the dead body of Snarleyyow was laid at the porch where they now stood, he, Mr Vanslyperken, would never gain re-admission." So saying, and not feeling it very pleasant to continue a conversation in a snow-storm, Babette very unceremoniously slammed the door in Mr Vanslyperken's face, and left him to digest the communication with what appetite he might. Mr Vanslyperken, notwithstanding the cold weather, hastened from the door in a towering passion. The perspiration actually ran down his face, and mingled with the melting snow. "To be or not to be"--give up the widow or give up his darling Snarleyyow--a dog whom he loved the more, the more he was, through him, entangled in scrapes and vexations--a dog whom every one hated, and therefore he loved--a dog which had not a single recommendation, and therefore was highly prized--a dog assailed by all, and especially by that scarecrow Smallbones, to whom his death would be a victory--it was impossible. But then the widow--with such lots of guilders in the bank, and such a good income from the Lust Haus, he had long made up his mind to settle in possession. It was the haven which, in the vista of his mind, he had been so long accustomed to dwell upon, and he could not give up the hope.
Yet one must be sacrificed. No, he could part with neither. "I have it," thought he; "I will make the widow believe that I have sacrificed the dog, and then, when I am once in possession, the dog shall come back again, and let her say a word if she dares; I'll tame her; and pay her off for old scores."
Such was the determination of Mr Vanslyperken, as he walked back to the boat. His reverie was, however, broken by his breaking his nose against a lamp-post, which did not contribute to his good-humour. "Yes, yes, Frau Vandersloosh, we will see," muttered Vanslyperken; "you would kill my dog, would you? It's a dog's life I'll lead you when I'm once secure of you, Madame Vandersloosh. You cheated me out of my biscuit--we shall see;" and Mr Vanslyperken stepped into his boat and pulled on board.
On his arrival he found that a messenger had come on board during his absence, with the letters of thanks from the king's loving cousins, and with directions that he should return with them forthwith. This suited the views of Vanslyperken; he wrote a long letter to the widow, in which he expressed his willingness to sacrifice everything for her--not only to hang his dog, but to hang himself if she wished it--lamented his immediate orders for sailing, and hinted that, on his return, he ought to find her more favourable. The widow read the letter, and tossed it into the grate with a Pish! "I was not born yesterday, as the saying is," cried the widow Vandersloosh.
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{
"id": "12558"
}
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13
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None
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In which the ship's company join in a chorus, and the corporal goes on a cruise.
Mr Vanslyperken is in his cabin, with Snarleyyow at his side, sitting upon his haunches, and looking in his master's face, which wears an air of anxiety and discomfiture; the fact is, that Mr Vanslyperken is anything but content; he is angry with the widow, with the ship's company, with the dog, and with himself; but his anger towards the dog is softened, for he feels that, if anything in this world loves him, it is the dog--not that his affection is great, but as much as the dog's nature will permit; and, at all events, if the animal's attachment to him is not very strong, still he is certain that Snarleyyow hates everybody else. It is astonishing how powerful is the feeling that is derived from habit and association. Now that the life of his cur was demanded by one, and, as he was aware, was sought for by many, Vanslyperken put a value upon him that was extraordinary. Snarleyyow had become a precious jewel in the eyes of his master, and what he suffered in anxiety and disappointment from the perverse disposition of the animal, only endeared him the more. "Yes, my poor dog," apostrophised the lieutenant, "they would seek your life--nay, that hard-hearted woman demands that you should be laid--dead at her porch. All conspire against you, but be not afraid, my dog, your master will protect you against all."
Vanslyperken patted the animal on the head, which was not a little swelled from the blows received from the broom of Babette, and Snarleyyow rubbed his nose against his master's trousers, and then raised himself up, by putting his paw upon his master's knee. This brought the dog's head more to the light, and Vanslyperken observed that one eye was swelled and closed. He examined it, and, to his horror, found that it had been beaten out by the broom of Babette. There was no doubt of it, and Mr Vanslyperken's choler was extreme. "Now, may all the curses of ophthalmia seize the fagot," cried the lieutenant; "I wish I had her here. My poor, poor dog!" and Vanslyperken kissed the _os frontis_ of the cur, and what perhaps had never occurred since childhood, and what nothing else could have brought about, Mr Vanslyperken _wept_--actually wept over an animal, which was not, from any qualification he possessed, worth the charges of the cord which would have hanged him. Surely the affections have sometimes a bent towards insanity.
After a short time the lieutenant rang his bell, and ordered some warm water, to bathe the dog's eye. Corporal Van Spitter, as Smallbones was in his hammock, answered the summons, and when he returned aft with the water, he made known to Mr Vanslyperken the mutinous expressions of Jemmy Ducks. The lieutenant's small eye twinkled with satisfaction. "Damned the Admiral, did he! --which one was it--Portsmouth or Plymouth?"
This, Corporal Van Spitter could not tell; but it was certain that Jemmy had damned his superior officer; "And moreover," continued the corporal, "he damned me." Now Mr Vanslyperken had a great hatred against Jemmy Ducks, because he amused the ship's company, and he never could forgive any one who made people happy; moreover, he wanted some object to visit his wrath upon: so he asked a few more questions, and then dismissed the corporal, put on his tarpaulin hat, put his speaking-trumpet under his arm, and went on deck, directing the corporal to appoint one of the marines to continue to bathe the eye of his favourite.
Mr Vanslyperken looked at the dog-vane, and perceived that the wind was foul for sailing, and moreover, it would be dark in two hours, so he determined upon not starting till the next morning, and then he thought that he would punish Jemmy Ducks; but the question occurred to him whether he could do so or not. Was James Salisbury a boatswain by right or not? He received only the pay of a boatswain's mate, but he was styled boatswain on the books. It was a nice point, and the balance was even. Mr Vanslyperken's own wishes turned the scale, and he resolved to flog Jemmy Ducks if he could. We say, if he could, for as, at that time, tyrannical oppression on the part of the superiors was winked at, and no complaints were listened to by the Admiralty, insubordination, which was the natural result, was equally difficult to get over; and although on board of the larger vessels, the strong arm of power was certain to conquer, it was not always the case in the smaller, where the superiors were not in sufficient force, or backed by a numerous party of soldiers or marines, for there was then little difference between the two services. Mr Vanslyperken had had more than one mutiny on board of the vessels which he had commanded, and, in one instance, his whole ship's company had taken the boats and gone on shore, leaving him by himself in the vessel, preferring to lose the pay due to them, than to remain longer on board. They joined other ships in the service, and no notice was taken of their conduct by the authorities. Such was the state of half discipline at the period we speak of in the service of the king. The ships were, in every other point, equally badly fitted out and manned; peculation of every kind was carried to excess, and those who were in command thought more of their own interest than of anything else. Ship's stores and provisions were constantly sold, and the want of the former was frequently the occasion of the loss of the vessel, and the sacrifice of the whole crew. Such maladministration is said to be the case even now in some of the continental navies. It is not until a long series of years have elapsed, that such regulations and arrangements as are at present so economically and beneficially administered to our navy, can be fully established.
Having settled the point so far, Mr Vanslyperken then proceeded to debate in his own mind, whether he should flog Jemmy in harbour, or after he had sailed; and feeling that if there was any serious disturbance on part of the men, they might quit the vessel if in harbour, he decided that he would wait until he had them in blue water. His thoughts then reverted to the widow, and, as he turned and turned again, he clenched his fists in his great-coat pockets, and was heard by those near him to grind his teeth.
In the meantime, the news had been imparted by the marine, who came up into the galley for more warm water, that the dog had had one of his eyes put out, and it was strange the satisfaction which this intelligence appeared to give to the ship's company. It was passed round like wildfire, and, when communicated, a beam of pleasure was soon apparent throughout the whole cutter, and for this simple reason, that the accident removed the fear arising from the supposition of the dog being supernatural, for the men argued, and with some reason, that if you could put out his eye, you could kill him altogether; for if you could destroy a part, you could destroy the whole. No one ever heard of the devil's eye being put out--_ergo_, the dog could not be a devil, or one of his imps: so argued a knot of the men in conclave, and Jansen wound up by observing, "Dat de tog was only a tog after all."
Vanslyperken returned to his cabin and stated his intentions to his factotum and confidant, Corporal Van Spitter. Now, in this instance, the corporal did not adhere to that secrecy to which he was bound, and the only reason we can give is, that he had as great a dislike to Jemmy Ducks as his lieutenant--for the corporal obeyed orders so exactly, that he considered it his duty not to have even an opinion or a feeling contrary to those of his superior officer. He was delighted at the idea of flogging Jemmy, and communicated the lieutenant's intention to the most favoured of his marines, who also told the secret to another, and thus in five minutes, it was known throughout the cutter, that as soon as they were in blue water, the little boatswain was to be tied up for having damned the admiral in a snow-storm. The consequence was, as the evening was clear, that there was a very numerous assemblage upon the forecastle of the cutter _Yungfrau_.
"Flog Jemmy," said Bill Spurey. "Why, Jemmy's a hofficer."
"To be sure he is," observed another; "and quite as good a one as Vanslyperken himself, though he don't wear brass on his hat."
"D--n it--what next--heh, Coble?"
Coble hitched up his trousers. "It's my opinion he'll be for flogging _us_ next, Short," said the old man.
"Yes," replied Short.
"Shall we allow Jemmy to be flogged?"
"No," replied Short.
"If it warn't for them 'ere marines, and the lumpy beggar of a corporal," observed one of the seamen.
"Pish," quoth Jemmy, who was standing among them.
"Won't he make it out mutiny?" observed Spurey.
"Mein Gott! it was mutiny to flog de officer," said Jansen.
"That's very true," observed another.
"But Jemmy can't stand against the fat corporal and the six marines," observed Bill Spurey.
"One up and t'other down, I'll take them all," observed Jemmy, expanding his chest.
"Yes, but they'll all be down upon you at once, Jemmy."
"If they lays their hands upon an officer," observed Coble, "it will be mutiny; and then Jemmy calls in the ship's company to protect him."
"Exactly," observed Jemmy.
"And den, mein Gott, I zettle for de corporal," observed Jansen.
"I'll play him a trick yet."
"But now, it's no use palavering," observed Spurey; "let's come to some settlement. Obadiah, give us your opinion as to what's best to be done."
Hereupon Coble squirted out a modicum of 'baccy juice, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and said, "It's my opinion, that the best way of getting one man out of a scrape, is to get all the rest in it. Jemmy, d'ye see, is to be hauled up for singing an old song, in which a wench very properly damns the admiral for sending a ship out on a Christmas-day, which, let alone the unchristian-like act, as you may know, my lads, always turns up on a Friday, a day on which nothing but being blown out from your anchors can warrant any vessel sailing on. Now, d'ye see, it may be mutiny to damn a live admiral, with his flag hoisted--I won't say but what it is--but this here admiral as Jemmy damned, is no more alive than a stock fish; and, moreover, it is not Jemmy as damns him, but Poll; therefore it can be no mutiny. Now, what I consider best is this, if so be it be against the articles--well, then, let's all be in for it together, and then Vanslyperken will be puzzled, and, moreover, it will give him a hint how matters stand, and he may think better of it; for although we must not have Jemmy touched, still it's quite as well not to have a regular breeze with the jollies; for if so be that the _Scarborough,_ or any other king's ship, be in port when we arrive, Vanslyperken may run under the guns, and then whip the whole boiling of us off to the Ingies, and glad to get us, too, and that's no joke. Now, that's my idea of the matter."
"Well, but you've not told us how we are all to get into it, Coble."
"More I have--well, that's funny; left out the whole burden of my song. Why, I consider that we had better now directly sing the song over again, all in chorus, and then we shall have damned the admiral a dozen times over; and Vanslyperken will hear us, and say to himself, 'They don't sing that song for nothing.' What do you say, Dick Short, you're first hofficer?"
"Yes," replied Short.
"Hurrah! my lads, then," cried Bill Spurey; "now then, strike up, Jemmy, and let us give it lots of mouth."
The song which our readers have already heard from the lips of Jemmy Ducks, was then sung by the whole of the men, _con animo e strepito_, and two verses had been roared out, when Corporal Van Spitter, in great agitation, presented himself at the cabin door, where he found Mr Vanslyperken very busy summing up his accounts.
"Mein Gott, sar! dere is de mutiny in de _Yungfrau_," cried the corporal.
"Mutiny!" cried Vanslyperken, catching at his sword, which hung up on the bulk-head.
"Yaw, mynheer--de mutiny--hear now de ship's company."
Vanslyperken lent his ears, when the astounding chorus came rolling aft through the door of the cabin, "I'll give you a bit of my mind, old hunks, Port Admiral--you be d---d" "Bow, wow, wow," barked Snarleyyow.
"Why, it's the whole ship's company!" cried Vanslyperken.
"All but de Corporal Van Spitter, and de six marines," replied the corporal, raising his hand up to his head _a la militaire_.
"Shut the door, corporal. This is indeed mutiny and defiance," cried Vanslyperken, jumping up from his chair.
"It is von tyfel of a song," replied the corporal.
"I must find out the ringleaders, corporal; do you think that you could contrive to overhear what they say after the song is over? they will be consulting together, and we might find out something."
"Mynheer, I'm not very small for to creep in and listen," replied the corporal, casting his eyes down upon his huge carcass.
"Are they all forward?" inquired the lieutenant.
"Yes, mynheer--not one soul baft."
"There is the small boat astern; do you think you could get softly into it, haul it up to the bows, and lie there quite still? You would then hear what they said, without their thinking of it, now that it is dark."
"I will try, mynheer," replied the corporal, who quitted the cabin.
But there were others who condescended to listen as well as the corporal, and in this instance, every word which had passed, had been overheard by Smallbones, who had been for some hours out of his hammock. When the corporal's hand touched the lock of the door, Smallbones made a hasty retreat.
Corporal Van Spitter went on the quarter-deck, which he found vacant; he hauled up the boat to the counter, and by degrees lowered into it his unwieldy carcass, which almost swamped the little conveyance. He then waited a little, and with difficulty forced the boat up against the strong flood-tide that was running, till at last he gained the chesstree of the cutter, when he shortened in the painter (or rope that held the boat), made it fast to a ringbolt without being perceived, and there he lay concealed, not daring to move, for fear of making a noise.
Smallbones had, however, watched him carefully, and as the corporal sat in the middle thwart, with his face turned aft, catching but imperfectly the conversation of the men, the lad separated the painter with a sharp knife, and at the same time dropping his foot down, gave the bow of the boat a shove off, which made it round with the stream. The tide was then running five or six miles an hour, and before the corporal, in the utter darkness, could make out what had occurred, or raise his heavy carcass to assist himself, he was whirled away by the current clear of the vessel, and soon disappeared from the sight of Smallbones, who was watching his progress.
It is true that the corporal shouted for assistance when he found himself astern, and also that he was heard by the men, but Smallbones had leaped among them, and in a few words told them what he had done; so of course they took no notice, but rubbed their hands with delight at the idea of the corporal being adrift like a bear in a washing-tub, and they all prayed for a gale of wind to come on that he might be swamped, and most of them remained on deck to hear what Mr Vanslyperken would say and do when the corporal's absence was discovered. Mr Vanslyperken remained nearly two hours without sending for the corporal; at last, surprised at not seeing him return, he went on deck. The men on the forecastle perceiving this, immediately disappeared gently down the fore-hatchway. Mr Vanslyperken walked forward and found that every one was, as he supposed, either in bed or below; for in harbour the corporal kept one of the watches, and this night it was his first watch. Vanslyperken looked over the side all round the cutter, and could see no boat and no Corporal Van Spitter, and it immediately occurred to him that the corporal must have gone adrift, and he was very much puzzled how to act. It would be flood-tide for two hours more, and then the whole ebb would run before it was daylight. Corporal Van Spitter would traverse the whole Zuyder Zee before they might find him. Unless he had the fortune to be picked up by some small craft, he might perish with cold and hunger. He could not sail without him; for what could he do without Corporal Van Spitter, his protection, his factotum, his distributer of provisions, &c. The loss was irreparable, and Mr Vanslyperken, when he thought of the loss of the widow's favour and the loss of his favourite, acknowledged with bitterness that his star was not in the ascendant. After some reflection, Mr Vanslyperken thought that as nothing could be gained by making the fact known, the wisest thing that he could do was to go to bed and say nothing about it, leaving the whole of the ulterior proceedings until the loss of the boat should be reported to him in the morning. Having arranged this in his mind, Mr Vanslyperken took two or three turns more, and then went down and turned in.
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{
"id": "12558"
}
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14
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None
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In which some new characters appear on the stage, although the corporal is not to be heard of.
The loss of the boat was reported by Obadiah Coble at daylight, and Mr Vanslyperken immediately went on deck with his spy-glass to ascertain if he could distinguish the corporal coming down with the last of the ebb-tide but he was nowhere to be seen. Mr Vanslyperken went to the mast-head and surveyed in every direction, but he could neither see anything like the boat or Corporal Van Spitter. His anxiety betrayed to the men that he was a party to the corporal's proceedings, and they whispered among themselves. At last Mr Vanslyperken came down on deck, and desired Corporal Van Spitter to be sent to him. Of course, it was soon reported to him that Corporal Van Spitter was nowhere to be found, and Mr Vanslyperken pretended to be much astonished. As the lieutenant took it for granted that the boat had been swept out with the ebb, he determined to get under weigh in pursuance of his orders, pick up the corporal, if he could find him, and then proceed to Portsmouth, which was the port of his destination. Smallbones attended his master, and was so unusually active that the suspicious Mr Vanslyperken immediately decided that he had had a finger in the business; but he took no notice, resolving in his own mind that Smallbones should some day or another be adrift himself as the corporal was, but with this difference, that there should be no search made after him. As soon as the men had finished their breakfasts, the cutter was got under weigh and proceeded to sea. During the whole day Vanslyperken cruised in the Zuyder Zee looking for the boat, but without success, and at last he unwillingly shaped his course for England, much puzzled and perplexed, as now he had no one to act as his steward to whom he could confide, or by whose arrangements he could continue to defraud the ship's company; and, farther, he was obliged to put off for the present all idea of punishing Jemmy Ducks, for, without the corporal, the marines were afraid to move a step in defiance of the ship's company. The consequence was, that the three days that they were at sea, Mr Vanslyperken confined himself altogether to his cabin, for he was not without some fears for his own safety. On his arrival at Portsmouth, he delivered his letters to the admiral, and received orders to return to his cruising ground after the smugglers as soon as he had replaced his lost boat.
We have observed that Mr Vanslyperken had no relations on this side of the water; but in saying that, we referred to the epoch that he was in the service previous to the accession of King William. Since that, and about a year from the time we are now writing about, he had brought over his mother, whom he had not, till the peace, seen for years, and had established her in a small apartment in that part of the town now known by the name of the Halfway Houses. The old woman lived upon a small pension allowed by the Dutch court, having been employed for many years in a subordinate capacity in the king's household. She was said to have once been handsome, and when young, prodigal of her favours; at present she was a palsied old woman, bent double with age and infirmity, but with all her faculties as complete as if she was in her prime. Nothing could escape her little twinkling bloodshot eyes, or her acute ear; she could scarcely hobble fifty yards, but she kept no servant to assist her, for, like her son, she was avaricious in the extreme. What crime she had committed was not known, but that something lay heavy on her conscience was certain; but if there was guilt, there was no repentance, only fear of future punishment. Cornelius Vanslyperken was her only living child: she had been twice married. The old woman did not appear to be very fond of him, although she treated him still as a child, and executed her parental authority as if he were still in petticoats. Her coming over was a sort of mutual convenience. She had saved money, and Vanslyperken wished to secure that, and also have a home and a person to whom he could trust; and she was so abhorred, and the reports against her so shocking where she resided, that she was glad to leave a place where every one, as she passed, would get out of her way, as if to avoid contamination. Yet these reports were vague, although hinting at some horrid and appalling crimes. No one knew what they exactly were, for the old woman had outlived her contemporaries, and the tradition was imperfect, but she had been handed down to the next generation as one to be avoided as a basilisk.
It was to his mother's abode, one room on the second floor, to which Mr Vanslyperken proceeded as soon as he had taken the necessary steps for the replacing of the boat. As he ascended the stairs, the quick ear of the old woman heard his footstep, and recognised it. It must be observed, that all the conversation between Vanslyperken and his mother was carried on in Dutch, of which we, of course, give the translation.
"There you come, Cornelius Vanslyperken; I hear you, and by your hurried tread you are vexed. Well, why should you not be vexed as well as your mother, in this world of devils?"
This was a soliloquy of the old woman's before that Vanslyperken had entered the room, where he found his mother sitting over a few cinders half ignited in a very small grate. Parsimony would not allow her to use more fuel, although her limbs trembled as much from cold as palsy; her nose and chin nearly met; her lips were like old scars, and of an ashy white; and her sunken hollow mouth reminded you of a small, deep, dark sepulchre; teeth she had none.
"How fare you, mother?" said Vanslyperken on entering the room.
"I'm alive."
"And long may you live, dear mother."
"Ah," replied the woman, as if doubting.
"I am here but for a short time," continued Vanslyperken.
"Well, child, so much the better; when on board you save money, on shore you must spend some. Have you brought any with you?"
"I have, mother, which I must leave to your care."
"Give it me then."
Vanslyperken pulled out a bag and laid it on the lap of his mother, whose trembling hands counted it over.
"Gold, and good gold--while you live, my child, part not with gold. I'll not die yet--no, no, the devils may pull at me, and grin at me, but I'm not theirs yet."
Here the old woman paused, and rocked herself in her chair.
"Cornelius, lock this money up and give me the key:--there, now that is safe, you may talk, if you please, child: I can hear well enough."
Vanslyperken obeyed; he mentioned all the events of the last cruise, and his feelings against the widow, Smallbones, and Jemmy Ducks. The old woman never interrupted him, but sat with her arms folded up in her apron.
"Just so, just so," said she, at last, when he had done speaking; "I felt the same, but then you have not the soul to act as I did. I could do it, but you--you are a coward; no one dared cross my path, or if they did--ah, well, that's years ago, and I'm not dead yet."
All this was muttered by the old woman in a sort of half soliloquy: she paused and continued, "Better leave the boy alone,--get nothing by it;--the woman--there's work there, for there's money."
"But she refuses, mother, if I do not destroy the dog."
"Refuses--ah, well--let me see:--can't you ruin her character, blast her reputation; she is yours and her money too;--then, then--there will be money and revenge--both good;--but money--no--yes, money's best. The dog must live, to gnaw the Jezebel--gnaw her bones--but you, you are a coward--you dare do nothing."
"What do I fear, mother?"
"Man--the gallows, and death. I fear the last, but I shall not die yet:--no, no, I _will_ live--I will _not_ die. Ay, the corporal--lost in Zuyder Zee--dead men tell no tales; and he could tell many of you, my child. Let the fish fatten on him."
"I cannot do without him, mother."
"A hundred thousand devils!" exclaimed the old mother, "that I should have suffered such throes for a craven. Cornelius Vanslyperken, you are not like your mother:--your father, indeed" "Who was my father?"
"Silence, child,--there, go away--I wish to be alone with memory."
Vanslyperken, who knew that resistance or remonstrance would be useless, and only lead to bitter cursing and imprecation on the part of the old woman, rose and walked back to the sallyport, where he slipped into his boat and pulled on board of the _Yungfrau_, which lay at anchor in the harbour, about a cable's length from the shore.
"Here he comes," cried a tall bony woman, with nothing on her head but a cap with green faded ribbons, who was standing on the forecastle of the cutter. "Here he comes;--he, the willain, as would have flogged my Jemmy." This was the wife of Jemmy Ducks, who lived at Portsmouth, and who, having heard what had taken place, vowed revenge.
"Silence, Moggy," said Jemmy, who was standing by her.
"Yes, I'll hold my tongue till the time comes, and then I'll sarve him out, the cheating wagabond."
"Silence, Moggy."
"And as for that 'peaching old Corporal Blubber, I'll _Wan Spitter_ him if ever he turns up again to blow the gaff against my own dear Jemmy."
"Silence, Moggy--there's rowed of all, and a marine at your elbow."
"Let him take that for his trouble," cried Moggy, turning round, and delivering a swinging box of the ear upon the astonished marine, who not liking to encounter such an Amazon, made a hasty retreat down the fore-hatchway.
"So there you are, are you?" continued Moggy, as Vanslyperken stepped on the deck.
"Silence, Moggy."
"You, that would flog my own dear darling duck--my own Jemmy."
"Silence! Moggy, will you?" said Jemmy Ducks, in an angry tone, "or I'll smash your peepers."
"You must climb on the gun to reach them, my little man," replied his wife. "Well, the more I holds my tongue now, the more for him when I gets hold on him. Oh! he's gone to his cabin, has he, to kiss his Snarleyyow:--I'll make _smallbones_ of that beast afore I'm done with him. Flog my Jemmy--my own, dear, darling Jemmy--a nasty lean--" "Go down below, Moggy," said Jemmy Ducks, pushing her towards the hatchway.
"Snivelling, great-coated--" "Go below," continued Jemmy, shoving her.
"Ferret-eyed, razor-nosed--" "Go down below, will you?" cried Jemmy, pushing her near to the hatchway.
"Herring-gutted, bare-poled--" "Confound it! go below."
"Cheating rip of a wagabond! Lord, Jemmy, if you a'n't a shoved me down the hatchway! Well, never mind, my darling, let's go to supper;" and Moggy caught hold of her husband as she was going down, and with surprising strength lifted him off his legs and carried him down in her arms as she would have done a child, much to the amusement of the men who were standing on the forecastle.
When it was dusk, a boat dropped alongside of the cutter, and a man stepped out of it on the deck, when he was met by Obadiah Coble, who asked him, "What's your pleasure?"
"I must speak with the commander of this vessel directly."
"Wait a moment, and I'll tell him what you say," replied Coble, who reported the message to Mr Vanslyperken.
"What sort of a person is he?" demanded the lieutenant.
"Oh, I don't know,--sort of half-bred, long-shore chap--looks something between a bumbailey and a bum-boatman."
"Well, you may show him down."
The man, who shortly after entered the cabin, was a short, punchy little fellow, with a red waistcoat, knee-breeches, and a round jacket of green cloth. His face was covered with carbuncles, some of them so large that his small pug-nose was nothing more in appearance than a larger blotch than the others. His eyes were small and keen, and his whiskers of a deep red. As soon as he entered the cabin, he very deliberately locked the door after him.
"Nothing like making sure," observed he.
"Why, what the devil do you want?" exclaimed Vanslyperken, rather alarmed; while Snarleyyow walked round and round the thick calves of the man's legs, growling, and in more than two minds to have a bite through his blue worsted stockings; and the peculiar obliquity with which he carried his head, now that he surveyed with only one eye, was by no means satisfactory.
"Take your cur away, and let us proceed to business, for there is no time to lose," said the man coolly, taking a chair. "Now there can be no eavesdropping, I trust, for my life may be forfeited, if I'm discovered."
"I cannot understand a word of all this," replied Vanslyperken, much surprised.
"In a few words, do you want to put some five thousand pounds in your pocket?"
At this question Vanslyperken became attentive. He beat off the dog, and took a chair by the side of the stranger.
"Ah! interest will always bring civility; so now to the point. You command this cutter, do you not?"
"I do," replied Vanslyperken.
"Well, you are about to cruise after the smugglers?"
"Yes."
"I can give information of a cargo to be landed on a certain night worth ten thousand pounds or more."
"Indeed!" replied Vanslyperken.
"Yes, and put your boats in such a position that they must seize the whole."
"I'm very much obliged to you. Will you take something, sir, any scheedam?" said Vanslyperken, unlocking one of his cupboards, and producing a large stone bottle, and a couple of glasses, which he filled.
"This is very good stuff," observed the man; "I'll trouble you for another glass."
This was one more than Mr Vanslyperken intended; but on second thoughts, it would make his new acquaintance more communicative, so another was filled, and as soon as it was filled, it was emptied.
"Capital stuff!" said he of the rubicund face, shoving his glass towards Vanslyperken, by way of hint; but the lieutenant would not take the hint, as his new guest had already swallowed as much as lasted himself for a week.
"But now," observed Vanslyperken, "where is this cargo to be seen, and when?"
"That's tellings," replied the man.
"I know that; but you have come to tell, or what the devil else?" replied Vanslyperken, who was getting angry.
"That's according," replied the man.
"According to what?"
"The snacks," replied the man. "What will you give up?"
"Give up! How do you mean?"
"What is my share to be?"
"Share! you can't share--you're not a king's officer."
"No, but I'm an informer, and that's the same thing."
"Well, depend upon it, I'll behave very liberally."
"How much, I ask?"
"We'll see to that afterwards; something handsome, depend upon it."
"That won't do. Wish you good-evening, sir. Many thanks for the scheedam--capital stuff!" and the man rose from his chair.
But Mr Vanslyperken had no intention to let him go; his avarice induced him at first to try if the man would be satisfied with his promise to reward him--a promise which would certainly never have been adhered to.
"Stop! my dear sir, do not be in such a hurry. Take another glass."
"With pleasure," replied the man, re-seating himself, and drinking off the scheedam. "That's really prime; I like it better every time I taste it. Now, then, shall we go to business again? I'll be plain with you. Half is my conditions, or I don't inform."
"Half!" exclaimed Vanslyperken; "half of ten thousand pounds? What, five thousands pounds?"
"Exactly so; half of ten is five, as you say."
"What, give you five thousand pounds?"
"I rather think it is I who offer you five thousand, for the devil a penny will you get without me. And that I will have, and this bond you must sign to that effect, or I'm off. You're not the only vessel in the harbour."
Vanslyperken tried for some time to reduce the terms, but the man was positive. Vanslyperken then tried if he could not make the man intoxicated, and thus obtain better terms; but fifteen glasses of his prime scheedam had no effect further than extorting unqualified praise as it was poured down, and at last Mr Vanslyperken unwillingly consented to the terms, and the bond was signed.
"We must weigh at the ebb," said the man, as he put the bond in his pocket. "I shall stay on board; we have a moonlight night, and if we had not, I could find my way out in a yellow fog. Please to get your boats all ready, manned and armed, for there may be a sharp tussle."
"But when do they run, and where?" demanded Vanslyperken.
"To-morrow night at the back of the Isle. Let me see," continued the man, taking out his watch; "mercy on me! how time has flown--that's the scheedam. In a couple of hours we must weigh. I'll go up and see if the wind holds in the same quarter. If you please, lieutenant, we'll just drink success to the expedition. Well, that's prime stuff, I do declare."
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{
"id": "12558"
}
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15
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None
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In which the crew of the _Yungfrau_ lose a good prize, and Snarleyyow loses his character.
The next morning the _Yungfrau_ was clear of St Helens, and sounding the eastern part of the Isle of Wight, after which she made sail into the offing, that she might not be suspected by those on shore waiting to receive the cargo. The weather was fine, and the water smooth, and as soon as she was well out, the cutter was hove-to. In the hurry of weighing, Mr Vanslyperken had not thought, or had not known perhaps, that the wife of Jemmy Ducks was still on board, and as he was turning up and down on the quarter-deck, he perceived her on the forecastle, laughing and talking with the men.
"What woman is that?" said he to Jansen, who was at the wheel.
"De frau, mynheer. Dat is de frau of Shimmy Duk."
"How dare she come on board? Send her aft here, marine."
The marine went forward and gave the order; and Jemmy, who expected a breeze, told his wife to behave herself quietly. His advice did not, however, appear to be listened to, as will be shown in the sequel.
"How came you on board, woman?" cried Vanslyperken, looking at her from top to toe several times, as usual, with his hands in his great-coat pockets, and his battered speaking-trumpet under his arm.
"How did I come on board! why, in a boat to be sure," replied Moggy, determined to have a breeze.
"Why did you not go on shore before the cutter sailed?" replied Vanslyperken, in an angry tone.
"Why, just for the contrary reason, because there was no boat."
"Well, I'll just tell you this, if ever I see you on board again, you'll take the consequences," retorted Vanslyperken.
"And I'll just tell you this," replied Moggy; "if ever you come on shore again you shall take the consequences. I'll have you--I give you warning. Flog my Jemmy, heh! my own dear darling Jemmy." Hereupon Moggy held out one arm bent, and with the palm of her other hand slapped her elbow--"_There! _" cried she.
What Jemmy's wife meant by this sign, it is impossible for us to say; but that it was a very significant one was certain, for Mr Vanslyperken foamed with rage, and all the cutter's crew were tittering and laughing. It was a species of free-masonry known only to the initiated at the Sallyport.
"Send the marines aft here. Take this woman below," cried Vanslyperken. "I shall put all this down to your husband's account, and give him a receipt in full, depend upon it."
"So you may. Marines, keep off, if you don't wish your heads broken; and I'll put all this down to your account; and as you say that you'll pay off on my pet, mark my words, if I don't pay off on yours--on your nasty cur there. I'll send him to cruise after Corporal Van Spitter. As sure as I stand here, if you dare to lay a finger on my Jemmy, I'll kill the brute wherever I find him, and make him into _saussingers_, just for the pleasure of eating him. I'll send you a pound as a present. You marine, don't be a fool--I can walk forward without your hoffering your arm, and be d----d to you." So saying, Moggy stalked forward and joined the men on the forecastle.
"D'ye know much of that strapping lass?" said Mr Vanslyperken's new acquaintance.
"Not I," replied Vanslyperken, not much pleased at the observation.
"Well, look out for squalls, she'll be as good as her word. We'll draw the foresheet, and stand in now, if you please."
It was about dusk, for the days were now short, and the cutter was eight miles off the land. By the directions of the informer, for we have no other name to give him, they now bore up and ran along the island until they were, by his calculations, for it then was dark, abreast of a certain point close to the Black Gang Chyne. Here they hove-to, hoisted out their boats, three in number, and the men were sent in, well armed with pistols and cutlasses. Short had the charge of one, Coble of the second, the stern-sheets of the third was occupied by Vanslyperken and the informer. As soon as all was ready, Jemmy Ducks, who, much against Vanslyperken's wish, was left in charge of the cutter, received his orders to lie-to where he was, and when the tide made flood, to stand close in-shore; and all was prepared for a start, when it occurred to Vanslyperken that to leave Snarleyyow, after the threat of Jemmy's wife, and the known animosity of Smallbones, would be his death-warrant. He determined, therefore, to take him in the boat. The informer protested against it, but Vanslyperken would not listen to his protestations. The dog was handed into the boat, and they shoved off. After they had pulled a quarter of an hour in-shore, they altered their course, and continued along the coast until the informer had made out exactly where he was. He then desired the other two boats to come alongside, told the crews that they must keep the greatest silence, as where they were about to proceed was directly under where the smugglers would have a party to receive the goods, and that the least alarm would prevent them from making the capture. The boats then pulled in to some large rocks, against which the waves hoarsely murmured, although the sea was still smooth, and passing between them, found themselves in a very small cove, where the water was still, and in which there was deep water.
The cove was not defended so much by the rocks above water, for the mouth of it was wide; but there appeared to be a ridge below, which broke off the swell of the ocean. Neither was it deep, the beach not being more than perhaps fifty feet from the entrance. The boats, which had pulled in with muffled oars, here lay quietly for nearly an hour, when a fog came on and obscured the view of the offing, which otherwise was extensive, as the moon was at her full, and had shone bright.
"This is all the better," whispered the informer, "they will fall into the trap at once. Hark! hist! I hear oars."
They all listened; it was true, the sound of oars was heard, and the men prepared their arms.
The splash of the oars was now more plain. "Be silent and ready," whispered the informer, and the whisper was passed round. In another minute a large lugger-built boat, evidently intended for sailing as well as pulling, was seen through the fog looming still larger from the mist, pulling into the cove.
"Silence, and not a word. Let her pass us," whispered the informer.
The boat approached rapidly--she was within ten fathoms of the entrance, when Snarleyyow, hearing the sound, darted forward under the thwarts, and jumping on the bow of the boat, commenced a most unusual and prolonged baying of Bow wow, bow wow wow wow!
At the barking of the dog the smugglers backed water to stop their way. They knew that there was no dog with those they expected to meet, it was therefore clear that the Philistines were at hand. The dog barked in spite of all attempts to prevent him, and acting upon this timely warning, the lugger-boat pulled short round, just as lights were shown from the cliffs to notify an enemy at hand, for the barking of the dog had not escaped the vigilance of those on shore, and in a few seconds she disappeared in the mist.
"Blast your cur! Five thousand pounds out of my pocket;" exclaimed the informer. "I told you so. Chuck him overboard, my men, for your pockets would have been lined."
Vanslyperken was as savage, and exclaimed, "Give way, my men, give way; we'll have them yet."
"Send a cow to chase a hare," replied the informer, throwing himself back in the stern-sheets of the boat. "I know better; you may save yourself the trouble, and the men the fatigue. May the devil take you, and your cursed dog with you! Who but a fool would have brought a dog upon such an occasion? Well, I've lost five thousand pounds; but there's one comfort, you've lost too. That will be a valuable beast, if you put all down to his account."
At this moment Vanslyperken was so much annoyed at the loss of what would have been a fortune to him, that he felt as angry as the informer. The boats' crew were equally enraged, the dog was pommelled, and kicked, and passed along from one to the other, until he at last gained the stern-sheets, and crouched between the legs of his master, who kicked him away in a rage, and he saved himself under the legs of the informer, who, seizing a pistol, struck him with the butt-end of it such a blow, that nothing but the very thick skull of the dog could have saved him. Snarleyyow was at a sad discount just then, but he very wisely again sought protection with his master, and this time he was not noticed.
"What are we to do now?" observed Vanslyperken.
"Go back again, like dogs with their tails between their legs; but observe, Mr Lieutenant, you have made me your enemy, and that is more serious than you think for."
"Silence, sir, you are in a king's boat."
"The king be d--d," replied the informer, falling back sulkily against the gunnel of the boat.
"Give way, men, and pull on board," said Vanslyperken, in equally bad humour.
In equally bad humour the men did give way, and in about an hour were on board of the cutter.
Every one was in a bad humour when the affair was made known; but Smallbones observed, "that the dog could be no such great friend, as supposed, of Vanslyperken's, to thwart his interests in that way; and certainly no imp sent by the devil to his assistance." The ship's company were consoled with this idea, and Jansen again repeated, "that the _tog_ was but a tog, after all."
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{
"id": "12558"
}
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16
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None
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In which we change the scene, and the sex of our performers.
We must now leave the cutter to return to Portsmouth, while we introduce to our readers a new and strange association. We stated that the boats had been ensconced in a very small cove at the back of the Isle of Wight. Above these hung the terrific cliff of the Black Gang Chyne, which, to all appearance, was inaccessible. But this was not the case, or the smugglers would not have resorted there to disembark their cargo. At that time, for since that period much of the cliff has fallen down, and the aspect is much changed, the rocks rose up from the water nearly perpendicularly, to the height of fifty or sixty feet. At that height there was a flat of about one hundred feet square in front of a cave of very great depth. The flat, so called in contradistinction to the perpendicular cliff, descended from the seaward to the cave, so that the latter was not to be seen either by vessels passing by, or by those who might be adventurous enough to peep over the ridge above; and fragments of rocks, dispersed here and there on this flat, or platform, induced people to imagine that the upper cliff was a continuation of the lower. The lower cliff, on which this platform in front of the cave was situated, was on the eastern side as abrupt as on that fronting the sea to the southward; but on the western side, its height was decreased to about fifteen feet, which was surmounted by a ladder removed at pleasure. To this means of access to the cave there was a zigzag path, used only by the smugglers, leading from the small cove, and another much more tedious, by which they could transport their goods to the summit of this apparently inaccessible mass of rocks. The cave itself was large, and with several diverging galleries, most of which were dry; but in one or two there was a continual filtering of clear pure water through the limestone rock, which was collected in pits dug for that purpose on the floor below; these pits were always full of water, the excess being carried off by small open drains which trickled over the eastern side of the platform. Some attention to comfort had been paid by the inhabitants of these caverns, which were portioned off here and there by sail-cloth and boards, so as to form separate rooms and storehouses. The cookery was carried on outside at the edge of the platform nearest the sea, under an immense fragment of rock, which lay at the very edge; and by an ingenious arrangement of smaller portions of the rock neither the flame was to be distinguished, nor was the smoke, which was divided and made to find its passage through a variety of fissures, never in such a volume as to be supposed to be anything more than the vapours drawn up by the heat of the sun.
In this abode there were at least thirty people residing, and generally speaking, it might be called a convent, for it was tenanted by women. Their husbands, who brought over the cargoes, returning immediately in their boat to the opposite shore, for two reasons; one, that their boats could only land in particular seasons, and could never remain in the cove without risk of being dashed to pieces; and the other, that the absence of all men prevented suspicion; the whole of the interior smuggling being carried on by the other sex, who fearlessly showed themselves on every part of the island, and purchased their necessary supplies of provisions here and there, without exciting any misgivings as to the nature of their employment. A few isolated cottages, not far from the beetling brow of the cliff above, were their supposed abodes; but no one ever troubled them with a visit, and if they did, and found that they could gain no admittance, they imagined that the occupants had locked their doors for security, while they were busied with their labours in the field. Accustomed to climb up the tortuous path from the cave to the summit, the women would, on the darkest night, carry up their burdens and deposit them in the cottages above, until they had an opportunity of delivering their contraband articles into the hands of their agents; and this traffic had been carried on for many years, without the government or excise having the slightest suspicion by what means the smuggling was accomplished. As we before observed, the great articles in request, and which were now smuggled from France, were alamodes and lutestrings. The attention of government had been called to check the admission of these goods, but hitherto their attempts had not been attended with much success.
At the grey of the morning after the attempt to seize the smugglers had been defeated by the instrumentality of Snarleyyow, upon the top of the immense fragment of the rock which we have described as lying upon the sea-edge of the platform, was perched a fair, slight-made little girl, of about twelve years of age. She was simply clad in a short worsted petticoat and bodice of a dark colour; her head was bare, and her hair fluttered with the breeze; her small feet, notwithstanding the severity of the weather, were also naked, and her short petticoat discovered her legs half way up to the knee. She stood there, within a few inches of the precipice below, carelessly surveying the waves as they dashed over the rocks, for she was waiting until the light would enable her to see further on the horizon. By those who might have leaned over the ridge above, as well as by those who sailed below, she might have been taken, had she been seen to move, for some sea bird reposing after a flight, so small was her frame in juxtaposition with the wildness and majesty of nature which surrounded her on every side. Accustomed from infancy to her mode of life, and this unusual domicile, her eye quailed not, nor did her heart beat quicker, as she looked down into the abyss below, or turned her eyes up to the beetling mass of rock which appeared, each moment, ready to fall down and overwhelm her. She passed her hand across her temples to throw back the hair which the wind had blown over her eyes, and again scanned the distance as the sun's light increased, and the fog gradually cleared away.
"A sharp look out, Lilly, dear; you've the best eyes among us, and we must have a clue from whence last night's surprise proceeded."
"I can see nothing yet, mother; but the fog is driving back fast."
"It's but a cheerless night your poor father had, to pull twice across the channel, and find himself just where he was. God speed them, and may they be safe in port again by this time."
"I say so too, mother, and amen."
"D'ye see nothing, child?"
"Nothing, dear mother; but it clears up fast to the eastward, and the sun is bursting out of the bank, and I think I see something under the sun."
"Watch well, Lilly," replied the woman, who was throwing more wood on the fire.
"I see a vessel, mother. It is a sloop beating to the eastward."
"A coaster, child?"
"No, mother, I think not. No, it is no coaster--it is that king's vessel, I think, but the glare of the sun is too great. When he rises higher I shall make it out better."
"Which do you mean, the king's cutter on the station, the _Yungfrau_?"
"Yes, mother," replied Lilly, "it is. I'm sure it is the _Yungfrau_."
"Then it is from her that the boats came last night. She must have received some information. There must be treachery somewhere; but we'll soon find that out."
It may appear singular that Lilly could speak so positively as to a vessel at a great distance; but it must be remembered that she had been brought up to it, nearly all her life. It was her profession, and she had lived wholly with seamen and seamen's wives, which will account for her technical language being so correct. What Lilly said was true; it was the _Yungfrau_, which was beating up to regain her port, and having to stem a strong ebb-tide during the night, had not made very great progress.
"There are three other vessels in the offing," said Lilly, looking round, "a ship and two brigs, both going down channel:" and as she said this, the little thing dropped lightly from rock to rock till she stood by her mother, and commenced rubbing her hands before the now blazing fire.
"Nancy must go over to Portsmouth," observed the mother, "and find out all about this. I hardly know whom to suspect; but let Nancy alone, she'll ferret out the truth--she has many gossips at the Point. Whoever informed against the landing, must know of this cave."
But we must introduce the mother of Lilly to the reader. She was a tall, finely-featured woman, her arms beautifully moulded, and bare. She was rather inclined to be stout, but her figure was magnificent. She was dressed in the same costume as her daughter, with the exception of a net worsted shawl of many colours over her shoulders. Her appearance gave you the idea that she was never intended for the situation which she was now in; but of that hereafter. As the reader may have observed, her language was correct, as was that of the child, and proved that she had not only been educated herself, but had paid attention to the bringing up of Lilly. The most perfect confidence appeared to subsist between the mother and daughter: the former treated her child as her equal, and confided everything to her; and Lilly was far advanced beyond her age in knowledge and reflection; her countenance beamed with intelligence; perhaps a more beautiful and more promising creature never existed.
A third party now appeared from the cave; although not in canonicals, his dress indicated his profession of a priest. He approached the mother and daughter with, "Peace be with you, ladies."
"You forget, good father," replied the elder of the females, "my name is Alice--nothing more."
"I crave pardon for my forgetting who you were. I will be more mindful. Well, then, Alice--yet that familiar term sounds strangely, and my tongue will not accustom itself, even were I to remain here weeks, instead of but two days--I was about to say, that the affair of last night was most untoward. My presence is much wished for, and much required, at St Germains. It was unfortunate, because it proves that we have traitors among us somewhere; but of that, and of the whole affair, I will have cognizance in a few days."
"And should you discover the party?"
"His doom is sealed."
"You are right."
"In so important and so righteous a cause, we must not stop at aught necessary to secure our purpose. But, tell me, think you that your husband will soon be here again?"
"I should think not to-night, but to-morrow or the next he will be off; and if we can show the signals of surety he will land, if the weather will permit." " 'Tis indeed time that I were over. Something might now be done."
"I would so too, father; it is a tedious time that I have spent here."
"And most unfitting for you, were it not that you laboured in a great cause; but it must soon be decided, and then that fair lily shall be transplanted, like a wild flower from the rock, and be nurtured in a conservatory."
"Nay, for that, the time is hardly come. She is better here, as you see her, father, than in the chambers of a court. For her sake I would still remain; but for my husband's sake, and the perils he encounters, I wish that one way or the other it were decided."
"Had there been faith in that Italian, it had been so before how," replied the priest, grinding his teeth, and turning away.
But the conversation was closed at the appearance of some women who came out of the cave. They were variously clothed, some coarsely, and others with greater pretensions to finery: they brought with them the implements for cooking, and appeared surprised at the fire being already lighted. Among them was one about twenty-five years of age, and although more faded than she ought to have been at that early age, still with pretensions to almost extreme beauty. She was more gaily dressed than the others, and had a careless, easy air about her, which suited to her handsome, slight figure. It was impossible to see her without being interested, and desiring to know who she was.
This person was the Nancy mentioned by Alice in her conversation with Lilly. Her original name had been Nancy Dawson, but she had married one of the smugglers, of the name of Corbett. Her original profession, previous to her marriage, we will not dwell upon; suffice it to say, that she was the most celebrated person of that class in Portsmouth, both for her talent and extreme beauty. Had she lived in the days of King Charles II., and had he seen her, she would have been more renowned than ever was Eleanor Gwynne; even as it was, she had been celebrated in a song, which has not been lost to posterity. After a few years of dissipated life, Nancy reformed, and became an honest woman, and an honest wife. By her marriage with the smuggler, she had become one of the fraternity, and had taken up her abode in the cave, which she was not sorry to do, as she had become too famous at Portsmouth to remain there as a married woman. Still she occasionally made her appearance, and to a certain degree kept up her old acquaintances, that she might discover what was going on--very necessary information for the smugglers. She would laugh, and joke, and have her repartee as usual, but in other points she was truly reformed. Her acquaintance was so general, and she was such a favourite, that she was of the greatest use to the band, and was always sent over to Portsmouth when her services were required. It was supposed there, for she had reported it, that she had retired to the Isle of Wight, and lived there with her husband, who was a pilot, and that she came over to Portsmouth occasionally, to inquire after her old friends, and upon business.
"Nancy Corbett, I must speak to you," said Alice. "Come aside: I wish you, Nancy, to go over immediately. Can you go up, do you think, without being perceived?"
"Yes, Mistress Alice, provided there is no one to see me."
"The case is so important, that we must run the risk."
"We've run cargoes of more value than that."
"But still you must use discretion, Nancy."
"That's a commodity that I've not been very well provided with through life; but I have my wits in its stead."
"Then you must use your wit, Nancy."
"It's like an old knife, well worn, but all the sharper."
Alice then entered into a detail of what she would find out, and gave her instructions to Nancy. The first point was, to ascertain whether it was the cutter which had received the information; the second, who the informer was.
Nancy, having received her orders, tied the strings of her bonnet, caught up a handful of the victuals which were at the fire, and bidding the others a laughing good-bye, with her mouth full, and one hand also occupied, descended the ladder, previously to mounting the cliff.
"Nancy," said Lilly, who stood by the ladder, "bring me some pens."
"Yes, dear; will you have them alive, or dead?"
"Nonsense, I mean some quills."
"So do I, Miss Lilly; but if you want them dead, I shall bring them in my pocket--if alive, I shall bring the goose under my arm."
"I only want the quills, Nancy," replied Lilly, laughing.
"And I think I shall want the feathers of them before I'm at the top," replied Nancy, looking up at the majestic cliff above her. "Good-bye, Miss Lilly."
Nancy Corbett again filled her handsome mouth with bread, and commenced her ascent. In less than a quarter of an hour she had disappeared over the ridge.
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{
"id": "12558"
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In which there is a great deal of plotting, and a little execution.
We will follow Nancy Corbett for the present. Nancy gained the summit of the cliff, and panting for breath, looked round to ascertain if there was any one in sight, but the coast was clear: she waited a minute to recover herself a little, and then set off at a brisk pace in the direction of the hamlet of Ryde, which then consisted of a few fishermen's huts. It was an hour and a-half before she gained this place, from whence she took a boat, and was safely landed at the Point. The fisherman who brought her over was an old acquaintance of Nancy's, and knew that he would have to remain to take her back, but he was well paid for his trouble, and it was a lucky day for him when Nancy required his services. The _Yungfrau_ had rounded St Helen's, and was standing into Spithead, when Nancy landed, and the first door at which she knocked was at the lodgings of Moggy Salisbury, with whom she was well acquainted, and from whom she expected to be able to gain information. On inquiry, she found that Moggy had not come on shore from the cutter, which had sailed during the night very unexpectedly.
This information pleased Nancy, as Moggy would in all probability be able to give her important information, and she took up her quarters in Moggy's apartments, anxiously awaiting her arrival, for Nancy was not at all desirous to be seen. In due time the cutter was again anchored in the harbour, and the first order of Mr Vanslyperken's was, that Moggy Salisbury should be sent on shore, which order was complied with, and she left the vessel, vowing vengeance upon the lieutenant and his dog. The informer also hastened into a boat, and pulled on shore on the Gosport side, with a very significant farewell look at Mr Vanslyperken. Moggy landed, and hastened, full of wrath, to her own lodgings, where she found Nancy Corbett waiting for her. At first she was too full of her own injuries, and the attempt to flog her dear darling Jemmy, to allow Nancy to put in a word. Nancy perceived this, and allowed her to run herself down like a clock; and then proposed that they should send for some purl and have a cosy chat, to which Moggy agreed, and as soon as they were fairly settled, and Moggy had again delivered herself of her grievances, Nancy put the requisite questions, and discovered what the reader is already acquainted with. She requested, and obtained a full description of the informer, and his person was too remarkable, for Nancy not to recognise immediately who it was.
"The villain!" cried she; "why, if there was any man in whom we thought we could trust, it was--him;" for Nancy had, in her indignation, nearly pronounced his name.
"Nancy," said Moggy, "you have to do with the smugglers, I know, for your husband is one of them, if report says true. Now, I've been thinking, that the cutter is no place for my Jemmy, and that with this peak-nosed villain, he will always be in trouble. Tell me, will they let him in, if he volunteers."
"I can't exactly say, Moggy; but this I can tell you, that you may be very useful to them in giving us information, which you may gain through your husband."
"Ay, and not only through my husband, but from everybody on board the cutter. I'm yours, Nancy--and here's my hand on it--you'll see what I can do. The wagabond, to attempt to flog my own dear, darling duck--my own Jemmy. Only tell me what you want to know, and if I don't ferret it out, my name's not Moggy. But hear me, Nancy; I join you now hand and heart, though I gain nothing by it; and when you choose to have him, I'll bring you my little duck of a husband, and he will be worth his weight in gold, though I say it that shouldn't say it."
"Thanky, Moggy; but you shall not work for nothing;" and Nancy laid a gold Jacobus on the table.
"This for your present information. Be secret and cautious, and no gossiping, and you'll find that you shall have all you wish, and be no loser in the bargain. And now, good-night--I must be away. You shall see me soon, Moggy; and remember what I have told you."
Moggy was astonished at the sight of the gold Jacobus, which she took up and examined as Nancy departed. "Well," thought she, "but this smuggling must be a pretty consarn; and as sure as gold is gold, my Jemmy shall be a smuggler."
Nancy turned down the street, and passed rapidly on, until she was clear of the fortifications, in the direction of South Sea Beach. A few scattered cottages were at that time built upon the spot. It was quite dark as she passed the lines, and held her way over the shingle. A man was standing alone, whose figure she recognised. It was the very person that she wished to find. Nancy watched him for awhile, and observed him pull out a paper, tear it in two, and throw it down with gesticulations of anger and indignation. She then approached.
"What's o'clock?" said Nancy.
"Do you want the right time?" replied the man.
"To a minute," replied Nancy, who, finding that the password was given correctly, now stopped, and faced the other party. "Is that you, Cornbury?"
"Yes, Nancy," replied the man, who, was the same person who went on board of the cutter to give the information.
"I have been seeking you," replied Nancy. "There has been some information laid, and the boats were nearly surprised. Alice desires that you will find out what boats entered the cove, whom they belonged to, and, if possible, how they obtained the information."
"Boats nearly surprised! --you don't say so," replied Cornbury, with affected astonishment. "This must indeed be looked to. Have you no idea--" "None," replied Nancy. "There was no vessel to be seen the next morning--the fog was too thick. Have you seen Wahop?"
"No; I thought he was on the Isle."
"He ought to have been, but has not come; I have been at the oak-tree for three nights running. It's very strange. Do you think that he can have played false?"
"I never much liked the man," replied Cornbury.
"Nor I either," replied Nancy; "but I must go now, for I must be back at the crags before daylight. Find out what you can, and let us know as soon as possible. I shall be over again as soon as the cargo is run; if you find out anything, you had better come to-morrow night."
"I will," replied Cornbury; and the parties separated.
"Traitor," muttered Nancy, when she was once more alone. "If he comes, it shall be to his death;" and Nancy stooped down, picked up the pieces of paper which Cornbury had torn up, and put them in the basket she carried on her arm.
It will be observed that Nancy had purposely thrown out hints against Wahop, to induce Cornbury to believe that he was not suspected. Her assertion that Wahop was not on the island was false. He had been three days at Ryde, according to the arrangement. The bait took. Cornbury perceiving that the suspicion was against Wahop, thought that he could not do better than to boldly make his appearance at the cave, which would remove any doubts as to his own fidelity.
Nancy hastened down to the Point, and returned that night to Ryde, from whence she walked over to the cave, and was there before daylight. She communicated to Alice the intelligence which she had received from Moggy Salisbury, and the arrangements she had proposed to her, by which the motions of the cutter could be known.
"Is that woman to be trusted, think you, Nancy?" inquired Alice.
"Yes, I believe sincerely she may be. I have known her long; and she wishes her husband to join us."
"We must reflect upon it. She may be most useful. What is the character of the officer who commands the vessel?"
"A miser, and a coward. He is well known--neither honour nor conscience in him."
"The first is well, as we may act upon it, but the second renders him doubtful. You are tired, Nancy, and had better lie down a little."
Nancy Corbett delivered the pens to Lilly, and then took the advice of her superior. The day was remarkably fine, and the water smooth, so that the boats were expected that night. At dusk two small lights, at even distances, were suspended from the cliff, to point out to the boats that the coast was free, and that they might land. Alice, however, took the precaution to have a watch on the beach, in case of any second surprise being attempted; but of this there was little fear, as she knew from Nancy, that all the cutter's boats were on board when she entered the harbour. Lilly, who thought it a delight to be one moment sooner in her father's arms, had taken the watch on the beach, and there the little girl remained perched upon a rock, at the foot of which the waves now only sullenly washed, for the night was beautifully calm and clear. To a passer on the ocean she might have been mistaken for a mermaid who had left her watery bower to look upon the world above.
What were the thoughts of the little maiden as she remained there fixed as a statue? Did she revert to the period at which her infant memory could retrace silken hangings and marble halls, visions of splendour, dreamings of courtly state, or was she thinking of her father, as her quick ear caught the least swell of the increasing breeze? Was she, as her eye was fixed as if attempting to pierce the depths of the ocean, wondering at what might be its hidden secrets, or as they were turned towards the heavens, bespangled with ten thousand stars, was she meditating on the God who placed them there? Who can say? --but that that intellectual face bespoke the mind at work is certain, and from one so pure and lovely could emanate nothing but what was innocent and good.
But a distant sound falls upon her ear; she listens, and by its measured cadence knows that it is the rowers in a boat: nearer it comes and more distinct, and now her keen eye detects the black mass approaching in the gloom of night. She starts from the rock ready to fly up to the cave to give notice of an enemy, or, if their anticipated friends, to fly into the arms of her father. But her alarm is over, she perceives that it is the lugger, the boat dashes into the cove, and the first who lands strains her to his bosom.
"My dearest Lilly, is all well?"
"Yes, all is well, father; but you are well come."
"Run up, dearest, and let the women be ready to assist. We have that here which must soon be out of sight. Is the Father Innis here?"
"Since Thursday last." " 'Tis well, dear; you may go. Quick, my lads, and beach the cargo:--see to it, Ramsay; I must at once unto the cave." Having given these directions, the father of Lilly commenced his ascent over the rough and steep rocks which led up to the cavern, anxious to obtain what information could be imparted relative to the treachery which had led to their narrow escape two nights preceding.
He was met by Alice, who cordially embraced him; but he appeared anxious to release himself from her endearments, that he might at once enter upon matters to him of more serious importance. "Where is the Father Innis, my dear?" said he, disengaging himself from her arms.
"He sleeps, Robert, or, at least, he did just now, but probably he will rise now that you are come. But in the meantime, I have discovered who the traitor is."
"By all the saints, he shall not escape my vengeance!"
Alice then entered into the particulars related by Nancy Corbett, and already known to the reader. She had just concluded when Father Innis made his appearance from the cave.
"Welcome, thrice welcome, holy father."
"Welcome, too, my son. Say, do we start to-night?"
"Not till to-morrow night," replied the husband of Alice, who having ascertained that in all probability Cornbury would come that night, determined, at all risks, to get possession of him: "we could well be over before daylight, and with your precious person, I must not risk too much. You are anxiously expected."
"And I have important news," replied the priest; "but I will not detain you now; I perceive that your presence is wanted by your men."
During this colloquy the women had descended the ladder, and had been assisting the men to carry up the various packages of which the boat's cargo consisted, and they now awaited directions as to the stowing away.
"Ramsay," said the leader, "we do not return to-night; take the men, and contrive to lift the boat up on the rocks, so that she may not be injured."
An hour elapsed before this was effected, and then the leader, as well as the rest of the smugglers, retired to the cave to refresh themselves with sleep after their night of fatigue. As usual, one woman kept watch, and that woman was Nancy Corbett. The ladder had been hauled up, and she was walking up and down, with her arms under a shawl, to a sort of stamping trot, for the weather was frosty, when she heard a low whistle at the west side of the flat.
"Oh, ho! have I lured you, you traitorous villain?" muttered Nancy, "you come in good time:" and Nancy walked to the spot where the ladder was usually lowered down, and looked over. Although the moon had risen, it was too dark on that side of the platform to distinguish more than that there was a human form, who repeated the whistle.
"What's o'clock?" said Nancy, in a low tone.
"Do you want the right time to a minute?" replied a voice, which was recognised as Cornbury's. Nancy lowered down the ladder, and Cornbury ascended the platform.
"I am glad you are come, Cornbury. Have you heard anything of Wahop?"
"No one has seen or heard of him," replied the man, "but I have found out what boats they were. Did the lugger come over to-night?"
"Yes," replied Nancy, "but I must go in and let Mistress Alice know that you are here."
Nancy's abrupt departure was to prevent Cornbury from asking if the boat had remained, or returned to the French coast; for she thought it not impossible that the unusual circumstance of the boat remaining, might induce him to suppose that his treachery had been discovered, and to make his immediate escape, which he, of course, could have done, and given full information of the cave and the parties who frequented it.
Nancy soon re-appeared, and familiarly taking the arm of Cornbury, led him to the eastern side of the platform, asking him many questions. As soon as he was there, the leader of the gang, followed by half a dozen of his men, rushed out and secured him. Cornbury now felt assured that all was discovered, and that his life was forfeited. "Bind him fast," said the leader, "and keep watch over him;--his case shall soon be disposed of. Nancy, you will call me at daylight."
When Cornbury had been secured, the men returned into the cave, leaving one with a loaded pistol to guard him. Nancy still remained on the watch.
"Nancy Corbett," said Cornbury, "why am I treated thus?"
"Why?" replied Nancy, with scorn; "ask yourself why. Do you think that I did not know when I sought you at the beach that you had sailed in the cutter, had brought the boats here, and that if it had not been for the lieutenant taking his dog in the boat, and its barking, you would have delivered us all into the hands of the Philistines? --wretched traitor."
"D--n!" muttered Cornbury; "then it is to you, you devil, that I am indebted for being entrapped this way."
"Yes, to me," replied Nancy, with scorn. "And, depend upon it, you will have your deserts before the sun is one hour in the heavens."
"Mistress Nancy, I must beg you to walk your watch like a lady, and not to be corresponding with my prisoner anyhow, whether you talk raison or traison, as may happen to suit your convanience," observed the man who was guard over Cornbury.
"Be aisy, my jewel," replied Nancy, mimicking the Irishman, "and I'll be as silent as a magpie, anyhow. And, Mr Fitzpatrick, you'll just be pleased to keep your two eyes upon your prisoner, and not be staring at me, following me up and down, as you do, with those twinklers of yours."
"A cat may look at a king, Mistress Nancy, and no harm done either."
"You forget, Mr Fitzpatrick," replied Nancy, "that I am now a modest woman."
"More's the pity, Mrs Nancy, I wish you'd forget it too, and I dying of love for you."
Nancy walked away to the end of the platform to avoid further conversation. The day was now dawning, and as, by degrees, the light was thrown upon the face of Cornbury, it was strange to witness how his agitation and his fear had changed all the ruby carbuncles on his face to a deadly white. He called to Nancy Corbett in a humble tone once or twice as she passed by in her walk, but received no reply further than a look of scorn. As soon as it was broad daylight, Nancy went into the cave to call up the leader.
In a few minutes he appeared, with the rest of the smugglers.
"Philip Cornbury," said he, with a stern and unrelenting countenance, "you would have betrayed us for the sake of money."
"It is false," replied Cornbury.
"False, is it? --you shall have a fair trial. Nancy Corbett, give your evidence before us all."
Nancy recapitulated all that had passed.
"I say again, that it is false," replied Cornbury. "Where is the woman whom she states to have told her this? This is nothing more than assertion, and I say again, it is false. Am I to be condemned without proofs? Is my life to be sacrificed to the animosity of this woman, who wishes to get rid of me, because--" "Because what?" interrupted Nancy.
"Because I was too well acquainted with you before your marriage, and can tell too much."
"Now, curses on you, for a liar as well as a traitor!" exclaimed Nancy. "What I was before I was married is well known; but it is well known, also, that I pleased my fancy, and could always choose. I must, indeed, have had a sorry taste to be intimate with a blotched wretch like you. Sir," continued Nancy, turning to the leader, "it is false, and whatever may be said against me on other points, Nancy Dawson, or Nancy Corbett, was never yet so vile as to assert a lie. I put it to you, sir, and to all of you, is not my word sufficient in this case?"
The smugglers nodded their heads in assent.
"And, now that is admitted, I will prove his villany and falsehood. Philip Cornbury, do you know this paper?" cried Nancy, taking out of her bosom the agreement signed by Vanslyperken, which she had picked up on the night when Cornbury had torn it up and thrown it away. "Do you know this paper, I ask you? Read it, sir," continued Nancy, handing it over to the leader of the smugglers.
The paper was read, and the inflexible countenance of the leader turned towards Cornbury,--who saw his doom.
"Go in, Nancy Corbett, and let no women appear till all is over."
"Liar!" said Nancy, spitting on the ground as she passed by Cornbury.
"Bind his eyes, and lead him to the western edge," said the leader.
"Philip Cornbury, you have but few minutes to live. In mercy, you may see the holy father, if you wish it."
"I'm no d----d papist," replied Cornbury, in a sulky tone.
"Lead him on then."
Cornbury was led to the western edge of the flat, where the cliff was most high and precipitous, and then made to kneel down.
"Fitzpatrick," said the leader, pointing to the condemned.
Fitzpatrick walked up to the kneeling man with his loaded pistol, and then the others, who had led Cornbury to the edge of the cliff, retired.
Fitzpatrick cocked the lock.
"Would you like to say, 'God have mercy on my treacherous sinful sowl,' or anything short and sweet like that?" said Fitzpatrick; "if so, I'll wait a couple of seconds more for your convanience, Philip Cornbury."
Cornbury made no reply. Fitzpatrick put the pistol to his ear, the ball whizzed through his brain, the body half raised itself from its knees with a strong muscular action, and then toppled over and disappeared down the side of the precipice.
"It's to be hoped that the next time you lave this world, Master Cornbury, it will be in a purliter sort of manner. A civil question demands a civil answer anyhow," said Fitzpatrick, coolly rejoining the other men.
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The whole of which has been fudged out of the History of England, and will therefore be quite new to the majority of our readers.
Were we in want of materials for this eventful history, we have now a good opportunity for spinning out our volumes; but, so far from this being the case, we hardly know how to find space for what it is now absolutely necessary that the reader should be acquainted with. Our friends may probably recollect, when we remind them of the fact, that there was a certain king, James II., who sat upon our throne, and who was a very good Catholic--that he married his daughter, Mary, to one William of Orange, who, in return for James's kindness in giving him his daughter, took away from him his kingdom, on the plea, that if he was a bad son-in-law, at all events, he was a sound Protestant. They may also recollect, that the exiled king was received most hospitably by the grand monarque, Louis XIV., who gave him palaces, money, and all that he required, and, moreover, gave him a fine army and fleet to go to Ireland and recover his kingdom, bidding him farewell with this equivocal sentence, "That the best thing he, Louis, could wish to him was, never to see his face again." They may further recollect, that King James and King William met at the battle of the Boyne, in which the former was defeated, and then went back to St Germains and spent the rest of his life in acts of devotion and plotting against the life of King William. Now, among other plots real and pretended, there was one laid in 1695, to assassinate King William on his way to Richmond; this plot was revealed, many of the conspirators were tried and executed, but the person who was at the head of it, a Scotchman, of the name of Sir George Barclay, escaped. In the year 1696, a bill was passed, by which Sir George Barclay and nine others who had escaped from justice, were attainted of high treason, if they did not choose to surrender themselves on or before the 25th day of March ensuing. Strange to say, these parties did not think it advisable to surrender themselves; perhaps it was because they knew that they were certain to be hung; but it is impossible to account for the actions of men: we can only lay the facts before our readers.
Sir George Barclay was by birth a Scotchman, of high family, and well connected. He had been an officer in the army of King James, to whom he was strongly attached. Moreover, he was a very bigoted Catholic. Whether he ever received a commission from King James, authorising him to assassinate King William, has never been proved; but, as King James is well known to have been admitted into the order of the Jesuits, it is not at all unlikely. Certain it is, that the baronet went over to St Germains, landed again in England, and would have made the attempt, had not the plot been discovered through some of the inferior accomplices; and it is equally sure that he escaped, although many others were hung--and few people knew what had become of him. The fact was, that when Barclay had fled to the sea-side, he was assisted over the water by a band of smugglers, who first concealed him in the cave we have described, which was their retreat. This led to a communication and arrangement with them. Sir George Barclay, who, although foiled in his attempt at assassination, never abandoned the cause, immediately perceived what advantages might be derived in keeping up a communication by means of these outlaws. For some time the smugglers were employed in carrying secret despatches to the friends of James in England and Scotland; and, as the importance of the correspondence increased, and it became necessary to have personal interviews instead of written communications, Sir George frequently passed over to the cave as a rendezvous, at which he might meet the adherents of the exiled king. In the course of time he saw the prudence of having the entire control of the band, and found little difficulty in being appointed their leader. From the means he obtained from St Germains, the smuggling was now carried on to a great and very profitable extent, and by the regulations which he enacted, the chance of discovery was diminished. Only one point more was requisite for safety and secrecy, which was, a person to whom he could confide the charge of the cave. Lady Barclay, who was equally warm in the cause, offered her services, and they were accepted; and at the latter end of the year 1696, about one year after the plot had failed, Lady Barclay, with her only child, took up her abode in this isolated domicile; Sir George then first making the arrangement that the men should always remain on the other side of the water, which would be an additional cause of security. For upwards of four years, Lady Barclay had remained an inmate, attending to the instruction of her little Lilly, and carrying on all the correspondence, and making all the necessary arrangements with vigour and address, satisfied with serving the good cause, and proving her devoted allegiance to her sovereign. Unfortunate and unwise as were the Stuart family, there must have been some charm about them, for they had instances of attachment and fidelity shown to them, of which no other line of kings could boast.
Shortly after the tragical event recorded in the last chapter, the Jesuit came out of the cave and went up to Sir George, who coolly observed, "We have just been sending a traitor to his account, good father."
"So may they all perish," replied the priest. "We start this evening?"
"Certainly. What news have you for St Germains?"
"Much that is important. Discontent prevails throughout the country. The affair of Bishop Watson hath brought much odium on the usurper. He himself writhes under the tyrannical commands of the Commons, and is at issue with them."
"And, in Scotland, father?"
"All is there ripe and ready--and an army once landed, would be joined by thousands. The injustice of the usurper in wishing to sacrifice the Scotch Settlement, has worked deep upon the minds of those who advanced their money upon that speculation--in the total, a larger sum than ever yet was raised in Scotland. Our emissaries have fanned the flame up to the highest pitch."
"To my thoughts, good father, there needed not further discontent. Have we not our king dethroned, and our holy religion persecuted?"
"True, my son--true; but still we must lose no means by which we may increase the number of our adherents. Some are swayed by one feeling, and some by another. We have contrived to throw no small odium upon the usurper and betrayer of his wife's father, by exposing and magnifying, indeed, the sums of money which he has lavished upon his courtesan, Mistress Villiers, now, by his heretic and unsanctified breath, raised into the peerage by the title of Countess of Orkney. All these items added together, form a vast sum of discontent; and could we persuade his Catholic majesty to rouse himself to assert once more his rights by force of arms, I should not fear for the result."
"Had I not been betrayed," observed Sir George, musing, "before this the king would have had his own again."
"And thrice blessed would have been the arm that had laid the usurper low," rejoined the Jesuit; "but more of this hereafter. Your lady hath had much converse with me. She thinks that the character of the man who commands that cutter, is such as to warrant his services for gold--and wishes to essay him."
"The woman Corbett is of that opinion, and she is subtle. At all events, it can be tried; for he would be of much utility, and there would be no suspicion. The whole had better be left to her arrangement. We may employ, and pay, yet not trust him."
"That is exactly what Lady Alice had proposed," replied the Jesuit. Here Lilly came out to tell her father that the morning meal was ready, and they all returned to the cave.
That evening the boat was launched, and the Jesuit went over with Sir George, and landed at Cherbourg, from whence they both proceeded with all expedition to the court of King James.
We have entered into this short detail, that the reader may just know the why and the wherefore these parties in the cave were introduced, and now we shall continue our most faithful and veracious history.
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In which Smallbones is sent to look after a pot of black paint.
We must now return to the cutter, which still remains at anchor off the Point in Portsmouth harbour. It is a dark, murky, blowing day, with gusts of rain and thick fog. Mr Vanslyperken is more than usually displeased, for, as he had to wait for the new boat which he had demanded, he thought this a good opportunity of enlivening the bends of the _Yungfrau_ with a little black paint--not before it was required, most certainly, for she was as rusty in appearance as if she had been built of old iron. But paint fetched money, and as Mr Vanslyperken always sold his, it was like parting with so much of his own property, when he ordered up the paint-pots and brushes. Now the operation of beautifying the _Yungfrau_ had been commenced the day before, and the unexpected change in the weather during the night, had washed off the greater portion of the paint, and there was not only all the trouble, but all the expense, to be incurred again. No wonder that Mr Vanslyperken was in a bad humour--not only in a bad humour, but in the very worst of humours. He had made up his mind to go on shore to see his mother, and was pacing the quarter-deck in his great-coat, with his umbrella under his arm, all ready to be unfurled as soon as he was on shore. He was just about to order his boat to be manned: Mr Vanslyperken looked up at the weather--the fog was still thick, and the rain fell. You could not even make out the houses on the point. The wind had gone down considerably. Mr Vanslyperken looked over the gunnel--the damage was even greater than he thought. He looked over the stern, there was the stage still hanging where the painters had been standing or sitting, and, what was too bad, there was a pot of paint, with the brush in it, half full of rain water, which some negligent person had left there. Mr Vanslyperken turned forward to call somebody to take the paint below, but the decks were empty, and it was growing dark. A sudden thought, instigated no doubt by the devil, filled the brain of Mr Vanslyperken. It was a glorious, golden opportunity, not to be lost. He walked forward, and went down into his cabin again, where he found Smallbones helping himself to biscuit, for the lad was hungry, as well he might be; but on this occasion Mr Vanslyperken took no notice.
"Smallbones," said he, "one of the men has left his paint-pot on the stage, under the stern, go and bring it in immediately."
"Yes, sir," replied Smallbones, surprised at the unusually quiet style of his master's address to him.
Smallbones ran up the ladder, went aft, and slid down by the rope which held the plank used as a stage by the painters. Mr Vanslyperken seized his carving-knife, and following softly on deck, went aft. He took a hurried look forward--there was no one on deck. For a moment, he hesitated at the crime; he observed the starboard rope shake, for Smallbones was just about to shin up again. The devil prevailed. Mr Vanslyperken sawed through the rope, heard the splash of the lad in the water, and, frightened at his own guilt, ran down below, and gained his cabin. There he seated himself, trembling like an aspen leaf. It was the first time that he had been a _murderer_. He was pale as ashes. He felt sick, and he staggered to his cupboard, poured out a tumbler of scheedam, and drank it off at a draught. This recovered him, and he again felt brave. He returned on deck, and ordered his boat to be manned, which was presently done. Mr Vanslyperken would have given the world to have gone aft, and to have looked over the stern, but he dared not; so, pushing the men into the boat, he slipped in, and was pulled on shore. Without giving any directions to the men he stepped out, and felt a relief when he found himself on terra firma. He walked away as fast as he could--he felt that he could not walk fast enough--he was anxious to arrive at his mother's. The rain fell fast, but he thought not of his umbrella, it remained under his arm, and Mr Vanslyperken, as if he were chased by a fiend, pushed on through the fog and rain; he wanted to meet a congenial soul, one who would encourage, console him, ridicule his fears, and applaud the deed which he would just then have given the world to have recalled.
Where could he seek one more fitted to the purpose than his mother? The door of the house where she lodged was common to many, and therefore opened with a latch. He went in, and upstairs, tried the door of his mother's room, and found it fastened within. He knocked, heard the grumbling of the old woman at her being obliged to rise from her chair: she opened the door, and Vanslyperken, as soon as he was in, slammed it to, and exhausted with his emotions, fell back in a chair.
"Hey day! and what's the matter now?" cried the old woman, in Dutch; "one would think that you had been waylaid, robbed, and almost murdered."
"Murdered!" stammered Vanslyperken; "yes--it was murder."
"What was murder, my child?" replied the old woman, reseating herself.
"Did I say murder, mother?" said Vanslyperken, wiping the blended rain and perspiration from his brow with a cotton handkerchief.
"Yes, you did, Cornelius Vanslyperken; not that I believe a craven like you would ever attempt such a thing."
"But I have, mother. I have done the deed," replied Vanslyperken.
"You have!" cried his mother; "then at last you have done something, and I shall respect you. Come, come, child, cheer up, and tell me all about it. There is a slight twinge the first time--but the second is nothing. Did you get gold? Hey, my son, plenty of gold?"
"Gold! no, no--I got nothing--indeed I lost by it--lost a pot full of black paint--but never mind that. He's gone," replied Vanslyperken, recovering himself fast.
"Who is gone?"
"The lad, Smallbones."
"Pish," replied the old woman, rocking her chair. "Ay, well, never mind--it was for revenge, then--that's sweet--very sweet. Now, Cornelius, tell me all about it."
Vanslyperken, encouraged by the sympathy, if we may use the term, shown by his mother, narrated what he had done.
"Well, well, child, 'tis a beginning," replied the old woman, "and I'll not call you craven again."
"I must go back," said Vanslyperken, starting up from his chair.
"Go, child, it is late--and dream it over. Vengeance is sweet, even in sleep. I have had mine--and for years have I dwelt on it--and shall for years to come. I shall not die yet--no, no."
Vanslyperken quitted the house; the weather had cleared up, the breeze was fresh and piercing, and the stars twinkled every now and then, as the wild scud which flew across the heavens admitted them to view. Vanslyperken walked fast--he started at the least sound--he hurried by everyone whom he met, as if fearful to be recognised--he felt relieved when he had gained the streets of Portsmouth, and he at last arrived at the Point; but there was no cutter's boat, for he had given no orders. He was therefore obliged to hire one to go on board. The old man whom he engaged shoved into the stream; the tide was running in rapidly.
"A cold night, sir," observed the man.
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken, mechanically.
"And a strong tide, with the wind to back it. He'd have but a poor chance, who fell overboard such a night as this. The strongest swimmer, without help, would be soon in eternity."
Vanslyperken shuddered. Where was Smallbones at this moment? and then, the mention of eternity!
"Silence, man, silence," said Vanslyperken.
"Hope no offence, Mr Lieutenant," replied the man, who knew who his fare was.
The boat pulled alongside of the _Yungfrau_, and Vanslyperken paid his unusual fare, and stepped on the deck. He went down below, and had the precaution to summon Smallbones to bring lights aft. The word was passed along the lower deck, and Vanslyperken sat down in the dark, awaiting the report that Smallbones could not be found.
Snarleyyow went up to his master, and rubbed his cold nose against his hand, and then, for the first time, it occurred to Vanslyperken, that in his hurry to leave the vessel, he had left the dog to the mercy of his enemies. During the time that Vanslyperken waited for the report of the lights, he passed over in his mind the untoward events which had taken place--the loss of the widow's good-will, the loss of Corporal Van Spitter, who was adrift in the Zuyder Zee, the loss of five thousand pounds through the dog, and, strange to say, what vexed him more, the loss of the dog's eye; and when he thought of all these things his heart was elated, and he rejoiced in the death of Smallbones, and no longer felt any compunction. But a light is coming aft, and Vanslyperken is waiting the anticipated report. It is a solitary purser's dip, as they are termed at sea, emitting but feeble rays, and Vanslyperken's eyes are directed to the door of the cabin to see who carries it. To his horror, his dismay, it is brought in by the drowned Smallbones, who, with a cadaverous, and as he supposes, unearthly face and vacant look, drawls out, "It's a-blowed out twice, sir, with the wind."
Vanslyperken started up, with his eyes glaring and fixed. There could be no mistake. It was the apparition of the murdered lad, and he fell back in a state of unconsciousness.
"You've a-got it this time," said Smallbones, chuckling as he bent over the body of the lieutenant with his purser's dip, and perceived that he was in a state of insensibility.
Had Mr Vanslyperken had the courage to look over the stern of the cutter when he re-ascended on the deck, he would have discovered Smallbones hanging on by the rudder chains; for had the fog not been so thick, Mr Vanslyperken would have perceived that at the time that he cut Smallbones adrift it was slack water, and the cutter was lying across the harbour. Smallbones was not, therefore, carried away by the tide, but being a very fair swimmer, had gained the rudder chains without difficulty; but at the time that Smallbones was climbing up again by the rope, he had perceived the blade of the carving-knife working at the rope, and was assured that Vanslyperken was attempting his life. When he gained the rudder chains, he held on. At first he thought of calling for assistance; but hearing Vanslyperken order his boat to be manned, the lad then resolved to wait a little longer, and allow his master to think that he was drowned. The result was as Smallbones intended. As soon as the lad saw the boat was out of hearing he called out most lustily, and was heard by those on board, and rescued from his cold immersion. He answered no questions which were put to him till he had changed his clothing and recovered himself, and then with great prudence summoned a council, composed of Short, Coble, and Jemmy Ducks, to whom he narrated what had taken place. A long consultation succeeded, and at last it was agreed that Smallbones should make his appearance as he did, and future arrangements to be taken according to circumstances.
As soon as Smallbones had ascertained the situation of his master, he went forward and reported it to Dick Short, who with Coble came aft in the cabin. Short looked at Vanslyperken.
"Conscience," said Short.
"And a d----d bad un, too," replied Coble, hitching up his trousers. "What's to be done, Short?"
"Nothing," replied Short.
"Just my idea," replied Coble; "let him come to if he pleases, or die and be d----d. Who cares?"
"Nobody," replied Short.
"My eyes, but he must have been frightened," said Smallbones; "for he has left the key in the cupboard. I'll see what's in it for once and away."
Snarleyyow, when Smallbones opened the cupboard, appeared to have an intuitive idea that he was trespassing, so he walked out growling from under the table; Short saluted him with a kick in the ribs, which tossed him under the feet of Coble, who gave him a second with his fisherman's boots, and the dog howled, and ran out of the cabin. O Mr Vanslyperken! see what your favourite was brought to, because you did not come to.
At this time Smallbones had his nose in the stone jar of scheedam--the olfactory examination was favourable, so he put his mouth to it--the labial essay still more so, so he took down a wine glass, and, without any ceremony, filled a bumper, and handed it to Coble.
"We'll drink to his recovery," said Obadiah, tossing off the contents.
"Yes," replied Short, who waited till the glass was refilled, and did the same.
"Here's bad luck to him in his own good stuff," said Smallbones, tossing off a third glass, and, filling it again, he handed it to Coble.
"Here's reformation to him," said Coble, draining the glass again.
"Yes," replied Short, taking the replenished vessel.
"Here's d----n to him and his dog for ever and ever, Amen," cried Smallbones, tippling off his second allowance.
"Who's there?" said Vanslyperken in a faint voice, opening his eyes with a vacant look.
Smallbones replaced the bottle in the cupboard, and replied, "It's only Smallbones, sir, and the mates, come to help you."
"Smallbones!" said Vanslyperken, still wandering. "Smallbones is drowned--and the whole pot of black paint."
"Conscience," said Short.
"Carving-knife," rejoined Coble.
"Carving-knife!" said Vanslyperken, raising himself up; "I never said a word about a carving-knife, did I? Who is it that I see? Short--and Coble--help me up. I've had a sad fall. Where's Smallbones? Is he alive--really alive?"
"I believe as how I bees," replied Smallbones.
Mr Vanslyperken had now recovered his perfect senses. He had been raised on a chair, and was anxious to be rid of intruders, so he told Short and Coble that he would now do very well, and they might go; upon which, without saying a word, they both quitted the cabin.
Mr Vanslyperken collected himself--he wished to know how Smallbones had been saved, but still dared not broach the subject, as it would be admitting his own guilt.
"What has happened, Smallbones?" said Vanslyperken. "I still feel very faint."
"Take a glass of this," replied Smallbones, opening the cupboard, and bringing out the scheedam. He poured out a glass, which Vanslyperken drank, and then observed, "How did you know what was in that cupboard sirrah?"
"Because you called for it when you were in your fits," replied Smallbones.
"Called for scheedam?"
"Yes, sir, and said you had lost the carving-knife."
"Did I?" replied Vanslyperken, afraid that he had committed himself. "I have been ill, very ill," continued he, putting his hand up to his forehead. "By-the-bye, Smallbones, did you bring in that pot of paint?" said Vanslyperken, adroitly.
"No, sir, I didn't, because I tumbled overboard, pot and all," replied Smallbones.
"Tumbled overboard! why, I did not leave the ship till afterwards, and I heard nothing about it."
"No, sir, how could you?" replied Smallbones, who was all prepared for this explanation, "when the tide swept me past the saluting battery in a moment."
"Past the saluting battery?" exclaimed Vanslyperken, "why, how were you saved?"
"Because, thanks to somebody, I be too light to sink. I went out to the Nab buoy, and a mile ayond it."
"The Nab buoy!" exclaimed Vanslyperken.
"Yes, and ayond it, afore the tide turned, and then I were swept back again, and came into harbour again, just half-an-hour afore you come aboard."
Mr Vanslyperken looked aghast; the lad must have had a charmed life. Nine miles at least out to sea, and nine miles back again.
"It's as true as I stand here, sir," continued Smallbones; "I never were so cold in all my life, a-floating about like a bit of duck-weed with the tide, this way and that way."
"As true as you stand here!" repeated Vanslyperken; "but do you stand here?" and he made a desperate grasp at the lad's arm to ascertain whether he held substance or shadow.
"Can I do anything more, sir?" continued Smallbones; "for I should like to turn in--I'm as cold as ice, even now."
"You may go," replied Vanslyperken, whose mind was again becoming confused at what had passed. For some time, the lieutenant sat in his chair, trying to recollect and reason; but it was in vain--the shocks of the day had been too great. He threw himself, dressed as he was, upon his bed--never perceived the absence of his favourite--the candle was allowed to burn itself to the socket, and Vanslyperken fell off into a trance-like sleep.
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In which Mr Vanslyperken proves false to the Widow Vandersloosh, and many strange things take place.
Mr. Vanslyperken was awakened, the next morning, by the yelping of his dog, who, having been shut out of the cabin, had ventured up the ladder in the morning when the men were washing the deck, and had a bucket shied at him by Jemmy Ducks, with such excellent precision, that it knocked him over, and nearly broke his hind leg, which he now carried high up in the air as he howled upon the other three at the cabin door. Mr Vanslyperken rose, and tried to recollect what had passed; but it was more than a minute before he could recall the circumstances of the day before. He then tried to call to mind how he had gone to bed, and by what means Snarleyyow was left outside, but he could make nothing of it. He opened the cabin door, and let in the dog, whose lame leg instantly excited his indignation, and he then rang his bell for Smallbones, who soon made his appearance.
"How came the dog out of the cabin, sir?"
"I'm sure I don't know, sir; I never put him out."
"Who is it that has hurt him?"
"I'm sure I don't know, sir; I never touched him."
Vanslyperken was about to vent his anger, when Smallbones said, "If you please, I don't know what's a-going on. Why here, sir, the men washing the decks have found your carving-knife abaft, by the traffrail. Somebody must have taken it there, that's sartain."
Vanslyperken turned pale.
"Who could have taken it?"
"That's what I said, sir. Who dare come in the cabin to take the knife? and what could they have taken it for, but unless it was to cut summut?" And Smallbones looked his master full in the face. And the lieutenant quailed before his boy. He could not meet his gaze, but turned away.
"Very odd," continued Smallbones, perceiving the advantage he had gained.
"Leave the cabin, sir," cried Vanslyperken.
"Sha'n't I make no inquiries how this ere knife came there, sir?" replied Smallbones.
"No, sir, mind your own business. I've a great mind to flog you for its being found there--all your carelessness."
"That would be a pretty go," murmured Smallbones, as he shut the cabin door.
The feeling of vengeance against Smallbones, was now redoubled in the breast of his master; and the only regret he felt at the transactions of the day before was, that the boy had not been drowned.
"I'll have him yet," muttered the lieutenant; but he forgot that he was shaving himself, and the involuntary movements of his lips caused him to cut a large gash on his right cheek, from which the blood trickled fast.
"Curses on the"--(razor he was going to say, but he changed it to)--"scoundrel!"
A slice with a razor is certainly a very annoying thing. After a certain time, Mr Vanslyperken finished his toilet, called for his breakfast, went on deck, and as the day was fine, ordered the paint to be renewed, and then went on shore to ascertain if there were any commands for him at the admiral's office.
As he walked up the street in a brown study, he at last observed that a very pretty woman dogged him, sometimes walking a-head and looking back, at others dropping astern, and then again ranging up alongside. He looked her in the face, and she smiled sweetly, and then turned her head coquettishly, and then looked again with eyes full of meaning. Now, although Mr Vanslyperken had always avoided amours on account of the expense entailed upon them, yet he was, like a dry chip, very inflammable, and the extreme beauty of the party made him feel unusual emotions. Her perseverance too--and her whole appearance so very respectable--so superior to the class of people who generally accosted him. He thought of the widow and her money-bags, and thought, also, how infinitely more desirable the widow would be, if she possessed but the beauty of the present party.
"I do believe I've lost my way," exclaimed the young person. "Pray, sir, can you tell me the way to Castle Street, for I'm almost a stranger? And" (added she, laughing) "I really don't know my way back to my own house."
Castle Street was, at that time, one of the best streets in Portsmouth, as Mr Vanslyperken well knew. This assured him of her respectability. He very gallantly offered his arm which, after a little demur, was accepted, and Mr Vanslyperken conveyed her to her house. Of course she could do no less than ask him to walk up, and Mr Vanslyperken, who had never been in anything approaching to good society, was in astonishment at the furniture. All appeared to denote wealth. He was soon in an interesting conversation, and by degrees found out that the lady was a young widow of the name of Malcolm, whose husband had been factor to the new company, called the East India Company; that she had come down to Portsmouth expecting him home, and that she had learnt that he had died on shore a few days before his intended embarkation for England. Since which, as she liked the place and the society, she had thoughts of remaining here.
"They say that gold in India is to be had for nothing."
"It must be very plentiful," replied the widow, "if I am to judge by the quantity my poor husband sent me home, and he was not out more than three years. He left me a week after our marriage."
Here the lovely widow put her handkerchief up to her eyes, and Mr Vanslyperken attempted to console her.
"It's so very unpleasant to be left without any one to advise you, and exposed to be cheated so dreadfully. What can a poor lone woman do? Did you ever see me before, sir?"
"I never did," replied our lieutenant. "May I ask the same question, for I thought you appeared to know me?"
"O yes! I've seen you very often, and wished to know who you were, but I was ashamed to ask. One cannot be too particular in my situation."
Mr Vanslyperken was much pleased, but he had remained some time, and he thought it right to depart, so he rose and made his adieus.
"I hope I shall see you again," cried the widow, earnestly. "You will call again, sir, won't you?"
"Most certainly, and with the greatest pleasure," replied Vanslyperken.
The lady extended her gloved hand, and as it was closed in that of Vanslyperken, he thought he felt a slight, a very slight pressure, which made his heart leap. And then, as he shut the door, she gave him such a look--O those eyes! --they pierced right through the heart of Vanslyperken.
The reader may not, perhaps, be aware who this gay widow might be. It was Nancy Corbett, who had, by the advice of Lady Alice, taken this step to entrap Mr Vanslyperken. Nancy had obtained from Moggy all the particulars of the lieutenant's wooing of the widow Vandersloosh, and his character as a miser and a coward. Had he been a miser only, she would have attacked by gold alone, but being a coward, it was decided that he should have some further stimulus to betray his country, and enlist himself among the partisans of King James.
Beauty, joined with wealth, the chance of possessing both, with the attractive arts of Nancy, were considered necessary to sway him. Indeed they were so far right, that had any one made the bold proposal to Vanslyperken of joining the other party, and offered him at the same time ample remuneration, he would have been too suspicious or too timorous to run the risk. It was necessary to win him over by means which appeared accidental rather than otherwise. The difficulty of correspondence was very great; and as the cutter constantly was despatched to the Hague, and the French had agents there, not only letters, but even messengers, might be sent over without risk and without suspicion; for open boats being then the only means of communication, during the wintry part of the year, the correspondence was very precarious, and at long intervals.
Thus was Nancy Corbett changed into a buxom widow, all for the good cause, and well did she perform her part; for there was no lack of money when such services were required. Vanslyperken left the house quite enchanted. "This will do," thought he, "and if I succeed, Frau Vandersloosh may go to the devil." He returned on board, unlocked his cabin, where Snarleyyow had been secured from the machinations of Smallbones and other malcontents, and sat down to enjoy the castle-building which he had commenced after he left the house. He patted his dog, and apostrophised it. "Yes, my poor brute," said Vanslyperken, "your master will get a rich widow, without it being necessary that you should be laid dead at her porch. D--n Frau Vandersloosh."
The widow was more enchanting when Vanslyperken called on the ensuing day, than she was on the first. Her advances to the lieutenant were no longer doubtful to him. She entered freely into the state of her affairs, asked his advice upon money matters, and fully proved to his satisfaction that, independent of her beauty, she would be a much greater catch than Frau Vandersloosh. She spoke about her family; said that she expected her brother over, but that he must come _incog. _, as he was attached to the court of the exiled king, lamented the difficulty of receiving letters from him, and openly expressed her adherence to the Stuart family. Vanslyperken appeared to make very little objection to her political creed; in fact, he was so fascinated that he fell blindly into the snare; he accepted an invitation to dine with her on that very day, and went on board to dress himself as fine for her as he had for the widow Vandersloosh. The lovely widow admired his uniform, and gave him many gentle hints upon which he might speak: but this did not take place until a _tête-à-tête_ after dinner, when he was sitting on a sofa with her (not on such a fubsy sofa as that of Frau Vandersloosh, but one worked in tapestry); much in the same position as we once introduced him in to the reader, to wit, with the lady's hand in his. Vanslyperken was flushed with wine, for Nancy had pushed the bottle, and, at last, he spoke out clearly what his aspirations were. The widow blushed, laughed, wiped her eyes as if to brush away a falling tear, and eventually, with a slight pressure of the hand, stammered that she did not know what to say, the acquaintance was so short--it was so unexpected--she must reflect a little: at the same time, she could not but acknowledge, that she had been taken with him when she first saw him; and then she laughed and said, that she did really begin to believe that there was such a thing as love at first sight, and then--he had better go now, she wished to be alone--she really had a headache. Oh! Nancy Corbett! you were, indeed, an adept in the art of seduction--no wonder that your name has been handed down to posterity. Mr Vanslyperken perceived his advantage, and pressed still more, until the blushing widow declared that she would really think seriously about the matter, if on further acquaintance she found that her good opinion of him was not overrated.
Vanslyperken returned on board intoxicated with his success. On his arrival, he was informed that a messenger had been sent for him, but no one knew where to find him, and that he must be at the admiral's early the next morning, and have all ready for immediate sailing. This was rather annoying, but there was no help for it. The next day Vanslyperken went to the admiral's, and received orders to sail immediately to the Hague with despatches of consequence, being no less than an answer from King William to the States General. Mr Vanslyperken proceeded from the admiral's to the charming widow, to whom he imparted this unwelcome intelligence. She, of course, was grave, and listened to his protestations with her little finger in her mouth, and a pensive, down-cast eye.
"How long will you be away?" inquired she.
"But a week or ten days at the farthest. I shall fly back to see you again."
"But, tell me the truth, have you no acquaintances there? --now, tell me the truth. I don't mean men."
"Upon my honour, fair widow, I don't know a single woman there," replied Vanslyperken, pleased with this little appearance of jealousy; "but I'm afraid that I must leave you, for the admiral is very severe."
"Will you do me one favour, Mr Vanslyperken?"
"Anything:--ask what you will."
"I want this letter forwarded to my brother--I am very anxious about it. The French agent there will send it on;--it is enclosed to him. Will you do me that favour, my dear sir? --I'm sure you will if----" "If what?"
"If you love me," replied the widow, laying her hand upon Vanslyperken.
"I will, most certainly," said Vanslyperken, taking the letter and putting it in his pocket.
"Then I shall ask you another," said the widow. "You will think me very foolish, but there may be an opportunity--will you write to me--just a few lines--only to tell me that you have given the letter, that's all--and to say how you are--don't you think me very foolish?"
"I will write, dearest, since you wish it--and now, good-bye."
Vanslyperken took the widow round the waist, and after a little murmuring and reluctance, was permitted to snatch a kiss. Her eyes followed him mournfully till he shut the door and disappeared, and then Nancy Corbett gave way to unbounded mirth.
"So the fool has bit already," thought she; "now if he only writes to me, and I get his acknowledgment of having delivered the letter, the beast is in my power, and I can hang him any day I please. Upon his honour, he did not know a single woman there:--Lord have mercy! --what liars men are--but we can sometimes beat them with their own weapons." And Nancy's thoughts reverted to her former life, which she now dwelt upon with pain and sorrow.
Mr Vanslyperken returned on board; the anchor was weighed immediately that the boats had been hoisted up, and the _Yungfrau_ ran out with a fair wind, which lasted until the evening, when it fell almost calm, and the cutter made but little way through the water. Many of the men were conversing on the forecastle as usual, and the subject of their discourse was the surmising what had become of Corporal Van Spitter. In one point they all appeared to agree, which was, that they hoped he would never return to the cutter.
"If he does I owe him one," observed Jemmy Ducks. "It's all through him that my wife was turned out of the vessel."
"And a little bit from her tongue, Jemmy," observed Coble.
"Why, perhaps so," replied Jemmy; "but what was it set her tongue loose but the threat of _him_ to flog me, and what made him threaten that but the 'peaching of that fat marine?"
"Very good arguments, Jemmy. Well, I will say that for your wife, Jemmy, she does love you, and there's no sham about it."
"Never mind Jemmy's wife, let's have Jemmy's song," said Spurey; "he hasn't piped since he was pulled up by the corporal."
"No: he put my pipe out, the hippopotamus. Well, I'll give it you--it shall be about what we are talking of, Obadiah." Jemmy perched himself on the fore-end of the booms, and sang as follows: "I suppose that you think 'cause my trousers are tarry, And because that I ties my long hair in a tail, While landsmen are figged out as fine as Lord Harry, With breast-pins and cravats as white as old sail; That I'm a strange creature, a know-nothing ninny, But fit for the planks for to walk in foul weather; That I ha'n't e'er a notion of the worth of a guinea, And that you, Poll, can twist me about as a feather,-- Lord love you!!
"I know that this life is but short at the best on't, That Time it flies fast, and that work must be done; That when danger comes 'tis as well for to jest on't, 'Twill be but the lighter felt when it do come: If you think, then, from this that I an't got a notion Of a heaven above, with its mercy in store, And the devil below, for us lads of the ocean, Just the same as it be for the landsmen on shore,-- Lord love you!!
"If because I don't splice with some true-hearted woman, Who'd doat on my presence, and sob when I sail, But put up with you, Poll, though faithful to no man, With a fist that can strike, and a tongue that can rail; 'Tis because I'm not selfish, and know 'tis my duty If I marry to moor by my wife, and not leave her, To dandle the young ones,--watch over her beauty, D'ye think that I'd promise and vow, then deceive her? -- Lord love you!!
"I suppose that you think 'cause I'm free with my money, Which others would hoard and lock up in their chest, All your billing and cooing, and words sweet as honey, Are as gospel to me while you hang on my breast; But no, Polly, no;--you may take every guinea, They'd burn in my pocket, if I took them to sea; But as for your love, Poll, I indeed were a ninny,-- D'ye think I don't know you cheat others than me? Lord love you!!"
"Well, that's a good song, Jemmy, and he can't pull you up for that, anyhow."
Mr Vanslyperken appeared to think otherwise, for he sent a marine forward to say, that no singing would be permitted in future, and that they were immediately to desist.
"I suppose we shall have a song considered as mutiny soon," observed Coble. "Ah, well, it's a long lane that has no turning."
"Yes," replied Jemmy, in an under tone, "and for every rogue there's a rope laid up. Never mind, let us go below."
Mr Vanslyperken's dreaming thoughts of the fair widow were nevertheless occasionally interrupted by others not quite so agreeable. Strange to say, he fully believed what Smallbones had asserted about his being carried out by the tide to the Nab buoy and he canvassed the question in his mind, whether there was not something supernatural in the affair, a sort of interposition of Providence in behalf of the lad, which was to be considered as a warning to himself not to attempt anything further. He was frightened, although his feeling for revenge was still in all its force. As for any one suspecting him of having attempted the boy's life, he had recovered from that feeling; even if they did, who dare say a word? There was another point which also engrossed the moody Vanslyperken, which was how he should behave relative to the widow Vandersloosh. Should he call or should he not? he cared nothing for her, and provided he could succeed with the Portsmouth lady, he would pitch her to the devil; but still he remembered the old proverb, "You should never throw away dirty water before you are sure of clean." After some cogitation he determined upon still pressing his suit, and hoped at the same time that the widow would not admit him into her presence. Such were the different resolves and decisions which occupied the mind of Mr Vanslyperken until he dropped his anchor at Amsterdam, when he ordered his boat to go on shore, and gave positive directions to Dick Short that no one was to leave the cutter on any pretence, for he was determined that as the widow would not have his company, she should not have the profits arising from his men spending their money at her house.
"So," cried Coble, after the boat shoved off, "liberty's stopped as well as singing. What next, I wonder? I sha'n't stand this long."
"No," replied Short.
"Stop till he makes friends with the widow," observed Bill Spurey; "she'll get us all leave."
"Mein Gott, he nebber say anyting before," observed Jansen.
"No; we might almost go and come as we wished. We must not stand this."
"We won't," replied Jemmy Ducks.
"No," replied Short.
While the crew of the cutter were in this incipient state of mutiny, Vanslyperken bent his steps to deliver up to the authorities the despatches with which he was charged; and having so done, he then took out the letter intrusted to him by Nancy Corbett and read the address. It was the same street in which lived the Frau Vandersloosh. This was awkward, as Vanslyperken did not want to be seen by her; but there was no help for it. He trusted to her not seeing him, and he proceeded thither: he ran down the numbers on the doors until he came to the right one, which was exactly opposite to the widow's house:--this was more unfortunate. He rang the bell; it was some time before the door was opened, and while he was standing there he could not help looking round to see if any one saw him. To his annoyance, there stood the widow filling up her door with her broad frame, and Babette peeping over her shoulder. Mr Vanslyperken, as there was only the canal and two narrow roads between them, could do no less than salute her, but she took no notice of him farther than by continuing her stare. At last, upon a second pulling of the bell, the door opened, and on Mr Vanslyperken saying that he had a letter for such an address, he was admitted, and the door immediately closed. He was ushered into a room, the window-panes of which were painted green, so that no one outside could look in, and found himself in the presence of a tall man, in a clerical dress, who motioned to him to sit down.
Vanslyperken delivered the letter, and then took a seat. The gentleman made a graceful bow, as if to ask permission to break the seal, and then opened the letter.
"Sir, I am obliged to you for charging yourself with these packets--infinitely obliged to you. You are in command of a sloop here, I believe."
"A king's cutter, sir," replied Vanslyperken, with importance; "I am Lieutenant Vanslyperken."
"I thank you, sir. I will take down your name. You expect, I presume, to be rewarded for this small service," continued the gentleman, with a bland smile.
"Why, she must have told him," thought Vanslyperken; who replied with another smile, "that he certainly trusted that he should be."
Upon which reply, the other went to an escritoire, and taking out a bag, opened it and poured out a mass of gold, which made Vanslyperken's mouth water, but why he did so Vanslyperken did not give a thought, until having counted out fifty pieces, the gentleman very gracefully put them into his hand, observing, "A lieutenant's pay is not great, and we can afford to be generous. Will you oblige me by calling here before you sail for England, and I will beg you to take charge of a letter."
Vanslyperken was all amazement: he began to suspect what was the fact, but he had the gold in his hand, and for the life of him, he could not have laid it down again on the table. It was too great a sacrifice, for it was his idol--his god. He therefore dropped it into his pocket, and promising to call before he sailed, bowed and took his leave. As he went out, there were the Frau Vandersloosh and Babette still watching him at the door, but Vanslyperken was in a state of agitation, and he hurried off as fast as he could. Had he known why they watched so earnestly, and what had occurred, his agitation would have been greater still. As soon as Mr Vanslyperken had arrived on board, he hastened down into his cabin, and throwing the money down on the table, feasted his eyes with it, and remained for nearly half-an-hour in a state of deep cogitation, during which he often asked himself the question, whether he had not been a traitor to the king and country in whose pay he was employed. The answer that he gave to himself was anything but satisfactory: but the prospect of possessing the fair Portsmouth widow, and the gold displayed upon the table, were very satisfactory, and the balance was on the latter side: so Vanslyperken gradually recovered himself, and had risen from his chair to collect the gold and deposit it in a place of safety, when he was interrupted by a tap at the door. Hastily sweeping off the gold pieces, he cried, "Come in;" when who, to his surprise, should appear, in excellent condition and fresh as a peony, but the lost and almost forgotten Corporal Van Spitter, who, raising his hand to his forehead as usual, reported himself man-of-war fashion, "Vas come on board, Mynheer Vanslyperken." But as the corporal did not tell all the facts connected with his cruise in the jolly-boat to Mr Vanslyperken, for reasons which will hereafter appear, we shall reserve the narrative of what really did take place for another chapter.
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{
"id": "12558"
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In which are narrated the adventures which took place in the corporal's cruise in the jolly-boat.
Corporal Van Spitter, so soon as he had expended all his breath in shouting for help, sat down with such a flop of despair on the thwart of the boat, as very nearly to swamp it. As it was, the water poured in over the starboard-gunnel, until the boat was filled up to his ankles. This alarmed him still more, and he remained mute as a stockfish for a quarter of an hour, during which he was swept away by the tide until he was unable to discover the lights on shore. The wind freshened, and the water became more rough, the night was dark as pitch, and the corporal skimmed along before the wind and tide. "A tousand tyfels!" at last muttered the corporal, as the searching blast crept round his fat sides, and made him shiver. Gust succeeded gust, and, at last, the corporal's teeth chattered with the cold: he raised his feet out of the water at the bottom of the boat, for his feet were like ice, but in so doing, the weight of his body being above the centre of gravity, the boat careened over, and with a "Mein Gott!" he hastily replaced them in the cold water. And now a shower of rain and sleet came down upon the unprotected body of the corporal, which added to his misery, to his fear, and to his despair.
"Where am I?" muttered he; "what will become of me? Ah, mein Gott! twenty tousand tyfels--what had I to do in a boat--I, Corporal Van Spitter?" and then he was again silent for nearly half an hour. The wind shifted to the northward, and the rain cleared up, but it was only to make the corporal suffer more, for the freezing blast poured upon his wet clothes, and he felt chilled to the very centre of his vitals. His whole body trembled convulsively, he was frozen to the thwart, yet there was no appearance of daylight coming, and the corporal now abandoned himself to utter hopelessness and desperation, and commenced praying. He attempted the Lord's Prayer in Dutch, but could get no further than "art in heaven," for the rest, from disuse, had quite escaped the corporal's memory. He tried to recollect something else, but was equally unsuccessful; at last, he made up a sad mixture of swearing and praying.
"Mein Gott--a hundred tousand tyfels--gut Gott--twenty hundred tousand tyfels! Ah, Gott of mercy--million of tyfels! holy Gott Jesus! twenty millions of tyfels--Gott for dam, I die of cold!" Such were the ejaculations of the corporal, allowing about ten minutes to intervene between each, during which the wind blew more freshly, the waves rose, and the boat was whirled away.
But the corporal's miseries were to be prolonged; the flood-time of water was now spent, and the ebb commenced flowing against the wind and sea. This created what is called boiling water, that is, a contest between the wind forcing the waves one way, and the tide checking them the other, which makes the waves to lose their run, and they rise, and dance, and bubble into points. The consequence was, that the boat, as she was borne down by the tide against them, shipped a sea every moment, which the wind threw against the carcass of the corporal, who was now quite exhausted with more than four hours' exposure to a wintry night, the temperature being nearly down to zero. All the corporal's stoicism was gone; he talked wildly, crouched and gibbered in his fear, when he was suddenly roused by a heavy shock. He raised his head, which had sunk upon his chest, and beheld something close to him, and to the gunnel of the boat. It was a thin, tall figure, holding out his two arms at right angles, and apparently stooping over him. It was just in the position that Smallbones lay on the forecastle of the cutter on that day morning, when he was about to keel-haul him, and the corporal, in his state of mental and bodily depression, was certain that it was the ghost of the poor lad whom he had so often tortured. Terror raised his hair erect--his mouth was wide open--he could not speak--he tried to analyse it, but a wave dashed in his face--his eyes and mouth were filled with salt water, and the corporal threw himself down on the thwarts of the boat, quite regardless whether it went to the bottom or not; there he lay, half groaning, half praying, with his hands to his eyes, and his huge nether proportion raised in the air, every limb trembling with blended cold and fright. One hour more, and there would have been nothing but corporal parts of Corporal Spitter.
The reason why the last movement of the corporal did not swamp the boat, was simply that it was aground on one of the flats; and the figure which had alarmed the conscience-stricken corporal, was nothing more than the outside beacon of a weir for catching fish, being a thin post with a cross bar to it, certainly not unlike Smallbones in figure, supposing him to have put his arms in that position.
For upwards of an hour did the corporal lie reversed, when the day dawned, and the boat had been left high and dry upon the flat. The fishermen came down to examine their weir, and see what was their success, when they discovered the boat with its contents. At first they could not imagine what it was, for they could perceive nothing but the capacious round of the corporal, which rose up in the air, but, by degrees, they made out that there was a head and feet attached to it, and they contrived, with the united efforts of four men, to raise him up, and discovered that life was not yet extinct. They poured a little schnappes into his mouth, and he recovered so far as to open his eyes, and they having brought down with them two little carts drawn by dogs, they put the corporal into one, covered him up, and yoking all the dogs to the one cart, for the usual train could not move so heavy a weight, two of them escorted him up to their huts, while the others threw the fish caught into the cart which remained, and took possession of the boat. The fishermen's wives, perceiving the cart so heavily laden, imagined, as it approached the huts, that there had been unusual success, and were not a little disappointed when they found that instead of several bushels of fine fish, they had only caught a corporal of marines; but they were kind-hearted, for they had known misery, and Van Spitter was put into a bed, and covered up with all the blankets they could collect, and very soon was able to drink some warm soup offered to him. It was not, however, till long past noon, that the corporal was able to narrate what had taken place.
"Will your lieutenant pay us for saving you and bringing him his boat?" demanded the men.
Now, it must be observed, that a great revolution had taken place in the corporal's feelings since the horror and sufferings of the night. He felt hatred towards Vanslyperken, and good-will towards those whom he had treated unkindly. The supernatural appearance of Smallbones, in which he still believed, and which appeared to him as a warning--what he had suffered from cold and exhaustion, which by him was considered as a punishment for his treatment of the poor lad but the morning before, had changed the heart of Corporal Van Spitter, so he replied in Dutch, "He will give you nothing, good people, not even a glass of schnappes, I tell you candidly--so keep the boat if you wish--I will not say a word about it, except that it is lost. He is not likely to see it again. Besides, you can alter it, and paint it."
This very generous present of his Majesty's property by the corporal, was very agreeable to the fishermen, as it amply repaid them for all their trouble. The corporal put on his clothes, and ate a hearty meal, was freely supplied with spirits, and went to bed quite recovered. The next morning, the fishermen took him down to Amsterdam in their own boat, when Van Spitter discovered that the _Yungfrau_ had sailed; this was very puzzling, and Corporal Van Spitter did not know what to do. After some cogitation, it occurred to him that, for Vanslyperken's sake, he might be well received at the Lust Haus by widow Vandersloosh, little imagining how much at a discount was his lieutenant in that quarter.
To the Frau Vandersloosh accordingly he repaired, and the first person he met was Babette, who finding that the corporal was a Dutchman, and belonging to the _Yungfrau_, and who presumed that he had always felt the same ill-will towards Vanslyperken and Snarleyyow, as did the rest of the ship's company, immediately entered into a narrative of the conduct of Snarleyyow on the preceding night, the anger of her mistress, and every other circumstance with which the reader is already acquainted. Corporal Van Spitter thus fortunately found out how matters stood previous to his introduction to the widow. He expatiated upon his sufferings, upon the indifference of his lieutenant in sailing as to what had become of him, and fully persuaded Babette not only that he was inimical, which now certainly he was, but that he always had been so, to Mr Vanslyperken. Babette, who was always ready to retail news, went up to the widow, and amused her, as she dressed her, with the corporal's adventures, and the widow felt an interest in, before she had seen, Corporal Van Spitter, from the account of his "moving accidents by flood and field."
But if prepossessed in his favour before she saw him, what did she feel when she first beheld the substantial proportions of Corporal Van Spitter! There she beheld the beau ideal of her imagination--the very object of her widow's dreams--the antipodes of Vanslyperken, and as superior as "Hyperion to a Satyr." He had all the personal advantages, with none of the defects of her late husband; he was quite as fleshy, but had at least six inches more in height, and, in the eyes of the widow, the Corporal Van Spitter was the finest man she ever had beheld, and she mentally exclaimed, "There is the man for my money;" and, at the same time, resolved that she would win him. Alas I how short-sighted are mortals; little did the corporal imagine that the most untoward event in his life would be the cause of his being possessed of ease and competence. The widow received him most graciously, spoke in no measured terms against Vanslyperken, at which the corporal raised his huge shoulders, as much as to say, "He is even worse than you think him," was very violent against Snarleyyow, whom the corporal, aware that it was no mutiny, made no ceremony in "damning in heaps," as the saying is.
The widow begged that he would feel no uneasiness, as he should remain with her till the cutter returned; and an hour after the first introduction, Corporal Van Spitter had breakfasted with, and was actually sitting, by her request, on the little fubsy sofa, in the very place of Vanslyperken, with Frau Vandersloosh by his side.
We must pass over the few days during which the cutter was away. Widows have not that maiden modesty to thwart their wishes, which so often prevents a true love tale from being told. And all that the widow could not tell, Babette, duly instructed, told for her, and it was understood, before the cutter's arrival, that Corporal Van Spitter was the accepted lover of the Frau Vandersloosh. But still it was necessary that there should be secrecy, not only on account of the corporal's being under the command of the lieutenant, who, of course, would not allow himself to be crossed in his love without resenting it, but also, because it was not advisable that the crew of the _Yungfrau_ should not be permitted to spend their money at the Lust Haus. It was therefore agreed that the lieutenant should be blinded, as to the real nature of the intimacy, and that nothing should take place until the cutter was paid off, and Corporal Van Spitter should be a gentleman at large.
Independent of the wisdom of the above proceedings, there was a secret pleasure to all parties in deceiving the deceiver Vanslyperken. But something else occurred which we must now refer to. The corporal's residence at the widow's house had not been unobserved by the Jesuit, who was the French agent in the house opposite, and it appeared to him, after the inquiries he had made, that Corporal Van Spitter might be made serviceable. He had been sent for and sounded, and it was canvassed with the widow whether he should accept the offers or not, and finally it was agreed that he should, as there would be little or no risk. Now, it so happened, that the corporal had gone over to the Jesuit's house to agree to the proposals, and was actually in the house conversing with him, when Vanslyperken arrived and knocked at the door. The corporal ascertaining who it was by a small clear spot left in the painted window for scrutiny, begged that he might be concealed, and was immediately shown into the next room by a door, which was hid behind a screen. The Jesuit did not exactly shut the door, as he supposed he did, and the corporal, who wondered what could have brought Vanslyperken there, kept it ajar during the whole of the interview and the counting out of the money. Vanslyperken left, and as he shut the other door the corporal did the same with the one he held ajar, and took a seat at the other end of the room, that the Jesuit might not suspect his having overheard all that had passed.
Now the Jesuit had made up his mind that it was better to treat with the principal than with a second, and therefore did not further require the services of Corporal Van Spitter. He told him that the lieutenant having received private information that one of the people of the cutter had been seen at his house, and knowing that he was the French agent, had come to inform him that if he attempted to employ any of his men in carrying letters, that he would inform against him to the authorities. That he was very sorry, but that after such a notice he was afraid that the arrangements could not proceed. The corporal appeared to be satisfied, and took his final leave. No wonder, therefore, that the widow and Babette were on the watch, when they saw Vanslyperken enter the house, at the very time the corporal was there also.
The corporal went over to the widow's, and narrated all that he had heard and seen.
"Why, the traitor!" exclaimed the widow.
"Yes, mein Gott!" repeated the corporal.
"The villain to sell his country for gold."
"Yes, mein Gott!" repeated the corporal.
"Fifty guineas, did you say, Mynheer Van Spitter?"
"Yes, mein Gott!" repeated the corporal.
"Oh, the wretch! --well," continued the widow, "at all events he is in your power."
"Yes, mein Gott!"
"You can hang him any day in the week."
"Yes, mein Gott!"
"Ho, ho! Mr Vanslyperken:--well, well, Mr Vanslyperken, we will see," continued the widow, indignant at the lieutenant receiving so large a sum, which would otherwise have been, in all probability, made over to Corporal Van Spitter, with whom she now felt that their interests were in common.
"Tousand tyfels!" roared the corporal, dashing his foot upon one of the flaps of the little table before them with so much force, that it was broken short off and fell down on the floor.
"Hundred tousand tyfels!" continued the corporal, when he witnessed the effects of his violence.
Although the widow lamented her table, she forgave the corporal with a smile; she liked such proofs of strength in her intended, and she, moreover, knew that the accident was occasioned by indignation at Vanslyperken.
"Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, you'll pay me for that," exclaimed she; "I prophesy that before long you and your nasty cur will both swing together."
The corporal now walked across the little parlour and back again, then turned to the widow Vandersloosh, and with a most expressive look slowly muttered, "Yes, mein Gott!"
After which he sat down again by the side of the widow, and they had a short consultation; before it was over, Corporal Van Spitter declared himself the deadly enemy of Lieutenant Vanslyperken; swore that he would be his ruin, and ratified the oath upon the widow's lips. Alas! what changes there are in this world!
After which solemn compact the corporal rose, took his leave, went on board, and reported himself, as we have stated in the preceding chapter.
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In which Snarleyyow proves to be the devil, and no mistake.
That the corporal mystified his lieutenant, may easily be supposed; but the corporal had other work to do, and he did it immediately. He went up to Jemmy Ducks, who looked daggers at him, and said to him quietly, "That he had something to say to him as soon as it was dusk, and they would not be seen together." Vanslyperken ordered the corporal to resume his office, and serve out the provisions that afternoon: and to the astonishment of the men, he gave them not only full, but overweight; and instead of abusing them, and being cross, he was good-humoured, and joked with them; and all the crew stared at each other, and wondered what could be the matter with Corporal Van Spitter. But what was their amazement, upon Snarleyyow's coming up to him as he was serving out provisions, instead of receiving something from the hand of the corporal as usual, he, on the contrary, received a sound kick on the ribs from his foot which sent him yelping back into the cabin. Their astonishment could only be equalled by that of Snarleyyow himself. But that was not all; it appeared as if wonders would never cease, for when Smallbones came up to receive his master's provisions, after the others had been served and gone away, the corporal not only kindly received him, but actually presented him with a stiff glass of grog mixed with the corporal's own hand. When he offered it, the lad could not believe his eyes, and even when he had poured it down his throat, he would not believe his own mouth; and he ran away, leaving his provisions, chuckling along the lower deck till he could gain the forecastle, and add this astonishing piece of intelligence to the other facts, which were already the theme of admiration.
"There be odd chops and changes in this here world, for sartin," observed Coble. (Exactly the same remark as we made at the end of the previous chapter.)
"Mayn't it all be gammon?" said Bill Spurey.
"Gammon, for why?" replied Jemmy Ducks.
"That's the question," rejoined Spurey.
"It appears to me that he must have had a touch of conscience," said Coble.
"Or else he must have seen a ghost," replied Smallbones.
"I've heard of ghosts ashore, and sometimes on board of a ship, but I never heard of a ghost in a jolly-boat," said Coble, spitting under the gun. " 'Specially when there were hardly room for the corporal," added Spurey.
"Yes," observed Short.
"Well, we shall know something about it to-night, for the corporal and I am to have a palaver."
"Mind he don't circumwent you, Jimmy," said Spurey.
"It's my opinion," said Smallbones, "that he must be in real arnest, otherwise he would not ha' come for to go for to give me a glass of grog--there's no gammon in that;--and such a real stiff 'un too," continued Smallbones, who licked his lips at the bare remembrance of the unusual luxury.
"True," said Short.
"It beats my comprehension altogether out of nothing," observed Spurey. "There's something very queer in the wind. I wonder where the corporal has been all this while."
"Wait till this evening," observed Jemmy Ducks; and, as this was very excellent advice, it was taken, and the parties separated.
In the despatches it had been requested, as important negotiations were going on, that the cutter might return immediately, as there were other communications to make to the States General on the part of the King of England; and a messenger now informed Vanslyperken that he might sail as soon as he pleased, as there was no reply to the despatches he had conveyed. This was very agreeable to Vanslyperken, who was anxious to return to the fair widow at Portsmouth, and also to avoid the Frau Vandersloosh. At dusk, he manned his boat and went on shore to the French agent, who had also found out that the cutter was ordered to return, and had his despatches nearly ready. Vanslyperken waited about an hour; when all was complete he received them, and then returned on board.
As soon as he had quitted the vessel, Corporal Van Spitter went to Jemmy Ducks, and without letting him know how matters stood on shore, told him that he was convinced that Vanslyperken had sent him into the boat on purpose to lose him, and that the reason was, that he, Van Spitter, knew secrets which would at any time hang the lieutenant. That in consequence he had determined upon revenge, and in future would be heart and hand with the ship's company, but that to secure their mutual object, it would be better that he should appear devoted to Vanslyperken as before, and at variance with the ship's company.
Now Jemmy, who was with all his wits at work, knew that it was Smallbones who cut the corporal adrift; but that did not alter the case, as the corporal did not know it. It was therefore advisable to leave him in that error. But he required proofs of the corporal's sincerity, and he told him so.
"Mein Gott! what proof will you have? De proof of de pudding is in de eating."
"Well, then," replied Jemmy, "will you shy the dog overboard?"
"Te tog? --in one minute--and de master after him."
Whereupon Corporal Van Spitter went down into the cabin, which Vanslyperken, trusting to his surveillance, had left unlocked, and seizing the cur by the neck, carried him on deck, and hurled him several yards over the cutter's quarter.
"Mein Gott! but dat is well done," observed Jansen.
"And he'll not come back wid de tide. I know de tide, Mein Gott!" observed the corporal, panting with the exertion.
But here the corporal was mistaken. Snarleyyow did not make for the vessel, but for the shore, and they could not in the dark ascertain what became of him, neither was the tide strong, for the flood was nearly over; the consequence was, that the dog gained the shore, and landed at the same stairs where the boats land. The men were not in the boat, but waiting at a beer-shop a little above, which Vanslyperken must pass when he came down again. Recognising the boat, the cur leapt into it, and after a good shaking under the thwarts, crept forward to where the men had thrown their pea-jackets under the bow-sheets, curled himself up, and went to sleep.
Shortly afterwards the lieutenant came down with the men, and rowed on board but the dog, which, exhausted with his exertion, was very comfortable where he was, did not come out, but remained in his snug berth.
The lieutenant and men left the boat when they arrived on board, without discovering that the dog was a passenger. About ten minutes after the lieutenant had come on board, Snarleyyow jumped on deck, but, as all the men were forward in close consultation, and in anticipation of Mr Vanslyperken's discovery of his loss, the dog gained the cabin, unperceived not only by the ship's company, but by Vanslyperken, who was busy locking up the letters entrusted to him by the French agent. Snarleyyow took his station under the table, and lay down to finish his nap, where we must leave him for the present in a sound sleep, and his snoring very soon reminded Vanslyperken of what he had, for a short time unheeded, that his favourite was present.
"Well, it's very odd," observed Spurey, "that he has been on board nearly half-an-hour, and not discovered that his dog is absent without leave."
"Yes," said Short.
"I know for why, mein Gott!" exclaimed the corporal, who shook his head very knowingly.
"The corporal knows why," observed Jemmy Ducks.
"Then why don't he say why?" retorted Bill Spurey, who was still a little suspicious of the corporal's fidelity.
"Because Mynheer Vanslyperken count his money de guineas," replied the corporal, writhing at the idea of what he had lost by his superior's interference.
"Ho, ho! his money, well, that's a good reason, for he would skin a flint if he could," observed Coble; "but that can't last for ever."
"That depends how often he may count it over," observed Jemmy Ducks--"but there's his bell;" and soon after Corporal Van Spitter's name was passed along the decks, to summon him into the presence of his commanding officer.
"Now for a breeze," said Coble, hitching up his trousers.
"Yes," replied Short.
"For a regular _shindy_," observed Spurey.
"Hell to pay and no pitch hot," added Jemmy, laughing; and they all remained in anxious expectation of the corporal's return.
Corporal Van Spitter had entered the cabin with the air of the profoundest devotion and respect--had raised his hand up as usual, but before the hand had arrived to its destination, he beheld Vanslyperken seated on the locker, patting the head of Snarleyyow, as if nothing had happened. At this unexpected resuscitation, the corporal uttered a tremendous "Mein Gott!" and burst like a mad bull out of the cabin, sweeping down all who obstructed his passage on the lower deck, till he arrived to the fore-ladder, which he climbed up with tottering knees, and then sank down on the forecastle at the feet of Jemmy Ducks.
"Mein Gott, mein Gott, mein Gott!" exclaimed the corporal, putting his hands to his eyes as if to shut out the horrid vision.
"What the devil is the matter?" exclaimed Coble.
"Ah! mein Gott, mein Gott!"
As it was evident that something uncommon had happened, they all now crowded round the corporal, who, by degrees, recovered himself.
"What is it, corporal?" inquired Jemmy Ducks.
Before the corporal could reply, Smallbones, who had been summoned to the cabin on account of the corporal's unaccountable exit, sprang up the ladder with one bound, his hair flying in every direction, his eyes goggling, and his mouth wide open: lifting his hands over his head, and pausing as if for breath, the lad exclaimed with a solemn sepulchral voice, "By all the devils in hell he's come again!"
"Who?" exclaimed several voices at once.
"Snarleyyow," replied Smallbones, mournfully.
"Yes--mein Gott!" exclaimed Corporal Van Spitter, attempting to rise on his legs.
"Whew!" whistled Jemmy Ducks--but nobody else uttered a sound; they all looked at one another, some with compressed lips, others with mouths open. At last one shook his head--then another. The corporal rose on his feet and shook himself like an elephant.
"Dat tog is de tyfel's imp, and dat's de end on it," said he, with alarm still painted on his countenance.
"And is he really on board again?" inquired Coble, doubtingly.
"As sartin as I stands on this here forecastle--a-kissing and slobbering the lieutenant for all the world like a Christian," replied Smallbones, despondingly.
"Then he flare fire on me wid his one eye," said the corporal.
"Warn't even wet," continued Smallbones.
Here there was another summons for Corporal Van Spitter.
"Mein Gott, I will not go," exclaimed the corporal.
"Yes, yes, go, corporal," replied Smallbones; "it's the best way to face the devil."
"Damn the devil! --and that's not swearing," exclaimed Short--such a long sentence out of his mouth was added to the marvels of the night--some even shrugged up their shoulders at that, as if it also were supernatural.
"I always say so," said Jansen, "I always say so--no tog, no tog, after all."
"No, no," replied Coble, shaking his head.
Corporal Van Spitter was again summoned, but the corporal was restive as a rhinoceros.
"Corporal," said Smallbones, who, since the glass of grog, was his sincere ally, and had quite forgotten and forgiven his treatment, "go down and see if you can't worm the truth out of him."
"Ay, do, do!" exclaimed the rest.
"Smallbones--Smallbones--wanted aft," was the next summons.
"And here I go," exclaimed Smallbones. "I defy the devil and all his works--as we said on Sunday at the workhouse."
"That lad's a prime bit of stuff," observed Spurey, "I will say that."
"Yes," replied Short.
In a few seconds Smallbones came hastily up the ladder.
"Corporal, you must go to the cabin directly. He is in a devil of a rage--asked me why you wouldn't come--told him that you had seen something dreadful--didn't know what. Tell him you saw the devil at his elbow--see if it frightens him."
"Yes, do," exclaimed the others.
Corporal Van Spitter made up his mind; he pulled down the skirts of his jacket, descended the ladder, and walked aft into the cabin. At the sight of Snarleyyow the corporal turned pale--at the sight of the corporal, Mr Vanslyperken turned red.
"What's the meaning of all this?" exclaimed Vanslyperken, in a rage. "What is all this about, corporal? Explain your conduct, sir. What made you rush out of the cabin in that strange manner?"
"Mein Gott, Mynheer Vanslyperken, I came for orders but I no come keep company wid de tyfel."
"With the devil! --what do you mean?" exclaimed Vanslyperken, alarmed. The corporal, perceiving that the lieutenant was frightened, then entered into a detail, that when he had entered the cabin he had seen the devil sitting behind Mr Vanslyperken, looking over his shoulder, and grinning with his great eyes, while he patted him over the back with his left hand and fondled the dog with his right.
This invention of the corporal's, "whom Mr Vanslyperken considered as a stanch friend and incapable of treachery, had a great effect upon Mr Vanslyperken. It immediately rushed into his mind that he had attempted murder but a few days before, and that, that very day he had been a traitor to his country--quite sufficient for the devil to claim him as his own.
"Corporal Van Spitter," exclaimed Vanslyperken with a look of horror, "are you really in earnest, or are you not in your senses--you really saw him?"
"As true as I stand here," replied the corporal, who perceived his advantage.
"Then the Lord be merciful to me a sinner!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, falling on his knees, at the moment forgetting the presence of the corporal, and then recollecting himself, he jumped up--"It is false, Corporal Van Spitter; false as you are yourself--confess," continued the lieutenant, seizing the corporal by the collar, "confess, that it is all a lie."
"A lie," exclaimed the corporal, who now lost his courage, "a lie, Mynheer Vanslyperken! If it was not the tyfel himself it was one of his imps, I take my Bible oath."
"One of his imps," exclaimed Vanslyperken; "it's a lie--an infamous lie, confess," continued he, shaking the corporal by the collar--"confess the truth."
At this moment Snarleyyow considered that he had a right to be a party in the fray, so he bounded forward at the corporal, who, terrified at the supernatural beast, broke from Vanslyperken's grasp, and rushed out of the cabin, followed, however, the whole length of the lower deck by the dog, who snapped and bayed at him till he had gained the fore ladder.
Once more did the corporal make his appearance on the forecastle, frightened and out of breath.
"Mein Gott! de man is mad," exclaimed he, "and de tog is de tyfel himself." The corporal then narrated in broken English what had passed. For some time there was a confused whispering among the men; they considered the dog's reappearance on this occasion even more wonderful than on the former, for the men declared positively that he never came off in the boat, which, had he done, would have unravelled the whole mystery; and that a dog thrown overboard, and swept away by the tide should be discovered shortly after perfectly dry and comfortable, not only on board of the cutter, which he could not have got on board of, but also in his master's cabin, which he could not get into without being seen, proved at once that the animal was supernatural. No one was now hardy enough to deny it, and no one appeared to have the least idea of how to proceed except Smallbones, who, as we have shown, was as full of energy as he was deficient in fat. On all occasions of this kind the bravest becomes the best man and takes the lead, and Smallbones, who appeared more collected and less alarmed than the others, was now listened to with attention, and the crowd collected round him.
"I don't care for him or for his dog either," exclaimed Smallbones, with a drawling intrepid tone; "that dog I'll settle the hash of some way or the other, if it be the devil's own cousin. I'll not come for to go to leave off now, that's sartain, as I am Peter Smallbones--I'se got a plan."
"Let's hear Smallbones,--let's hear Smallbones!" exclaimed some of the men. Whereupon they all collected round the lad, who addressed the crew as follows. His audience, at first, crowded up close to him, but Smallbones, who could not talk without his arms, which were about as long and thin as a Pongo's are in proportion to his body, flapped and flapped as he discoursed, until he had cleared a little ring, and when in the height of his energy he threw them about like the arms of a windmill, every one kept at a respectable distance.
"Well, now, I considers this, if so be as how the dog be a devil, and not a dog, I sees no reason for to come for to go for to be afraid; for ar'n't we all true Christians, and don't we all fear God and honour the king? I sartainly myself does consider that that ere dog could not a have cummed into this here vessel by any manner of means natural not by no means, 'cause it's very clear, that a dog if he be as he be a dog, can't do no more than other dogs can; and if he can do more than heither dog or man can, then he must be the devil, and not a dog--and so he is--that's sartain. But if so be as he is the devil, I say again, I don't care, 'cause I sees exactly how it is,--he be a devil, but he be only a sea-devil and not a shore-devil, and I'll tell you for why. Didn't he come on board some how no how in a gale of wind when he was called for? Didn't I sew him up in a bread-bag, and didn't he come back just as nothing had happened; and didn't the corporal launch him into a surge over the taffrail, and he comes back just as if nothing had happened? Well, then, one thing is clear; that his power be on the water, and no water will drown that ere imp, so it's no use trying no more in that way, for he be a sea-devil. But I thinks this: he goes on shore and he comes back with one of his impish eyes knocked out clean by somebody or another somehow or another, and, therefore, I argues that he have no power on shore not by no means; for if you can knock his eye out, you can knock his soul out of his body, by only knocking a little more to the purpose. Who ever heard of any one knocking out the devil's eye, or injuring him in any way? --No; because he have power by sea and by land: but this here be only a water-devil, and he may be killed on dry land. Now, that's just my opinion, and as soon as I gets him on shore, I means to try what I can do. I don't fear him, nor his master, nor anything else, 'cause I'm a Christian, and was baptised Peter; and I tells you all, that be he a dog, or be he a devil, I'll have a shy at him as soon as I can, and if I don't, I hope I may be d--d, that's all."
Such was the oration of Smallbones, which was remarkably well received. Everyone agreed with the soundness of his arguments, and admired his resolution, and as he had comprised in his speech all that could be said upon the subject, they broke up the conference, and everyone went down to his hammock.
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In which Mr Vanslyperken finds great cause of vexation and satisfaction.
In the meanwhile Mr Vanslyperken was anything but comfortable in his mind. That Corporal Van Spitter should assert that he saw the devil at his shoulder, was a matter of no small annoyance any way; for either the devil was at his shoulder or he was not. If he was, why then it was evident that in consequence of his having attempted murder, and having betrayed his country for money, the devil considered him as his own, and this Mr Vanslyperken did not approve of; for, like many others in this world, he wished to commit every crime, and go to heaven after all. Mr Vanslyperken was superstitious and cowardly, and he did believe that such a thing was possible; and when he canvassed it in his mind, he trembled, and looked over his shoulder.
But Corporal Van Spitter might have asserted it only to frighten him. It was possible--but here again was a difficulty: the corporal had been his faithful confidant for so long a while, and to suppose this, would be to suppose that the corporal was a traitor to him, and that, upon no grounds which Vanslyperken could conjecture, he had turned false: this was impossible--Mr Vanslyperken would not credit it; so there he stuck, like a man between the horns of a dilemma, not knowing what to do; for Mr Vanslyperken resolved, had the devil really been there, to have repented immediately, and have led a new life; but if the devil had not been there, Mr Vanslyperken did not perceive any cause for such an immediate hurry.
At last, an idea presented itself to Mr Vanslyperken's mind, which afforded him great comfort, which was, that the corporal had suffered so much from his boat adventures--for the corporal had made the most of his sufferings--that he was a little affected in his mind, and had thought that he had seen something. "It must have been so," said Mr Vanslyperken, who fortified the idea with a glass of scheedam, and then went to bed.
Now, it so happened, that at the very time that Mr Vanslyperken was arguing all this in his brain, Corporal Van Spitter was also cogitating how he should get out of his scrape; for the Corporal, although not very bright, had much of the cunning of little minds, and he felt the necessity of lulling the suspicions of the lieutenant. To conceal his astonishment and fear at the appearance of the dog, he had libelled Mr Vanslyperken, who would not easily forgive, and it was the corporal's interest to continue on the best terms with, and enjoy the confidence of his superior. How was this to be got over? It took the whole of the first watch, and two-thirds of the middle, before the corporal, who lay in his hammock, could hit upon any plan. At last he thought he had succeeded. At daybreak, Corporal Van Spitter entered the cabin of Mr Vanslyperken, who very coolly desired him to tell Short to get all ready for weighing at six o'clock.
"If you please, Mynheer Vanslyperken, you think me mad last night 'cause I see de tyfel at your shoulder. Mynheer Vanslyperken, I see him twice again this night on lower deck. Mein Gott! Mynheer Vanslyperken, I say twice."
"Saw him again twice!" replied the lieutenant.
"Yes, Mynheer Vanslyperken, I see twice again--I see him very often since I drift in de boat. First, I see him when in de boat--since that I see him one time, two times, in de night."
"It's just as I thought," said Mr Vanslyperken, "he has never got over his alarm of that night. --Very well, Corporal Van Spitter, it's of no consequence. I was very angry with you last night, because I thought you were taking great liberties; but I see now how it is, you must keep yourself quiet, and as soon as we arrive at Portsmouth, you had better lose a little blood."
"How much, Mynheer Vanslyperken, do you wish I should lose?" replied the corporal, with his military salute.
"About eight ounces, corporal."
"Yes, sir," replied the corporal, turning on his pivot, and marching out of the cabin.
This was a peculiarly satisfactory interview to both parties. Mr Vanslyperken was overjoyed at the corporal's explanation, and the corporal was equally delighted at having so easily gulled his superior.
The cutter weighed that morning, and sailed for Portsmouth. We shall pass over the passage without any further remarks than that the corporal was reinstated into Mr Vanslyperken's good graces--that he appeared as usual to be harsh with the ship's company, and to oppress Smallbones more than ever; but this was at the particular request of the lad, who played his own part to admiration--that Mr Vanslyperken again brought up the question of flogging Jemmy Ducks, but was prevented by the corporal's expressing his fears of a mutiny--and had also some secret conference with the corporal as to his desire of vengeance upon Smallbones, to which Van Spitter gave a ready ear, and appeared to be equally willing with the lieutenant to bring it about. Things were in this state when the cutter arrived at Portsmouth, and, as usual, ran into the harbour. It may be supposed that Mr Vanslyperken was in all haste to go on shore to pay his visit to his charming widow, but still there was one thing to be done first, which was to report himself to the admiral.
On his arrival at the admiral's, much to his dissatisfaction, he was informed that he must hold himself ready for sailing immediately, as despatches for the Hague were expected down on the next morning. This would give but a short time to pay his addresses, and he therefore made all haste to the widow's presence, and was most graciously received. She almost flew into his arms, upbraided him for being so long away, for not having written to her, and showed such marks of strong attachment, that Vanslyperken was in ecstasies. When he told her that he expected to sail again immediately, she put her handkerchief up to her eyes, and appeared, to Vanslyperken at least, to shed a few bitter tears. As soon as she was a little more composed, Vanslyperken produced the packet with which he was entrusted, which she opened, and took out two letters, one for herself, and the other addressed to a certain person in a house in another street.
"This," said the widow, "you must deliver yourself--it is of consequence. I would deliver it, but if I do, I shall not be able to look after my little arrangements for dinner, for you dine with me of course. Besides, you must be acquainted with this person one time or another, as it will be for OUR advantage."
"OUR advantage!" how delightful to Mr Vanslyperken was that word! He jumped up immediately, and took his hat to execute the commission, the injunction of the widow to be soon back hastening his departure. Vanslyperken soon arrived at the door, knocked, and was admitted.
"Vat vash you vant, sare?" said a venerable looking old Jew, who opened the door to him.
"Is your name Lazarus?" inquired the lieutenant.
"Dat vash my name."
"I have a letter for you."
"A letter for me! --and from vare?"
"Amsterdam."
"Shee! silence," said the Jew, leading the way into a small room, and shutting the door.
Vanslyperken delivered the letter, which the Jew did not open, but laid on the table. "It vas from my worthy friend in Billen Shaaten. He ist veil?"
"Quite well," replied Vanslyperken.
"Ven do you sail again, mynheer?"
"To-morrow morning."
"Dat is good. I have the letters all ready; dey come down yesterday--vil you vait and take them now?"
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken, who anticipated another rouleau of gold on his arrival at Amsterdam.
"An den I will give you your monish at de same time."
More money, thought Vanslyperken, who replied then, "With all my heart," and took a chair.
The Jew left the room, and soon returned with a small yellow bag, which he put into Vanslyperken's hand, and a large packet carefully sealed. "Dis vas of de hutmost importance," said the old man, giving him the packet. "You will find you monish all right, and now vas please just put your name here, for I vas responsible for all de account;" and the Jew laid down a receipt for Vanslyperken to sign. Vanslyperken read it over. It was an acknowledgment for the sum of fifty guineas, but not specifying for what service. He did not much like to sign it, but how could he refuse? Besides, as the Jew said, it was only to prove that the money was paid; nevertheless he objected.
"Vy vill you not sign? I must not lose my monish, and I shall lose it if you do not sign. Vat you fear--you not fear that we peach; ven peoples pay so high, they not pay for noting. We all sall hang togeder if de affair be found."
Hang together! thought Vanslyperken, whose fears were roused, and he turned pale.
"You are vell paid for your shervices--you vas vell paid at doder side of de vater, and you are now von of us. You cannot go back, or your life vill be forfeit, I can assure you--you vill sign if you please--and you vill not leave dis house, until you do sign," continued the Jew. "You vill not take our monish and den give de information, and hang us all. You vill sign, if you please, sare."
There was a steadiness of countenance and a firmness in the tone of the old man, which told Vanslyperken that he was not to be trifled with, and assured him that he must have help at hand if requisite. If left to himself, the Jew would have been easily mastered by the lieutenant, but that such was not the case, was soon proved, by the old man ringing a small silver bell on the table, and shortly afterwards there was a rustling and noise, as if of several persons, heard in the passage. Vanslyperken now perceived that he was entrapped, and he also felt that it was too late to retreat. Actuated by his fear of violence on the one hand, and his love of gold on the other, he consented to sign the voucher required. As soon as this was done, the old Jew was all civility. He took the paper, and locked it up in a large cabinet, and then observed, "It is for your own shafety, sare lieutenant, dat we are obliged to do dis. You have noting to fear--we are too much in want of good friends like you, to lose them, but we must be safe and shure; now you are von of us--you cannot tell but we can tell too--we profit togeder, and I vill hope dat we do run no risk to be hang togeder. Fader Abraham! we must not think of that, but of de good cause, and of de monish. I am a Jew, and I care not whether de Papist or de Protestant have de best of it--but I call it all de good cause, because every cause is good which brings de monish."
So thought Vanslyperken, who was in heart a Jew.
"And now, sare, you vill please to take great care of de packet, and deliver it to our friend at Amsterdam, and you vill of course come to me ven you return here."
Vanslyperken took his leave, with the packet in his pocket, not very well pleased; but as he put the packet in, he felt the yellow bag, and that to a certain degree consoled him. The old Jew escorted him to the door, with his little keen gray eyes fixed upon him, and Vanslyperken quailed before it, and was glad when he was once more in the street. He hastened back to the widow's house, full of thought--he certainly had never intended to have so committed himself as he had done, or to have positively enrolled himself among the partisans of the exiled king; but the money had entrapped him--he had twice taken their wages, and he had now been obliged to give them security for his fidelity, by enabling them to prove his guilt whenever they pleased. All this made Mr Vanslyperken rather melancholy--but his meditations were put an end to by his arrival in the presence of the charming widow. She asked him what had passed, and he narrated it, but with a little variation, for he would not tell that he had signed through a fear of violence, but, at the same time, he observed, that he did not much like signing a receipt.
"But that is necessary," replied she; "and besides, why not? I know you are on our side, and you will prove most valuable to us. Indeed, I believe it was your readiness to meet my wishes that made me so fond of you, for I am devotedly attached to the rightful king, and I never would marry any man who would not risk life and soul for him, as you have done now."
The expression "life and soul," made Vanslyperken shudder, and his flesh crept all over his body.
"Besides," continued the widow, "it will be no small help to us, for the remuneration is very great."
"To us!" thought Vanslyperken, who now thought it right to press his suit. He was listened to attentively, and at last he proposed an early day for the union. The widow blushed, and turned her head away, and at last replied, with a sweet smile, "Well, Mr Vanslyperken, I will neither tease you nor myself--when you come back from your next trip, I consent to be yours."
What was Vanslyperken's delight and exultation! He threw himself on his knees, promised, and vowed, and thanked, kissed hands, and was in such ecstasies! He could hardly imagine that his good fortune was real. A beautiful widow with a handsome fortune--how could he ever have thought of throwing himself away upon such a bunch of deformity as the Frau Vandersloosh? Poor Mr Vanslyperken! Dinner put an end to his protestations. He fared sumptuously, and drank freely to please the widow. He drank death to the usurper, and restoration to the King James. What a delightful evening! The widow was so amiable, so gentle, so yielding, so, so, so--what with wine and love, and fifty guineas in his pocket, Mr Vanslyperken was so overcome with his feelings, that at last he felt but so so. After a hundred times returning to kiss her dear, dear hand, and at last sealing the contract on her lips, Mr Vanslyperken departed, full of wine and hope--two very good things to lay in a stock of.
But there was something doing on board during Mr Vanslyperken's absence. Notwithstanding Mr Vanslyperken having ordered Moggy out of the cutter, she had taken the opportunity of his being away to go on board to her dear, darling Jemmy. Dick Short did not prevent her coming on board, and he was commanding officer, so Moggy once more had her husband in her arms; but the fond pair soon retired to a quiet corner, where they had a long and serious conversation; so long, and so important, it would appear, that they did not break off until Mr Vanslyperken came on board, just before dark. His quick eye soon perceived that there was a petticoat at the taffrail, where they retired that they might not be overheard, and he angrily inquired who it was, his wrath was not appeased when he heard that it was Salisbury's wife, and he ordered her immediately to be put on shore, and sent for Corporal Van Spitter in his cabin, to know why she was on board. The corporal replied, "That Mr Short had let her in; that he had wished to speak on the subject, but that Mr Short would not speak," and then entertained his superior with a long account of mutinous expressions on the lower deck, and threats of doing him (Mr Vanslyperken) a mischief. This conversation was interrupted by a messenger coming on board with the despatches, and an order to sail at daylight, and return immediately without waiting for any answers.
The reader may wish to know the subject of the long conversation between Jemmy Ducks and his wife. It involved the following question. Moggy had become very useful to Nancy Corbett, and Nancy, whose services were required at the cave, and could not well be dispensed with, had long been anxious to find some one, who, with the same general knowledge of parties, and the same discrimination, could be employed in her stead. In Moggy she had found the person required, but Moggy would not consent without her husband was of the same party, and here lay the difficulty. Nancy had had a reply, which was satisfactory, from Sir Robert Barclay, so far as this. He required one or two more men, and they must be trustworthy, and able to perform the duty in the boats. Jemmy was not very great at pulling, for his arms were too short as well as his legs, but he was a capital steersman. All this had been explained to Nancy, who at last consented to Jemmy being added to the crew of the smuggler, and Moggy had gone off to the cutter to persuade Jemmy to desert, and to join the smugglers.
Now, as to joining the smugglers, Jemmy had not the least objection: he was tired of the cutter, and being separated from his wife had been to him a source of great discontent; but, as Jemmy very truly observed, "If I desert from the vessel, and am ever seen again, I am certain to be known, and taken up; therefore I will not desert, I will wait till I am paid off, unless you can procure my discharge by means of your friends." Such had been the result of the colloquy, when interrupted by the arrival of Vanslyperken, and the case thus stood, when, on the next morning, at daylight, the cutter weighed, and steered her course for the Texel.
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In which Mr Vanslyperken has nothing but trouble from the beginning to the end.
So soon as the cutter had sailed, Moggy hastened to the pretended widow to report the answer of her husband. Nancy considered that there was much sound judgment in what Jemmy had said, and immediately repaired to the house of the Jew, Lazarus, to whom she communicated her wishes. At that time, there were many people high in office who secretly favoured King James, and the links of communication between such humble individuals as we are treating of, with those in power, although distant, were perfect.
In a few days, an order came down for the discharge of James Salisbury from the cutter _Yungfrau_, and the letter the same day was put into the hands of the delighted Moggy.
Mr Vanslyperken made his short passage to the Zuyder Zee, and anchored as usual; and when he had anchored, he proceeded to go on shore. Previously, however, to his stepping into the boat, the ship's company came aft, with Jemmy at their head, to know whether they might have leave on shore, as they were not very well pleased at their liberty having been stopped at Portsmouth.
Mr Vanslyperken very politely told them that he would see them all at the devil first, and then stepped into his boat; he at once proceeded to the house of the Jesuit, and this time, much to his satisfaction, without having been perceived, as he thought, by the widow Vandersloosh and Babette, who did not appear at the door. Having delivered his despatches, and received his customary fee, Mr Vanslyperken mentioned the difficulty of his coming to the house, as he was watched by some people opposite, and inquired if he could have the letters sent under cover to himself by some trusty hand, mentioning the ill-will of the parties in question. To this the Jesuit consented, and Vanslyperken took his leave; but on leaving the house he was again annoyed by the broad form of the widow, with Babette, as usual, at her shoulder, with their eyes fixed upon him. Without attempting a recognition, for Vanslyperken cared little for the opinion of the Frau Vandersloosh, now that he was accepted by the fair widow of Portsmouth, Mr Vanslyperken walked quietly away.
"Ah, very well, Mr Vanslyperken--very well," exclaimed the Frau Vandersloosh, as he pursued his way at a rapid rate; "very well, Mr Vanslyperken--we shall see--three times have you entered those doors, and with a fifty guineas in your pocket, I'll be bound, every time that you have walked out of them. Treason is paid high, but the traitor sometimes hangs higher still. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see--we are evidence, Mr Vanslyperken--and I'll not be married before I see you well hanged, Mr Vanslyperken. Deary me, Babette," exclaimed the widow, altering her tone, "I wonder how the corporal is: poor dear man, to be ruled by such a traitorous atomy as he."
"Perhaps he will come ashore, madam," replied Babette.
"No, no, he will never let him; but, as you say, perhaps he may. Put half a dozen bottles of the best beer to the stove--not too near, Babette--he is fond of my beer, and it does one's heart good to see him drink it, Babette. And, Babette, I'll just go up and put on something a little tidier. I think he will come--I know he will if he can."
We must leave the widow to decorate her person, and follow Vanslyperken down to the boat, and on board. On his arrival, he went down into the cabin to lock up his money. When Corporal Van Spitter went to the cabin-door, the corporal heard the clanking of the pieces as Vanslyperken counted them, and his bile was raised at the idea of Vanslyperken possessing that which should have been his own. The corporal waited a little, and then knocked. Vanslyperken put away the rest of his money, shut the drawer, and told him to come in.
The corporal saluted, and made a request to be allowed to go on shore for an hour or two.
"Go on shore! _you_ go on shore, corporal? why you never asked to go on shore before," replied the suspicious Vanslyperken.
"If you please, sir," replied the corporal, "I wish to pay de people who gave me de board and de lodging ven I vas last on shore."
"Ah, very true, I forgot that, corporal. Well, then, you may go on shore; but do not stop long, for the people are much inclined to mutiny, and I cannot do without you."
The corporal quitted the cabin and was put on shore by two of the men in the small boat. He hastened up to the widow's house, and was received with open arms. Seated on the squab sofa, with a bottle of beer on the table, and five others all ready at the stove, the widow's smiles beaming on him, who could be more happy than the Corporal Van Spitter? The blinds were up at the windows, the front door fast to prevent intrusion, and then the widow and he entered into a long colloquy, interrupted occasionally by little amorous dallyings, which reminded you of the wooings of a male and female elephant.
We shall give the substance of the conversation. The widow expressed her indignation against Vanslyperken, and her resolution not to be married until he was hanged. The corporal immediately became an interested party, and vowed that he would assist all in his power. He narrated all that had passed since he had left the widow's, and the supernatural appearance of the dog after he had thrown it overboard. He then pointed out that it was necessary that Vanslyperken should not only be blinded as to the state of matters between them, but that, to entrap him still more, the widow should, if possible, make friends with him. To this the widow unwillingly consented; but as the corporal pointed out that that was the only chance of her occasionally seeing him, and that by his pretending to be in love with Babette, Vanslyperken might be deceived completely, she did consent; the more so, that the greater would be his disappointment at the end, the more complete would be her vengeance. Their plans being arranged, it was then debated whether it would not be better to send some message on board to Vanslyperken, and it was agreed that it should be taken by the corporal. At last all was arranged, the six bottles of beer were finished, and the corporal having been permitted to imprint as many hearty smacks upon the widow's thick and juicy lips, he returned on board.
"Come on board, Mynheer Vanslyperken," said the corporal, entering the cabin.
"Very well, corporal; did you do all you wanted? for we sail again at daylight."
"Yes, mynheer, and I see somebody I never see before."
"Who was that, corporal?" replied Vanslyperken, for he had been feasting upon the recollections of the fair Portsmouth widow, and was in a very good humour.
"One fine Frau, Mynheer Vanslyperken--very fine Frau. Babette came up to me in the street."
"Oh, Babette--well, what did she say?"
Hereupon the corporal, as agreed with the widow, entered into a long explanation, stating his Babette had told him that her mistress was very much surprised that Mr Vanslyperken had passed close to the door, and had never come in to call upon her; that her mistress had been quite satisfied with Mr Vanslyperken's letter, and would wish to see him again; and that he, the corporal, had told Babette the dog had been destroyed by him, Mr Vanslyperken, and he hoped he had done right in saying so.
"No," replied Vanslyperken, "you have done wrong; and if you go on shore again, you may just give this answer, that Mr Vanslyperken don't care a d--n for the old woman; that she may carry her carcass to some other market, for Mr Vanslyperken would not touch her with a pair of tongs. Will you recollect that, corporal?"
"Yes," replied the corporal, grinding his teeth at this insult to his betrothed, "yes, mynheer, I will recollect that. Mein Gott! I shall not forget it."
"Kill my dog, heh!" continued Vanslyperken, talking to himself aloud. "Yes, yes, Frau Vandersloosh, you shall fret to some purpose. I'll worry down your fat for you. Yes, yes, Madam Vandersloosh, you shall bite your nails to the quick yet. Nothing would please you but Snarleyyow dead at your porch. My dog, indeed! --you may go now, corporal."
"Mein Gott! but ve vill see as well as you, Mynheer Vanslyperken." muttered the corporal, as he walked forward.
After dark, a man came alongside in a small boat, and desired to see Mr Vanslyperken. As soon as he was in the cabin and the door shut, he laid some letters on the table, and without saying a word went on deck and on shore again. At daybreak the cutter weighed, and ran with a fair wind to Portsmouth.
With what a bounding heart did Mr Vanslyperken step into the boat attired in his best! He hardly could prevail upon himself to report his arrival to the admiral, so impatient was he to throw himself at the fair widow's feet, and claim her promise upon his return. He did so, however, and then proceeded to the house in Castle Street.
His heart beat rapidly as he knocked at the door, and he awaited the opening with impatience. At last it was opened, but not by the widow's servant. "Is Mrs Malcolm at home?" inquired Vanslyperken.
"Malcolm, sir!" replied the woman; "do you mean the lady who was living here, and left yesterday?"
"Left yesterday!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, hardly able to stand on his feet.
"Yes, only yesterday afternoon. Went away with a gentleman."
"A gentleman!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, all amazement.
"Yes, sir; pray, sir, be you the officer of the king's cutter?"
"I am!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, leaning against the door-jamb for support.
"Then, sir, here be a letter for you." So saying, the woman pulled up her dirty apron, then her gown, and at last arrived at a queer fustian pocket, out of which she produced the missive, which had been jumbled in company with a bit of wax, a ball of blue worsted, some halfpence, a copper thimble, and a lump of Turkey rhubarb, from all of which companions it had received a variety of hues and colours. Vanslyperken seized the letter as soon as it was produced, and passing by the woman, went into the dining-parlour, where, with feelings of anxiety, he sat down, brushed the perspiration from his forehead, and read as follows: "_My dear, dear, ever dear Mr Vanslyperken,_ "Pity me, pity me, O pity me! Alas! how soon is the cup of bliss dashed from the lips of us poor mortals. I can hardly write, hardly hold my pen, or hold my head up. I cannot bear that, from my hand, you should be informed of the utter blight of all our hopes which blossomed so fully. Alas! alas! but it must be. O my head, my poor, poor head--how it swims! I was sitting at the fireside, thinking when you would return, and trying to find out if the wind was fair, when I heard a knock at the door. It was so like yours, that my heart beat, and I ran to the window, but I could not see who it was, so I sat down again. Imagine my surprise, my horror, my vexation, my distress, my agony, when who should come in but my supposed dead husband! I thought I should have died when I saw him. I dropped as it was, down into a swoon, and when I came to my senses, there he was hanging over me; thinking, poor fool, that I had swooned for joy, and kissing me--pah! yes, kissing me. O dear! O dear! My dear Mr Vanslyperken, I thought of you, and what your feelings would be, when you know all this; but there he was alive, and in good health, and now I have nothing more to do but to lie down and die.
"It appears that in my ravings I called upon you over and over again, and discovered the real state of my poor bleeding heart, and he was very angry: he packed up everything, and he insisted upon my leaving Portsmouth. Alas! I shall be buried in the north, and never see you again. But why should I, my dear Mr Vanslyperken? what good will come of it? I am a virtuous woman, and will be so: but, O dear! I can write no more.
"Farewell, then, farewell! Farewell for ever! Dear Mr Vanslyperken, think no more of your disconsolate, unhappy, heart-broken, miserable "ANN MALCOLM. " _P.S._--For my sake you will adhere to the good cause; I know you will, my dearest."
Mr Vanslyperken perused this heart-rending epistle, and fell back on his chair almost suffocated. The woman, who had stood in the passage while he read the letter, came to his assistance, and pouring some water into his mouth, and throwing a portion of it over his face, partially revived him. Vanslyperken's head fell on the table upon his hands, and for some minutes remained in that position. He then rose, folded the letter, put it in his pocket, and staggered out of the house without saying a word.
O Nancy Corbett! Nancy Corbett! this was all your doing.
You had gained your point in winning over the poor man to commit treason--you had waited till he was so entangled that he could not escape, or in future refuse to obey the orders of the Jacobite party--you had seduced him, Nancy Corbett--you had intoxicated him--in short, Nancy, you had ruined him, and then you threw him over by this insidious and perfidious letter.
Vanslyperken walked away, he hardly knew whither--his mind was a chaos. It did so happen, that he took the direction of his mother's house, and, as he gradually recovered himself, he hastened there to give vent to his feelings. The old woman seldom or ever went out; if she did, it was in the dusk, to purchase in one half-hour enough to support existence for a fortnight.
She was at home with her door locked, as usual, when he demanded admittance.
"Come in, child, come in," said the old beldame, as with palsied hands she undid the fastenings. "I dreamt of you, last night, Cornelius, and when I dream of others it bodes them no good."
Vanslyperken sat down on a chest, without giving any answer. He put his hand up to his forehead, and groaned in the bitterness of his spirit.
"Ah! ah!" said his mother "I have put my hand up in that way in my time. Yes, yes--when my brain burned--when I had done the deed. What have you done, my child? Pour out your feelings into your mother's bosom. Tell me all--tell me why--and tell me, did you get any money?"
"I have lost everything," replied Vanslyperken, in a melancholy tone.
"Lost everything! then you must begin over again, and take from others till you have recovered all. That's the way--I'll have more yet, before I die. I shall not die yet--no, no."
Vanslyperken remained silent for some time. He then, as usual, imparted to his mother all that had occurred.
"Well, well, my child; but there is the other one. Gold is gold, one wife is as good--to neglect--as another. My child, never marry a woman for love--she will make a fool of you. You have had a lucky escape--I see you have, Cornelius. But where is the gold you said you took for turning traitor--where is it?"
"I shall bring it on shore to-morrow, mother."
"Do, child, do. They may find you out--they may hang you--but they shall never wrest the gold from me. It will be safe--quite safe, with me, as long as I live. I shall not die yet--no, no."
Vanslyperken rose to depart; he was anxious to be aboard.
"Go, child, go. I have hopes of you--you have murdered, have you not?"
"No, no," replied Vanslyperken, "he lives yet."
"Then try again. At all events, you have wished to murder, and you have sold your country for gold. Cornelius Vanslyperken, by the hatred I bear the whole world, I feel that I almost love you now;--I see you are my own child. Now go, and mind to-morrow you bring the gold."
Vanslyperken quitted the house, and walked down to go on board again; the loss of the fair widow, all his hopes dashed at once to the ground, his having neglected the widow Vandersloosh and sent her an insulting message, had only the effect of raising his bile. He vowed vengeance against everybody and everything, especially against Smallbones, whom he was determined he would sacrifice: murder now was no longer horrible to his ideas; on the contrary, there was a pleasure in meditating upon it, and the loss of the expected fortune of the fair Mrs Malcolm only made him more eager to obtain gold, and he contemplated treason as the means of so doing without any feelings of compunction.
On his arrival on board, he found an order from the Admiralty to discharge James Salisbury. This added to his choler and his meditations of revenge. Jemmy Ducks had not been forgotten; and he determined not to make known the order until he had punished him for his mutinous expressions; but Moggy had come on board during his absence, and delivered to her husband the letter from the Admiralty notifying his discharge. Vanslyperken sent for Corporal Van Spitter to consult, but the corporal informed him that Jemmy Ducks knew of his discharge. Vanslyperken's anger was now without bounds. He hastened on deck, and ordered the hands to be turned up for punishment, but Corporal Van Spitter hastened to give warning to Jemmy, who did not pipe the hands when ordered.
"Where is that scoundrel, James Salisbury?" cried Vanslyperken.
"Here is James Salisbury," replied Jemmy, coming aft.
"Turn the hands up for punishment, sir."
"I don't belong to the vessel," replied Jemmy, going forward.
"Corporal Van Spitter--where is Corporal Van Spitter?"
"Here, sir," said the corporal, coming up the hatchway in a pretended bustle.
"Bring that man, Salisbury, aft."
"Yes, sir," replied the corporal, going forward with assumed eagerness.
But all the ship's company had resolved that this act of injustice should not be done. Salisbury was no longer in the service, and although they knew the corporal to be on their side, they surrounded Jemmy on the forecastle, and the corporal came aft, declaring that he could not get near the prisoner. As he made this report a loud female voice was heard alongside.
"So, you'd flog my Jemmy, would you, you varmint? But you won't though; he's not in the service, and you sha'n't touch him; but I'll tell you what, keep yourself on board, Mr Leeftenant, for if I cotches you on shore, I'll make you sing in a way you don't think on. Yes, flog my Jemmy, my dear darling duck of a Jemmy--stop a minute--I'm coming aboard."
Suiting the action to the word, for the sailors had beckoned to Moggy to come on board, she boldly pulled alongside, and skipping over, she went up direct to Mr Vanslyperken. "I'll just trouble you for my husband, and no mistake," cried Moggy.
"Corporal Van Spitter, turn that woman out of the ship."
"Turn me, a lawful married woman, who comes arter my own husband with the orders of your masters, Mr Leeftenant! --I'd like to see the man. I axes you for my Jemmy, and I'll trouble you just to hand him here--if not, look out for squalls, that's all. I demand my husband in the king's name, so just hand him over," continued Moggy, putting her nose so close to that of Mr Vanslyperken that they nearly touched, and then after a few seconds' pause, for Vanslyperken could not speak for rage, she added, "Well, you're a nice leeftenant, I don't think."
"Send for your marines, Corporal Van Spitter."
"I have, Mynheer Vanslyperken," replied the corporal, standing erect and saluting; "and if you please, sir, they have joined the ship's company. You and I, mynheer, are left to ourselves."
"I'll just trouble you for my little duck of a husband," repeated Moggy. Vanslyperken was at a nonplus. The crew were in a state of mutiny, the marines had joined them--what could he do? To appeal to the higher authorities would be committing himself, for he knew that he could not flog a man who no longer belonged to the vessel.
"I wants my husband," repeated Moggy, putting her arms a-kimbo.
Mr Vanslyperken made no reply. The corporal waited for orders, and Moggy waited for her husband.
Just at this moment, Snarleyyow, who had followed his master on deck, had climbed up the small ladder, and was looking over the gunnel on the side where the boat lay in which Moggy came on board. Perceiving this, with the quickness of thought she ran at the dog and pushed him over the side into the boat, in which he fell with a heavy bound; she then descended the side, ordered the man to shove off, and kept at a short distance from the cutter with the dog in her possession.
"Now, now," cried Moggy, slapping her elbow, "hav'n't I got the dog, and won't I cut him up into sassingers and eat him in the bargain, if you won't give me my dear darling Jemmy and all his papers in the bargain?"
"Man the boat," cried Vanslyperken. But no one would obey the order.
"Look here," cried Moggy, flourishing a knife which she had borrowed from the man in the boat. "This is for the cur; and unless you let my Jemmy go, ay and directly too--" "Mercy, woman!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, "Do not harm the poor dog, and your husband shall go on shore."
"With his papers all ready to receive his pay?" inquired Moggy.
"Yes, with his papers and everything, if you'll not harm the poor beast."
"Be quick about them, for my fingers are itching, I can tell you," replied Moggy. "Recollect, I will have my Jemmy, and cut the dog's throat in the bargain if you don't look sharp."
"Directly, good woman, directly," cried Vanslyperken, "be patient."
"Good woman! no more a good woman than yourself," replied Moggy.
Vanslyperken desired the corporal to see Jemmy Ducks in the boat, and went down into the cabin to sign his pay order. He then returned, for he was dreadfully alarmed lest Moggy should put her threats in execution.
Jemmy's chest and hammocks were in the boat. He shook hands with his shipmates, and receiving the papers and his discharge from Corporal Van Spitter, and exchanging an intelligent glance with him, he went down the side. The boat pulled round the stern to take in Moggy, who then ordered the waterman to put the dog on board again.
"My word's as good as my bond," observed Moggy, as she stepped into the other boat, "and so there's your cur again, Mr Leeftenant; but mark my words: I owe you one, and I'll pay you with interest before I have done with you."
Jemmy then raised his pipe to his lips, and sounded its loudest note: the men gave him three cheers, and Mr Vanslyperken in a paroxysm of fury, ran down into his cabin.
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In which Mr Vanslyperken proves that he has a great aversion to cold steel.
Mr Vanslyperken had been so much upset by the events of the day, that he had quite forgotten to deliver the letters entrusted to him to the care of the Jew Lazarus; weighty indeed must have been the events which could have prevented him from going to receive money.
He threw himself on his bed with combined feelings of rage and mortification, and slept a feverish sleep in his clothes.
His dreams were terrifying, and he awoke in the morning unrefreshed. The mutiny and defection of the ship's company, he ascribed entirely to the machinations of Smallbones, whom he now hated with a feeling so intense, that he felt he could have murdered him in the open day. Such were the first impulses that his mind resorted to upon his awaking, and after some little demur, he sent for Corporal Van Spitter, to consult with him. The corporal made his appearance, all humility and respect, and was again sounded as to what could be done with Smallbones, Vanslyperken hinting very clearly what his wishes tended to.
Corporal Van Spitter, who had made up his mind how to act after their previous conference, hummed and ha'ed, and appeared unwilling to enter upon the subject, until he was pushed by his commandant, when the corporal observed there was something very strange about the lad, and hinted at his being sent in the cutter on purpose to annoy his superior.
"That on that night upon which he had stated that he had seen the devil three times, once it was sitting on the head-clue of Smallbones' hammock, and at another time that he was evidently in converse with the lad, and that there were strange stories among the ship's company, who considered that both Smallbones and the dog were supernatural agents."
"My dog--Snarleyyow--a--what do you mean, corporal?"
The corporal then told Mr Vanslyperken that he had discovered that several attempts had been made to drown the dog, but without success; and that among the rest, he had been thrown by Smallbones into the canal, tied up in a bread-bag, and had miraculously made his appearance again.
"The villain!" exclaimed Vanslyperken. "That then was the paving-stone. Now I've found it out, I'll cut his very soul out of his body."
But the corporal protested against open measures, as, although it was known by his own confession to be the case, it could not be proved, as none of the men would tell.
"Besides, he did not think that any further attempts would be made, as Smallbones had been heard to laugh and say, 'that water would never hurt him or the dog,' which observation of the lad's had first made the ship's company suspect."
"Very true," exclaimed Vanslyperken; "he floated out to the Nab buoy and back again, when I--" Here Mr Vanslyperken stopped short, and he felt a dread of supernatural powers in the lad, when he thought of what had passed and what he now heard.
"So they think my dog--" "De tyfel," replied the corporal.
Vanslyperken was not very sorry for this, as it would be the dog's protection; but at the same time he was not at all easy about Smallbones; for Mr Vanslyperken, as we have observed before, was both superstitious and cowardly.
"Water won't hurt him, did you say, corporal?"
"Yes, mynheer."
"Then I'll try what a pistol will do, by heavens!" replied Vanslyperken. "He threw my dog into the canal, and I'll be revenged, if revenge is to be had. That will do, corporal, you may go now," continued Vanslyperken, who actually foamed with rage.
The corporal left the cabin, and it having occurred to Vanslyperken that he had not delivered the letters, he dressed himself to go on shore.
After having once more read through the letter of the fair widow, which, at the same time that it crushed all his hopes, from its kind tenour, poured some balm into his wounded heart, he sighed, folded it up, put it away, and went on deck.
"Pipe the gig away," said Mr Vanslyperken.
"No pipe," replied Short.
This reminded Mr Vanslyperken that Jemmy Ducks had left the ship, and vexed him again. He ordered the word to be passed to the boat's crew, and when it was manned he went on shore. As soon as he arrived at the house of Lazarus, he knocked, but it was some time before he was admitted, and the chain was still kept on the door, which was opened two inches to allow a scrutiny previous to entrance.
"Ah! it vash you, vash it, good sar? you may come in," said the Jew.
Vanslyperken walked into the parlour, where he found seated a young man of very handsome exterior, dressed according to the fashion of the cavaliers of the time. His hat, with a plume of black feathers, lay upon the table. This personage continued in his careless and easy position without rising when Vanslyperken entered, neither did he ask him to sit down.
"You are the officer of the cutter?" inquired the young man, with an air of authority not very pleasing to the lieutenant.
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken, looking hard and indignantly in return.
"And you arrived yesterday morning? Pray, sir, why were not those letters delivered at once?"
"Because I had no time," replied Vanslyperken, sulkily.
"No time, sir; what do you mean by that? Your time is ours, sir. You are paid for it; for one shilling that you receive from the rascally government you condescend to serve and to betray, you receive from us pounds. Let not this happen again, my sir, or you may repent it."
Vanslyperken was not in the best of humours, and he angrily replied, "Then you may get others to do your work, for this is the last I'll do; pay me for them, and let me go."
"The last you'll do; you'll do as much as we please, and as long as we please. You are doubly in our power, scoundrel! You betray the government you serve, but you shall not betray us. If you had a thousand lives, you are a dead man the very moment you flinch from or neglect our work. Do your work faithfully, and you will be rewarded; but either you must do our work or die. You have but to choose."
"Indeed!" replied Vanslyperken.
"Yes, indeed! And to prove that I am in earnest, I shall punish you for your neglect, by not paying you this time. You may leave the letters and go. But mind that you give us timely notice when you are ordered back to the Hague, for we shall want you."
Vanslyperken, indignant at this language, obeyed his first impulse, which was to snatch up the letters and attempt to leave the room.
"No pay, no letters!" exclaimed he, opening the door.
"Fool!" cried the young man with a bitter sneer, not stirring from his seat.
Vanslyperken opened the door, and to his amazement there were three swords pointed to his heart. He started back.
"Will you leave the letters now?" observed the young man.
Vanslyperken threw them down on the table with every sign of perturbation, and remained silent and pale.
"And now perfectly understand me, sir," said the young cavalier. "We make a great distinction between those who have joined the good cause, or rather, who have continued steadfast to their king from feelings of honour and loyalty, and those who are to be bought and sold. We honour the first, we despise the latter. Their services we require, and therefore we employ them. A traitor to the sovereign from whom he receives his pay, is not likely to be trusted by us. I know your character, that is sufficient. Now, although the government make no difference between one party or the other, with the exception that some may be honoured with the axe instead of the gibbet, you will observe what we do: and as our lives are already forfeited by attainder, we make no scruple of putting out of the way any one whom we may even suspect of betraying us. Nay, more; we can furnish the government with sufficient proofs against you without any risk to ourselves, for we have many partisans who are still in office. Weigh now well all you have heard, and be assured, that although we despise you, and use you only as our tool, we will have faithful and diligent service; if not, your life is forfeited."
Vanslyperken heard all this with amazement and confusion: he immediately perceived that he was in a snare, from which escape was impossible. His coward heart sank within him, and he promised implicit obedience.
"Nevertheless, before you go you will sign your adherence to King James and his successors," observed the young cavalier. "Lazarus, bring in writing materials." The Jew, who was at the door, complied with the order.
The cavalier took the pen and wrote down a certain form, in which Vanslyperken dedicated his life and means, as he valued his salvation, to the service of the exiled monarch. "Read that, and sign it, sir," said the cavalier, passing it over to Vanslyperken.
The lieutenant hesitated. "Your life depends upon it," continued the young man coolly; "do as you please."
Vanslyperken turned round; the swords were still pointed, and the eyes of those which held them were fixed upon the cavalier awaiting his orders. Vanslyperken perceived that there was no escape. With a trembling hand he affixed his signature. " 'Tis well:--now, observe, that at the first suspicion, or want of zeal, even, on your part, this will be forwarded through the proper channel, and even if you should escape the government, you will not escape us:--our name is Legion. You may go, sir;--do your work well, and you shall be well rewarded."
Vanslyperken hastened away, passing the swords, the points of which were now lowered for his passage. Perhaps he never till then felt how contemptible was a traitor. Indignant, mortified, and confused, still trembling with fear, and, at the same time, burning with rage, he hastened to his mother's house, for he had brought on shore with him the money which he had received at Amsterdam.
"What, more vexation, child?" said the old woman, looking Vanslyperken in the face as he entered.
"Yes," retorted Vanslyperken, folding his arms as he sat down.
It was some time before he would communicate to his mother all that happened. At last the truth, which even he felt ashamed of, was drawn out of him.
"Now may all the curses that ever befell a man fall on his head!" exclaimed Vanslyperken as he finished. "I would give soul and body to be revenged on him."
"That's my own child--that is what I have done, Cornelius, but I shall not die yet awhile. I like to hear you say that; but it must not be yet. Let them plot and plot, and when they think that all is ripe, and all is ready, and all will succeed--then--then is the time to revenge yourself--not yet--but for that revenge, death on the gallows would be sweet."
Vanslyperken shuddered:--he did not feel how death could in any way be sweet;--for some time he was wrapped up in his own thoughts.
"Have you brought the gold at last?" inquired the old woman.
"I have," replied Vanslyperken, who raised himself and produced it. "I ought to have had more,--but I'll be revenged."
"Yes, yes, but get more gold first. Never kill the goose that lays the golden egg, my child," replied the old woman, as she turned the key.
So many sudden and mortifying occurrences had taken place in forty-eight hours that Vanslyperken's brain was in a whirl. He felt goaded to do something, but he did not know what. Perhaps it would have been suicide had he not been a coward. He left his mother without speaking another word, and walked down to the boat, revolving first one and then another incident in his mind. At last, his ideas appeared to concentrate themselves into one point, which was a firm and raging animosity against Smallbones; and with the darkest intentions he hastened on board and went down into his cabin.
What was the result of these feelings will be seen in the ensuing chapter.
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In which Mr Vanslyperken sees a ghost.
Before we acquaint the reader with the movements of Mr Vanslyperken, we must again revert to the history of the period in which we are writing. The Jacobite faction had assumed a formidable consistency, and every exertion was being made by them for an invasion of England. They knew that their friends were numerous, and that many who held office under the ruling government were attached to their cause, and only required such a demonstration to fly to arms with their numerous partisans.
Up to the present, all the machinations of the Jacobites had been carried on with secrecy and dexterity, but now was the time for action and decision. To aid the cause, it was considered expedient that some one of known fidelity should be sent to Amsterdam, where the projects of William might be discovered more easily than in England: for, as he communicated with the States General, and the States General were composed of many, secrets would come out, for that which is known to many soon becomes no longer a secret.
To effect this, letters of recommendation to one or two of those high in office in Holland, and who were supposed to be able to give information, and inclined to be confiding and garrulous, had been procured from the firm allies of King William, by those who pretended to be so only, for the agent who was about to be sent over, and this agent was the young cavalier who had treated Vanslyperken in so uncourteous a manner. He has already been mentioned to the reader by the name of Ramsay, and second in authority among the smugglers. He was a young man of high family, and a brother to Lady Alice, of course trusted by Sir Robert and his second in command. He had been attainted for non-appearance, and condemned for high treason at the same time as had been his brother-in-law, Sir Robert Barclay, and had ever since been with him doing his duty in the boat and in command of the men, when Sir Robert's services or attendance were required at St Germains.
No one could be better adapted for the service he was to be employed upon. He was brave, cool, intelligent, and prepossessing. Of course, by his letters of introduction, he was represented as a firm ally of King William, and strongly recommended as such. The letters which Vanslyperken had neglected to deliver were of the utmost importance, and the character of the lieutenant being well known to Ramsay, through the medium of Nancy Corbett and others, he had treated him in the way which he considered as most likely to enforce a rigid compliance with their wishes.
Ramsay was right; for Vanslyperken was too much of a coward to venture upon resistance, although he might threaten it. It was the intention of Ramsay, moreover, to take a passage over with him in the _Yungfrau_, as his arrival in a king's vessel would add still more to the success of the enterprise which he had in contemplation.
We will now return to Mr Vanslyperken, whom we left boiling with indignation. He is not in a better humour at this moment. He requires a victim to expend his wrath upon, and that victim he is resolved shall be Smallbones, upon whom his hate is concentrated.
He has sent for the corporal, and next ordered him to bring him a pistol and cartridge, which the corporal has complied with. Vanslyperken has not made the corporal a further confidant, but he has his suspicions, and he is on the watch. Vanslyperken is alone, his hand trembling as he loads the pistol which he has taken down from the bulkhead where it hung, but he is nevertheless determined upon the act. He has laid it down on the table, and goes on deck, waiting till it is dusk for the completion of his project. He has now arranged his plan and descends; the pistol is still on the table, and he puts it under the blanket on his bed, and rings for Smallbones.
"Did you want me, sir?" said Smallbones.
"Yes, I am going on shore to sleep a little way in the country, and I want you to carry my clothes; let everything be put up in the blue bag, and hold yourself ready to come with me."
"Yes, sir," replied Smallbones; "am I to come on board again to-night?"
"To be sure you are."
Smallbones put up as desired by his master, whose eyes followed the lad's motions as he moved from one part of the cabin to the other, his thoughts wandering from the recollection of Smallbones having attempted to drown his dog, to the more pleasing one of revenge.
At dusk, Mr Vanslyperken ordered his boat to be manned, and so soon as Smallbones had gone into it with the bag, he took the pistol from where he had hid it, and concealing it under his great-coat, followed the lad into the boat.
They landed, and Vanslyperken walked fast; it was now dark, and he was followed by Smallbones, who found difficulty in keeping pace with his master, so rapid were his strides.
They passed the half-way houses, and went clear of the fortifications, until they had gained five or six miles on the road to London.
Smallbones was tired out with the rapidity of the walk, and now lagged behind. The master desired him to come on. "I does come on as fast as I can, sir, but this here walking don't suit at all, with carrying a bag full of clothes," replied Smallbones.
"Make haste, and keep up with me," cried Vanslyperken, setting off again at a more rapid pace.
They were now past all the buildings, and but occasionally fell in with some solitary farmhouse, or cottage, on the road side; the night was cloudy, and the scud flew fast; Vanslyperken walked on faster, for in his state of mind he could feel no bodily fatigue, and the lad dropped astern.
At last the lieutenant found a spot which afforded him an opportunity of executing his fell purpose. A square wall, round a homestead for cattle, was built on the side of the footpath. Vanslyperken turned round, and looked for Smallbones, who was too far behind to be seen in the obscurity. Satisfied by this that the lad could not see his motions, Vanslyperken secreted himself behind the angle of the wall so as to allow Smallbones to pass. He cocked his pistol, and crouched down, waiting for the arrival of his victim.
In a minute or two he heard the panting of the lad, who was quite weary with his load. Vanslyperken compressed his lips, and held his breath. The lad passed him; Vanslyperken now rose from behind, levelled the pistol at the lad's head, and fired. Smallbones uttered a yell, fell down on his face, and then rolled on his back without life or motion.
Vanslyperken looked at him for one second, then turned back, and fled with the wings of the wind. Conscience now appeared to pursue him, and he ran on until he was so exhausted, that he fell; the pistol was still in his hand, and as he put out his arm mechanically to save himself, the lock of the pistol came in violent contact with his temple.
After a time he rose again, faint and bleeding, and continued his course at a more moderate pace, but as the wind blew, and whistled among the boughs of the trees, he thought every moment that he beheld the form of the murdered lad. He quickened his pace, arrived at last within the fortifications, and putting the pistol in his coat-pocket, he somewhat, recovered himself. He bound his silk handkerchief round his head, and proceeded to the boat, which he had ordered to wait till Smallbones' return. He had then a part to act, and told the men that he had been assailed by robbers, and ordered them to pull on board immediately. As soon as he came on board he desired the men to assist him down into his cabin, and then he sent for Corporal Van Spitter to dress his wounds. He communicated to the corporal, that as he was going out in the country as he had proposed, he had been attacked by robbers, that he had been severely wounded, and had, he thought, killed one of them, as the others ran away; what had become of Smallbones he knew not, but he had heard him crying out in the hands of the robbers.
The corporal, who had felt certain that the pistol had been intended for Smallbones, hardly knew what to make of the matter; the wound of Mr Vanslyperken was severe, and it was hardly to be supposed that it had been self-inflicted. The corporal therefore held his tongue, heard all that Mr Vanslyperken had to say, and was very considerably puzzled.
"It was a fortunate thing that I thought of taking a pistol with me, corporal, I might have been murdered outright."
"Yes, mynheer," replied the corporal, and binding the handkerchief round Vanslyperken's head, he then assisted him into bed. "Mein Gott! I make no head or tail of de business," said the corporal, as he walked forward; "but I must know de truth soon; I not go to bed for two or three hours, and den I hear others."
It is needless to say that Mr Vanslyperken passed a restless night, not only from the pain of his wound, but from the torments of conscience; for it is but by degrees that the greatest villain can drive away its stings, and then it is but for a short time, and when it does force itself back upon him, it is with redoubled power. His occasional slumbers were broken by fitful starts, in which he again and again heard the yell of the poor lad, and saw the corpse rolling at his feet. It was about an hour before daylight that Mr Vanslyperken again woke, and found that the light had burnt out. He could not remain in the dark, it was too dreadful; he raised himself, and pulled the bell over his head. Some one entered. "Bring a light immediately," cried Vanslyperken.
In a minute or two the gleams of a light were seen burning at a distance by the lieutenant. He watched its progress aft, and its entrance, and he felt relieved; but he had now a devouring thirst upon him, and his lips were glued together, and he turned over on his bed to ask the corporal, whom he supposed it was, for water. He fixed his eyes upon the party with the candle, and by the feeble light of the dip, he beheld the pale, haggard face of Smallbones, who stared at him, but uttered not a word.
"Mercy, O God! mercy!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, falling back, and covering his face with the bedclothes.
Smallbones did not reply; he blew out the candle, and quitted the cabin.
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In which Mr Vanslyperken is taught a secret.
We are anxious to proceed with our narrative, but we must first explain the unexpected appearance of Smallbones. When Corporal Van Spitter was requested by Vanslyperken to bring a pistol and cartridge, the corporal, who had not forgotten the hints thrown out by Vanslyperken during their last consultation, immediately imagined that it was for Smallbones' benefit. And he was strengthened in his opinion, when he learnt that Smallbones was to go on shore with his master after it was dusk. Now Corporal Van Spitter had no notion of the poor lad's brains being blown out, and when Mr Vanslyperken went on deck and left the pistol, he went into the cabin, searched for it, and drew the bullet, which Vanslyperken, of course, was not aware of. It then occurred to the corporal, that if the pistol were aimed at Smallbones, and he was uninjured, it would greatly add to the idea, already half entertained by the superstitious lieutenant, of there being something supernatural about Smallbones, if he were left to suppose that he had been killed, and had reappeared. He, therefore, communicated his suspicions to the lad, told him what he had done, and advised him, if the pistol were fired, to pretend to be killed, and when left by his master, to come on board quietly in the night. Smallbones, who perceived the drift of all this, promised to act accordingly, and in the last chapter it will be observed how he contrived to deceive his master. As soon as the lieutenant was out of hearing, Smallbones rose, and leaving the bag where it lay, hastened back to Portsmouth, and came on board about two hours before Vanslyperken rang his bell. He narrated what had passed, but, of course, could not exactly swear that it was Vanslyperken who fired the pistol, as it was fired from behind, but even if he could have so sworn, at that time he would have obtained but little redress.
It was considered much more advisable that Smallbones should pretend to believe that he had been attacked by robbers, and that the ball had missed him, after he had frightened his master by his unexpected appearance, for Vanslyperken would still be of the opinion that the lad possessed a charmed life.
The state of Mr Vanslyperken during the remainder of that night was pitiable, but we must leave the reader to suppose, rather than attempt to describe it.
In the morning the corporal came in, and after asking after his superior's health, informed him that Smallbones had come on board, that the lad said that the robbers had fired a pistol at him, and then knocked him down with the butt end of it, and that he had escaped but with the loss of the bag.
This was a great relief to the mind of Mr Vanslyperken, who had imagined that he had been visited by the ghost of Smallbones during the night: he expressed himself glad at his return, and a wish to be left alone, upon which the corporal retired. As soon as Vanslyperken found out that Smallbones was still alive, his desire to kill him returned; although, when he supposed him dead, he would, to escape from his own feelings, have resuscitated him. One chief idea now whirled in his brain, which was, that the lad must have a charmed life; he had floated out to the Nab buoy and back again, and now he had had a pistol-bullet passed through his skull without injury. He felt too much fear to attempt anything against him for the future, but his desire to do so was stronger than ever.
Excitement and vexation brought on a slow fever, and Mr Vanslyperken lay for three or four days in bed; at the end of which period he received a message from the admiral, directing him to come or send on shore (for his state had been made known) for his despatches, and to sail as soon as possible.
Upon receiving the message, Mr Vanslyperken recollected his engagement at the house of the Jew Lazarus, and weak as he was, felt too much afraid of the results, should he fail, not to get out of bed and go on shore. It was with difficulty he could walk so far. When he arrived he found Ramsay ready to receive him.
"To sail as soon as possible:--'tis well, sir. Have you your despatches?"
"I sent to the admiral's for them," replied Vanslyperken.
"Well, then, be all ready to start at midnight. I shall come on board about a quarter of an hour before; you may go, sir."
Vanslyperken quailed under the keen eye and stern look of Ramsay, and obeyed the uncourteous order in silence; still he thought of revenge as he walked back to the boat and re-embarked in the cutter.
"What's this, Short?" observed Coble: "here is a new freak; we start at midnight, I hear."
"Yes," replied Short.
"Something quite new, anyhow:--don't understand it: do you?"
"No," replied Dick.
"Well, now Jemmy's gone, I don't care how soon I follow, Dick."
"Nor I," replied Short.
"I've a notion there's some mystery in all this. For," continued Coble, "the admiral would never have ordered us out till to-morrow morning, if he did not make us sail this evening. It's not a man-of-war fashion, is it, Dick?"
"No," replied Short.
"Well, we shall see," replied Coble. "I shall turn in now. You've heard all about Smallbones, heh! Dick?"
Short nodded his head.
"Well, we shall see: but I'll back the boy 'gainst master and dog too, in the long run. D--n his Dutch carcass, he seems to make but small count of English subjects, heh!"
Short leant over the gunwale and whistled.
Coble, finding it impossible to extract one monosyllable more from him, walked forward, and went down below.
A little before twelve o'clock a boat came alongside, and Ramsay stepped out of it into the cutter. Vanslyperken had been walking the deck to receive him, and immediately showed him down into the cabin, where he left him to go on deck, and get the cutter under way. There was a small stove in the cabin, for the weather was still cold; they were advanced into the month of March. Ramsay threw off his coat, laid two pair of loaded pistols on the table, locked the door of the cabin, and then proceeded to warm himself, while Vanslyperken was employed on deck.
In an hour the cutter was outside and clear of all danger, and Vanslyperken had to knock to gain admittance into his own cabin. Ramsay opened the door, and Vanslyperken, who thought he must say something, observed gloomily, "We are all clear, sir."
"Very good," replied Ramsay; "and now, sir, I believe that you have despatches on board?"
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken.
"You will oblige me by letting me look at them."
"My despatches!" said Vanslyperken with surprise.
"Yes, sir, your despatches; immediately, if you please--no trifling."
"You forget, sir," replied Vanslyperken angrily, "that I am not any longer in your power, but on board of my own vessel."
"You appear not to know, sir, that you are in my power even on board of your own vessel," replied Ramsay, starting up, and laying his hand over the pistols, which he drew towards him, and replaced in his belt. "If you trust to your ship's company you are mistaken, as you will soon discover. I demand the despatches."
"But, sir, you will ruin me and ruin yourself," replied Vanslyperken, alarmed.
"Fear not," replied Ramsay; "for my own sake, and that of the good cause, I shall not hurt you. No one will know that the despatches have been ever examined, and----" "And what?" replied Vanslyperken, gloomily.
"For the passage, and this service, you will receive one hundred guineas."
Vanslyperken no longer hesitated; he opened the drawer in which he had deposited the letters, and produced them.
"Now lock the door," said Ramsay, taking his seat.
He then examined the seals, pulled some out of his pocket, and compared them; sorted the letters according to the seals, and laid one corresponding at the heading of each file, for there were three different government seals upon the despatches. He then took a long Dutch earthen pipe which was hanging above, broke off the bowl, and put one end of the stem into the fire. When it was of a red heat he took it out, and applying his lips to the cool end, and the hot one close to the sealing-wax, he blew through it, and the heated blast soon dissolved the wax, and the despatches were opened one after another without the slightest difficulty or injury to the paper. He then commenced reading, taking memorandums on his tablets as he proceeded.
When he had finished, he again heated the pipe, melted the wax, which had become cold and hard again, and resealed all the letters with his counterfeit seals.
During this occupation, which lasted upwards of an hour, Vanslyperken looked on with surprise, leaning against the bulk-head of the cabin.
"There, sir, are your despatches," said Ramsay, rising from his chair: "you may now put them away; and, as you may observe, you are not compromised."
"No, indeed," replied Vanslyperken, who was struck with the ingenuity of the method; "but you have given me an idea."
"I will tell you what that is," replied Ramsay. "You are thinking, if I left you these false seals, you could give me the contents of the despatches, provided you were well paid. Is it not so?"
"It was," replied Vanslyperken, who had immediately been struck with such a new source of wealth; for he cared little what he did--all he cared for was discovery.
"Had you not proposed it yourself, I intended that you should have done it, sir," replied Ramsay; "and that you should also be paid for it. I will arrange all that before I leave the vessel. But now I shall retire to my bed. Have you one ready?"
"I have none but what you see," replied Vanslyperken. "It is my own, but at your service."
"I shall accept it," replied Ramsay, putting his pistols under his pillow, after having thrown himself on the outside of the bedclothes, pulling his roquelaure over him. "And now you will oblige me by turning that cur out of the cabin, for his smell is anything but pleasant."
Vanslyperken had no idea of his passenger so coolly taking possession of his bed, but to turn out Snarleyyow as well as himself, appeared an unwarrantable liberty. But he felt that he had but to submit, for Ramsay was despotic, and he was afraid of him.
After much resistance, Snarleyyow was kicked out by his master, who then went on deck not in the very best of humours, at finding he had so completely sold himself to those who might betray and hang him the very next day. "At all events," thought Vanslyperken, "I'm well paid for it."
It was now daylight, and the cutter was running with a favourable breeze; the hands were turned up, and Corporal Van Spitter came on deck. Vanslyperken, who had been running over in his mind all the events which had latterly taken place, had considered that, as he had lost the Portsmouth widow, he might as well pursue his suit with the widow Vandersloosh, especially as she had sent such a conciliating message by the corporal; and perceiving the corporal on deck, he beckoned to him to approach. Vanslyperken then observed, that he was angry the other day, and that the corporal need not give that message to the Frau Vandersloosh, as he intended to call upon her himself upon his arrival. Van Spitter, who did not know anything about the Portsmouth widow, and could not imagine why the angry message had been given, of course assented, although he was fully determined that the widow should be informed of the insult. The question was now, how to be able to go on shore himself; and to compass that without suspicion, he remarked that the maid Babette was a very fine maid, and he should like to see her again.
This little piece of confidence was not thrown away. Vanslyperken was too anxious to secure the corporal, and he replied, that the corporal should go ashore and see her, if he pleased; upon which Corporal Van Spitter made his best military salute, turned round on his heel, and walked away, laughing in his sleeve at having so easily gulled his superior.
On the third morning the cutter had arrived at her destined port. During the passage Ramsay had taken possession of the cabin, ordering everything as he pleased, much to the surprise of the crew. Mr Vanslyperken spoke of him as a king's messenger, but still Smallbones, who took care to hear what was going on, reported the abject submission shown to Ramsay by the lieutenant, and this was the occasion of great marvel; moreover, they doubted his being a king's messenger, for, as Smallbones very shrewdly observed, "Why, if he was a king's messenger, did he not come with the despatches?" However, they could only surmise, and no more. But the dog being turned out of the cabin in compliance with Ramsay's wish, was the most important point of all. They could have got over all the rest, but that was quite incomprehensible; and they all agreed with Coble, when he observed, hitching up his trousers, "Depend upon it, there's a screw loose somewhere."
As soon as the cutter was at anchor, Ramsay ordered his portmanteau into the boat, and Vanslyperken having accompanied him on shore, they separated, Ramsay informing Vanslyperken that he would wish to see him the next day, and giving him his address.
Vanslyperken delivered his despatches, and then hastened to the widow Vandersloosh, who received him with a well-assumed appearance of mingled pleasure and reserve.
Vanslyperken led her to the sofa, poured forth a multitudinous compound composed of regret, devotion, and apologies, which at last appeared to have melted the heart of the widow, who once more gave him her hand to salute.
Vanslyperken was all rapture at so unexpected a reconciliation; the name of the cur was not mentioned, and Vanslyperken thought to himself, "This will do,--let me only once get you, my Frau, and I'll teach you to wish my dog dead at your porch."
On the other hand the widow thought, "And so this atomy really believes that I would look upon him! Well, well, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see how it ends. Your cur under my bed, indeed, so sure do you never--. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken."
There is a great deal of humbug in this world, that is certain.
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In which we have at last introduced a decent sort of heroine, who, however, only plays a second in our history, Snarleyyow being first fiddle.
But we must leave Mr Vanslyperken, and the widow, and the _Yungfrau_, and all connected with her, for the present, and follow the steps of Ramsay, in doing which we shall have to introduce new personages in our little drama.
As soon as Ramsay had taken leave of Vanslyperken, being a stranger at Amsterdam, he inquired his way to the Golden Street, in which resided Mynheer Van Krause, syndic of the town, and to whom he had obtained his principal letters of introduction. The syndic's house was too well known not to be immediately pointed out to him, and in ten minutes he found himself, with the sailors at his heels who had been ordered to carry up his baggage, at a handsomely carved door painted in bright green, and with knockers of massive brass which glittered in the sun.
Ramsay, as he waited a few seconds, looked up at the house, which was large and with a noble front to the wide street in face of it, not, as usual with most of the others, divided in the centre by a canal running the whole length of it. The door was opened, and led into a large paved yard, the sides of which were lined with evergreens in large tubs, painted of the same bright green colour; adjoining to the yard was a small garden enclosed with high walls, which was laid out with great precision, and in small beds full of tulips, ranunculuses, and other bulbs now just appearing above the ground. The sailors waited outside while the old gray-headed servitor who had opened the gate, ushered Ramsay through the court to a second door which led into the house. The hall into which he entered was paved with marble, and the staircase bold and handsome which led to the first floor, but on each side of the hall there were wooden partitions and half-glass doors, through which Ramsay could see that the rest of the basement was appropriated to warehouses, and that in the warehouse at the back of the building there were people busily employed hoisting out merchandise from the vessels in the canal, the water of which adjoined the very walls. Ramsay followed the man upstairs, who showed him into a very splendidly-furnished apartment, and then went to summon his master, who, he said, was below in the warehouse. Ramsay had but a minute or two to examine the various objects which decorated the room, particularly some very fine pictures, when Mynheer Van Krause made his appearance, with some open tablets in his hand and his pen across his mouth. He was a very short man, with a respectable paunch, a very small head, quite bald, a keen blue eye, reddish but straight nose, and a very florid complexion. There was nothing vulgar about his appearance, although his figure was against him. His countenance was one of extreme frankness, mixed with considerable intelligence, and his whole manner gave you the idea of precision and calculation.
"You would--tyfel--I forgot my pen," said the syndic, catching it as it fell out of his mouth. "You would speak with me, mynheer? To whom have I the pleasure of addressing myself?"
"These letters, sir," replied Ramsay, "will inform you."
Mynheer Van Krause laid his tablets on the table, putting his pen across to mark the leaf where he had them open, and taking the letters begged Ramsay to be seated. He then took a chair, pulled a pair of hand-glasses out of his pocket, laid them on his knees, broke the seals, and falling back so as to recline, commenced reading. As soon as he had finished the first letter, he put his glasses down from his eyes, and made a bow to Ramsay, folded the open letter the length of the sheet, took out his pencil, and on the outside wrote the date of the letter, the day of the month, name, and the name of the writer. Having done this, he laid the first letter down on the table, took up the second, raised up his glasses, and performed the same duty towards it, and thus he continued until he had read the whole six; always, as he concluded each letter, making the same low bow to Ramsay which he had after the perusal of the first. Ramsay, who was not a little tired of all this precision, at last fixed his eyes upon a Wouvermann which hung near him, and only took them off when he guessed the time of bowing to be at hand.
The last having been duly marked and numbered, Mynheer Van Krause turned to Ramsay, and said, "I am most happy, mynheer, to find under my roof a young gentleman so much recommended by many valuable friends; moreover, as these letters give me to understand, so warm a friend to our joint sovereign, and so inimical to the Jacobite party. I am informed by these letters that you intend to remain at Amsterdam. If so, I trust that you will take up your quarters in this house."
To this proposal Ramsay, who fully expected it, gave a willing consent, saying, at the same time, that he had proposed going to an hotel; but Mynheer Van Krause insisted on sending for Ramsay's luggage. He had not far to send, as it was at the door.
"How did you come over?" inquired the host.
"In a king's cutter," replied Ramsay, "which waited for me at Portsmouth."
This intimation produced another very low bow from Mynheer Van Krause, as it warranted the importance of his guest; but he then rose, and apologising for his presence being necessary below, as they were unloading a cargo of considerable value, he ordered his old porter to show Mr Ramsay into his rooms, and to take up his luggage, informing his guest that, it being now twelve o'clock, dinner would be on the table at half-past one, during which interval he begged Ramsay to amuse himself, by examining the pictures, books, &c., with which the room was well furnished. Then, resuming his tablets and pen, and taking the letters with him, Mynheer Van Krause made a very low bow, and left Ramsay to himself, little imagining that he had admitted an attainted traitor under his roof.
Ramsay could speak Dutch fluently, for he had been quartered two years at Middleburg, when he was serving in the army. As soon as the sailors had taken up his portmanteau, and he had dismissed them with a gratuity, the extent of which made the old porter open his eyes with astonishment, and gave him a favourable opinion of his master's new guest, he entered into conversation with the old man, who, like Eve upon another occasion, was tempted, nothing loth, for the old man loved to talk; and in a house so busy as the syndic's there were few who had time to chatter, and those who had, preferred other conversation to what, it must be confessed, was rather prosy.
"Mein Gott, mynheer, you must not expect to have company here all day. My master has the town business and his own business to attend to: he can't well get through it all: besides, now is a busy time, the schuyts are bringing up the cargo of a vessel from a far voyage, and Mynheer Krause always goes to the warehouse from breakfast till dinner, and then again from three or four o'clock till six. After that he will stay above, and then sees company, and hears our young lady sing."
"Young lady! has he a daughter then?"
"He has a daughter, mynheer--only one--only one child--no son, it is a pity; and so much money too, they say. I don't know how many stivers and guilders she will have by-and-bye."
"Is not Madame Krause still alive?"
"No, mynheer, she died when this maiden was born. She was a good lady, cured me once of the yellow jaundice."
Ramsay, like all young men, wondered what sort of a person this lady might be; but he was too discreet to put the question. He was, however, pleased to hear that there was a young female in the house, as it would make the time pass away more agreeably; not that he expected much. Judging from the father, he made up his mind, as he took his clothes out of his valise, that she was very short, very prim, and had a hooked nose.
The old man now left the room to allow Ramsay to dress, and telling him that if he wanted anything, he had only to call for Koops, which was his name, but going out, he returned to say, that Ramsay must call rather loud, as he was a little hard of hearing.
"Well," thought Ramsay, as he was busy with his toilet, "here I am safe lodged at last, and everything appears as if it would prosper. There is something in my position which my mind revolts at, but stratagem is necessary in war. I am in the enemy's camp to save my own life, and to serve the just cause. It is no more than what they attempt to do with us. It is my duty to my lawful sovereign, but still I do not like it. Then the more merit in performing a duty so foreign to my inclinations."
Such were the thoughts of Ramsay, who like other manly and daring dispositions, was dissatisfied with playing the part of a deceiver, although he had been selected for the service, and his selection had been approved of at the Court of St Germains.
Open warfare would have suited him better; but he would not repine at what he considered he was bound in fealty to perform, if required, although he instinctively shrank from it. His toilet was complete, and Ramsay descended into the reception-room: he had been longer than usual, but probably that was because he wished to commune with himself; or it might be, because he had been informed that there was a young lady in the house.
The room was empty when Ramsay entered it, and he took the advice of his host, and amused himself by examining the pictures, and other articles of _virtu_, with which the room was filled.
At last, having looked at everything, Ramsay examined a splendid clock on the mantelpiece, before a fine glass, which mounted to the very top of the lofty room, when, accidentally casting his eyes to the looking-glass, he perceived in it that the door of the room, to which his back was turned, was open, and that a female was standing there, apparently surprised to find a stranger, and not exactly knowing whether to advance or retreat. Ramsay remained in the same position, as if he did not perceive her, that he might look at her without her being aware of it. It was, as he presumed, the syndic's daughter; but how different from the person he had conjured up in his mind's eye, when at his toilet! Apparently about seventeen or eighteen years of age, she was rather above the height of woman, delicately formed, although not by any means thin in her person: her figure possessing all that feminine luxuriance, which can only be obtained when the bones are small, but well covered. Her face was oval, and brilliantly fair. Her hair of a dark chestnut, and her eyes of a deep blue. Her dress was simple in the extreme. She wore nothing but the white woollen petticoats of the time, so short, as to show above her ankles, and a sort of little jacket of fine green cloth, with lappets, which descended from the waist, and opened in front. Altogether, Ramsay thought that he had never in his life seen a young female so peculiarly attractive at first sight: there was a freshness in her air and appearance so uncommon, so unlike the general crowd. As she stood in a state of uncertainty, her mouth opened, and displayed small and beautifully white teeth.
Gradually she receded, supposing that she had not been discovered, and closed the door quietly after her leaving Ramsay for a few seconds at the glass, with his eyes fixed upon the point at which she had disappeared.
Ramsay of course fell into a reverie, as most men do in a case of this kind; but he had not proceeded very far into it before he was interrupted by the appearance of the syndic, who entered by another door.
"I am sorry to have been obliged to leave you to your own company, Mynheer Ramsay, so soon after your arrival; but my arrangement of time is regular, and I cannot make any alteration. Before you have been with us long, I trust that you will find means of amusement. I shall have great pleasure in introducing you to many friends whose time is not so occupied as mine. Once again let me say how happy I am to receive so distinguished a young gentleman under my roof. Did the cutter bring despatches for the States General, may I enquire?"
"Yes," replied Ramsay, "she did; and they are of some importance."
"Indeed?" rejoined Mynheer inquisitively.
"My dear sir," said Ramsay, blushing at his own falsehood, "we are, I believe, both earnest in one point, which is to strengthen the good cause. Under such an impression, and having accepted your hospitality, I have no right to withhold what I know, but with which others are not acquainted."
"My dear sir," interrupted Krause, who was now fully convinced of the importance of his guest, "you do me justice; I am firm and steadfast in the good cause. I am known to be so, and I am also, I trust, discreet; confiding to my tried friends, indeed, but it will be generally acknowledged that Mynheer Krause has possessed, and safely guarded, the secrets of the state."
Now, in the latter part of this speech, Mynheer Krause committed a small mistake. He was known to be a babbler, one to whom a secret could not be imparted, without every risk of its being known; and it was from the knowledge of this failing in Mynheer Krause that Ramsay had received such very particular recommendations to him. As syndic of the town, it was impossible to prevent his knowledge of government secrets, and when these occasionally escaped, they were always traced to his not being able to hold his tongue.
Nothing pleased Mynheer Krause so much as a secret, because nothing gave him so much pleasure as whispering it confidentially into the ear of a dozen confidential friends. The consequence was, the government was particularly careful that he should not know what was going on, and did all they could to prevent it; but there were many others who, although they could keep a secret, had no objection to part with it for a consideration, and in the enormous commercial transactions of Mynheer Krause, it was not unfrequent for a good bargain to be struck with him by one or more of the public functionaries, the difference between the sum proposed and accepted being settled against the interests of Mynheer Krause, by the party putting him in possession of some government movement which had hitherto been kept _in petto_. Every man has his hobby, and usually pays dear for it, so did Mynheer Krause.
Now when it is remembered that Ramsay had opened and read the whole of the despatches, it may at once be supposed what a valuable acquaintance he would appear to Mynheer Krause; but we must not anticipate. Ramsay's reply was, "I feel it my bounden duty to impart all I am possessed of to my very worthy host, but allow me to observe, mynheer, that prudence is necessary--we may be overheard."
"I am pleased to find one of your age so circumspect," replied Krause; "perhaps it would be better to defer our conversation till after supper, but in the meantime, could you not just give me a little inkling of what is going on?"
Ramsay had difficulty in stifling a smile at this specimen of Mynheer Krause's eagerness for intelligence. He very gravely walked up to him, looked all round the room as if he was afraid that the walls would hear him, and then whispered for a few seconds into the ear of his host.
"Indeed!" exclaimed Krause, looking up into Ramsay's face.
Ramsay nodded his head authoritatively.
"Gott in himmel!" exclaimed the syndic; but here the bell for dinner rang a loud peal. "Dinner is on the table, mynheer," continued the syndic, "allow me to show you the way. We will talk this over to-night. Gott in himmel! Is it possible?"
Mynheer Krause led the way to another saloon, where Ramsay found not only the table prepared, but, as he had anticipated, the daughter of his host, to whom he was introduced. "Wilhelmina," said Mynheer Krause, "our young friend will stay with us, I trust, some time, and you must do all you can to make him comfortable. You know, my dear, that business must be attended to. With me, time is money; so much so, that I can scarcely do justice to the affairs of the state devolving upon me in virtue of my office. You must, therefore, join with me, and do your best to amuse our guest."
To this speech, Wilhelmina made no reply, but by a gracious inclination of her head towards Ramsay, which was returned with all humility. The dinner was excellent, and Ramsay amused himself very well indeed until it was over. Mynheer Krause then led the way to the saloon, called for coffee, and, so soon as he had finished it, made an apology to his guest, and left him alone with his beautiful daughter.
Wilhelmina Krause was a young person of a strong mind irregularly cultivated; she had never known the advantage of a mother's care, and was indeed self-educated. She had a strong tinge of romance in her character, and, left so much alone, she loved to indulge in it.
In other points she was clever, well read, and accomplished; graceful in her manners, open in her disposition, to a fault; for, like her father, she could not keep a secret, not even the secrets of her own heart; for whatever she thought she gave utterance to, which is not exactly the custom in this world, and often attended with unpleasant consequences.
The seclusion in which she had been kept added to the natural timidity of her disposition--but when once intimate, it also added to her confiding character. It was impossible to see without admiring her, to know her without loving her; for she was nature herself, and, at the same time, in her person one of Nature's masterpieces.
As we observed, when they retired to the saloon, Mynheer Krause very shortly quitted them, to attend to his affairs below, desiring his daughter to exert herself for the amusement of his guest; the contrary, however, was the case, for Ramsay exerted himself to amuse her, and very soon was successful, for he could talk of courts and kings, of courtiers and of people, and of a thousand things, all interesting to a young girl who had lived secluded; and as his full-toned voice, in measured and low pitch, fell upon Wilhelmina's ear, she never perhaps was so much interested. She seldom ventured a remark, except it was to request him to proceed, and the eloquent language with which Ramsay clothed his ideas, added a charm to the novelty of his conversation. In the course of two hours Ramsay had already acquired a moral influence over Wilhelmina, who looked up to him with respect, and another feeling which we can only define by saying that it was certainly anything but ill-will.
The time passed so rapidly, that the two young people could hardly believe it possible that it was past six o'clock, when they were interrupted by the appearance of Mynheer Krause, who came from his counting-house, the labours of the day being over. In the summer-time it was his custom to take his daughter out in the carriage at this hour, but the weather was too cold, and, moreover, it was nearly dark. A conversation ensued on general topics, which lasted till supper-time; after this repast was over Wilhelmina retired, leaving Ramsay and the syndic alone.
It was then that Ramsay made known to his host the contents of the despatches, much to Mynheer Krause's surprise and delight, who felt assured that his guest must be strong in the confidence of the English government, to be able to communicate such intelligence. Ramsay, who was aware that the syndic would sooner or later know what had been written, of course was faithful in his detail; not so, however, when they canvassed the attempts of the Jacobite party; then Mr Krause was completely mystified.
It was not till a late hour that they retired to bed. The next morning, the syndic, big with his intelligence, called upon his friends in person, and much to their surprise told them the contents of the despatches which had been received--and, much to his delight, discovered that he had been correctly informed. He also communicated what Ramsay had told him relative to the movements of the Court of St Germains, and thus, unintentionally, false intelligence was forwarded to England as from good authority. It hardly need be observed, that, in a very short time, Ramsay had gained the entire confidence of his host, and we may add also, of his host's daughter; but we must leave him for the present to follow up his plans, whatever they may be, and return to the personages more immediately connected with this narrative.
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In which Jemmy Ducks proves the truth of Moggy's assertion, that there was no one like him before or since--Nancy and Jemmy serenade the stars.
As soon as Moggy landed at the Point with her dear darling duck of a husband, as she called him, she put his chest and hammock on a barrow and had them wheeled up to her own lodgings, and then they went out to call upon Nancy Corbett to make their future arrangements; Moggy proceeding in rapid strides, and Jemmy trotting with his diminutive legs behind her, something like a stout pony by the side of a large horse. It was in pedestrianism that Jemmy most felt his inferiority, and the protecting, fond way in which Moggy would turn round every minute and say, "Come along, my duck," would have been irritating to any other but one of Jemmy's excellent temper. Many looked at Jemmy, as he waddled along, smiled and passed on; one unfortunate nymph, however, ventured to stop, and putting her arms a-kimbo, looked down upon him and exclaimed, "Vell! you are a nice little man," and then commenced singing the old refrain-- "I had a little husband no bigger than my thumb, I put him in a pint pot, and there I bid him drum:" when Moggy, who had turned back, saluted her with such a box on the ear, that she made the drum of it ring again. The young lady was not one of those who would offer the other cheek to be smitten, and she immediately flew at Moggy and returned the blow; but Jemmy, who liked quiet, caught her round the legs, and, as if she had been a feather, threw her over his head, so that she fell down in the gutter behind him with a violence which was anything but agreeable. She gained her legs again, looked at her soiled garments, scraped the mud off her cheek--we are sorry to add, made use of some very improper language, and finding herself in the minority, walked off, turning round and shaking her fist at every twenty paces.
Moggy and her husband continued their course as if nothing had happened, and arrived at the house of Nancy Corbett, who had, as may be supposed, changed her lodgings and kept out of sight of Vanslyperken. Nancy was no stranger to Jemmy Ducks; so far as his person went he was too remarkable a character not to be known by her who knew almost everybody; and, moreover, she had made sufficient inquiries about his character. The trio at once proceeded to business: Jemmy had promised his wife to join the smugglers, and it was now arranged, that both he and his wife should be regularly enlisted in the gang, she to remain at the cave with the women, unless her services were required elsewhere, he to belong to the boat. There was, however, one necessary preliminary still to be taken, that of Jemmy and his wife both taking the oath of fidelity at the house of the Jew Lazarus; but it was not advisable to go there before dusk, so they remained with Nancy till that time, during which she was fully satisfied that, in both parties, the band would have an acquisition, for Nancy was very keen and penetrating, and had a great insight into human nature.
At dusk, to the house of Lazarus they accordingly repaired, and were admitted by the cautious Jew. Nancy stated why they had come, and there being, at the time, several of the confederates, as usual, in the house, they were summoned by the Jew to be witnesses to the oath being administered. Half-a-dozen dark-looking bold men soon made their appearance, and recognised Nancy by nods of their heads.
"Who have we here, old Father Abraham?' exclaimed a stout man, who was dressed in a buff jerkin and a pair of boots which rose above his knees.
"A good man and true," replied Nancy, caking up the answer.
"Why, you don't call that thing a man!" exclaimed the fierce-looking confederate with contempt.
"As good a man as ever stood in your boots," replied Moggy in wrath.
"Indeed: well, perhaps so, if he could only see his way when once into them," replied the man with a loud laugh, in which he was joined by his companions.
"What can you do, my little man?" said another of a slighter build than the first, coming forward and putting his hand upon Jemmy's head.
Now Jemmy was the best-tempered fellow in the world, but, at the same time, the very best-tempered people have limits to their forbearance, and do not like to be taken liberties with by strangers: so felt Jemmy, who, seizing the young man firmly by the waistband of his trousers just below the hips, lifted him from the ground, and with a strength which astonished all present, threw him clean over the table, his body sweeping away both the candles, so they were all left in darkness.
"I can douse a glim anyhow," cried Jemmy.
"That's my darling duck," cried Moggy, delighted with this proof of her husband's vigour.
Some confusion was created by this manoeuvre on the part of Jemmy, but candles were reproduced, and the first man who spoke, feeling as if this victory on the part of Jemmy was a rebuke to himself, again commenced his interrogations.
"Well, my little man, you are strong in the arms, but what will you do without legs?"
"Not run away, as you have done a hundred times," replied Jemmy, scornfully.
"Now by the God of War you shall answer for this," replied the man, catching hold of Jemmy by the collar; but in a moment he was tripped up by Jemmy, and fell down with great violence on his back.
"Bravo, bravo!" exclaimed the rest, who took part with Jemmy.
"That's my own little duck," cried Moggy; "you've shown him what you can do, anyhow."
The man rose, and was apparently feeling for some arms secreted about his person, when Nancy Corbett stepped forward.
"Do you dare?" cried she; "take what you have received, and be thankful, or--" and Nancy held up her little forefinger.
The man slunk back among the others in silence. The old Jew, who had not interfered, being in presence of Nancy, who had superior commands, now read the oath, which was of a nature not to be communicated to the reader without creating disgust. It was, however, such an oath as was taken in those times, and has since been frequently taken in Ireland. It was subscribed to by Jemmy and his wife without hesitation, and they were immediately enrolled among the members of the association. As soon as this ceremony had been gone through, Nancy and her protegés quitted the house and returned to her lodgings, when it was agreed that the next night they should go over to the island, as Jemmy's services were required in the boat in lieu of Ramsay, whose place as steersman he was admirably qualified to occupy, much better, indeed, than that of a rower, as his legs were too short to reach the stretcher, where it was usually fixed.
The next evening the weather was calm and clear, and when they embarked in the boat of the old fisherman, with but a small portion of their effects, the surface of the water was unruffled, and the stars twinkled brightly in the heavens; one article which Jemmy never parted with, was in his hand, his fiddle. They all took their seats, and the old fisherman shoved off his boat, and they were soon swept out of the harbour by the strong ebb tide.
"An't this better than being on board with Vanslyperken, and your leave stopped?" observed Moggy.
"Yes," replied the husband.
"And I not permitted to go on board to see my duck of a husband--confound his snivelling carcass?" continued Moggy.
"Yes," replied Jemmy, thoughtfully.
"And in company with that supernatual cur of his?"
Jemmy nodded his head, and then in his abstraction touched the strings of his violin.
"They say that you are clever with your instrument, Mr Salisbury," observed Nancy Corbett.
"That he is," replied Moggy; "and he sings like a darling duck. Don't you, Jemmy, my dear?"
"Quack, quack," replied Jemmy.
"Well, Mr Salisbury, there's no boat that I can see near us, or even in sight; and if there was it were little matter. I suppose you will let me hear you, for I shall have little opportunity after this?"
"With all my heart," replied Jemmy; who, taking up his fiddle, and playing upon the strings like a guitar, after a little reflection, sang as follows: Bless my eyes, how young Bill threw his shiners away, As he drank and he danced, when he first came on shore! It was clear that he fancied that with his year's pay, Like the Bank of Old England, he'd never be poor. So when the next day, with a southerly wind in His pockets, he came up, my rhino to borrow; "You're welcome," says I, "Bill, as I forked out the tin, But when larking to-day--_don't forget there's to-morrow_."
When our frigate came to from a cruise in the west, And her yards were all squared, her sails neatly furled, Young Tom clasped his Nancy, so loved, to his breast, As if but themselves there was none in the world. Between two of the guns they were fondly at play, All billing and kissing, forgetting all sorrow; "Love, like cash," says I, "Nan, may all go in a day, While you hug him so close--_don't forget there's to-morrow_."
When a hurricane swept us smack smooth fore and aft, When we dashed on the rock, and we floundered on shore, As we sighed for the loss of our beautiful craft, Convinced that the like we should never see more, Says I, "My good fellows," as huddled together, They shivered and shook, each phiz black with sorrow, "Remember, it's not to be always foul weather, So with ill-luck to-day--_don't forget there's to-morrow_!"
"And not a bad hint, neither, Mr Salisbury," said Nancy, when Jemmy ceased. "You sailors never think of to-morrow, more's the pity. You're no better than overgrown babies."
"I'm not much better, at all events," replied Jemmy, laughing: "however, I'm as God made me, and so all's right."
"That's my own darling Jemmy," said Moggy, "and if you're content, and I'm content, who is to say a word, I should like to know? You may be a rum one to look at, but I think them fellows found you but a rum customer the other night."
"Don't put so much rum in your discourse, Moggy, you make me long for a glass of grog."
"Then your mouth will find the water," rejoined Nancy; "but, however, singing is dry work, and I am provided. Pass my basket aft, old gentleman, and we will find Mr Salisbury something with which to whet his whistle." The boatman handed the basket to Nancy, who pulled out a bottle and glass, which she filled, and handed to Jemmy.
"Now, Mr Salisbury, I expect some more songs," said Nancy.
"And you shall have them, mistress; but I've heard say that you've a good pipe of your own; suppose that you give me one in return, that will be but fair play."
"Not exactly, for you'll have the grog in the bargain," replied Nancy.
"Put my fiddle against the grog, and then all's square."
"I have not sung for many a day," replied Nancy, musing, and looking up at the bright twinkling stars. "I once sang, when I was young--and happy--I then sang all the day long; that was really singing, for it came from the merriness of my heart;" and Nancy paused. "Yes, I have sung since, and often, for they made me sing; but 'twas when my heart was heavy--or when its load had been, for a time, forgotten and drowned in wine. That was not singing, at least not the singing of bygone days."
"But those times are bygone too, Mistress Nancy," said Moggy; "you have now your marriage lines, and are made an honest woman."
"Yes, and God keep me so, amen," replied Nancy mournfully.
Had not the night concealed it, a tear might have been seen by the others in the boat to trickle down the cheek of Nancy Corbett, as she was reminded of her former life; and as she again fixed her eyes upon the brilliant heavens, each particular star appeared to twinkle brighter, as if they rejoiced to witness tears like those.
"You must be light o' heart now, Mistress Nancy," observed Jemmy, soothingly.
"I am not unhappy," replied she, resting her cheek upon her hand.
"Mistress Nancy," said Moggy, "I should think a little of that stuff would do neither of us any harm; the night is rather bleak."
Moggy poured out a glass and handed it to Nancy; she drank it, and it saved her from a flood of tears, which otherwise she would have been unable to repress. In a minute or two, during which Moggy helped herself and the old boatman, Nancy's spirits returned.
"Do you know this air?" said Nancy to Jemmy, humming it.
"Yes, yes, I know it well, Mistress Nancy. Will you sing to it?"
Nancy Corbett who had been celebrated once for her sweet singing, as well as her beauty, immediately commenced in a soft and melodious tone, while Jemmy touched his fiddle.
Lost, stolen, or strayed, The heart of a young maid; Whoever the same shall find, And prove so very kind. To yield it on desire, They shall rewarded be, And that most handsomely, With kisses one, two, three. Cupid is the crier, Ring-a-ding, a-ding, Cupid is the crier.
O yes! O yes! O yes! Here is a pretty mess! A maiden's heart is gone, And she is left forlorn, And panting with desire; Whoever shall bring it me, They shall rewarded be. With kisses one, two, three. Cupid is the crier, Ring-a-ding, a-ding, Cupid is the crier.
'Twas lost on Sunday eve, Or taken without leave, A virgin's heart so pure, She can't the loss endure, And surely will expire; Pity her misery. Rewarded you shall be, With kisses one, two, three. Cupid is the crier, Ring-a-ding, a-ding, Cupid is the crier.
The maiden sought around, It was not to be found, She searched each nook and dell, The haunts she loved so well, All anxious with desire; The wind blew ope his vest, When, lo! the toy in quest, She found within the breast Of Cupid, the false crier, Ring-a-ding, a-ding-a-ding, Cupid the false crier.
"Many thanks, Mistress Corbett, for a good song, sung in good tune, with a sweet voice," said Jemmy. "I owe you one for that, and am ready to pay you on demand. You've a pipe like a missel thrush."
"Well, I do believe that I shall begin to sing again," replied Nancy. "I'm sure if Corbett was only once settled on shore in a nice little cottage, with a garden, and a blackbird in a wicker cage, I should try who could sing most, the bird or me."
"He will be by-and-bye, when his work is done."
"Yes, when it is; but open boats, stormy seas, and the halter, are heavy odds, Mr Salisbury."
"Don't mention the halter, Mistress Nancy, you'll make me melancholy," replied Jemmy, "and I sha'n't be able to sing any more. Well, if they want to hang me, they need not rig the yard-arm, three handspikes as sheers, and I shouldn't find soundings, heh! Moggy?"
Nancy laughed at the ludicrous idea; but Moggy exclaimed with vehemence, "Hang my Jemmy! my darling duck! I should like to see them."
"At all events, we'll have another song from him, Moggy, before they spoil his windpipe, which, I must say, would be a great pity; but Moggy, there have been better men hung than your husband."
"Better men than my Jemmy, Mrs Corbett! There never was one like him afore or since;" replied Moggy, with indignation.
"I only meant of longer pedigree, Moggy," replied Nancy soothingly.
"I don't know what that is," replied Moggy, still angry.
"Longer legs, to be sure," replied Jemmy. "Never mind that, Moggy. Here goes, a song in two parts. It's a pity, Mistress Nancy, that you couldn't take one."
"When will you give up this life of wild roving? When shall we be quiet and happy on shore? When will you to church lead your Susan, so loving, And sail on the treacherous billows no more?"
"My ship is my wife, Sue, no other I covet, Till I draw the firm splice that's betwixt her and me; I'll roam on the ocean, for much do I love it-- To wed with another were rank bigamy."
"O William, what nonsense you talk, you are raving; Pray how can a ship and a man become one? You say so because you no longer are craving, As once you were truly--and I am undone."
"You wrong me, my dearest, as sure as I stand here, As sure as I'll sail again on the wide sea; Some day I will settle, and marry with you, dear, But now 'twould be nothing but rank bigamy."
"Then tell me the time, dear William, whenever Your Sue may expect this divorce to be made; When you'll surely be mine, when no object shall sever, But locked in your arms I'm no longer afraid."
"The time it will be when my pockets are lined, I'll then draw the splice 'tween my vessel and me, And lead you to church, if you're still so inclined-- But before, my dear Sue, 'twere rank bigamy."
"Thank you, Mr Salisbury. I like the moral of that song; a sailor never should marry till he can settle on shore."
"What's the meaning of big-a-me?" said Moggy.
"Marrying two husbands or two wives, Mrs Salisbury. Perhaps you might get off on the plea that you had only one and a half," continued Nancy, laughing.
"Well, perhaps she might," replied Jemmy, "if he were a judge of understanding."
"I should think, Mistress Nancy, you might as well leave my husband's legs alone," observed Moggy, affronted.
"Lord bless you, Moggy, if he's not angry, you surely should not be; I give a joke, and I can take one. You surely are not jealous?"
"Indeed I am though, and always shall be of anyone who plays with my Jemmy."
"Or if he plays with anything else?"
"Yes, indeed."
"Yes, indeed! then you must be downright jealous of his fiddle, Moggy," replied Nancy; "but never mind, you sha'n't be jealous now about nothing. I'll sing you a song, and then you'll forget all this." Nancy Corbett then sang as follows: Fond Mary sat on Henry's knee, "I must be home exact," said he, "And see, the hour is come." "No, Henry, you shall never go Until me how to count you show; That task must first be done."
Then Harry said, "As time is short, Addition you must first be taught;-- Sum up these kisses sweet; "Now prove your sum by kissing me:-- Yes, that is right, 'twas three times three-- Arithmetic's a treat.
"And now there is another term, Subtraction you have yet to learn; Take four away from these." "Yes, that is right, you've made it out," Says Mary, with a pretty pout, "Subtraction don't me please."
Division's next upon the list; Young Henry taught while Mary kissed, And much admired the rule; "Now, Henry, don't you think me quick?" "Why, yes, indeed, you've learned the trick; At kissing you're no fool."
To multiply was next the game, Which Henry by the method same, To Mary fain would show; But here his patience was worn out, She multiplied too fast I doubt, He could no farther go.
"And now we must leave off, my dear; The other rules are not so clear, We'll try at them to-night;" "I'll come at eve, my Henry sweet; Behind the hawthorn hedge we'll meet, For learning's my delight."
"That's a very pretty song, Mistress Corbett, and you've a nice collection, I've no doubt. If you've no objection, I'll exchange another with you."
"I should be most willing, Mr Salisbury; but we are now getting well over, and we may as well be quiet, as I do not wish people to ask where we are going."
"You're right, ma'am," observed the old fisherman, who pulled the boat. "Put up your fiddle, master; there be plenty on the look out, without our giving them notice."
"Very true," replied Jemmy, "so we break up our concert."
The whole party were now silent. In a quarter of an hour the boat was run into a cut, which concealed it from view; and, as soon as the fisherman had looked round to see the coast clear, they landed and made haste to pass by the cottages; after that Nancy slackened her pace, and they walked during the night over to the other side of the island, and arrived at the cottages above the cave.
Here they left a portion of their burdens and then proceeded to the path down the cliff which led to the cave. On Nancy giving the signal, the ladder was lowered, and they were admitted. As soon as they were upon the flat, Moggy embraced her husband, crying, "Here I have you, my own dear Jemmy, all to myself, and safe for ever."
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{
"id": "12558"
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30
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In which Mr Vanslyperken treats the ladies.
On the second day after his arrival, Vanslyperken, as agreed, went up to the syndic's house to call upon Ramsay. The latter paid him down one hundred pounds for his passage and services, and Vanslyperken was so pleased, that he thought seriously, as soon as he had amassed sufficient money, to withdraw himself from the service, and retire with his ill-gotten gains; but when would a miser like Vanslyperken have amassed sufficient money? Alas! never, even if the halter were half round his neck. Ramsay then gave his instructions to Vanslyperken, advising him to call for letters previously to his sailing, and telling him that he must open the government despatches in the way to which he had been witness, take full memorandums of the contents, and bring them to him, for which service he would each time receive fifty pounds as a remuneration. Vanslyperken bowed to his haughty new acquaintance, and quitted the house.
"Yes," thought Ramsay, "that fellow is a low, contemptible traitor, and how infamous does treason appear in that wretch! but--I--I am no traitor--I have forfeited my property and risked my life in fidelity to my king, and in attempting to rid the world of a usurper and a tyrant. Here, indeed, I am playing a traitor's part to my host, but still I am doing my duty. An army without spies would be incomplete, and one may descend to that office for the good of one's country without tarnish or disgrace. Am I not a traitor to her already? Have not I formed visions in my imagination already of obtaining her hand, and her heart, and her fortune? Is not this treachery? Shall I not attempt to win her affections under disguise as her father's friend and partisan? But what have women to do with politics? Or if they have, do not they set so light a value upon them, that they will exchange them for a feather? Yes, surely; when they love, their politics are the politics of those they cling to. At present, she is on her father's side; but if she leave her father and cleave to me, her politics will be transferred with her affections. But then her religion. She thinks me a Protestant. Well, love is all in all with women; not only politics but religion must yield to it; 'thy people shall be my people, and thy God shall be my God,' as Ruth says in the scriptures. She is wrong in politics, I will put her right. She is wrong in religion, I will restore her to the bosom of the church. Her wealth would be sacrificed to some heretic; it were far better that it belonged to one who supports the true religion and the good cause. In what way, therefore, shall I injure her? On the contrary." And Ramsay walked down stairs to find Wilhelmina. Such were the arguments used by the young cavalier, and with which he fully satisfied himself that he was doing rightly; had he argued the other side of the question, he would have been equally convinced, as most people are, when they argue without any opponent; but we must leave him to follow Vanslyperken.
Mr Vanslyperken walked away from the syndic's house with the comfortable idea that one side of him was heavier than the other by one hundred guineas. He also ruminated; he had already obtained three hundred pounds, no small sum, in those days, for a lieutenant. It is true that he had lost the chance of thousands by the barking of Snarleyyow, and he had lost the fair Portsmouth widow; but then he was again on good terms with the Frau Vandersloosh, and was in a fair way of making his fortune, and, as he considered, with small risk. His mother, too, attracted a share of his reminiscences; the old woman would soon die, and then he would have all that she had saved. Smallbones occasionally intruded himself, but that was but for a moment. And Mr Vanslyperken walked away very well satisfied, upon the whole, with his _esse_ and _posse_. He wound up by flattering himself that he should wind up with the savings of his mother, his half-pay, the widow's guilders, and his own property,--altogether it would be pretty comfortable. But we leave him and return to Corporal Van Spitter.
Corporal Van Spitter had had wisdom enough to dupe Vanslyperken, and persuade him that he was very much in love with Babette; and Vanslyperken, who was not at all averse to this amour, permitted the corporal to go on shore and make love. As Vanslyperken did not like the cutter and Snarleyyow to be left without the corporal or himself, he always remained on board when the corporal went, so that the widow had enough on hand--pretending love all the morning with the lieutenant, and indemnifying herself by real love with the corporal after dusk. Her fat hand was kissed and slobbered from morning to night, but it was half for love and half for revenge.
But we must leave the corporal, and return to Jemmy Ducks. Jemmy was two days in the cave before the arrival of the boat, during which he made himself a great favourite, particularly with Lilly, who sat down and listened to his fiddle and his singing. It was a novelty in the cave, anything like amusement. On the third night, however, Sir R. Barclay came back from Cherbourg, and as he only remained one hour, Jemmy was hastened on board, taking leave of his wife, but not parting with his fiddle. He took his berth as steersman, in lieu of Ramsay, and gave perfect satisfaction. The intelligence brought over by Sir Robert rendered an immediate messenger to Portsmouth necessary, and, as it would create less suspicion, Moggy was the party now entrusted in lieu of Nancy, who had been lately seen too often, and, it was supposed, had been watched. Moggy was not sorry to receive her instructions, which were, to remain at Portsmouth until Lazarus the Jew should give her further orders; for there was one point which Moggy was most anxious to accomplish, now that she could do it without risking a retaliation upon her husband, which was, to use her own expression, to pay off that snivelling old rascal, Vanslyperken.
But we must leave Moggy and the movements of individuals, and return to our general history. The _Yungfrau_ was detained a fortnight at Amsterdam, and then received the despatches of the States General and those of Ramsay, with which Vanslyperken returned to Portsmouth. On his arrival, he went through his usual routine at the admiral's and the Jew's, received his douceur, and hastened to his mother's house, when he found the old woman, as she constantly prophesied, not dead yet.
"Well, child, what have you brought--more gold?"
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken, laying down the one hundred and fifty guineas which he had received.
"Bless thee, my son--bless thee!" said the old woman, laying her palsied hand upon Vanslyperken's head. "It is not often I bless--I never did bless as I can recollect--I like cursing better. My blessing must be worth something, if it's only for its scarcity; and do you know why I bless thee, my Cornelius? Because--ha, ha, ha! because you are a murderer and a traitor, and you love gold."
Even Vanslyperken shuddered at the hag's address.
"What do you ever gain by doing good in this world? nothing but laughter and contempt. I began the world like a fool, but I shall go out of it like a wise woman, hating, despising everything but gold. And I have had my revenge in my time--yes--yes--the world, my son, is divided into only two parts, those who cheat, and those who are cheated--those who master, and those who are mastered--those who are shackled by superstitions and priests, and those who, like me, fear neither God nor devil. We must all die; yes, but I shan't die yet, no, no."
And Vanslyperken almost wished that he could gain the unbelief of the decrepit woman whom he called mother, and who, on the verge of eternity, held fast to such a creed.
"Well, mother, perhaps it may be you are right--I never gained anything by a good action yet."
_Query_. Had he ever done a good action?
"You're my own child, I see, after all; you have my blessing, Cornelius, my son--go and prosper. Get gold--get gold," replied the old hag, taking up the money, and locking it up in the oak chest.
Vanslyperken then narrated to his mother the unexpected interview with Smallbones, and his surmise that the lad was supernaturally gifted. "Ah, well," replied she, "those who are born to be hung will die by no other death; but still it does not follow that they will not die. You shall have your revenge, my child. The lad shall die. Try again; water, you say, rejects him? Fire will not harm him. There is that which is of the earth and of the air left. Try again, my son; revenge is sweet, next to gold."
After two hours' conversation, it grew dark, and Vanslyperken departed, revolving in his mind, as he walked away, the sublime principles of religion and piety, in the excellent advice given by his aged mother. "I wish I could only think as she does," muttered Vanslyperken at last; and as he concluded this devout wish, his arm was touched by a neatly-dressed little girl, who curtsied, and asked if he was not Lieutenant Vanslyperken, belonging to the cutter. Vanslyperken replied in the affirmative, and the little girl then said that a lady, her mistress, wished to speak to him.
"Your mistress, my little girl?" said Vanslyperken, suspiciously; "and pray who is your mistress?"
"She is a lady, sir," replied the latter; "she was married to Major Williams, but he is dead."
"Hah! a widow; well, what does she want? I don't know her."
"No, sir, and she don't know you; but she told me if you did not come at once, to give you this paper to read."
Vanslyperken took the paper, and walking to the window of a shop in which there was a light, contrived to decipher as follows:-- "SIR, "The lady who lived in Castle Street has sent me a letter, and a parcel, to deliver up into your own hands, as the parcel is of value. The bearer of this will bring you to my house.
"Your very obedient, "JANE WILLIAMS."
_Two o'clock_.
"Where does your mistress live, little girl?" enquired Vanslyperken, who immediately anticipated the portrait of the fair widow set in diamonds.
"She lives in one of the publics on the hard, sir, on the first floor, while she is furnishing her lodgings."
"One of the publics on the hard; well, my little girl, I will go with you."
"I have been looking for you everywhere, sir," said the little girl, walking, or rather trotting by the side of Vanslyperken, who strided along.
"Did your mistress know the lady who lived in Castle Street?"
"O yes, sir, my mistress then lived next door to her in Castle Street, but her lease was out, and now she has a much larger house in William Street, but she is painting and furnishing all so handsome, sir, and so now she has taken the first floor of the 'Wheatsheaf' till she can get in again."
And Mr Vanslyperken thought it would be worth his while to reconnoitre this widow before he closed with the Frau Vandersloosh. How selfish men are!
In a quarter of an hour Mr Vanslyperken and the little girl had arrived at the public-house in question. Mr Vanslyperken did not much admire the exterior of the building, but it was too dark to enable him to take an accurate survey. It was, however, evident, that it was a pot-house, and nothing more; and Mr Vanslyperken thought that lodgings must be very scarce in Portsmouth. He entered the first and inner door, and the little girl said she would go upstairs and let her mistress know that he was come. She ran up, leaving Mr Vanslyperken alone in the dark passage. He waited for some time, when his naturally suspicious temper made him think he had been deceived, and he determined to wait outside of the house, which appeared very disreputable. He therefore retreated to the inner door to open it, but found it fast. He tried it again and again, but in vain, and he became alarmed and indignant. Perceiving a light through another keyhole, he tried the door, and it was open; a screen was close to the door as he entered, and he could not see its occupants. Mr Vanslyperken walked round, and as he did so, he heard the door closed and locked. He looked on the other side of the screen, and, to his horror, found himself in company with Moggy Salisbury, and about twenty other females. Vanslyperken made a precipitate retreat to the door, but he was met by three or four women, who held him fast by the arms. Vanslyperken would have disgraced himself by drawing his cutlass; but they were prepared for this, and while two of them pinioned his arms, one of them drew his cutlass from its sheath, and walked away with it. Two of the women contrived to hold his arms, while another pushed him in the rear, until he was brought from behind the screen into the middle of the room, facing his incarnate enemy, Moggy Salisbury.
"Good evening to you, Mr Vanslyperken," cried Moggy, not rising from her chair. "It's very kind of you to come and see me in this friendly way--come, take a chair, and give us all the news."
"Mistress Salisbury, you had better mind what you are about with a king's officer," cried Vanslyperken, turning more pale at this mockery, than if he had met with abuse. "There are constables, and stocks, and gaols, and whipping-posts on shore, as well as the cat on board."
"I know all that, Mr Vanslyperken," replied Moggy, calmly; "but that has nothing to do with the present affair: you have come of your own accord to this house to see somebody, that is plain, and you have found me. So now do as you're bid, like a polite man; sit down, and treat the ladies. Ladies, Mr Vanslyperken stands treat, and please the pigs, we'll make a night of it. What shall it be? I mean to take my share of a bottle of Oporto. What will you have, Mrs Slamkoe?"
"I'll take a bowl of burnt brandy, with your leave, Mrs Salisbury, not being very well in my inside."
"And you, my dear?"
"O, punch for me--punch to the mast," cried another. "I'll drink enough to float a jolly-boat. It's very kind of Mr Vanslyperken."
All the ladies expressed their several wishes, and Vanslyperken knew not what to do; he thought he might as well make an effort, for the demand on his purse he perceived would be excessive, and he loved his money.
"You may all call for what you please," said Vanslyperken, "but you'll pay for what you call for. If you think that I am to be swindled in this way out of my money, you're mistaken. Every soul of you shall be whipped at the cart's tail to-morrow."
"Do you mean to insinuate that I am not a respectable person, sir?" said a fierce-looking virago, rubbing her fist against Vanslyperken's nose. "Smell that!"
It was not a nosegay at all to the fancy of Mr Vanslyperken; he threw himself back, and his chair fell with him. The ladies laughed, and Mr Vanslyperken rose in great wrath.
"By all the devils in hell," he exclaimed, whirling the chair round his head, "but I'll do you a mischief!"
But he was soon pinioned from behind.
"This is very unpolite conduct," said one; "you call yourself a gentleman?"
"What shall we do, ladies?"
"Do," replied another; "let's strip him, and pawn his clothes, and then turn him adrift."
"Well, that's not a bad notion," replied the others, and they forthwith proceeded to take off Mr Vanslyperken's coat and waistcoat. How much further they would have gone it is impossible to say, for Mr Vanslyperken had made up his mind to buy himself off as cheap as he could.
Be it observed, that Moggy never interfered, nor took any part in this violence; on the contrary, she continued sitting in her chair, and said, "Indeed, ladies, I request you will not be so violent, Mr Vanslyperken is my friend. I am sorry that he will not treat you; but if he will not, I beg you will allow him to go away."
"There, you hear," cried Mr Vanslyperken; "Mrs Salisbury, am I at liberty to depart?"
"Most certainly, Mr Vanslyperken; you have my full permission. Ladies, I beg that you will let him go."
"No, by the living jingo! not till he treats us," cried one of the women; "why did he come into this shop, but for nothing else? I'll have my punch afore he starts."
"And I my burnt brandy." So cried they all, and Mr Vanslyperken, whose coat and waistcoat were already off, and finding many fingers very busy about the rest of his person, perceived that Moggy's neutrality was all a sham, so he begged to be heard.
"Ladies, I'll do anything in reason. As far as five shillings--" "Five shillings!" exclaimed the woman; "no, no--why, a foremast man would come down with more than that. And you a lieutenant? Five guineas, now, would be saying something."
"Five guineas! why I have not so much money. Upon my soul I hav'n't." "Let us see," said one of the party, diving like an adept into Vanslyperken's trousers-pocket, and pulling out his purse. The money was poured out on the table, and twelve guineas counted out.
"Then whose money is this?" cried the woman; "not yours on your soul; have you been taking a purse to-night? I vote we sends for a constable."
"I quite forgot that I had put more money in my purse," muttered Vanslyperken, who never expected to see it again. "I'll treat you, ladies--treat you all to whatever you please."
"Bravo! that's spoken like a man," cried the virago, giving Vanslyperken a slap on the back which knocked the breath out of his body.
"Bravo!" exclaimed another, "that's what I call handsome; let's all kiss him, ladies."
Vanslyperken was forced to go through this ordeal, and then the door was unlocked, but carefully guarded, while the several orders were given.
"Who is to pay for all this?" exclaimed the landlady.
"This gentleman treats us all," replied the woman.
"Oh! very well--is it all right, sir?"
Vanslyperken dared not say no: he was in their power, and every eye watched him as he gave his answer; so he stammered out "Yes," and, in a fit of despair at the loss of his money, he threw himself into his chair, and meditated revenge.
"Give Mr Vanslyperken his purse, Susan," said the prudent Moggy to the young woman who had taken it out of his pocket.
The purse was returned, and, in a few minutes, the various liquors and mixtures demanded made their appearance, and the jollification commenced. Every one was soon quite happy, with the exception of Mr Vanslyperken, who, like Pistol, ate his leek, swearing in his own mind he would be horribly revenged.
"Mr Vanslyperken, you must drink my health in some of this punch." Vanslyperken compressed his lips, and shook his head. "I say yes, Mr Vanslyperken," cried the virago, looking daggers; "if you don't, we quarrel--that's all."
But Vanslyperken argued in his mind that his grounds of complaint would be weakened, if he partook of the refreshment which he had been forced to pay for, so he resolutely denied.
"Von't you listen to my harguments, Mr Vanslyperken?" continued the woman. "Vell, then, I must resort to the last, which I never knew fail yet." The woman went to the fire and pulled out the poker, which was red hot, from between the bars. "Now then, my beauty, you must kiss this, or drink some punch;" and she advanced it towards his nose, while three or four others held him fast on his chair behind; the poker, throwing out a glow of heat, was within an inch of the poor lieutenant's nose: he could stand it no more, his face and eyes were scorched.
"Yes, yes," cried he at last, "if I must drink, then, I will. We will settle this matter by-and-bye," cried Vanslyperken, pouring down with indignation the proffered glass.
"Now, Susan, don't ill-treat Mr Vanslyperken: I purtest against all ill-treatment."
"Ill-treat, Mrs Salisbury! I am only giving him a lesson in purliteness."
"Now, Mr What-the-devil's-your-name, you must drink off a glass of my burnt brandy, or I shall be jealous," cried another; "and when I am jealous I always takes to red-hot pokers." Resistance was in vain, the poker was again taken from between the bars, and the burnt brandy went down.
Again and again was Mr Vanslyperken forced to pour down his throat all that was offered to him, or take the chance of having his nose burnt off.
"Is it not wrong to mix your liquors in this way, Mr Vanslyperken?" said Moggy, in bitter mockery.
The first allowance brought in was now despatched, and the bell rung, and double as much more ordered, to Vanslyperken's great annoyance; but he was in the hands of the Philistines. What made the matter worse, was, that the company grew every moment more uproarious, and there was no saying when they would stop.
"A song--a song--a song from Mr Vanslyperken," cried one of the party.
"Hurrah! yes, a song from the jolly lieutenant."
"I can't sing," replied Vanslyperken.
"You shall sing, by the piper who played before Moses," said the virago; "if not, you shall sing out to some purpose;" and the red-hot poker was again brandished in her masculine fist, and she advanced to him, saying, "suppose we hargue that point?"
"Would you murder me, woman?"
"No; singing is no murder, but we ax a song, and a song we must have."
"I don't know one--upon my honour I don't," cried Vanslyperken.
"Then, we'll larn you. And now you repeat after me." " 'Poll put her arms a-kimbo.' Sing--come, out with it." And the poker was again advanced.
"O God!" cried Vanslyperken.
"Sing, or by Heavens I'll shorten your nose! Sing, I say," repeated the woman, advancing the poker so as actually to singe the skin.
"Take it away, and I will," cried Vanslyperken, breathless.
"Well then, 'Poll put her arms a-kimbo.'" " 'Poll put her arms a-kimbo,'" repeated Vanslyperken.
"That's saying, not singing," cried the woman. "Now again. 'At the admiral's house looked she.'" " 'At the admiral's house looked she,'" replied Vanslyperken, in a whining tone.
Thus, with the poker staring him in the face, was Vanslyperken made to repeat the very song for singing which he would have flogged Jemmy Ducks. There was, however, a desperate attempt to avoid the last stanza.
"I'll give you a bit of my mind, old boy, Port Admiral, you be d----d." Nothing but the tip of his nose actually burnt would have produced these last words; but fear overcame him, and at last they were repeated. Upon which all the women shouted and shrieked with laughter, except Moggy, who continued sipping her port wine.
"Your good health, Mr Vanslyperken," said Moggy, drinking to him.
Vanslyperken wiped the perspiration off his forehead, and made no reply.
"You call yourself a gentleman, and not drink the health of the lady of the house!" cried virago Mrs Slamkoe. "I'll hargue this point with you again."
The same never-failing argument was used, and Mr Vanslyperken drank Mrs Salisbury's health in a glass of the port wine which he was to have the pleasure of paying for.
"I must say, Mr Vanslyperken," said Moggy, "it was very hard for to wish to flog my poor Jemmy for singing a song which you have just now been singing yourself."
"Did he want to flog your Jemmy for that?"
"Yes, he did indeed, ladies."
"Then as sure as I stand here, and may this punch be my poison, if he sha'n't beg your pardon on his knees. Sha'n't he, girls?" cried Mrs Slamkoe.
"Yes, yes, that he shall, or we'll poke him with the poker."
This was a dreadful threat, but the indignity was so great, that Vanslyperken attempted to resist. It was, however, in vain; he was forced to go on his knees, and ask Mrs Salisbury's pardon.
"Indeed, ladies, I do not wish it," said Moggy; "no, pray don't. Well, Mr Vanslyperken, pardon granted; so now kiss and make friends."
Mr Vanslyperken, surrounded now by furies rather than Bacchanalians, kissed Mrs Salisbury.
"What in the world would you have me do, you she-devils?" cried he at last, driven to desperation.
"This is language for a gentleman," said Mrs Slamkoe.
"They shall make you do nothing more," replied Moggy. "I must retire, ladies, your freak's up. You know I never keep late hours. Ladies, I wish you all a very good-night."
"Perhaps, Mr Vanslyperken, you would wish to go. I'll send for the woman of the house that you may settle the bill; I think you offered to treat the company?"
Vanslyperken grinned ghastly. The bell was rung, and while Mr Vanslyperken was pulling out the sum demanded by the landlady, the ladies all disappeared.
Vanslyperken put up his diminished purse. "There is your sword, Mr Vanslyperken," said Moggy; who, during the whole of the scene, had kept up a _retenue_ very different from her usual manners.
Vanslyperken took his sword, and appeared to feel his courage return--why not? he was armed, and in company with only one woman, and he sought revenge.
He rang the bell, and the landlady appeared.
"Landlady," cried Vanslyperken, "you'll send for a constable directly. Obey me, or I'll put you down as a party to the robbery which has been committed. I say, a constable immediately. Refuse on your peril, woman; a king's officer has been robbed and ill-treated."
"Lauk-a-mercy! a constable, sir? I'm sure you've had a very pleasant jollification."
"Silence, woman; send for a constable immediately."
"Do you hear, Mrs Wilcox?" said Moggy, very quietly, "Mr Vanslyperken wants a constable. Send for one by all means."
"Oh! certainly, ma'am, if you wish it," said the landlady, quitting the room.
"Yes, you infamous woman, I'll teach you to rob and ill-treat people in this way."
"Mercy on me! Mr Vanslyperken, why I never interfered."
"Ay, ay, that's all very well; but you'll tell another story when you're all before the authorities."
"Perhaps I shall," replied Moggy, carelessly. "But I shall now wish you a good-evening, Mr Vanslyperken."
Thereupon Mr Vanslyperken very valorously drew his sword, and flourished it over his head.
"You don't pass here, Mrs Salisbury. No--no--it's my turn now."
"Your turn now, you beast!" retorted Moggy. "Why, if I wished to pass, this poker would soon clear the way; but I can pass without that, and I will give you the countersign. Hark! a word in your ear, you wretch. You are in my power. You have sent for a constable, and I swear by my own Jemmy's little finger, which is worth your old shrivelled carcass, that I shall give you in charge of the constable."
"Me!" exclaimed Vanslyperken.
"Yes, you--you wretch--you scum. Now I am going, stop me if you dare. Walls have ears, so I'll whisper. If you wish to send a constable after me, you'll find me at the house of the Jew Lazarus. Do you understand?"
Vanslyperken started back as if an adder had come before him, his sword dropped out of his hand, he stood transfixed.
"May I go now, Mr Vanslyperken, or am I to wait for the constable? Silence gives consent," continued Moggy, making a mock courtesy, and walking out of the room.
For a minute, Vanslyperken remained in the same position. At last, bursting with his feelings, he snatched up his sword, put it into the sheath, and was about to quit the room, when in came the landlady with the constable.
"You vants me, sir?" said the man.
"I did," stammered Vanslyperken, "but she is gone."
"I must be paid for my trouble, sir, if you please."
Vanslyperken had again to pull out his purse; but this time he hardly felt the annoyance, for in his mind's eye his neck was already in the halter. He put the money into the man's hand without speaking, and then left the room, the landlady courtesying very low, and hoping that she soon should again have the pleasure of his company at the Wheatsheaf.
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In which Snarleyyow again triumphs over his enemies.
But we must return to the cabin, and state what took place during this long absence of the commander, who had gone on shore about three o'clock, and had given directions for his boat to be at the Point at sunset. There had been a council of war held on the forecastle, in which Corporal Van Spitter and Smallbones were the most prominent; and the meeting was held to debate, whether they should or should not make one more attempt to destroy the dog; singular that the arguments and observations very nearly coincided with those made use of by Vanslyperken and his mother, when they debated how to get rid of Smallbones.
"Water won't touch him, I sees that," observed Smallbones.
"No. Mein Gott, dat was to trow time and de trouble away," replied the corporal.
"Hanging's just as natural a death for a cur," observed Spurey.
"Yes," observed Short.
"I'm afeard that the rope's not laid that's to hang that animal," observed Coble, shaking his head. "If water won't do, I'm persuaded nothing will, for did not they use, in former days, to lay all spirits in the Red Sea?"
"Yes," quoth Short.
"But he ban't a spirit yet," replied Smallbones; "he be flesh and blood o' some sort. If I gets fairly rid of his body, d----n his soul, I say, he may keep that and welcome."
"But then, you know, he'll haunt us just as much as ever--we shall see him here just the same."
"A spirit is only a spirit," observed Smallbones; "he may live in the cabin all day and night afore I care; but, d'ye see, there's a great difference between the ghost of a dog, and the dog himself."
"Why, if the beast ar'n't natural, I can't see much odds," observed Spurey.
"But I can feel 'em," replied Smallbones. "This here dog has a-bitten me all to bits, but a ghost of a dog can't bite anyhow."
"No," replied Short.
"And now, d'ye see, as Obadiah Coble has said as how spirits must be laid, I think if we were to come for to go for to lay this here hanimal in the cold hearth, he may perhaps not be able to get up again."
"That's only a perhaps," observed Coble.
"Well, a perhaps is better than nothing at all," said the lad.
"Yes," observed Short.
"That depends upon sarcumstances," observed Spurey. "What sort of a breakfast would you make upon a perhaps?"
"A good one, perhaps," replied Smallbones, grinning at the jingling of the words.
"Twenty dozen tyfels, Smallbones is in de right," observed Jansen, who had taken no part in the previous conversation. "Suppose you bury de dog, de dog body not get up again. Suppose he will come, his soul come, leave him body behind him."
"That's exactly my notion of the thing," observed Smallbones.
"Do you mean for to bury him alive?" inquired Spurey.
"Alive! Gott in himmel--no. I knock de brains out first, perry afterwards."
"There's some sense in that, corporal."
"And the dog can't have much left anyhow, dog or devil, when his brains are all out."
"No," quoth Short.
"But who is to do it?"
"Corporal and I," replied Smallbones; "we be agreed, ban't we, corporal?"
"Mein Gott, yes!"
"And now I votes that we tries it off-hand; what's the use of shilly-shally? I made a mortal vow that that 'ere dog and I won't live together--there ban't room enough for us two."
"It's a wide world, nevertheless," observed Coble, hitching up his trousers; "howsomever, I have nothing to say, but I wish you luck; but if you kill that dog, I'm a bishop--that's all."
"And if I don't try for to do so, I am an harchbishop, that's all," replied the gallant Smallbones. "Come along, corporal."
And here was to be beheld a novel scene. Smallbones followed in obedience by his former persecutor and his superior officer; a bag of bones--a reed--a lath--a scarecrow; like a pilot cutter ahead of an Indiaman, followed in his wake by Corporal Van Spitter, weighing twenty stone. How could this be? It was human nature. Smallbones took the lead, because he was the more courageous of the two, and the corporal following, proved he tacitly admitted it.
"He be a real bit of stuff, that 'ere Peter Smallbones," said one of the men.
"I thinks he be a supernatural himself, for my part," rejoined Spurey.
"At all events, he ar'n't afeard of him," said another.
"We shall see," replied Coble, squirting out his tobacco-juice under the gun.
"Come, men, we must go to work now. Shall we, Mr Short?"
"Yes," replied the commanding officer, and the conference broke up.
In the meantime the consultation was continued between Smallbones and the corporal. The latter had received instruction to take on shore Mr Vanslyperken's dirty linen to the washerwoman, and of course, as a corporal, he was not obliged to carry it, and would take Smallbones for that purpose. Then he could easily excuse taking the dog on shore, upon the plea of taking care of it. It was therefore so arranged; the dog would follow the corporal in the absence of his master, but no one else. In a few minutes the corporal, Smallbones, Snarleyyow, and a very small bundle of linen, were in the boat, and shoved off with as many good wishes and as much anxiety for their success, as probably Jason and his followers received when they departed in search of the Golden Fleece.
The three parties kept in company, and passed through the town of Portsmouth. The washerwoman lived outside the Lines, and there they proceeded, Snarleyyow very much in spirits at being able to eat the grass, which his health very much required. They walked on until they arrived at a large elm-tree, on the side of the road, which lay between two hedges and ditches.
"This will do," observed the corporal solemnly. "Mein Gott! I wish it was over," continued he, wiping the perspiration from his bull-forehead.
"How shall we kill him, corporal?" inquired Smallbones.
"Mein Gott! knock him head against de tree, I suppose."
"Yes, and bury him in the ditch. Here, dog--Snarleyyow--here, dog," said Smallbones; "come, a poor doggy--come here."
But Snarleyyow was not to be coaxed by Smallbones; he suspected treachery.
"He won't a-come to me, corporal, or I'd soon settle his hash," observed Smallbones.
The corporal had now got over a little panic which had seized him. He called Snarleyyow, who came immediately. Oh! had he imagined what the corporal was about to do, he might have died like Cæsar, exclaiming, "Et tu Brute," which, in plain English means, "and you--you brute."
The corporal, with a sort of desperation, laid hold of the dog by the tail, drawing him back till he could swing him round. In a second or two Snarleyyow was whirling round the corporal, who turned with him, gradually approaching the trunk of the elm-tree, till at last his head came in contact with it with a resounding blow, and the dog fell senseless. "Try it again, corporal, let's finish him." The corporal again swung round the inanimate body of the dog; again, and again, and again, did the head come in contact with the hard wood; and then the corporal, quite out of breath with the exertion, dropped the body on the grass. Neither of them spoke a word for some time, but watched the body, as it lay motionless, doubled up, with the fore and hind feet meeting each other, and the one eye closed.
"Well, I've a notion that he is done for, anyhow," said Smallbones, "at last."
"Mein Gott, yes!" replied the corporal. "He never get on his legs again, be he tog or be he tyfel."
"Now for to come for to go for to bury him," said Smallbones, swinging the dog by the tail, and dragging him towards the ditch. "I wonder if we could get a spade anywhere, corporal."
"Mein Gott! if we ask for a spade they will ask what for, and Vanslyperken may find it all out."
"Then I'll bury him and cover him up, anyhow; he'll not come to life again, if he does may I be knocked on the head like him, that's all." Smallbones dragged the body into the ditch, and collecting out of the other parts of the ditch a great quantity of wet leaves, covered the body a foot deep. "There, they won't find him now, because they won't know where to look for him. I say, corporal, I've a notion we had better not be seen here too long."
"No," said the corporal, wiping his forehead, putting his handkerchief in his cap, and his cap on his head; "we must go now."
They went to the washerwoman's, delivered the bundle, and then returned on board, when the whole crew were informed of the success of the expedition, and appeared quite satisfied that there was an end of the detested cur; all but Coble, who shook his head.
"We shall see," says he; "but I'm blessed if I don't expect the cur back to-morrow morning."
We must now return to Vanslyperken, who left the public-house in a state of consternation. "How could she possibly know anything about it?" exclaimed he. "My life in the power of that she-devil" And Vanslyperken walked on, turning over the affair in his mind. "I have gone too far to retreat now. I must either go on, or fly the country. Fly, where? What a fool have I been!" but then Vanslyperken thought of the money. "No, no, not a fool, but I am very unfortunate." Vanslyperken continued his route, until it at last occurred _to_ him that he would go to the Jew Lazarus, and speak with him; for, thought Vanslyperken, if all is discovered, they may think that I have informed, and then my life will be sought by both parties. Vanslyperken arrived at the Jew's abode, knocked softly, but received no answer: he knocked again, louder; a bustle and confusion was heard inside, and at last the door, with the chain fixed, was opened a couple of inches, and the Jew stammered out, "Wot vash there at this late hour of the night?"
"It is me, the lieutenant of the cutter," replied Vanslyperken. "I must speak with you directly."
The door was opened, several figures, and the clatter of arms, were heard in the dark passage, and as soon as Vanslyperken had entered it was relocked, and he was left in the dark.
In a minute the Jew, in a woollen wrapper, made his appearance with a light, and led Vanslyperken into the room where he had been shown before.
"Now then, Mishter Leeftenant, vat vash de matter?"
"We are discovered, I'm afraid!" exclaimed Vanslyperken.
"Holy father Abraham!" exclaimed the Jew, starting back. "But tell me vy you shay sho."
"A woman told me this night that she knew why I came to your house--that I was in her power."
"Vat woman?"
"A hell-cat, who hates me as she does the devil."
"A hell-cat vould not hate de divil," slowly observed the Jew.
"Well, perhaps not; but she will ruin me if she can."
"Vat vash her name?" said Lazarus.
"Moggy Salisbury."
"Paah! is dat all? vy, my good friend, she is one of us. Dere, you may go vay--you may go to bed, Mr Vanslyperken."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean dat she laughed at you, and frighten you--dat she is one of us, and so is her husband, who vas in your chip. Ven you hang, she and I vill all hang together; now you comprehend?"
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken, "I do now: but how could you trust such people?"
"Trust such people, Mr Vanslyperken? If you prove as true as those peoples, vy all de bitter; now go avay--go to bed--you have vaked up all the peoples here. Good night, Mr Leeftenant;" and the Jew led the way to the door, and let Vanslyperken out.
"So then," thought Vanslyperken, as he pursued his way down to the Point, "that woman and her husband are--damnation, but I've a great mind to discover all, if it's only to hang them." But on second thoughts, Vanslyperken thought that it was not worth while to be hanged himself, just for the pleasure of hanging others. It was a great relief to his mind to know that there was no fear of discovery. The tip of his nose itched, and he rubbed it mechanically; the rubbing brought away all the skin. He remembered the hot poker--the money he had been forced to pay--his being made to sing and to beg pardon on his knees; and he cursed Moggy in his heart, the more so, as he felt that he dare not take any steps against her.
When he came to the Point, he stood on the shingle, looking for his boat, but the men had waited till twelve o'clock, and then presuming that their commander did not intend to come at all that night, had pulled on board again. He was looking round for a waterman to pull him off, when something cold touched his hand. Vanslyperken started, and almost screamed with fear. He looked, and it was the cold nose of Snarleyyow, who now leaped upon his master.
"Snarleyyow, my poor dog! how came you on shore?"
But the dog not being able to speak, made no answer.
While Vanslyperken was wondering how the dog could possibly have come on shore, and what Corporal Van Spitter could be about to have allowed it, the small casement of a garret window near him was opened, and a head was thrust out.
"Do you want to go on board, sir?" said a tremulous voice.
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken.
"I will be down directly, sir," replied the old boatman, who in a minute or two appeared with his sculls on his shoulder.
"Not easy to find a boat at this time of the morning, sir," said the man; "but I heard you speaking, for I've had such a toothache these two nights that I can't shut my eyes."
The old man unlocked the chain which fastened his wherry, and in a few minutes Vanslyperken was on the deck of the cutter, but he found there was no one to receive him,--no watch kept.
"Very well," thought he, "we'll talk about this to-morrow morning. Short or Coble, I wonder which of the two--pretty neglect of duty, indeed--report to the admiral, by heavens!"
So saying, Mr Vanslyperken, with Snarleyyow at his heels, went down into the cabin--undressed in the dark, for he would not let anyone know that he was on board. It being about three o'clock in the morning, and Mr Vanslyperken being well tired with the events of the day, he was soon in a sound sleep. There will be no difficulty in accounting for the return of the dog, which had a skull much thicker than even the corporal's. He had been stunned with the heavy blows, but not killed. After a certain time he came to himself in his bed of leaves, first scratched with one paw, and then with another, till his senses returned: he rose, worked his way out, and lay down to sleep. After he had taken a long nap, he rose recovered, shook himself, and trotted down to the beach, but the boat had shoved off, and the cur had remained there waiting for an opportunity to get on board, when his master came down with the same object in view.
But as every soul is fast asleep, we shall now finish the chapter.
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Listeners never hear any good of themselves.
Vanslyperken was awakened three hours after he had fallen asleep by the noise of the buckets washing the decks. He heard the men talking on deck, and aware that no one knew that he was on board, he rose from his bed, and opened one of the sliding sashes of the skylight, that he might overhear the conversation. The first words he heard were from Bill Spurey.
"I say, Coble, I wonder what the skipper will say when he comes on board, and finds that the dog is gone?"
"Hoh! hoh!" thought Vanslyperken.
"I arn't convinced that he is gone yet," replied Coble.
"Smallbones swears that he's settled, this time," replied Spurey.
"So he did before," replied Coble.
"Smallbones again," thought Vanslyperken. "I'll--Smallbones him, if I hang for it."
"Why, he says he buried him two feet deep."
"Ay, ay; but what's the use of burying an animal who's not a human creature? For my part, I say this, that the imp belongs to his master, and is bound to serve him as long as his master lives. When he dies the dog may be killed, and then----" "Then what?"
"Why, with the blessing of God, they'll both go to hell together, and I don't care how soon."
"Kill me, you old villain!" muttered Vanslyperken, grinding his teeth.
"Well, anyhow, if the dog be not made away with, no more be Smallbones. He ar'n't afeard of the devil himself."
"No, not he; I'm of opinion Smallbones wa'n't sent here for nothing."
"He's escaped him twice, at all events."
"Then they know it," thought Vanslyperken, turning pale.
"Ay, and I will take you any bet you please, that the skipper never takes that boy's life. He's charmed, or I am a gudgeon."
Vanslyperken felt that it was his own suspicion, and he trembled at the idea of the lad being supernatural.
"Out of the way, Coble, or I'll fill your shoes," cried out one of the men, slashing a bucket of water.
"That's not quite so easy, 'cause I've got boots on," replied Coble. "However, I'll take up another berth."
The men walked away, and Vanslyperken could hear no more; but he had heard quite enough. The life of the dog had been attempted by Smallbones, it was evident. Mr Vanslyperken, after a little agitation, rang the bell.
"By all that's blue, the skipper's on board!" exclaimed the men on deck.
"When the devil did he come?"
"Not in my watch, at all events," replied Coble. "Did he come in yours, Short?"
"No," replied Short.
"Then it must have been in the corporal's."
"The corporal never called me, nor was he 'on deck," replied Coble. "I've a notion he never kept his watch."
The ring at the bell particularly concerned two people, the two culprits, Smallbones and Corporal Van Spitter.
The latter made his appearance; but previous to his answering the bell, Mr Vanslyperken had time to reflect. "So they think my dog is supernatural," said he; "so much the better. I'll make them believe it still more." Mr Vanslyperken called the dog, and pointed to his bed. The dog, who was fond of a warm berth, and but seldom allowed to get on the bed, immediately jumped up into it when invited, and Mr Vanslyperken patted him, and covered him up with the bedclothes. He then drew the curtains of the bed, and waited to see who would answer the bell. Corporal Van Spitter made his appearance.
"Corporal, I came on board very late, where have you put the dog? Bring him into the cabin."
Here the corporal, who was prepared, shook his head, smoothed down the hair of his forehead, and made a very melancholy face.
"It was all my fault, Mynheer Vanslyperken; yet I do for the best, but de tog be lost."
"How is that, corporal?"
The corporal then stated that he had taken the precaution to take the dog on shore, as he was afraid to leave it on board when he went to the washerwoman's, and that he was not long there, but while he was, the dog disappeared. He had looked everywhere, but could not find it.
"You took Smallbones with you?" said Vanslyperken.
"Yes, mynheer, to carry de linen."
"And where was he when you were at the washerwoman's."
"He was here and dere."
"I know that it was he who killed and buried the dog, corporal."
Corporal Van Spitter started, he thought he was discovered.
"Kilt and perryed, mein Gott!" said the corporal, obliged to say something.
"Yes, I overheard the men say so on deck, corporal. He must have taken the opportunity when you were in the house counting the linen."
Now the corporal had time to recover himself, and he argued that anything was better than that he should be suspected. Smallbones was already known to have attempted the life of the dog, so he would leave the lieutenant in his error.
"Mein Gott' he is von d----d kill-dog feller," observed the corporal. "I look everywhere, I no find te tog. Den de dog is dead?"
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken, "but I'll punish the scoundrel, depend upon it. That will do, corporal; you may go."
As Snarleyyow remained perfectly quiet during this conversation, we must give Vanslyperken great credit for his manoeuvre. The corporal went to Smallbones, and repeated what had passed. Smallbones snapped his fingers.
"He may keel-haul, or hang me, for all I care. The dog is dead. Never fear, corporal, I won't peach upon you. I'm game, and I'll die so--if so be I must."
Vanslyperken sent for Smallbones. Smallbones, who was worked up to the highest state of excitement, came in boldly.
"So, you villain, you've killed my dog, and buried it."
"No, I ar'n't," replied Smallbones. "I knows nothing about your dog, sir."
"Why, the men on deck said so, you scoundrel, I heard them."
"I don't care what the men say; I never killed your dog, sir."
"You rascal, I'll have your life!" exclaimed Vanslyperken.
Smallbones grinned diabolically, and Vanslyperken, who remembered all that the men had said in confirmation of his own opinion relative to Smallbones, turned pale. Smallbones, on his part, aware from Corporal Van Spitter, that the lieutenant had such an idea, immediately took advantage of the signs in the lieutenant's countenance, and drawled out,--"That's--not--so--easy!"
Vanslyperken turned away. "You may go now, sir, but depend upon it you shall feel my vengeance!" and Smallbones quitted the cabin.
Vanslyperken finished his toilet, and then turned the dog out of the bed.
He went on deck, and after he had walked a little while, sent for Corporal Van Spitter to consult as to the best method of ascertaining what had become of Snarleyyow. Having entered apparently very earnestly into the corporal's arrangements, who was to go on shore immediately, he desired the corporal to see his breakfast got ready in the cabin.
It so happened, that the corporal went into the cabin, followed by Smallbones; the first object that met his view, was Snarleyyow, sitting upon the chest, scratching his ragged ear as if nothing had happened.
"Gott in himmel!" roared the corporal, turning back, and running out of the cabin, upsetting Smallbones, whom he met in the passage, and trotting, like an elephant, right over him. Nor was Smallbones the only one who suffered; two marines and three seamen were successively floored by the corporal, who, blinded with fear, never stopped till he ran his head butt against the lining in the forepeak of the cutter, which, with the timbers of the vessel, brought him up, not all standing, in one sense of the word, for in his mad career his head was dashed so violently against them, that the poor corporal fell down, stunned to insensibility.
In the meantime Smallbones had gained his feet, and was rubbing his ribs, to ascertain if they were all whole. "Well, I'm sure," said he, "if I ar'n't flattened for all the world like a pancake, with that 'ere corporal's weight. One may as well have a broad-wheel waggon at once go over one's body; but what could make him come for to go to run away bellowing in that ere manner? He must have seen the devil; or, perhaps," thought Smallbones, "that imp of the devil, Snarleyyow. I'll go and see what it was, anyhow."
Smallbones, rubbing his abdomen, where the corporal had trod hardest, walked into the cabin, where he beheld the dog. He stood with his mouth wide open.
"I defy the devil and all his works," exclaimed he, at last, "and you be one of his, that's sartain. I fear God, and I honour the king, and the parish taught me to read the bible. There you be resurrectioned up again. Well, it's no use, I suppose. Satan, I defy you, anyhow, but it's very hard that a good Christian should have to get the breakfast ready, of which you'll eat one half; I don't see why I'm to wait upon the devil or his imps."
Then Smallbones stopped, and thought a little. "I wonder whether he bee'd dead, as I thought. Master came on board last night without no one knowing nothing about it, and he might have brought the dog with him, if so be he came to again. I won't believe that he's hal-together not to be made away with, for how come his eye out? Well, I don't care, I'm a good Christian, and may I be swamped if I don't try what he's made of yet! First time we cuts up beef, I'll try and chop your tail, anyhow, that I will, if I am hung for it."
Smallbones regained his determination. He set about laying the things for breakfast, and when they were ready he went up to the quarter-deck, reporting the same to Mr Vanslyperken, who had expected to see him frightened out of his wits, and concluding his speech by saying, "If you please, sir, the dog be in the cabin, all right; I said as how I never kilt your dog, nor buried him neither."
"The dog in the cabin!" exclaimed Mr Vanslyperken, with apparent astonishment. "Why, how the devil could he have come there?"
"He cummed off, I suppose, sir, same way as you did, without nobody knowing nothing about it," drawled out Smallbones, who then walked away.
In the meantime the corporal had been picked up, and the men were attempting to recover him. Smallbones went forward to see what had become of him, and learnt how it was that he was insensible.
"Well, then," thought Smallbones, "it may have been all the same with the dog, and I believe there's humbug in it, for if the dog had made his appearance, as master pretends he did, all of a sudden, he'd a been more frightened than me."
So reasoned Smallbones, and he reasoned well. In the meantime the corporal opened his eyes, and gradually returned to his senses, and then for the first time, the ship's company, who were all down at their breakfast, demanded of Smallbones the reason of the corporal's conduct.
"Why," replied Smallbones, "because that 'ere beast, Snarleyyow, be come back again, all alive, a'ter being dead and buried--he's in the cabin now--that's all."
"That's all!" exclaimed one. "All!" cried another. "The devil!" said a third.
"I said as how it would be," said Obadiah Coble--"that dog is no dog, as sure as I sit here."
The return of the dog certainly had a strong effect upon the whole of the ship's company. The corporal swore that he was not in the cabin, and that Mr Vanslyperken had arranged for his going on shore to look for him, when all of a sudden the dog made his appearance, no one knew how. Smallbones found himself so much in the minority, that he said nothing. It was perfect heresy not to believe that the dog was sent from the lower regions; and as for any further attempts to destroy it, it was considered as perfect insanity.
But this renewed attempt on the part of Smallbones, for Vanslyperken was convinced that an attempt had been made, although it had not been successful, again excited the feelings of Mr Vanslyperken against the lad, and he resolved somehow or another to retaliate. His anger overcame his awe, and he was reckless in his desire of vengeance. There was not the least suspicion of treachery on the part of Corporal Van Spitter in the heart of Mr Vanslyperken, and the corporal played his double part so well, that if possible he was now higher in favour than ever.
After a day or two, during which Mr Vanslyperken remained on board, he sent for the corporal, determining to sound him as to whether he would make any attempts upon Smallbones; for to such a height had Vanslyperken's enmity arrived, that he now resolved to part with some of his darling money, to tempt the corporal, rather than not get rid of the lad. After many hints thrown out, but not taken by the wily corporal, who was resolved that Vanslyperken should speak plainly, the deed and the reward of ten guineas were openly proclaimed, and Vanslyperken waited for the corporal's reply.
"Mein Gott, Mynheer Vanslyperken! suppose it vas possible, I not take your money, I do it wid pleasure; but, sir, it not possible."
"Not possible!" exclaimed Vanslyperken.
"No, mynheer," replied the corporal, "I not tell you all, tousand tyfel, I not tell you all;" and here the corporal put his hand to his forehead and was silent, much to Vanslyperken's amazement. But the fact was, that Corporal Van Spitter was thinking what he possibly could say. At last, a brilliant thought struck him--he narrated to the lieutenant how he had seen the ghost of Smallbones, as he thought, when he was floating about, adrift on the Zuyder Zee--described with great force his horror at the time of the appearance of the supernatural object, and tailed on to what he believed to be true, that which he knew to be false, to wit, that the apparition had cried out to him, that "_he was not to be hurt by mortal man_." "Gott in Himmel," finished the corporal, "I never was so frightened in my life. I see him now, as plain as I see you, mynheer. Twenty tousand tyfels, but the voice was like de tunder--and his eye like de lightning--I fell back in one swoon. Ah, mein Gott, mein Gott!"
So well did the corporal play his part, that Vanslyperken became quite terrified; the candle appeared to burn dim, and he dared not move to snuff it. He could not but credit the corporal, for there was an earnestness of description, and a vividness of colouring, which could not have been invented; besides, was not the corporal his earnest and only friend? "Corporal," said Vanslyperken, "perhaps you'll like a glass of scheedam; there's some in the cupboard."
This was very kind of Mr Vanslyperken, but he wanted one himself, much more than the corporal. The corporal produced the bottle and the glass, poured it out, made his military salute, and tossed it off.
"Give me another glass, corporal," said Vanslyperken, in a tremulous tone. The lieutenant took one, two, three glasses, one after another, to recover himself.
The corporal had really frightened him. He was convinced that Smallbones had a charmed life. Did he not float to the Nab buoy and back again? --did not a pistol ball pass through him without injury? Vanslyperken shuddered; he took a fresh glass, and then handed the bottle to the corporal, who helped himself, saluted, and the liquor again disappeared in a moment.
Dutch courage is proverbial, although a libel upon one of the bravest of nations. Vanslyperken now felt it, and again he commenced with the corporal. "What were the words?" inquired he.
"Dat he was not to be hurt by mortal man, mynheer. I can take mine piple oath of it," replied the corporal.
"Damnation!" cried Vanslyperken; "but stop--mortal man--perhaps he may be hurt by woman."
"Dat is quite anoder ting, mynheer."
"He shan't escape if I can help it," retorted Vanslyperken. "I must think about it." Vanslyperken poured out another glass of scheedam, and pushed the stone bottle to the corporal, who helped himself without ceremony. Mr Vanslyperken was now about two-thirds drunk, for he was not used to such a quantity of spirits.
"Now, if I had only been friends with that--that--hell-fire Moggy Salisbury," thought Vanslyperken, speaking aloud to himself.
"Mein Gott, yes, mynheer," replied the corporal.
Vanslyperken took another glass--spilling a great deal on the table as he poured it out; he then covered his eyes with his hand, as if in thought. Thereupon the corporal filled without being asked, and, as he perceived that his superior remained in the same position, and did not observe him, he helped himself to a second glass, and then waited till Vanslyperken should speak again; but the liquor had overpowered him, and he spoke no more.
The corporal, after a few minutes, went up to his superior; he touched him on the shoulder, saying, "Mynheer," but he obtained no reply. On the contrary, the slight touch made Mr Vanslyperken fall forward on the table. He was quite insensible.
So the corporal took him up in his arms, laid him in his bed, then taking possession of the lieutenant's chair, for he was tired of standing so long, he set to work to empty the bottle, which, being large and full at the time that it was produced from the cupboard, took some time, and before it was accomplished, the Corporal Van Spitter had fallen fast asleep in the chair. Shortly afterwards the candle burnt out, and the cabin was in darkness.
It was about three o'clock in the morning when Mr Vanslyperken began to recover his senses, and as his recollection returned, so were his ears met with a stupendous roaring and unusual noise. It was, to his imagination, unearthly, for he had been troubled with wild dreams about Smallbones, and his appearance to the corporal. It sounded like thunder, and Mr Vanslyperken thought that he could plainly make out, "_Mortal man! mortal man! _" and, at times, the other words of the supernatural intimation to the corporal. The mortal man was drawn out in lengthened cadence, and in a manner truly horrible. Vanslyperken called out, "Mor--tal--man," was the reply.
Again Vanslyperken almost shrieked in a perspiration of fear. The sound now ceased; but it was followed up by a noise like the rattling of glasses, tumbling about of the chairs and table, and Vanslyperken buried his face under the clothes. Then the door, which had been shut, was heard by him to slam like thunder; and then Snarleyyow barked loud and deep. "Oh! God forgive me!" cried the terrified lieutenant. "Our Father--which art in heaven--save me--save me!"
Shortly afterwards the corporal made his appearance with a light, and inquired if Mr Vanslyperken had called. He found him reeking with perspiration, and half dead with fear. In broken words he stated how he had been visited, and how the same intimation that no mortal man could hurt Smallbones had been rung into his ears.
"It was only one dream, Mynheer Vanslyperken," observed the corporal.
"No--it was no dream," replied Vanslyperken. "Stay in the cabin, good corporal."
"Yes, mynheer," replied the corporal, drawing the curtains of the bed; and then quietly picking up the various articles on the floor, the table and chairs which had been overturned.
Alas! Fear is the mate of guilt. All this horrid visitation was simply that Mr Vanslyperken had heard the corporal's tremendous snoring, as he slept in the chair, and which his imagination had turned into the words, "Mortal man." The first exclamation of Mr Vanslyperken had awoke the corporal, who, aware of the impropriety of his situation, had attempted to retreat; in so doing he had overturned the table and chairs, with the bottles and glasses upon them.
Fearful of discovery upon this unexpected noise, he had hastened out of the cabin, slammed the door, and waked up Snarleyyow; but he knew, from the exclamations of Vanslyperken, that the lieutenant was frightened out of his wits; so he very boldly returned with a candle to ascertain the result of the disturbance, and was delighted to find that the lieutenant was still under the delusion.
So soon as he had replaced everything, the corporal took a chair, and finding that he had fortunately put the cork into the stone bottle before he fell asleep, and that there was still one or two glasses in it, he drank them off, and waited patiently for daylight. By this time Vanslyperken was again asleep and snoring; so the corporal took away all the broken fragments, put the things in order, and left the cabin.
When Vanslyperken awoke and rang his bell, Smallbones entered. Vanslyperken got up, and finding the cabin as it was left the night before, was more than ever persuaded that he had been supernaturally visited. Fear made him quite civil to the lad, whose life he now considered, as the ship's company did that of the dog's, it was quite useless for him, at least, to attempt, and thus ends this chapter of horrors.
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In which there is nothing very particular or very interesting.
We must now change the scene for a short time, and introduce to our readers a company assembled in the best inn which, at that time, was to be found in the town of Cherbourg. The room in which they were assembled was large in dimensions, but with a low ceiling--the windows were diminutive, and gave but a subdued light, on account of the vicinity of the houses opposite. The window-frames were small, and cut diamond-wise; and, in the centre of each of the panes, was a round of coarsely-painted glass. A narrow table ran nearly the length of the room, and, at each end of it, there was a large chimney, in both of which logs of wood were burning cheerfully. What are now termed _chaises longues_, were drawn to the sides of the table, or leaning against the walls of the room, which were without ornament, and neatly coloured with yellow ochre.
The company assembled might have been about thirty in number, of which half a dozen, perhaps, were in the ecclesiastical dress of the time; while the others wore the habiliments then appropriated to cavaliers or gentlemen, with very little difference from those as worn in the times of the Charleses in England, except that the cloak had been discarded, and the more substantial roquelaure substituted in its place. Most of the party were men who had not yet arrived to middle age, if we except the clericals, who were much more advanced in life; and any one, who had ever fallen in with the smuggling lugger and its crew, would have had no difficulty in recognising many of them, in the well-attired and evidently high-born and well-educated young men, who were seated or standing in the room. Among them Sir Robert Barclay was eminently conspicuous; he was standing by the fire conversing with two of the ecclesiastics.
"Gentlemen," said he at last, "our worthy Father Lovell has just arrived from St Germains; and, as the most rapid communication is now necessary, he is empowered to open here and before us, every despatch which we bring over, before it is transmitted to head-quarters, with permission to act as may seem best to the friends of his Majesty here assembled."
The fact was, that King James had lately completely given himself up to religious exercises and mortification, and any communication to him was attended with so much delay, that it had been considered advisable to act without consulting him; and to avoid the delay consequent on the transmission of communications to Paris, the most active parties had determined that they would, for the present, take up their residence at Cherbourg, and merely transmit to their friends at St Germains, an account of their proceedings, gaining, at least, a week by this arrangement. The party assembled had many names of some note. Among the ecclesiastics were Lovell, Collier, Snatt, and Cooke; among the cavaliers were those of Musgrave, Friend, and Perkins, whose relatives had suffered in the cause; Smith, Clancey, Herbert, Cunningham, Leslie, and many others.
When Sir Robert Barclay approached the table, the others took their seats in silence.
"Gentlemen," said Sir Robert, laying down the despatches, which had been opened, "you must be aware that our affairs now wear a very prosperous appearance. Supported as we are by many in the government of England, and by more in the House of Commons, with so many adherents here to our cause, we have every rational prospect of success. During the first three months of this year, much has been done; and, at the same time, it must be confessed that the usurper and the heretics have taken every step in their power to assail and to crush us. By this despatch, now in my hand, it appears that a Bill has passed the Commons, by which it is enacted, 'that no person born after the 25th March next, being a Papist, shall be capable of inheriting any title of honour or estate, within the kingdom of England, dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick-on-the-Tweed.'"
Here, some of the ecclesiastics lifted up their eyes, others struck their clenched hands on the table, and the cavaliers, as if simultaneously, made the room ring, by seizing hold of the handles of their swords.
"And further, gentlemen, 'that no Papist shall be capable of purchasing any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, either in his own name, or in the name of any other person in trust for him.'"
The reader must be reminded, that in those days, there was no _Times_ or _Morning Herald_ laid upon the breakfast table with the debates of the House--that communication was anything but rapid, there being no regular post--so that what had taken place two months back, was very often news.
"It appears then, gentlemen, that our only chance is to win our properties with our own good swords."
"We will!" was the unanimous reply of the laity present.
"In Scotland, our adherents increase daily; the interests of so many have been betrayed by the usurper, that thousands of swords will start from their scabbards so soon as we can support the cause with the promised assistance of the court of Versailles: and we have here intelligence that the parliament are in a state of actual hostility to the usurper, and that the national ferment is so great as to be almost on the verge of rebellion. I have also gained from a private communication from our friend Ramsay, who is now at Amsterdam, and in a position to be most useful to us, that the usurper has intimated to his own countrymen, although it is not yet known in England, that he will return to the Hague in July. Such, gentlemen, is the intelligence I have to impart as respects our own prospects in our own country--to which I have to add, that the secret partition treaty, which is inimical to the interests of the French king, has been signed both in London and the Hague, as well as by the French envoy there. A more favourable occurrence for us, perhaps, never occurred, as it will only increase the already well-known ill-will of his Catholic Majesty against the usurper of his own father-in-law's crown. I have now, gentlemen, laid before you our present position and future prospects; and, as we are met to consult upon the propriety of further measures, I shall be most happy to hear the suggestions of others."
Sir Robert Barclay then sat down.
Lovell, the Jesuit, first rose. "I have," said he, "no opinion to offer relative to warlike arrangements, those not being suitable to my profession. I leave them to men like Sir Robert, whose swords are always ready, and whose talents are so well able to direct their swords; still, it is well known, that the sources of war must be obtained, if war is to be carried on; and I have great pleasure in announcing to those assembled, that from our friends in England, I have received advice of the two several sums of ninety-three thousand pounds and twenty-nine thousand pounds, sterling money, having been actually collected, and now held in trust for the support of the good cause; and, further, that the collections are still going on with rapidity and success. From his most Catholic Majesty we have received an order upon the minister for the sum of four thousand louis, which has been duly honoured, and from our blessed father, the Pope, an order for five hundred thousand paolis, amounting to about thirteen thousand pounds in sterling money, together with entire absolution for all sins already committed, and about to be committed, and a secure promise of paradise to those who fall in the maintenance of the true faith and the legitimate king. I have, further, great expectations from Ireland, and many promises from other quarters, in support of the cause which, with the blessing of God, I trust will yet triumph," As soon as Lovell sat down, Collier, the ecclesiastic, rose.
"That we shall find plenty of willing swords, and a sufficient supply of money for our purposes, there can be no doubt; but I wish to propose one question to the company here assembled. It is an undoubted article of the true faith, that we are bound to uphold it by any and by every means. All human attempts are justifiable in the service of God. Many have already been made to get rid of the usurper, but they have not been crowned with success, as we too well know; and the blood of our friends, many of whom were not accessories to the act, has been lavishly spilt by the insatiate heretic.
"But they have, before this, received immortal crowns, in suffering as martyrs in the cause of religion and justice. I still hold that our attempts to cut off the usurper should be continued; some hand more fortunate may succeed. But not only is his life to be taken, if possible, but the succession must be cut off root and branch. You all know that, of the many children born to the heretic William, all but one have been taken away from him in judgment for his manifold crimes. One only remains, the present Duke of Gloucester, and I do consider that this branch of heresy should be removed, even in preference to his parent, whose conduct is such as to assist our cause, and whose death may weaken the animosity of his Catholic Majesty, whose hostility is well known to be personal. I have neither men nor money to offer to you, but I have means, I trust, soon to accomplish this point, and I dedicate my useless life to the attempt."
It would occupy too much of our pages, if we were to narrate all that was said and done at this conference, which we have been obliged to report, as intimately connected with our history. Many others addressed the meeting, proposals were made, rejected, and acceded to. Lists of adherents were produced, and of those who might be gained over. Resolutions were entered into and recorded, and questions debated. Before the breaking up, the accounts of the sums expended, and the monies still on hand, were brought forward; and in the former items, the name of Vanslyperken appeared rather prominent. As soon as the accounts were audited, the conference broke up.
We have said that, among those who were at the conference, might be observed some persons who might be recognised as part of the crew of the lugger. Such was the case; Sir Robert Barclay and many others were men of good family, and stout Jacobites. These young men served in the boat with the other men, who were no more than common seamen; but this was considered necessary in those times of treachery. The lugger pulled eighteen oars, was clinker built, and very swift, even with a full cargo. The after-oars were pulled by the adherents of Sir Robert, and the arm-chest was stowed in the stern-sheets: so that these young men being always armed, no attempt to betray them, or to rise against them, on the part of the smugglers, had they been so inclined, could have succeeded. Ramsay's trust as steersman had been appropriated to Jemmy Salisbury, but no other alteration had taken place. We have entered into this detail to prove the activity of the Jacobite party. About an hour after the conference, Sir Robert and his cavaliers had resumed their seamen's attire, for they were to go over that night; and two hours before dusk, those who had been at a conference, in which the fate of kingdoms and crowned heads was at stake, were to be seen labouring at the oar, in company with common seamen, and urging the fast boat through the yielding waters, towards her haven at the cove.
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Besides other Matter, containing an Argument.
We left Ramsay domiciliated in the house of the syndic Van Krause, on excellent terms with his host, who looked upon him as the mirror of information, and not a little in the good graces of the syndic's daughter, Wilhelmina. There could not be a more favourable opportunity, perhaps, for a handsome and well-informed young man to prosecute his addresses and to gain the affections of the latter, were he so inclined. Wilhelmina had been brought up in every luxury, but isolated from the world. She was now just at the age at which it was her father's intention to introduce her; but romantic in her disposition, she cared little for the formal introduction which it was intended should take place. Neither had she seen, in any of the young Dutch aristocracy, most of whom were well known to her by sight, as pointed out to her by her father when riding with him, that form and personal appearance which her mind's eye had embodied in her visions of her future lover. Her mind was naturally refined, and she looked for that elegance and grace of deportment which she sought for in vain among her countrymen, but which had suddenly been presented to her in the person of Edward Ramsay.
In the few meetings of her father's friends at their house, the conversation was uninteresting, if not disgusting; for it was about goods and merchandise, money and speculation, occasionally interrupted by politics, which were to her of as little interest. How different was the demeanour, the address, and the conversation of the young Englishman, who had been bred in courts, and, at the same time, had travelled much! There was an interest in all he said, so much information blended with novelty and amusement, so much wit and pleasantry crowning all, that Wilhelmina was fascinated without her being aware of it; and, before the terms of intimacy had warranted her receiving his hand on meeting, she had already unconsciously given her heart. The opportunities arising from her father's close attention to his commercial affairs, and the mutual attraction which brought them together during the major part of the day, she, anxious to be amused, and he attracted by her youth and beauty, were taken advantage of by them both, and the consequence was that, before ten days, they were inseparable.
The syndic either did not perceive the danger to which his child was exposed, provided that there was any objection to the intimacy, or else, equally pleased with Ramsay, he had no objection to matters taking their course.
As for Ramsay, that he had at first cultivated the intimacy with Wilhelmina more perhaps from distraction than with any definite purpose, is certain; but he soon found that her attractions were too great to permit him to continue it, if he had not serious intentions. When he had entered his own room, before he had been a week in the house, he had taxed himself severely as to the nature of his feelings, and he was then convinced that he must avoid her company, which was impossible if he remained in the house, or, as a man of honour, make a timely retreat; for Ramsay was too honourable to trifle with the feelings of an innocent girl. Having well weighed this point, he then calculated the probability of his being discovered, and the propriety of his continuing his attentions to the daughter of one whom he was deceiving, and whose political opinions were at such variance with his own--but this was a point on which he could come to no decision. His duty to the cause he supported would not allow him to quit the house--to remain in the house without falling in love was impossible.
Why should his political opinions ever be known? and why should not Wilhelmina be of the same opinion as he was? --and why--Ramsay fell asleep, putting these questions to himself, and the next morning he resolved that things should take their chance.
It was about a fortnight since the cutter had left for England. Ramsay was rather impatient for intelligence, but the cutter had not yet returned. Breakfast had been over some time, Mynheer Van Krause had descended to his warehouses, and Ramsay and Wilhelmina were sitting together upon one of the sofas in the saloon, both reclining and free from that restraint of which nothing but extreme intimacy will divest you.
"And so, my Wilhelmina," said Ramsay, taking up her hand, which lay listless at her side, and playing with her taper fingers, "you really think William of Nassau is a good man."
"And do not you, Ramsay?" replied Wilhelmina, surprised.
"However I may rejoice at his being on the throne of England, I doubt whether I can justify his conduct to the unfortunate King James; in leaguing against his own father-in-law and dispossessing him of his kingdom. Suppose now, Wilhelmina, that any fortunate man should become one day your husband: what a cruel--what a diabolical conduct it would be on his part--at least, so it appears to me--if, in return for your father putting him in possession of perhaps his greatest treasure on earth, he were to seize upon all your father's property, and leave him a beggar, because other people were to invite him so to do."
"I never heard it placed in that light before, Ramsay; that the alliance between King William and his father-in-law should have made him very scrupulous, I grant, but when the happiness of a nation depended upon it, ought not a person in William's situation to waive all minor considerations?"
"The happiness of a nation, Wilhelmina? In what way would you prove that so much was at stake?"
"Was not the Protestant religion at stake? Is not King James a bigoted Catholic?"
"I grant that, and therefore ought not to reign over a Protestant nation; but if you imagine that the happiness of any nation depends upon his religion, I am afraid you are deceived. Religion has been made the excuse for interfering with the happiness of a nation whenever no better excuse could be brought forward; but depend upon it, the mass of the people will never quarrel about religion if they are left alone, and their interests not interfered with. Had King James not committed himself in other points, he might have worshipped his Creator in any form he thought proper. That a Protestant king was all that was necessary to quiet the nation, is fully disproved by the present state of the country, now that the sceptre has been, for some years, swayed by King William, it being, at this moment, in a state very nearly approaching to rebellion."
"But is not that occasioned by the machinations of the Jacobite party, who are promoting dissension in every quarter?" replied Wilhelmina.
"I grant that they are not idle," replied Ramsay; "but observe the state of bitter variance between William and the House of Commons, which represents the people of England. What can religion have to do with that? No, Wilhelmina; although, in this country there are few who do not rejoice at their king being called to the throne of England, there are many, and those the most wise, in that country, who lament it quite as much."
"But why so?"
"Because mankind are governed by interest, and patriotism is little more than a cloak. The benefits to this country, by the alliance with England, are very great, especially in a commercial point of view, and therefore you will find no want of patriots; but to England the case is different; it is not her interest to be involved and mixed up in continental wars and dissensions, which must now inevitably be the case. Depend upon it, that posterity will find that England will have paid very dear for a Protestant king; religion is what everyone is willing to admit the propriety and necessity of, until they are taxed to pay for it, and then it is astonishing how very indifferent, if not disgusted, they become to it."
"Why, Ramsay, one would never imagine you to be such a warm partisan of the present government, as I believe you really are, to hear you talk this morning," replied Wilhelmina.
"My public conduct, as belonging to a party, does not prevent my having my private opinions. To my party, I am, and ever will be steadfast; but knowing the world, and the secret springs of most people's actions, as I do, you must not be surprised at my being so candid with you, Wilhelmina. Our conversation, I believe, commenced upon the character of King William; and I will confess to you, that estimating the two characters in moral worth, I would infinitely prefer being the exiled and Catholic James than the unnatural and crowned King William?"
"You will say next, that you would just as soon be a Catholic as a Protestant."
"And if I had been brought up in the tenets of the one instead of the other, what difference would it have made, except that I should have adhered to the creed of my forefathers, and have worshipped the Almighty after their fashion, form, and ceremonies? And are not all religions good if they be sincere? --do not they all tend to the same object, and have the same goal in view--that of gaining heaven? Would you not prefer a good, honest, conscientious man, were he a Catholic, to a mean, intriguing, and unworthy person, who professed himself a Protestant?"
"Most certainly; but I should prefer to the just Catholic, a man who was a just Protestant."
"That is but natural; but recollect, Wilhelmina, you have seen and heard, as yet, but one side of the question; and if I speak freely to you, it is only to give you the advantage of my experience from having mixed with the world. I am true to my party, and, as a man, I must belong to a party, or I become a nonentity. But were I in a condition so unshackled that I might take up or lay down my opinions as I pleased, without loss of character--as a woman may, for instance--so little do I care for party--so well balanced do I know the right and the wrong to be on both sides--that I would, to please one I loved, at once yield up my opinions, to agree with her, if she would not yield up hers to agree with mine."
"Then you think a woman might do so? that is no compliment to the sex, Ramsay; for it is as much as to assert that we have not only no weight or influence in the world, but also that we have no character or stability."
"Far from it; I only mean to say that women do not generally enter sufficiently into politics to care much for them; they generally imbibe the politics of those they live with, without further examination, and that it is no disgrace to them if they change them. Besides, there is one feeling in women so powerful as to conquer all others, and when once that enters the breast, the remainder are absorbed or become obedient to it."
"And that feeling is" "Love, Wilhelmina; and if a woman happens to have been brought up in one way of thinking by her parents, when she transfers her affections to her husband, should his politics be adverse, she will soon come round to his opinion, if she really loves him."
"I am not quite so sure of that, Ramsay."
"I am quite sure she ought. Politics and party are ever a subject of dispute, and therefore should be avoided by a wife; besides, if a woman selects one as her husband, her guide and counsellor through life, one whom she swears to love, honour, cherish, and obey, she gives but a poor proof of it, if she does not yield up her judgment in all matters more peculiarly his province."
"You really put things in such a new light, Ramsay, that I hardly know how to answer you, even when I am not convinced."
"Because you have not had sufficient time for reflection, Wilhelmina; but weigh well, and dwell upon what I have said, and then you will either acknowledge that I am right, or find arguments to prove that I am wrong. But you promised me some singing. Let me lead you into the music-room."
We have introduced this conversation between Wilhelmina and Ramsay, to show not only what influence he had already gained over the artless, yet intelligent girl, but also the way by which he considerately prepared her for the acknowledgment which he resolved to make to her on some future opportunity; for, although Ramsay cared little for deceiving the father, he would not have married the daughter without her being fully aware of who he was. These conversations were constantly renewed, as if accidentally, by Ramsay; and long before he had talked in direct terms of love, he had fully prepared her for it, so that he felt she would not receive a very severe shock when he threw off the mask, even when she discovered that he was a Catholic, and opposed to her father in religion as well as in politics. The fact was, that Ramsay, at first, was as much attracted by her wealth as by her personal charms; but, like many other men, as his love increased, so did he gradually become indifferent to her wealth, and he was determined to win her for his wife in spite of all obstacles, and even if he were obliged, to secure her hand, by carrying her off without the paternal consent.
Had it been requisite, it is not certain whether Ramsay might not have been persuaded to have abandoned his party, so infatuated had he at last become with the really fascinating Wilhelmina.
But Ramsay was interrupted in the middle of one of his most favourite songs by old Koops, who informed him that the lieutenant of the cutter was waiting for him in his room. Apologising for the necessary absence, Ramsay quitted the music-room, and hastened to meet Vanslyperken.
Mr Vanslyperken had received his orders to return to the Hague a few days after the fright he had received from the nasal organ of the corporal. In pursuance of his instructions from Ramsay, he had not failed to open all the government despatches, and extract their contents. He had also brought over letters from Ramsay's adherents.
"You are sure these extracts are quite correct?" said Ramsay, after he had read them over.
"Quite so, sir," replied Vanslyperken.
"And you have been careful to seal the letters again, so as to avoid suspicion?"
"Does not my life depend upon it, Mr Ramsay?"
"Very true, and also upon your fidelity to us. Here's your money. Let me know when you sail, and come for orders."
Vanslyperken then took his bag of money, made his bow, and departed, and Ramsay commenced reading over the letters received from his friends. Mynheer Van Krause observed Vanslyperken as he was leaving the house, and immediately hastened to Ramsay's room to inquire the news. A portion of the contents of the despatches were made known to him, and the syndic was very soon afterwards seen to walk out, leaving his people to mark and tally the bales which were hoisting out from a vessel in the canal. The fact was, that Mynheer Van Krause was so anxious to get rid of his secret, that he could not contain himself any longer, and had set off to communicate to one of the authorities what he had obtained.
"But from whence did you receive this intelligence, Mynheer Krause," demanded the other. "The despatches have not yet been opened; we are waiting for Mynheer Van Wejen. I suppose we shall learn something there. You knew all before we did, when the cutter arrived last time. You must have some important friends at the English court, Mynheer Van Krause."
Here Mynheer Krause nodded his head, and looked very knowing, and shortly afterwards took his leave.
But this particular friend of Mynheer Krause was also his particular enemy. Krause had lately imparted secrets which were supposed to be known and entrusted to none but those in the entire confidence of the government. How could he have obtained them unless by the treachery of some one at home; and why should Mynheer Krause, who was not trusted by the government there, notwithstanding his high civil office, because he was known to be unsafe, be trusted by some one at home, unless it were for treacherous purposes? So argued Mr Krause's most particular friend, who thought it proper to make known his opinions on the subject, and to submit to the other authorities whether this was not a fair subject for representation in their next despatches to England; and in consequence of his suggestion, the representation was duly made. Mynheer Krause was not the first person whose tongue had got him into difficulties.
So soon as Vanslyperken had delivered his despatches to Ramsay, he proceeded to the widow Vandersloosh, when, as usual, he was received with every apparent mark of cordial welcome, was again installed on the little sofa, and again drank the beer of the widow's own brewing, and was permitted to take her fat hand. Babette inquired after the corporal, and, when rallied by the lieutenant, appeared to blush, and turned her head away. The widow also assisted in the play, and declared that it should be a match, and that Babette and herself should be married on the same day. As the evening drew nigh, Vanslyperken took his leave, and went on board, giving permission to the corporal to go on shore, and very soon the corporal was installed in his place.
This is a sad world of treachery and deceit.
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In which the agency of a red-herring is again introduced into our wonderful history.
We are somewhat inclined to moralise. We did not intend to write this day. On the contrary, we had arranged for a party of pleasure and relaxation, in which the heels, and every other portion of the body upwards, except the brain, were to be employed, and that was to have a respite. The morning was fair, and we promised ourselves amusement, but we were deceived, and we returned to our task, as the rain poured down in torrents, washing the dirty face of mother earth. Yes, deceived; and here we cannot help observing, that this history of ours is a very true picture of human life--for what a complication of treachery does it not involve!
Smallbones is deceiving his master, Mr Vanslyperken--the corporal is deceiving Mr Vanslyperken--the widow is deceiving Mr Vanslyperken, so is Babette, and the whole crew of the _Yungfrau_. Ramsay is deceiving his host and his mistress. All the Jacobites, in a mass, are plotting against and deceiving the government, and as for Mr Vanslyperken; as it will soon appear, he is deceiving everybody, and will ultimately deceive himself. The only honest party in the whole history is the one most hated, as generally is the case in this world--I mean Snarleyyow. There is no deceit about him, and therefore, _par excellence_, he is fairly entitled to be the hero of, and to give his name to, the work. The next most honest party in the book is Wilhelmina; all the other women, except little Lilly, are cheats and impostors--and Lilly is too young; our readers may, therefore, be pleased to consider Snarleyyow and Wilhelmina as the hero and the heroine of the tale, and then it will leave one curious feature in it, the principals will not only not be united, but the tale will wind up without their ever seeing each other. _Allons en avant_.
But of all the treachery practised by all the parties, it certainly appears to us that the treachery of the widow was the most odious and diabolical. She was like a bloated spider, slowly entwining those threads for her victim which were to entrap him to his destruction, for she had vowed that she never would again be led to the hymeneal altar until Mr Vanslyperken was hanged. Perhaps, the widow Vandersloosh was in a hurry to be married, at least, by her activity, it would so appear--but let us not anticipate.
The little sofa was fortunately like its build, strong as a cob, or it never could have borne the weight of two such lovers as the widow Vandersloosh and the Corporal Van Spitter; there they sat, she radiant with love and beer, he with ditto; their sides met, for the sofa exactly took them both in, without an inch to spare; their hands met, their eyes met, and whenever one raised the glass, the other was on the alert, and their glasses met and jingled--a more practical specimen of hob and nob was never witnessed. There was but one thing wanting to complete their happiness, which, unlike other people's, did not hang upon a thread, but something much stronger, it hung upon a cord; the cord which was to hang Mr Vanslyperken.
And now the widow, like the three fates rolled into one, is weaving the woof, and, in good Dutch, is pouring into the attentive ear of the corporal her hopes and fears, her surmises, her wishes, her anticipations, and her desires--and he imbibes them all greedily, washing them down with the beer of the widow's own brewing.
"He has not been to the house opposite these two last arrivals," said the widow, "that is certain; for Babette and I have been on the watch. There was hanging matter there. Now I won't believe but that he must go somewhere; he carries his letters, and takes his gold as before, depend upon it. Yes, and I will find it out. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, we will see who is the 'cutest--you, or the widow Vandersloosh."
"Mein Gott, yes!" replied the corporal.
"Now he landed a passenger last time, which he called a king's messenger, and I am as sure as I sit here that he was no king's messenger, unless he was one of King James's as was; for look you, Corporal Van Spitter, do you suppose that King William would employ an Englishman, as you say he was, for a messenger, when a Dutchman was to be had for love or money?"
"No, no, we must find out where he goes to. I will have some one on the look out when you come again, and then set Babette on the watch; she shall track him up to the den of his treachery. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, we will see who gains the day, you or the widow Vandersloosh."
"Mein Gott! yes," replied the corporal.
"And now, corporal, I've been thinking over all this ever since your absence, and all you have told me about his cowardly attempts upon that poor boy's life, and his still greater cowardice in believing such stuff as you have made him believe about the lad not being injured by mortal man. Stuff and nonsense! the lad is but a lad."
"Mein Gott! yes," said the corporal.
"And now, corporal, I'll tell you something else, which is, that you and the _Yungfraus_ are just as great fools as Mynheer Vanslyperken, in believing all that stuff and nonsense about the dog. The dog is but a dog."
This was rather a trial to the corporal's politeness; to deny what the widow said, might displease, and, as he firmly believed otherwise, he was put to a nonplus; but the widow looked him full in the face, expecting assent, so at last the corporal drawled out, "Mein Gott! yes a tog is but a tog."
The widow was satisfied, and not perceiving the nice distinction, continued.
"Well, then, corporal, as a lad is but a lad, and a dog is but a dog, I have been setting my wits to work about getting the rascally traitor in my power. I mean to pretend to take every interest in him, and to get all his secrets, and then, when he tells me that Smallbones cannot be hurt by mortal man, I shall say he can by woman, at all events; and then I shall make a proposition, which he'll accept fast enough, and then I'll have more hanging matter for him, besides getting rid of the cur. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, match a woman if you can. We'll see if your dog is to take possession of my bedroom again."
"Mein Gott! yes," replied the corporal again.
"And now I'll tell you what I'll do, Mr Corporal; I will prepare it myself; and, then, Mr Vanslyperken shall have it grilled for his breakfast, and then he shall not eat it, but leave it for Smallbones, and then Smallbones shall pretend to eat it, but put it in his pocket, and then (for it won't do to do it on board, or he'll find out that the lad has given it to the dog) he shall bring it on shore, and give it to the dog here in the yard, so that he shall kill the dog himself, by wishing to kill others. Do you understand, corporal?"
"Mein Gott! yes, I understand what you say; but what is it that you are to prepare?"
"What? why, a red-herring to be sure."
"But how will a red-herring kill a body or a dog?"
"Lord, corporal, how stupid you are; I'm to put arsenic in."
"Yes; but you left that out till now."
"Did I? well, that was an oversight; but now, corporal, you understand it all?"
"Mein Gott! yes; but if the lad does not die, what will he think?"
"Think! that he can take poison like pea-soup, without injury, and that neither man nor woman can take his life; be afraid of the lad, and leave him alone."
"Mein Gott! yes," replied the rather obtuse corporal, who now understood the whole plot.
Such was the snare laid for Mr Vanslyperken by the treacherous widow, and before the cutter sailed, it was put in execution. She received the lieutenant now as an accepted lover, allowed him to talk of the day, wormed out of him all his secrets except that of his treason, abused Smallbones, and acknowledged that she had been too hasty about the dog, which she would be very happy to see on shore. Vanslyperken could hardly believe his senses--the widow forgive Snarleyyow, and all for his sake, he was delighted, enchanted, threw himself at her feet, and vowed eternal gratitude with his lips--but vengeance in his heart.
Oh! Mr Vanslyperken, you deserved to be deceived.
The dislike expressed by the widow against Smallbones was also very agreeable to the lieutenant, and he made her his confidant, stating what the corporal had told him relative to the appearance of Smallbones when he was adrift.
"Well then, lieutenant," said the widow, "if mortal man can't hurt him, mortal woman may; and for my love for you I will prepare what will rid you of him. But, Vanslyperken, recollect there's nothing I would not do for you; but if it were found out--O dear! O dear!"
The widow then informed him that she would prepare a red-herring with arsenic, which he should take on board, and order Smallbones to grill for his breakfast; that he was to pretend not to be well, and to allow it to be taken away by the lad, who would, of course, eat it fast enough.
"Excellent!" replied Vanslyperken, who felt not only that he should get rid of Smallbones, but have the widow in his power. "Dearest widow, how can I be sufficiently grateful? Oh! how kind, how amiable you are!" continued Vanslyperken, mumbling her fat fingers, which the widow abandoned to him without reserve.
Who would have believed that, between these two, there existed a deadly hatred? We might imagine such a thing to take place in the refinement and artificial air of a court, but not in a Dutch Lust Haus at Amsterdam. That evening, before his departure, did the widow present her swain with the fatal herring; and the swain received it with as many marks of gratitude and respect, as some knight in ancient times would have shown when presented with some magical gift by his favouring genius.
The red-herring itself was but a red-herring, but the charm consisted in the two-pennyworth of arsenic.
The next morning Vanslyperken did not fail to order the red-herring for his breakfast, but took good care not to eat it.
Smallbones, who had been duly apprised of the whole plan, asked his master, as he cleared away, whether he should keep the red-herring for the next day; but Mr Vanslyperken very graciously informed him that he might eat it himself. About an hour afterwards Mr Vanslyperken went on shore, taking with him, for the first time, Snarleyyow, and desiring Smallbones to come with him, with a bag of biscuit for the widow. This plan had been proposed by the widow, as Smallbones might be supposed to have eaten something on shore. Smallbones took as good care as his master not to eat the herring, but put it in his pocket as a _bonne bouche_ for Snarleyyow. Mr Vanslyperken, as they pulled on shore, thought that the lad smelt very strong of herring, and this satisfied him that he had eaten it; but to make more sure, he exclaimed, "Confound it, how you smell of red-herring!"
"That's all along of having eaten one, sir," replied Smallbones, grinning.
"You'll grin in another way before an hour is over," thought his master.
The lieutenant, the dog, and the biscuit were all graciously received.
"Has he eaten it?" inquired the widow.
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken, with a nod. "Empty the bag, and I will send him on board again."
"Not yet, not yet--give him half an hour to saunter, it will be better. That poor dog of yours must want a little grass," said the widow, "always being on board. Let him run a little in the yard, he will find plenty there."
The obedient lieutenant opened the back-door, and Snarleyyow, who had not forgotten either the widow Or Babette, went out of his own accord. Mr Vanslyperken looked to ascertain if the yard-door, which led to the street, was fast, and then returned, shutting the back-door after him.
Smallbones was waiting at the porch as usual.
"Babette," cried the widow, "mind you don't open the yard-door and let Mr Vanslyperken's dog out. Do you hear?"
Smallbones, who understood this as the signal, immediately slipped round, opened the yard-door, took the herring out of his pocket, and threw it to Snarleyyow. The dog came to it, smelt it, seized it, and walked off, with his ears and tail up, to the sunny side of the yard, intending to have a good meal; and Smallbones, who was afraid of Mr Vanslyperken catching him in the act, came out of the yard, and hastened to his former post at the porch. He caught Babette's eye, coming down stairs, and winked and smiled. Babette walked into the room, caught the eye of the mistress, and winked and smiled. Upon which, the widow ordered Babette to empty the bread-bag and give it to Smallbones, to take on board,--an order repeated by Vanslyperken. Before he returned to the boat, Smallbones again passed round to the yard-door. Snarleyyow was there, but no signs of the red-herring. "He's a eaten it all, by gum," said Smallbones, grinning, and walking away to the boat, with the bread-bag over his shoulder. As soon as he had arrived on board, the lad communicated the fact to the crew of the _Yungfrau_, whose spirits were raised by the intelligence, with the exception still of old Coble, who shook his head, and declared, "It was twopence and a red-herring thrown away."
Mr Vanslyperken returned on board in the afternoon, fully expecting to hear of Smallbones being very ill. He was surprised that the man in the boat did not tell him, and he asked them carelessly if there was anything new on board, but received a reply in the negative. When he came on board, followed by Snarleyyow, the eyes of the crew were directed towards the dog, to see how he looked; but he appeared just as lively and as cross-grained as ever, and they all shook their heads.
Vanslyperken sent for Smallbones, and looked him hard in the face. "Ar'n't you well?" inquired he.
"Well, sir!" replied Smallbones: "I'd a bit of a twinge in my stummick this morning, but it's all gone off now."
Mr Vanslyperken waited the whole day for Smallbones to die, but he did not. The crew of the vessel waited the whole day for the cur to die, but he did not. What inference could be drawn. The crew made up their minds that the dog was supernatural; and old Coble told them that he told them so. Mr Vanslyperken made up his mind that Smallbones was supernatural, and the corporal shook his head, and told him that he told him so.
The reason why Snarleyyow did not die was simply this, that he did not eat the red-herring. He had just laid it between his paws, and was about to commence, when Smallbones, having left the yard-door open in his hurry, the dog was perceived by a dog bigger than he, who happened to pass that way, and who pounced upon Snarleyyow, trampling him over and over, and walked off with the red-herring, which he had better have left alone, as he was found dead the next morning.
The widow heard, both from the corporal and Vanslyperken, the failure of both their projects. That Smallbones was not poisoned she was not surprised to hear, but she took care to agree with Vanslyperken that all attempts upon him were useless; but that the dog still lived was indeed a matter of surprise, and the widow became a convert to the corporal's opinion that the dog was not to be destroyed.
"A whole two-pennyworth of arsenic! Babette, only think what a cur it must be!" And Babette, as well as her mistress, lifted up her hands in amazement, exclaiming, "What a cur indeed!"
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In which Mr Vanslyperken, although at fault, comes in for the brush.
Vanslyperken having obtained his despatches from the States General, called at the house of Mynheer Krause, and received the letters of Ramsay, then, once more, the cutter's head was turned towards England.
It may be as well to remind the reader, that it was in the month of January, sixteen hundred and ninety-nine, that we first introduced Mr Vanslyperken and his contemporaries to his notice, and that all the important events, which we have recorded, have taken place between that date and the month of May, which is now arrived. We think, indeed, that the peculiar merit of this work is its remarkable unity of time and place; for, be it observed, we intend to finish it long before the year is out, and our whole scene is, it may be said, laid in the channel, or between the channel and the Texel, which, considering it is an historical novel, is remarkable. Examine other productions of this nature, founded upon historical facts, like our own, and observe the difference. Read Scott, Bulwer, James, or Grattan, read their historical novels, and observe how they fly about from country to country, and from clime to clime. As the Scythians said to Alexander, their right arm extends to the east, and their left to the west, and the world can hardly contain them. And over how many years do they extend their pages? while our bantling is produced in the regular nine months, being the exact period of time which is required for my three volumes. It must, therefore, be allowed that in unity of time, and place and design, and adherence to facts, our historical novel is unique.
We said that it was the month of May--not May coming in as she does sometimes in her caprice, pouting, and out of humour--but May all in smiles. The weather was warm, and the sea was smooth, and the men of the cutter had stowed away their pea-jackets, and had pulled off their fishermen's boots, and had substituted shoes. Mr Vanslyperken did not often appear on deck during the passage. He was very busy down below, and spread a piece of bunting across the skylight, so that no one could look down and see what he was about, and the cabin-door was almost always locked. What could Mr Vanslyperken be about? No one knew but Snarleyyow, and Snarleyyow could not or would not tell.
The cutter anchored in her old berth, and Vanslyperken, as usual, went on shore, with his double set of despatches, which were duly delivered; and then Mr Vanslyperken went up the main street, and turned into a jeweller's shop. What could Mr Vanslyperken do there? Surely it was to purchase something for the widow Vandersloosh--a necklace or pair of ear-rings. No, it was not with that intention; but nevertheless, Mr Vanslyperken remained there for a long while, and then was seen to depart. Seen by whom? By Moggy Salisbury, who had observed his entering, and who could not imagine why; she, however, said nothing, but she marked the shop, and walked away.
The next day, Mr Vanslyperken went on shore, to put into his mother's charge the money which he had received from Ramsay, and narrated all that had passed--how Smallbones had swallowed two-pennyworth of arsenic with no more effect upon him than one twinge in his stomach, and how he now fully believed that nothing would kill the boy.
"Pshaw! child--phut! --nonsense! --nothing kill him? --had he been in my hands, old as they are, and shaking as they do, he would not have lived; no, no--nobody escapes me when I am determined. We'll talk about that, but not now, Cornelius; the weather has turned warm at last, and there is no need of fire. Go, child, the money is locked up safe, and I have my mood upon me--I may even do you a mischief."
Vanslyperken, who knew that it was useless to remain after this hint, walked off and returned on board. As he pulled off, he passed a boat, apparently coming from the cutter, with Moggy Salisbury sitting in the stern-sheets. She waved her hand at him, and laughed ironically.
"Impudent hussy!" thought Vanslyperken, as she passed, but he dared not say a word. He turned pale with rage, and turned his head away; but little did he imagine, at the time, what great cause he had of indignation. Moggy had been three hours on board of the cutter talking with the men, but more particularly with Smallbones and the corporal, with which two she had been in earnest conference for the first hour that she was on board.
Moggy's animosity to Vanslyperken is well known, and she ridiculed the idea of Snarleyyow being anything more than an uncommon lucky dog in escaping so often. Smallbones was of her opinion, and again declared his intention of doing the dog a mischief as soon as he could. Moggy, after her conference with these two, mixed with the ship's company, with whom she had always been a favourite, and the corporal proceeded to superintend the cutting up and the distribution of the fresh beef which had that morning come on board.
The beef block was on the forecastle, where the major part of the crew, with Moggy, were assembled; Snarleyyow had always attended the corporal on these occasions, and was still the best of friends with him; for somehow or another, the dog had not seemed to consider the corporal a party to his brains being knocked out, but had put it all down to his natural enemy, Smallbones. The dog was, as usual, standing by the block close to the corporal, and picking up the fragments of beef which dropped from the chopper.
"I vowed by gum, that I'd have that ere dog's tail off," observed Smallbones; "and if no one will peach, off it shall go now. And who cares? If I can't a kill him dead, I'll get rid of him by bits. There's one eye out already, and now I've a mind for his tail. Corporal, lend me the cleaver."
"Bravo, Smallbones, we won't peach--not one of us."
"I'm not sure of that," replied Moggy; "some won't, I know; but there are others who may, and then Smallbones will be keel-hauled as sure as fate, and Vanslyperken will have right on his side. No, no, Smallbones--you must not do it. Give me the cleaver, corporal, I'll do it; and anyone may tell him who pleases, when he comes on board. I don't care for him--and he knows it, corporal. Hand me the cleaver."
"That's right, let Moggy do it," said the seamen.
The corporal turned the dog round, so as to leave his tail on the block, and fed him with small pieces of meat, to keep him in the same position.
"Are you all ready, Moggy?" said Smallbones.
"Back him a little more on the block, corporal, for I won't leave him an inch if I can help it," said Moggy; "and stand farther back, all of you."
Moggy raised the cleaver, took good aim--down it came upon the dog's tail, which was separated within an inch of its insertion, and was left bleeding on the block, while the dog sprang away aft, howling most terribly, and leaving a dotted line of blood to mark his course upon the deck.
"There's a nice skewer-piece for anyone who fancies it," observed Moggy, looking at the dog's tail, and throwing down the cleaver. "I think Mr Vanslyperken has had enough now for trying to flog my Jemmy--my own duck of a husband."
"Well," observed Coble, "seeing's believing; but, otherwise, I never should have thought it possible to have divided that ere dog's tail in that way."
"He can't be much of a devil now," observed Bill Spurey; "for what's a devil without a tail? A devil is like a sarpent, whose sting is in his tail."
"Yes," replied Short, who had looked on in silence.
"But, I say, Moggy, perhaps it's as well for him not to find you on board."
"What do I care?" replied Moggy. "He is more afraid of me than I of him; but, howsomever, it's just as well not to be here, as it may get others in trouble. Mind you say at once it was me--I defy him."
Moggy then wished them good-bye, and quitted the cutter, when she was met, as we have already observed, by Vanslyperken.
"Mein Gott! vat must be done now?" observed the corporal to those about him, looking at the mangy tail which still remained on the beef-block.
"Done, corporal," replied Smallbones, "why, you must come for to go for to complain on it, as he comes on board. You must take the tail, and tell the tale, and purtend to be as angry and as sorry as himself, and damn _her_ up in heaps. That's what must be done."
This was not bad advice on the part of Smallbones--the ship's company agreed to it, and the corporal perceived the propriety of it.
In the meantime, the dog had retreated to the cabin, and his howlings had gradually ceased; but he had left a track of blood along the deck, and down the ladder, which Dick Short perceiving, pointed to it, and cried out "Swabs."
The men brought swabs aft, and had cleaned the deck and the ladder down to the cabin door, when Mr Vanslyperken came on board.
"Has that woman been here?" inquired Mr Vanslyperken, as he came on deck.
"Yes," replied Dick Short.
"Did not I give positive orders that she should not?" cried Vanslyperken.
"No," replied Dick Short.
"Then I do now," continued the lieutenant.
"Too late," observed Short, shrugging up his shoulders, and walking forward.
"Too late! what does he mean?" said Vanslyperken, turning to Coble.
"I knows nothing about it, sir," replied Coble. "She came for some of her husband's things that were left on board."
Vanslyperken turned round to look for the corporal for explanation.
There stood Corporal Van Spitter, perfectly erect, with a very melancholy face, one hand raised as usual to his cap, and the other occupied with the tail of Snarleyyow.
"What is it? what is the matter, corporal?"
"Mynheer Vanslyperken," replied the corporal, retaining his respectful attitude, "here is de tail."
"Tail! what tail?" exclaimed Vanslyperken, casting his eyes upon the contents of the corporal's left hand.
"Te tog's tail, mynheer," replied the corporal, gravely, "which de dam tog's wife--Moggy--" Vanslyperken stared; he could scarcely credit his eyesight, but there it was. For a time he could not speak for agitation; at last, with a tremendous oath, he darted into the cabin.
What were his feelings when he beheld Snarleyyow lying in a corner tailless, with a puddle of blood behind him.
"My poor, poor dog!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, covering up his face.
His sorrow soon changed to rage--he invoked all the curses he could imagine upon Moggy's head--he vowed revenge--he stamped with rage--and then he patted Snarleyyow; and as the beast looked wistfully in his face, Vanslyperken shed tears. "My poor, poor dog! first your eye--and now your tail--what will your persecutors require next? Perdition seize them! may perdition be my portion if I am not revenged. Smallbones is at the bottom of all this; I can--I will be revenged on him."
Vanslyperken rang the bell, and the corporal made his appearance with the dog's tail still in his hand.
"Lay it down on the table, corporal," said Vanslyperken, mournfully, "and tell me how this happened."
The corporal then entered into a long detail of the way in which the dog had been _de_tailed--how he had been cutting up beef--and how while his back was turned, and Snarleyyow, as usual, was at the block, picking up the bits, Moggy Salisbury, who had been allowed to come on board by Mr Short, had caught up the cleaver and chopped off the dog's tail.
"Was Smallbones at the block?" inquired Vanslyperken.
"He was, mynheer," replied the corporal.
"Who held the dog while his tail was chopped off?" inquired Vanslyperken, "some one must have held him."
This was a home question; but the corporal replied, "Yes, mynheer, some one must have held the dog."
"You did not hear who it was, or if it were Smallbones?"
"I did not, mynheer," replied the corporal; "but," added he with a significant look, "I tink I could say."
"Yes, yes, corporal, I know who you mean. It was him--I am sure--and as sure as I sit here I'll be revenged. Bring a swab, corporal, and wipe up all this blood. Do you think the poor animal will recover?"
"Yes, mynheer; there be togs with tail and togs without tail."
"But the loss of blood--what must be done to stop the bleeding?"
"Dat d----n woman Moggy, when I say te tog die--tog bleed to death, she say, tell Mynheer Vanslyperken dat de best ting for cure de cur be de red hot poker."
Here Vanslyperken stamped his feet and swore horribly.
"She say, mynheer, it stop all de bleeding."
"I wish she had a hot poker down her body," exclaimed Vanslyperken, bitterly.
"Go for the swab, corporal, and send Smallbones here."
Smallbones made his appearance.
"Did you come for--to want me, sir?"
"Yes, sir. I understand from the corporal that you held the dog while that woman cut off his tail."
"If so be as how as the corporal says that ere," cried Smallbones, striking the palm of his left hand with his right fist, "why I am jiggered if he don't tell a lie as big as himself--that's all. That ere man is my mortal henemy; and if that ere dog gets into trouble I'm a sartain to be in trouble too. What should I cut the dog's tail off for, I should like for to know? I arn't so hungry as all that, any how."
The idea of eating his dog's tail increased the choler of Mr Vanslyperken. With looks of malignant vengeance he ordered Smallbones out of the cabin.
"Shall I shy this here overboard, sir?" said Smallbones, taking up the dog's tail, which lay on the table.
"Drop it, sir," roared Vanslyperken.
Smallbones walked away, grinning with delight, but his face was turned from Mr Vanslyperken.
The corporal returned, swabbed up the blood, and reported that the bleeding had stopped. Mr Vanslyperken had no further orders for him--he wished to be left alone. He leaned his head upon his hand, and remained for some time in a melancholy reverie, with his eyes fixed upon the tail, which lay before him--that tail, now a "bleeding piece of earth," which never was to welcome him with a wag again. What passed in Vanslyperken's mind during this time, it would be too difficult and too long to repeat, for the mind flies over time and space with the rapidity of the lightning's flash. At last he rose, took up the dog's tail, put it into his pocket, went on deck, ordered his boat, and pulled on shore.
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In which Mr Vanslyperken drives a very hard bargain.
We will be just and candid in our opinion relative to the historical facts which we are now narrating. Party spirit, and various other feelings, independent of misrepresentation do, at the time, induce people to form their judgment, to say the best, harshly, and but too often, incorrectly. It is for posterity to calmly weigh the evidence handed down, and to examine into the merits of a case divested of party bias. Actuated by these feelings, we do not hesitate to assert, that, in the point at question, Mr Vanslyperken had great cause for being displeased; and that the conduct of Moggy Salisbury, in cutting off the tail of Snarleyyow was, in our opinion, not justifiable.
There is a respect for property, inculcated and protected by the laws, which should never be departed from; and, whatever may have been the aggressions on the part of Mr Vanslyperken, or of the dog, still a tail is a tail, and whether mangy or not, is _bond fide_ a part of the living body; and this aggression must inevitably come under the head of the cutting and maiming act, which act, however, it must, with the same candour which will ever guide our pen, be acknowledged, was not passed until a much later period than that to the history of which our narrative refers.
Having thus, with all deference, offered our humble opinion, we shall revert to facts. Mr Vanslyperken went on shore, with the dog's tail in his pocket. He walked with rapid strides towards the half-way houses, in one of which was the room tenanted by his aged mother; for, to whom else could he apply for consolation in this case of severe distress? That it was Moggy Salisbury who gave the cruel blow, was a fact completely substantiated by evidence; but that it was Smallbones who held the dog, and who thereby became an active participator, and therefore equally culpable, was a surmise to which the insinuations of the corporal had given all the authority of direct evidence. And, as Mr Vanslyperken felt that Moggy was not only out of his power, but even if in his power, that he dare not retaliate upon her, for reasons which we have already explained to our readers; it was, therefore, clear to him, that Smallbones was the party upon whom his indignation could be the most safely vented: and, moreover, that in so doing, he was only paying off a long accumulating debt of hatred and ill-will. But, at the same time, Mr Vanslyperken had made up his mind that a lad who could be floated out to the Nab buoy and back again without sinking--who could have a bullet through his head without a mark remaining--and who could swallow a whole twopenny-worth of arsenic without feeling more than a twinge in his stomach, was not so very easy to be made away with. That the corporal's vision was no fiction, was evident--the lad was not to be hurt by mortal man; but although the widow's arsenic had failed, Mr Vanslyperken, in his superstition, accounted for it on the grounds that the woman was not the active agent on the occasion, having only prepared the herring, it not having been received from her hands by Smallbones. The reader may recollect that, in the last interview between Vanslyperken and his mother, the latter had thrown out hints that if she took Smallbones in hand he would not have such miraculous escapes as he had had, as, in all she undertook, she did her business thoroughly. Bearing this in mind, Mr Vanslyperken went to pour forth his sorrows, and to obtain the assistance of his much-to-be-respected and venerable mother.
"Well, child, what is it--is it money you bring?" cried the old woman, when Vanslyperken entered the room.
"No, mother," replied Vanslyperken, throwing himself on the only chair in the room, except the one with the legs cut off half-way up, upon which his mother was accustomed to rock herself before the grate.
"No, mother; but I have brought something--and I come to you for advice and assistance."
"Brought no money--yet brought something! --well, child, what have you brought?"
"This!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, throwing the dog's tail down upon the table.
"This!" repeated the old beldame, lifting up the tail, and examining it as well as she could, as the vibration of her palsied members were communicated to the article--and pray, child, what is this?"
"Are you blind, old woman," replied Vanslyperken in wrath, "not to perceive that it is my poor dog's tail?"
"Blind old woman! and dog's tail, eh! Blind old woman, eh! Mr Cornelius, you dare to call me a blind old woman, and to bring here the mangy tail of a dog--and to lay it on my table! Is this your duty, sirrah? How dare you take such liberties? There, sir," cried the hag in a rage, catching hold of the tail, and sending it flying out of the casement, which was open--"there, sir--and now you may follow your tail. D'ye hear? --leave the room instantly, or I'll cleave your craven skull. Blind old woman, forsooth--undutiful child--" Vanslyperken, in spite of his mother's indignation, could not prevent his eyes from following the tail of his dog, as it sailed through the ambient air surrounding the half-way houses, and was glad to observe it landed among some cabbage-leaves thrown into the road, without attracting notice. Satisfied that he should regain his treasure when he quitted the house, he now turned round to deprecate his mother's wrath, who had not yet completed the sentence which we have quoted above.
"I supplicate your pardon, my dear mother," said Vanslyperken, who felt that in her present humour he was not likely to gain the point with her that he had in contemplation. "I was so vexed--so irritated--that I knew not what I was saying."
"Blind old woman, indeed," repeated the beldame.
"I again beg you to forgive me, dearest mother," continued Vanslyperken.
"All about a dog's tail cut off. Better off than on--so much the less mange on the snarling cur."
This was touching up Vanslyperken on the raw; but he had a great object in view, and he restrained his feelings.
"I was wrong, mother--very wrong--but I have done all I can, I have begged your pardon. I came here for your advice and assistance."
"What advice or assistance can you expect from a blind old woman?" retorted the old hag. "And what advice or assistance does so undutiful a child deserve?"
It was some time before the ruffled temper of the beldame could be appeased: at last, Vanslyperken succeeded. He then entered into a detail of all that had passed, and concluded by observing, "that as Smallbones was not to be injured by mortal man, he had come to her for assistance."
"That is to say--you have come to me to ask me to knock the lad's brains out--to take away his life--to murder him, in fact. Say, Cornelius, is it not so?"
"It is exactly so, my dearest mother. I know your courage--your--" "Yes, yes, I understand all that; but, now hear me, child. There are deeds which are done, and which I have done, but those deeds are only done upon strong impulses. Murder is one, but people murder for two reasons only--for revenge and for gold. People don't do such acts as are to torture their minds here, and perhaps be punished hereafter--that is, if there be one, child. I say, people don't do such deeds as these, merely because a graceless son comes to them, and says, 'if you please, mother.' Do you understand that, child? I've blood enough on my hands already--good blood too--they are not defiled with the scum of a parish boy, nor shall they be, without--" "Without what, mother?"
"Have I not told you, Cornelius, that there are but two great excitements--revenge and gold? I have no revenge against the lad. If you have--if you consider that a dog's, tail demands a human victim--well and good--do the deed yourself."
"I would," cried Vanslyperken, "but I have tried in vain. It must be done by woman."
"Then hear me, Cornelius; if it must be done by woman, you must find a woman to do it, and you must pay her for the deed. Murder is at a high price. You apply to me--I am content to do the deed; but I must have gold--and plenty too."
Vanslyperken paused before he replied. The old woman had charge of all his money--she was on the verge of the grave--for what could she require his gold? --could she be so foolish? --it was insanity. Vanslyperken was right--it was insanity, for avarice is no better.
"Do you mean, mother," replied Vanslyperken, "that you want gold from me?"
"From whom else?" demanded the old woman sharply.
"Take it, then, mother--take as many pieces as you please."
"I must have all that there is in that chest, Cornelius."
"All, mother?"
"Yes, all; and what is it, after all? What price is too high for blood which calls for retribution? Besides, Cornelius, it must be all yours again when I die; but I shall not die yet--no, no."
"Well, mother," replied Vanslyperken, "if it must be so, it shall all be yours--not that I can see what difference it makes, whether it is called yours or mine."
"Then why not give it freely? Why do you hesitate to give to your poor old mother what may be again yours before the leaf again falls? Ask yourself why, Cornelius, and then you have my answer. The gold is here in my charge, but it is not _my_ gold--it is yours. You little think how often I've laid in bed and longed that it was all _mine_. Then I would count it--count it again and again--watch over it, not as I do now as a mere deposit in my charge, but as a mother would watch and smile upon her first-born child. There is a talisman in that word _mine_, that not approaching _death_ can wean from _life_. It is our natures, child--say, then, is all that gold _mine_?"
Vanslyperken paused; he also felt the magic of the word; and although it was but a nominal and temporary divestment of the property, even that gave him a severe struggle; but his avarice was overcome by his feelings of revenge, and he answered solemnly, "As I hope for revenge, mother, _all_ that gold is _yours_, provided that you do the deed."
Here the old hag burst into a sort of shrieking laugh. "Send him here, child;" and the almost unearthly cachinnation was continued--"send him here, child--I can't go to seek him--and it is done--only bring him here."
So soon as this compact had been completed, Vanslyperken and his mother had a consultation; and it was agreed, that it would be advisable not to attempt the deed until the day before the cutter sailed, as it would remove all suspicion, and be supposed that the boy had deserted. This arrangement having been made, Vanslyperken made rather a hasty retreat. The fact was, that he was anxious to recover the fragment of Snarleyyow, which his mother had so contemptuously thrown out of the casement.
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In which Mr Vanslyperken is taken for a witch.
Mr Vanslyperken hastened into the street, and walked towards the heap of cabbage-leaves, in which he observed the object of his wishes to have fallen; but there was some one there before him, an old sow, very busy groping among the refuse. Although Vanslyperken came on shore without even a stick in his hand, he had no fear of a pig, and walked up boldly to drive her away, fully convinced that, although she might like cabbage, not being exactly carnivorous, he should find the tail in _status quo_. But it appeared that the sow not only would not stand being interfered with, but, moreover, was carnivorously inclined; for she was at that very moment routing the tail about with her nose, and received Vanslyperken's advance with a very irascible grunt, throwing her head up at him with a savage augh; and then again busied herself with the fragment of Snarleyyow. Vanslyperken, who had started back, perceived that the sow was engaged with the very article in question; and finding it was a service of more danger than he had expected, picked up one or two large stones, and threw them at the animal to drive her away. This mode of attack had the effect desired in one respect; the sow made a retreat, but at the same time she would not retreat without the _bonne bouche_, which she carried away in her mouth.
Vanslyperken followed; but the sow proved that she could fight as well as run, every minute turning round to bay, and chumping and grumbling in a very formidable manner. At last, after Vanslyperken had chased for a quarter of a mile, he received unexpected assistance from a large dog, who bounded from the side of the road, where he lay in the sun, and seizing the sow by the ear, made her drop the tail to save her own bacon.
Vanslyperken was delighted; he hastened up as fast as he could to regain his treasure, when, to his mortification, the great dog, who had left the sow, arrived at the spot before him, and after smelling at the not one bone, but many bones of contention, he took it in his mouth, and trotted off to his former berth in the sunshine, laid himself down, and the tail before him.
"Surely one dog won't eat another dog's tail," thought Vanslyperken, as he walked up to the animal; but an eye like fire, a deep growl, and exposure of a range of teeth equal to a hyena's, convinced Mr Vanslyperken that it would be wise to retreat--which he did, to a respectable distance, and attempted to coax the dog. "Poor doggy, there's a dog," cried Vanslyperken, snapping his fingers, and approaching gradually. To his horror, the dog did the same thing exactly: he rose, and approached Mr Vanslyperken gradually, and snapped his fingers: not content with that, he flew at him, and tore the skirt of his great-coat clean off, and also the hinder part of his trousers for Mr Vanslyperken immediately turned tail, and the dog appeared resolved to have his tail as well as that of his darling cur. Satisfied with about half a yard of broadcloth as a trophy, the dog returned to his former situation, and remained with the tail of the coat and the tail of the cur before him, with his fierce eyes fixed upon Mr Vanslyperken, who had now retreated to a greater distance.
But this transaction was not unobserved by several of the people who inhabited the street of cottages. Many eyes were directed to where Mr Vanslyperken and the sow and dog had been at issue, and many were the conjectures thereon.
When the dog retreated with the skirt of the great-coat, many came out to ascertain what was the cause of the dispute, and among others, the man to whom the dog belonged, and who lived at the cottage opposite to where the dog had lain down. He observed Vanslyperken, looking very much like a vessel whose sails have been split in a gale, and very rueful at the same time, standing at a certain distance, quite undecided how to act, and he called out to him, "What is it you may want with my dog, man?"
Man! Vanslyperken thought this designation an affront; whereas, in our opinion, Vanslyperken was an affront to the name of man. "Man!" exclaimed Vanslyperken; "why your dog has taken my property!"
"Then take your property," replied the other, tossing to him the skirt of his coat, which he had taken from the dog.
By this time there was a crowd collected from out of the various surrounding tenements.
"That's not all," exclaimed Vanslyperken; "he has got my dog's tail there."
"Your dog's tail!" exclaimed the man, "what do you mean? Is it this ragged mangy thing you would have?" and the man took the tail of Snarleyyow, and held it up to the view of the assembled crowd.
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken, coming towards the man with eagerness; "that is what I want," and he held out his hand to receive it.
"And pray, may I ask," replied the other, looking very suspiciously at Vanslyperken, "what can you want with this piece of carrion?"
"To make soup of," replied another, laughing; "he can't afford ox-tail."
Vanslyperken made an eager snatch at his treasure; but the man lifted it up on the other side, out of his reach.
"Let us have a look at this chap," said the first, examining Vanslyperken, whose peaked nose and chin, small ferret eyes, and downcast look were certainly not in his favour; neither were his old and now tattered habiliments. Certainly no one would have taken Vanslyperken for a king's officer--unfortunately they took him for something else.
"Now tell me, fellow, what were you going to do with this?" inquired the man in a severe tone.
"I sha'n't tell you," replied Vanslyperken.
"Why that's the chap that I sees go in and out of the room where that old hell-fire witch lives, who curses all day long."
"I thought as much," observed the man, who still held up the cur's tail. "Now I appeal to you all, what can a fellow want with such as this--ay, my good people, and want it so much too, as to risk being torn to pieces for it--if he arn't inclined to evil practices?"
"That's sartain sure," replied another.
"A witch--a witch!" cried the whole crowd.
"Let's duck him--tie his thumbs--away with him--come along, my lads, away with him."
Although there were not, at the time we write about, regular witch-finders, as in the time of James I., still the feeling against witches, and the belief that they practised, still existed. They were no longer handed over to summary and capital punishment, but whenever suspected they were sure to meet with very rough treatment. Such was the fate of Mr Vanslyperken, who was now seized by the crowd, buffeted, and spit upon, and dragged to the parish pump, there being, fortunately for him, no horse-pond near. After having been well beaten, pelted with mud, his clothes torn off his back, his hat taken away and stamped upon, he was held under the pump and drenched for nearly half-an-hour, until he lay beneath the spout in a state of complete exhaustion. The crowd were then satisfied, and he was left to get away how he could, which he did, after a time, in a most deplorable plight, bare-headed, in his shirt and torn trousers. He contrived to walk as far as to the house where his mother resided, was admitted to her room, when he fell exhausted on the bed. The old woman was astonished; and having some gin in her cupboard, revived him by administering a small quantity, and, in the course of half-an-hour, Vanslyperken could tell his story; but all the consolation he received from the old beldame was, "Serve you right too, for being such an ass. I suppose you'll be bringing the stupid people about my ears soon--they've hooted me before now. Ah, well--I'll not be pumped upon for nothing--my knife is a sharp one."
Vanslyperken had clothes under his mother's charge, and he dressed himself in another suit, and then hastened away, much mortified and confounded with the latter events of the day. The result of his arrangements with his mother was, however, a balm to his wounded spirit, and he looked upon Smallbones as already dead. He hastened down into his cabin, as soon as he arrived on board, to ascertain the condition of Snarleyyow, whom he found as well as could be expected, and occasionally making unavailing attempts to lick the stump of his tail.
"My poor dog!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, "what have you suffered, and what have I suffered for you? Alas! if I am to suffer as I have to-day for only your tail, what shall I go through for your whole body?" And, as Vanslyperken recalled his misfortunes, so did his love increase for the animal who was the cause of them. Why so, we cannot tell, except that it has been so from the beginning, is so now, and always will be the case, for the best of all possible reasons--that it is _human nature_.
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In which is recorded a most barbarous and bloody murder.
We observed, in a previous chapter, that Mr Vanslyperken was observed by Moggy Salisbury to go into a jeweller's shop, and remain there some time, and that Moggy was very inquisitive to know what it was that could induce Mr Vanslyperken to go into so unusual a resort for him.
The next day she went into the shop upon a pretence of looking at some ear-rings, and attempted to enter into conversation with the jeweller; but the jeweller, not perhaps admiring Moggy's appearance, and not thinking her likely to be a customer, dismissed her with very short answers. Failing in her attempt, Moggy determined to wait till Nancy Corbett should come over, for she knew that Nancy could dress and assume the fine lady, and be more likely to succeed than herself. But although Moggy could not penetrate into the mystery, it is necessary the reader should be informed of the proceedings of Mr Vanslyperken.
When Ramsay had shown him how to open the government despatches, and had provided him with the false seals for the re-impressions, he forgot that he also was pointing out to Vanslyperken the means of also opening his own, and discovering his secrets, as well as those of government; but Vanslyperken, who hated Ramsay, on account of his behaviour towards him, and would with pleasure have seen the whole of his party, as well as himself, on the gibbet, thought that it might be just as well to have two strings to his bow; and he argued, that if he could open the letters of the conspirators, and obtain their secrets, they would prove valuable to him, and perhaps save his neck, if he were betrayed to the government. On his passage, therefore, to Amsterdam, he had carefully examined the seal of Ramsay, and also that on the letters forwarded to him; and, having made a drawing, and taken the impression in wax, as a further security, he had applied to the jeweller in question to get him seals cut out with these impressions, and of the exact form and size. The jeweller, who cared little what he did, provided that he was well paid, asked no questions, but a very high price, and Vanslyperken, knowing that they would be cheap to him at any price, closed with him on his own terms, provided that they were immediately forthcoming. In the week, according to the agreement, the seals were prepared. Mr Vanslyperken paid his money, and now was waiting for orders to sail.
The dog's stump was much better.
On the ninth day, a summons to the admiral's house was sent, and Vanslyperken was ordered to hold himself in readiness to sail the next morning at daylight. He immediately repaired to the Jew's, to give intimation, and from thence to his mother's to prepare her for the arrival of Smallbones that evening a little before dusk.
Vanslyperken had arranged that, as soon as the murder had been committed, he would go to the Jew's for letters, and then hasten on board, sailing the next morning at daylight; so that if there was any discovery, the whole onus might be on his mother, who, for all he cared, might be hung. It is a true saying, that a good mother makes a good son.
When Vanslyperken intimated to Smallbones that he was going on shore in the evening, and should take him with him, the lad did not forget the last walk that he had in company with his master, and, apprehensive that some mischief was intended, he said, "I hope it arn't for to fetch another walk in the country, sir?"
"No, no," replied Vanslyperken, "it's to take some biscuit up to a poor old woman close by. I don't want to be robbed, any more than you do, Smallbones."
But the very quick reply of his master only increased the apprehension of Smallbones, who left the cabin, and hastened to Corporal Van Spitter, to consult with him.
Corporal Van Spitter was of the same opinion as Smallbones, that mischief was intended him, and offered to provide him with a pistol; but Smallbones, who knew little about fire-arms, requested that he might have a bayonet instead, which he could use better. He was supplied with this, which he concealed within his shirt, and when ordered, he went into the boat with Vanslyperken. They landed, and it was dark before they arrived at the half-way houses. Vanslyperken ascended the stairs, and ordered Smallbones to follow him. As soon as they were in the room, Mr Vanslyperken said, "Here is the biscuit, good woman, and much good may it do you."
"It's very kind of you, sir, and many thanks. It's not often that people are charitable now-a-days, and this has been a hard winter for poor folk. Put the bag down there, my good little fellow," continued the old hypocrite, addressing Smallbones.
"And now, good woman, I shall leave my lad with you, till I come back. I have to call at a friend's, and I need not take him. Smallbones, stay here till I return; get the biscuit out of the bag, as we must take that on board again."
Smallbones had no objection to remain with a withered, palsied old woman. He could have no fear of her, and he really began to think that his master had been guilty of charity.
Mr Vanslyperken departed, leaving Smallbones in company with his mother.
"Come now, my lad, come to the chair, and sit down by the fire," for a fire had been lighted by the old woman expressly, "sit down, and I'll see if I can find you something in my cupboard; I have, I know, a drop of cordial left somewhere. Sit down, child; you have had the kindness to bring the bread up for me, and I am grateful."
The tones of the old beldame's voice were very different from those she usually indulged in; there was almost a sweetness about them, which proved what she might have effected at the period when she was fair and young. Smallbones felt not the least disquietude; he sat down in the chair by the fire, while the old woman looked in the cupboard behind him for the cordial, of which she poured him a good allowance in a tea-cup.
Smallbones sipped and sipped, he was not in a hurry to get rid of it, as it was good; the old woman went again to the cupboard, rattled the things about a little, and then, on a sudden, taking out a large hammer, as Smallbones unconsciously sipped, she raised it with both her hands, and down came the blow on his devoted head.
The poor lad dropped the cup, sprang up convulsively, staggered, and then fell. Once he rolled over, his leg quivered, and he then moved no more.
The beldame watched him with the hammer in her hand, ready to repeat the blow if necessary, indeed she would have repeated it had it not been that after he fell, in turning over, Smallbones' head had rolled under the low bedstead where she slept.
"My work is sure," muttered she, "and _all_ the _gold_ is _mine_."
Again she watched, but there was no motion--a stream of blood appeared from under the bed, and ran in a little rivulet towards the fire-place.
"I wish I could pull him out," said the old woman, lugging at the lad's legs; "another blow or two would make more sure." But the effort was above her strength, and she abandoned it. "It's no matter," muttered she; "he'll never tell tales again."
But there the old hag was mistaken; Smallbones had been stunned, but not killed; the blow of the hammer had fortunately started off, divided the flesh of the skull for three inches, with a gash which descended to his ear. At the very time that she uttered her last expressions, Smallbones was recovering his senses, but he was still confused, as if in a dream.
"Yes, yes," said the old woman, after some minutes' pause, "all the gold is mine."
The lad heard this sentence, and he now remembered where he was, and what had taken place. He was about to rise, when there was a knocking at the door, and he lay still. It was Vanslyperken. The door was opened by the old beldame.
"Is it done?" said he, in a loud whisper.
"Done!" cried the hag; "yes, and well done. Don't tell me of charmed life. My blows are sure--see there."
"Are you sure that he is dead?"
"Quite sure, child--and all the gold is mine."
Vanslyperken looked with horror at the stream of blood still flowing, and absorbed by the ashes in the grate.
"It was you did it, mother; recollect it was not I," cried he.
"I did it--and you paid for it--and all the gold is mine."
"But are you quite sure that he is dead?"
"Sure--yes, and in judgment now, if there is any."
Vanslyperken surveyed the body of Smallbones, who, although he had heard every word, lay without motion, for he knew his life depended on it. After a minute or two the lieutenant was satisfied.
"I must go on board now, mother; but what will you do with the body?"
"Leave that to me; who ever comes in here? Leave that to me, craven, and, as you say, go on board."
Vanslyperken opened the door, and went out of the room; the old hag made the door fast, and then sat down on the chair, which she replaced by the side of the fire with her back to Smallbones.
The lad felt very faint from loss of blood, and was sick at the stomach, but his senses were in their full vigour.
He now was assured that Vanslyperken was gone, and that he had only the old woman opposed to him. His courage was unsubdued, and he resolved to act in self-defence if required; and he softly drew the bayonet out of his breast, and then watched the murderous old hag, who was rocking herself in the chair.
"Yes, yes, the gold is mine," muttered she--"I've won it, and I'll count it. I won it dearly;--another murder--well, 'tis but one more. Let me see, what shall I do with the body? I must burn it, by bits and bits--and I'll count the gold--it's all mine, for he's dead."
Here the old woman turned round to look at the body, and her keen eyes immediately perceived that there was a slight change of position.
"Heh'" cried she, "not quite dead yet; we must have the hammer again," and she rose from her chair, and walked with an unsteady pace to pick up the hammer, which was at the other side of the fire-place. Smallbones, who felt that now was his time, immediately rose, but before he could recover his _feet_, she had turned round to him: with a sort of low yell, she darted at him with an agility not to be imagined in one of her years and decrepit appearance, and struck at him. Smallbones raised his left arm, and received the blow, and with his right plunged the bayonet deep into the wrinkled throat of the old woman. She grappled with him, and the struggle was dreadful; she caught his throat in one of her bony hands, and the nails pierced into it like the talons of a bird of prey--the fingers of the other she inserted into the jagged and gaping wound on his head, and forced the flesh still more asunder, exerting all her strength to force him on his back; but the bayonet was still in her throat, and with the point descending towards the body, and Smallbones forced and forced it down, till it was buried to the hilt. In a few seconds the old hag loosed her hold, quivered, and fell back dead; and the lad was so exhausted with the struggle, and his previous loss of blood, that he fell into a swoon at the side of the corpse.
When Smallbones recovered, the candle was flickering in the socket. He rose up in a sitting posture, and tried to recollect all that had passed.
The alternating light of the candle flashed upon the body of the old woman, and he remembered all. After a few minutes he was able to rise, and he sat down upon the bed giddy and faint. It occurred to him that he would soon be in the dark, and he would require the light to follow up his intended movements, so he rose, and went to the cupboard to find one. He found a candle, and he also found the bottle of cordial, of which he drank all that was left, and felt himself revived, and capable of acting. Having put the other candle into the candlestick, he looked for water, washed himself, and bound up his head with his handkerchief. He then wiped up the blood from the floor, threw some sand over the part, and burnt the towel in the grate. His next task was one of more difficulty, to lift up the body of the old woman, put it into the bed, and cover it up with the clothes, previously drawing out the bayonet. No blood issued from the wound--the hemorrhage was all internal. He covered up the face, took the key of the door, and tried it in the lock, put the candle under the grate to burn out safely, took possession of the hammer; then having examined the door, he went out, locked it from the outside, slid the key in beneath the door, and hastened away as fast as he could. He was not met by anybody, and was soon safe in the street, with the bayonet, which he again concealed in his vest.
These precautions taken by Smallbones, proved that the lad had conduct as well as courage. He argued that it was not advisable that it should be known that this fatal affray had taken place between the old woman and himself. Satisfied with having preserved his life, he was unwilling to be embroiled in a case of murder, as he wished to prosecute his designs with his companions on board.
He knew that Vanslyperken was capable of swearing anything against him, and that his best safety lay in the affair not being found out, which it could not be until the cutter had sailed, and no one had seen him either enter or go out. There was another reason which induced Smallbones to act as he did--without appealing to the authorities--which was, that if he returned on board, it would create such a shock to Mr Vanslyperken, who had, as he supposed, seen him lying dead upon the floor. But there was one person to whom he determined to apply for advice before he decided how to proceed, and that was Moggy Salisbury, who had given her address to him when she had gone on board the _Yungfrau_. To her house he therefore repaired, and found her at home. It was then about nine o'clock in the evening.
Moggy was much surprised to see Smallbones enter in such a condition; but Smallbones' story was soon told, and Moggy sent for a surgeon, the services of whom the lad seriously required. While his wound was dressing, which was asserted by them to have been received in a fray, Moggy considered what would be the best method to proceed. The surgeon stated his intention of seeing Smallbones the next day, but he was requested to leave him sufficient dressing, as it was necessary that he should repair on board, as the vessel which he belonged to sailed on the following morning. The surgeon received his fee, recommended quiet and repose, and retired.
A consultation then took place. Smallbones expressed his determination to go on board; he did not fear Mr Vanslyperken, as the crew of the cutter would support him--and, moreover, it would frighten Mr Vanslyperken out of his wits. To this Moggy agreed, but she proposed that instead of making his appearance on the following morning, he should not appear to Mr Vanslyperken until the vessel was in the blue water; if possible, not till she was over on the other side. And Moggy determined to go on board, see the corporal, and make the arrangements with him and the crew, who were now unanimous, for the six marines were at the beck of the corporal, so that Mr Vanslyperken should be frightened out of his wits. Desiring Smallbones to lie down on her bed, and take the rest he so much needed, she put on her bonnet and cloak, and taking a boat, pulled gently alongside the cutter.
Vanslyperken had been on board for two hours, and was in his cabin; the lights, however, were still burning. The corporal was still up, anxiously waiting for the return of Smallbones, and he was very much alarmed when he heard Moggy come alongside. Moggy soon detailed to the corporal, Dick Short, and Coble, all that had taken place, and what it was proposed should be done. They assented willingly to the proposal, declaring that if Vanslyperken attempted to hurt the lad, they would rise, and throw Mr Vanslyperken overboard; and everything being arranged, Moggy was about to depart, when Vanslyperken, who was in a state of miserable anxiety and torture, and who had been drowning his conscience in scheedam, came on deck not a little the worse for what he had been imbibing.
"Who is that woman?" cried Vanslyperken.
"That woman is Moggy Salisbury," cried Moggy, walking up to Vanslyperken, while the corporal skulked forward without being detected.
"Have I not given positive orders that this woman does not come on board?" cried Vanslyperken, holding on by the skylight. "Who is that--Mr Short?"
"Yes," replied Short.
"Why did you allow her to come on board?"
"I came without leave," said Moggy. "I brought a message on board."
"A message! what message--to whom?"
"To you," replied Moggy.
"To me--from whom, you cockatrice?"
"I'll tell you," replied Moggy, walking close up to him; "from Lazarus the Jew. Will you hear it, or shall I leave it with Dick Short?"
"Silence--silence--not a word; come down into the cabin, good Moggy. Come down--I'll hear it then" "With all my heart, Mr Vanslyperken, but none of your attacks on my vartue; recollect I am an honest woman."
"Don't be afraid, my good Moggy--I never hurt a child."
"I don't think you ever did," retorted Moggy, following Vanslyperken, who could hardly keep his feet.
"Well, there's Abacadabra there, anyhow," observed Coble to Short, as they went down.
"Why she turns him round her finger."
"Yes," quoth Short.
"I can't comprehend this not no how."
"No," quoth Short.
As soon as they were in the cabin, Moggy observed the bottle of scheedam on the table. "Come, Mr Vanslyperken, you'll treat me to-night, and drink my health again, won't you?"
"Yes, Moggy, yes--we're friends now, you know;" for Vanslyperken, like all others suffering under the stings of conscience, was glad to make friends with his bitterest enemy.
"Come, then, help me, Mr Vanslyperken, and then I'll give my message."
As soon as Moggy had taken her glass of scheedam, she began to think what she should say, for she had no message ready prepared; at last a thought struck her.
"I am desired to tell you, that when a passenger, or a person disguised as a sailor, either asks for a passage, or volunteers for the vessel, you are to take him on board immediately, even if you should know them in their disguise not to be what they pretend to be--do you understand?"
"Yes," replied Vanslyperken, who was quite muddled.
"Whether they apply from here, or from the other side of the channel, no consequence, you must take them--if not--" "If not, what?" replied Vanslyperken.
"You'll swing, that's all, my buck. Good-night to you," replied Moggy, leaving the cabin.
"I'll swing," muttered Vanslyperken, rolling against the bulkhead. "Well, if I do, others shall swing too. Who cares? damn the faggot!"
Here Mr Vanslyperken poured out another glass of scheedam, the contents of which overthrew the small remnant of his reasoning faculties. He then tumbled into his bed with his clothes on, saying, as he turned on his side, "Smallbones is dead and gone, at all events."
Moggy took leave of her friends on deck, and pushed on shore. She permitted Smallbones, whom she found fast asleep, to remain undisturbed until nearly three o'clock in the morning, during which time she watched by the bedside. She then roused him, and they sallied forth, took a boat, and dropped alongside of the cutter. Smallbones' hammock had been prepared for him by the corporal. He was put into it, and Moggy then left the vessel.
Mr Vanslyperken was in a state of torpor during this proceeding, and was, with great difficulty, awoke by the corporal, according to orders given, when it was daylight, and the cutter was to weigh anchor.
"Smallbones has not come off, sir, last night," reported the corporal.
"I suppose the scoundrel has deserted," replied Vanslyperken, "I fully expected that he would. However, he is no loss, for he was a useless, idle, lying rascal." And Mr Vanslyperken turned out; having all his clothes on, he had no occasion to dress. He went on deck, followed by the tail-less Snarleyyow, and in half an hour the cutter was standing out towards St Helen's.
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In which a most horrid spectre disturbs the equanimity of Mr Vanslyperken.
Two days was the cutter striving with light winds for the Texel, during which Mr Vanslyperken kept himself altogether in his cabin. He was occasionally haunted with the memory of the scene in his mother's room. --Smallbones dead, and the stream of blood running along the floor, and his mother's diabolical countenance, with the hammer raised in her palsied hands; but he had an instigator to his vengeance beside him, which appeared to relieve his mind whenever it was oppressed; it was the stump of Snarleyyow, and when he looked at that he no longer regretted, but congratulated himself on the deed being done. His time was fully occupied during the day, for with locked doors he was transcribing the letters sent to Ramsay, and confided to him.
He was not content with taking extracts, as he did of the government despatches for Ramsay; he copied every word, and he replaced the seals with great dexterity. At night his mind was troubled, and he dare not lie himself down to rest until he had fortified himself with several glasses of scheedam; even then his dreams frightened him; but he was to be more frightened yet.
Corporal Van Spitter came into the cabin on the third morning with a very anxious face. --"Mein Gott! Mynheer Vanslyperken, de whole crew be in de mutinys."
"Mutiny!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, "what's the matter?"
"They say, sir, dat dey see de ghost of Smallbones last night on de bowsprit, with one great cut on his head, and de blood all over de face."
"Saw what? who saw him?"
"Mein Gott, mynheer! it all true, I really think I see it myself at de taffrail, he sit there and have great wound from here down to," said the corporal, pointing to his own head, and describing the wound exactly. "The people say that he must have been murdered, and dey kick up de mutiny."
"I did not do it, corporal, at all events," replied Vanslyperken, pale and trembling.
"So Smallbones tell Dick Short, when he speak to him on bowsprit."
"Did it speak to Short?" inquired Vanslyperken, catching the corporal's arm.
"Yes, mynheer; Mynheer Short speak first, and den the ghost say dat you not do it, but dat you give gold to old woman to do it, and she knock him brain out vid de hammer."
To portray Vanslyperken's dismay at this intelligence would be impossible. He could not but be certain that there had been a supernatural communication. His knees knocked and trembled, and he turned sick and faint.
"O Lord, O Lord! corporal, I am a great sinner," cried he at last, quite unaware of what he was saying. "Some water, corporal." Corporal Van Spitter handed some water, and Vanslyperken waved his hand to be left alone; and Mr Vanslyperken attempted to pray, but it ended in blaspheming.
"It's a lie, all a lie," exclaimed he, at last, pouring out a tumbler of scheedam. "They have frightened the corporal. But--no--he must have seen him, or how could they know how he was murdered. He must have told them; and him I saw dead and stiff, with these own eyes. Well, I did not do the deed," continued Vanslyperken, attempting to palliate his crime to himself; but it would not do, and Mr Vanslyperken paced the little cabin racked by fear and guilt.
Remorse he felt none, for there was before his eyes the unhealed stump of Snarleyyow. In the evening Mr Vanslyperken went on deck; the weather was now very warm, for it was the beginning of July; and Mr Vanslyperken, followed by Snarleyyow, was in a deep reverie, and he turned and turned again.
The sun had set, and Mr Vanslyperken still continued his walk, but his steps were agitated and uneven, and his face was haggard. It was rather the rapid and angry pacing of a tiger in his den, who has just been captured, than that of a person in deep contemplation. Still Mr Vanslyperken continued to tread the deck, and it was quite light with a bright and pale moon.
The men were standing here and there about the forecastle and near the booms in silence and speaking in low whispers, and Vanslyperken's eye was often directed towards them, for he had not forgotten the report of the corporal, that they were in a state of mutiny.
Of a sudden, Mr Vanslyperken was roused by a loud cry from forward, and a rush of all the men aft. He thought that the crew had risen, and that they were about to seize him, but, on the contrary, they passed him and hastened to the taffrail with exclamations of horror.
"What! what is it?" exclaimed Vanslyperken, fully prepared for the reply by his own fears.
"O Lord! have mercy upon us," cried Bill Spurey.
"Good God, deliver us!" exclaimed another.
"Ah, Mein Gott!" screamed Jansen, rushing against Vanslyperken and knocking him down on the deck.
"Well, well, murder will out! --that's sartain," said Coble, who stood by Vanslyperken when he had recovered his legs.
"What, what!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, breathless.
"There, sir,--look there," said Coble, breathless, pointing to the figure of Smallbones, who now appeared from the shade in the broad moonshine.
His head was not bound up, and his face appeared pale and streaked with blood. He was in the same clothes in which he had gone on shore, and in his hand he held the hammer which had done the deed.
The figure slowly advanced to the quarter-deck, Vanslyperken attempted to retreat, but his legs failed him, he dropped down on his knees, uttered a loud yell of despair, and then threw himself flat on the deck face downwards.
Certainly, the pantomime was inimitably got up, but it had all been arranged by Moggy, the corporal, and the others. There was not one man of the crew who had not been sworn to secrecy, and whose life would not have been endangered if, by undeceiving Vanslyperken, they had been deprived of such just and legitimate revenges.
Smallbones disappeared as soon as Vanslyperken had fallen down.
He was allowed to remain there for some time to ascertain if he would say anything, but as he still continued silent, they raised him up and found that he was insensible. He was consequently taken down into the cabin and put into his bed.
The effect produced by this trial of Mr Vanslyperken's nerves, was most serious. Already too much heated with the use of ardent spirits, it brought on convulsions, in which he continued during the major part of the night. Towards the morning, he sank into a perturbed slumber.
It was not till eleven o'clock in the forenoon that he awoke and perceived his _faithful_ corporal standing by the side of the bed.
"Have I not been ill, corporal?" said Mr Vanslyperken, whose memory was impaired for the time.
"Mein Gott! yes, mynheer."
"There was something happened, was not there?"
"Mein Gott! yes, mynheer."
"I've had a fit; have I not?"
"Mein Gott! yes, mynheer."
"My head swims now; what was it, corporal?"
"It was de ghost of de poy," replied the corporal.
"Yes, yes," replied Vanslyperken, falling back on his pillow.
It had been intended by the conspirators, that Smallbones should make his appearance in the cabin, as the bell struck one o'clock; but the effect had already been so serious that it was thought advisable to defer any further attempts. As for Smallbones being concealed in the vessel for any length of time there was no difficulty in that; for allowing that Vanslyperken should go forward on the lower deck of the vessel, which he never did, Smallbones had only to retreat into the eyes of her, and it was there so dark that he could not be seen. They therefore regulated their conduct much in the same way as the members of the inquisition used to do in former days; they allowed their patient to recover, that he might be subjected to more torture.
It was not until the fourth day, that the cutter arrived at the port of Amsterdam, and Mr Vanslyperken had kept his bed ever since he had been put into it; but this he could do no longer, he rose weak and emaciated, dressed himself, and went on shore with the despatches which he first delivered, and then bent his steps to the syndic's house, where he delivered his letters to Ramsay.
The arrival of the cutter had been duly notified to the widow Vandersloosh, before she had dropped her anchor, and in pursuance with her resolution she immediately despatched Babette to track Mr Vanslyperken, and watch his motions. Babette took care not to be seen by Mr Vanslyperken, but shrouding herself close in her cotton print cloak, she followed him to the Stadt House, and from the Stadt House to the mansion of Mynheer Van Krause, at a short distance from the gates of which she remained till he came out. Wishing to ascertain whether he went to any other place, she did not discover herself until she perceived that he was proceeding to the widow's--she then quickened her pace so as to come up with him.
"Oh! Mynheer Vanslyperken, is this you? I heard you had come in and so did my mistress, and she has been expecting you this last half-hour."
"I have made all the haste I can, Babette. But I was obliged to deliver my despatches first," replied Vanslyperken.
"But I thought you always took your despatches to the Stadt House?"
"Well, so I do, Babette; I have just come from thence."
This was enough for Babette, it proved that his visit to the syndic's was intended to be concealed; she was too prudent to let him know that she had traced him.
"Why, Mr Vanslyperken, you look very ill. What has been the matter with you? My mistress will be quite frightened."
"I have not been well, Babette," replied Vanslyperken.
"I really must run home as fast as I can. I will tell my mistress you have been unwell, for otherwise she will be in such a quandary;" and Babette hastened ahead of Mr Vanslyperken, who was in too weak a state to walk fast.
"The syndic's house--heh!" --said the widow, "Mynheer Van Krause. Why he is thorough king's man, by all report," continued she. "I don't understand it. But there is no trusting any man now-a-days.
"Babette, you must go there by-and-bye and see if you can find out whether that person he brought over, and he called a king's messenger, is living at the syndic's house. I think he must be, or why would Vanslyperken go there? and if he is, there's treason going on--that's all! and I'll find it out, or my name is not Vandersloosh."
Shortly after, Mr Vanslyperken arrived at the house and was received with the usual treacherous cordiality; but he had not remained more than an hour when Coble came to him (having been despatched by Short), to inform Mr Vanslyperken that a frigate was coming in with the royal standard at the main, indicating that King William was on board of her.
This intelligence obliged Mr Vanslyperken to hasten on board, as it was necessary to salute, and also to pay his respects on board of the frigate.
The frigate was within a mile when Mr Vanslyperken arrived on board of the cutter, and when the batteries saluted, the cutter did the same. Shortly afterwards the frigate dropped her anchor and returned the salute. Mr Vanslyperken, attired in his full uniform, ordered his boat to be manned and pulled on board.
On his arrival on the quarter-deck Vanslyperken was received by the captain of the frigate, and then presented to King William of Nassau, who was standing on the other side of the deck, attended by the Duke of Portland, Lord Albemarle, and several others of his courtiers, not all of them quite as faithful as the two whom we have named.
When Mr Vanslyperken was brought forward to the presence of his Majesty, he trembled almost as much as when he had beheld the supposed spirit of Smallbones, and well he might, for his conscience told him as he bowed his knee that he was a traitor. His agitation was, however, ascribed to his being daunted by the unusual presence of royalty. And Albemarle, as Vanslyperken retreated with a cold sweat on his forehead, observed to the king with a smile, "That worthy lieutenant would show a little more courage, I doubt not, your Majesty, if he were in the presence of your enemies."
"It is to be hoped so," replied the king, with a smile. "I agree with you, Keppel."
But his Majesty and Lord Albemarle did not know Mr Vanslyperken, as the reader will acknowledge.
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In which is shown how dangerous it is to tell a secret.
Mr Vanslyperken received orders to attend with his boat upon his Majesty's landing, which took place in about a quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst another war of cannon.
King William was received by the authorities at the landing-stairs, and from thence he stepped into the carriage, awaiting him, and drove off to his palace at the Hague; much to the relief of Mr Vanslyperken, who felt ill at ease in the presence of his sovereign. When his Majesty put his foot on shore, the foremost to receive him, in virtue of his office, was the syndic Mynheer Van Krause, who, in full costume of gown, chains, and periwig, bowed low, as his Majesty advanced, expecting as usual the gracious smile and friendly nod of his sovereign; but to his mortification, his reverence was returned with a grave, if not stern air, and the king passed him without further notice. All the courtiers also, who had been accustomed to salute, and to exchange a few words with him, to his astonishment turned their heads another way. At first, Mynheer Van Krause could hardly believe his senses, he who had always been so graciously received, who had been considered most truly as such a staunch supporter of his king, to be neglected, mortified in this way, and without cause. Instead of following his Majesty to his carriage, with the rest of the authorities, he stood still and transfixed, the carriage drove off, and the syndic hardly replying to some questions put to him, hurried back to his own house in a state of confusion and vexation almost indescribable. He hastened upstairs and entered the room of Ramsay, who was very busy with the despatches which he had received. "Well, Mynheer Van Krause, how is his Majesty looking," inquired Ramsay, who knew that the syndic had been down to receive him on his landing.
Mynheer Krause threw himself down in a chair, threw open his gown, and uttered a deep sigh.
"What is the matter, my dear sir, you appear ruffled," continued Ramsay, who from the extracts made by Vanslyperken from the despatches, was aware that suspicions had been lodged against his host.
"Such treatment--to one of his most devoted followers," exclaimed Krause, at last, who then entered into a detail of what had occurred.
"Such is the sweet aspect, the smile, we would aspire to of kings, Mynheer Krause."
"But there must be some occasion for all this," observed the syndic.
"No doubt of it," replied Ramsay--"some reason--but not a just one."
"That is certain," replied the syndic, "some one must have maligned me to his Majesty."
"It may be," replied Ramsay, "but there may be other causes, kings are suspicious, and subjects may be too rich and too powerful. There are many paupers among the favourites of his Majesty, who would be very glad to see your property confiscated, and you cast into prison."
"But, my dear sir,--" "You forget also, that the Jacobites are plotting, and have been plotting for years; that conspiracy is formed upon conspiracy, and that when so surrounded and opposed, kings will be suspicious."
"But his Majesty, King William,--" "Firmly attached, and loyal as I am to my sovereign, Mynheer Krause, I do not think that King William is more to be relied upon than King James. Kings are but kings, they will repay the most important services by smiles, and the least doubtful act with the gibbet. I agree with you that some one must have maligned you, but allow me to make a remark that if once suspicion or dislike enters into a royal breast, there is no effacing it, a complete verdict of innocence will not do it; it is like the sapping of one of the dams of this country, Mynheer Krause, the admission of water is but small at first, but it increases and increases, till it ends in a general inundation."
"But I must demand an audience of his Majesty and explain."
"Explain--the very attempt will be considered as a proof of your guilt; no, no, as a sincere friend I should advise you to be quiet, and to take such steps as the case requires. That frown, that treatment of you in public, is sufficient to tell me that you must prepare for the event. Can you expect a king to publicly retract?"
"Retract! no--I do not require a public apology from my sovereign."
"But if having frowned upon you publicly, he again smiles upon you publicly, he does retract. He acknowledges that he was in error, and it becomes a public apology."
"God in heaven! then I am lost," replied the syndic, throwing himself back in his chair. "Do you really think so, Mynheer Ramsay?"
"I do not say that you are lost. At present, you have only lost the favour of the king; but you can do without that, Mynheer Krause."
"Do without that--but you do not know that without that I am lost. Am I not Syndic of this town of Amsterdam, and can I expect to hold such an important situation if I am out of favour?"
"Very true, Mynheer Krause; but what can be done? you are assailed in the dark, you do not know the charges brought against you, and therefore cannot refute or parry with them."
"But what charges can they bring against me?"
"There can be but one charge against a person in your high situation, that of disaffection."
"Disaffection! I who am and have always been so devoted."
"The most disaffected generally appear the most devoted, Mynheer Krause, that will not help you."
"My God! then," exclaimed Krause, with animation, "what will, if loyalty is to be construed into a sign of disaffection?"
"Nothing," replied Ramsay, coolly. "Suspicion in the heart of a king is never to be effaced, and disaffection may soon be magnified into high treason."
"Bless me!" exclaimed Van Krause, crossing his hands on his heart in utter despair. "My dear Mynheer Ramsay, will you give me your opinion how I should act?"
"There is no saying how far you may be right in your conjectures, Mynheer Krause," replied Ramsay: "you may have been mistaken."
"No, no, he frowned--looked cross--I see his face now."
"Yes, but a little thing will sour the face of royalty, his corn may have pinched him, at the time he might have had a twinge in the bowels--his voyage may have affected him."
"He smiled upon others, upon my friend, Engelback, very graciously."
This was the very party who had prepared the charges against Krause--his own very particular friend.
"Did he?" replied Ramsay. "Then depend upon it, that's the very man who has belied you."
"What, Engelback? my particular friend?"
"Yes, I should imagine so. Tell me, Mynheer Krause, I trust you have never entrusted to him the important secrets which I have made you acquainted with, for if you have, your knowledge of them would be quite sufficient."
"My knowledge of them. I really cannot understand that. How can my knowledge of what is going on among the king's friends and councillors be a cause of suspicion?"
"Why, Mynheer Krause, because the king is surrounded by many who are retained from policy and fear of them. If these secrets are made known contrary to oath, is it not clear that the parties so revealing them must be no sincere friends of his Majesty's, and will it not be naturally concluded that those who have possession of them, are equally his open or secret enemies."
"But then, Mynheer Ramsay, by that rule you must be his Majesty's enemy."
"That does not follow, Mynheer Krause, I may obtain the secrets from those who are not so partial to his Majesty as they are to me, but that does not disprove my loyalty. To expose them would of course render me liable to suspicion--but I guard them carefully. I have not told a word to a soul, but to you, my dear Mynheer Krause, and I have felt assured that you were much too loyal to make known to anyone, what it was your duty to your king to keep secret; surely, Mynheer Krause, you have not trusted that man?"
"I may have given a hint or so--I'm afraid that I did; but he is my most particular friend."
"If that is the case," replied Ramsay, "I am not at all surprised at the king's frowning on you: Engelback having intelligence from you, supposed to be known only to the highest authorities, has thought it his duty to communicate it to government, and you are now suspected."
"God in heaven! I wish I never had your secrets, Mynheer Ramsay. It appears then that I have committed treason without knowing it."
"At all events, you have incurred suspicion. It is a pity that you mentioned what I confided to you, but what's done cannot be helped, you must now be active."
"What must I do, my dear friend?"
"Expect the worst and be prepared for it--you are wealthy, Mr Van Krause, and that will not be in your favour, it will only hasten the explosion, which sooner or later will take place. Remit as much of your money as you can to where it will be secure from the spoilers. Convert all that you can into gold, that you may take advantage of the first opportunity, if necessary, of flying from their vengeance. Do all this very quietly. Go on, as usual, as if nothing had occurred--talk with your friend Engelback--perform your duties as syndic. It may blow over, although I am afraid not. At all events you will have, in all probability, some warning, as they will displace you as syndic before they proceed further. I have only one thing to add. I am your guest, and depend upon it, shall share your fortune whatever it may be; if you are thrown into prison, I am certain to be sent there also. You may therefore command me as you please. I will not desert you, you may depend upon it."
"My dear young man, you are indeed a friend, and your advice is good. My poor Wilhelmina, what would become of her."
"Yes, indeed, used to luxury--her father in prison, perhaps his head at the gates--his whole property confiscated, and all because he had the earliest intelligence. Such is the reward of loyalty."
"Yes, indeed," repeated the syndic, "'put not your trust in princes,' says the psalmist. If such is to be the return for my loyalty--but there is no time to lose. I must send this post, to Hamburgh and Frankfort. Many thanks, my dear friend for your kind council, which I shall follow," so saying, Mynheer Krause went to his room, threw off his gown and chains in a passion, and hastened to his counting-house to write his important letters.
We may now take this opportunity of informing the reader of what had occurred in the house of the syndic. Ramsay had, as may be supposed, gained the affections of Wilhelmina; had told his love, and received her acknowledgment in return; he had also gained such a power over her, that she had agreed to conceal their attachment from her father; as Ramsay wished first, he asserted, to be possessed of a certain property which he daily expected would fall to him, and, until that, he did not think that he had any right to aspire to the hand of Wilhelmina.
That Ramsay was most seriously in love there was no doubt; he would have wedded Wilhelmina, even if she had not a sixpence; but at the same time, he was too well aware of the advantages of wealth not to fully appreciate it, and he felt the necessity and the justice to Wilhelmina, that she should not be deprived, by his means, of those luxuries to which she had been brought up. But here there was a difficulty, arising from his espousing the very opposite cause to that espoused by Mynheer Krause, for the difference of religion he very rightly considered as a mere trifle compared with the difference in political feelings. He had already weaned Wilhelmina from the political bias, imbibed from her father and his connections, without acquainting her with his belonging to the opposite party, for the present. It had been his intention as soon as his services were required elsewhere, to have demanded Wilhelmina's hand from her father, still leaving him in error as to his politics; and by taking her with him, after the marriage, to the court of St Germains, to have allowed Mynheer Krause to think what he pleased, but not to enter into any explanation; but, as Ramsay truly observed, Mynheer Krause had, by his not retaining the secrets confided to him, rendered himself suspected, and once suspected with King William, his disgrace, if not ruin, was sure to follow. This fact, so important to Ramsay's plans, had been communicated in the extracts made by Vanslyperken from the last despatches, and Ramsay had been calculating the consequences when Mynheer Krause returned discomfited from the presence of the king.
That Ramsay played a very diplomatic game in the conversation which we have repeated is true; but still it was the best game for Krause as well as for his own interests, as the events will show. We must, however, remind the reader that Ramsay had no idea whatever of the double treachery on the part of Vanslyperken, in copying all the letters sent by and to him, as well as extracting from the government despatches.
"My dearest Edward, what has detained you so long from me this morning," inquired Wilhelmina when he entered the music-room, about an hour after his conversation with the syndic.
Ramsay then entered into the detail of what had occurred, and wove in such remarks of his own as were calculated to disgust Wilhelmina with the conduct of King William, and to make her consider her father as an injured man. He informed her of the advice he had given him, and then pointed out to her the propriety of her enforcing his following it with all the arguments of persuasion in her power.
Wilhelmina's indignation was roused, and she did not fail, when speaking with her father, to rail in no measured tones against the king, and to press him to quit a country where he had been so ill-used. Mynheer Krause felt the same, his pride had been severely wounded; and it may be truly said, that one of the staunchest adherents of the Protestant king was lost by a combination of circumstances as peculiar as they were unexpected.
In the meantime, the corporal had gone on shore as usual and made the widow acquainted with the last attempt upon Smallbones, and the revenge of the ship's company. Babette had also done her part.
She had found out that Ramsay lived in the house of the syndic, and that he was the passenger brought over by Vanslyperken in the cutter.
The widow, who had now almost arranged her plans, received Vanslyperken more amicably than ever; anathematised the--supposed defunct Smallbones; shed tears over the stump of Snarleyyow, and asked Vanslyperken when he intended to give up the nasty cutter and live quietly on shore.
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In which is shown the imprudence of sleeping in the open air, even in a summer's night.
The _Yungfrau_ was not permitted to remain more than two days at her anchorage. On the third morning Mr Vanslyperken's signal was made to prepare to weigh. He immediately answered it, and giving his orders to Short, hastened, as fast as he could, up to the syndic's house to inform Ramsay, stating, that he must immediately return on board again, and that the letters must be sent to him: Ramsay perceived the necessity of this, and consented. On his return to the boat, Mr Vanslyperken found that his signal to repair on board the frigate had been hoisted, and he hastened on board to put on his uniform and obey this order. He received his despatches from the captain of the frigate, with orders to proceed to sea immediately. Mr Vanslyperken, under the eye of his superior officer, could not dally or delay: he hove short, hoisted his mainsail, and fired a gun as a signal for sailing; anxiously looking out for Ramsay's boat with his letters, and afraid to go without them; but no boat made its appearance, and Mr Vanslyperken was forced to heave up his anchor. Still he did not like to make sail, and he remained a few minutes more, when he at last perceived a small boat coming off. At the same time he observed a boat coming from the frigate, and they arrived alongside the cutter about the same time, fortunately Ramsay's boat the first, and Mr Vanslyperken had time to carry the letters down below.
"The commandant wishes to know why you do not proceed to sea, sir, in obedience to your orders," said the officer.
"I only waited for that boat to come on board, sir," replied Vanslyperken to the lieutenant.
"And pray, sir, from whom does that boat come?" inquired the officer.
"From the syndic's, Mynheer Van Krause," replied Vanslyperken, not knowing what else to say, and thinking that the name of the syndic would be sufficient.
"And what did the boat bring off, to occasion the delay, sir?"
"A letter or two for England," replied Vanslyperken.
"Very well, sir, I wish you a good morning," said the lieutenant, who then went into his boat, and Vanslyperken made sail.
The delay of the cutter to receive the syndic's letters was fully reported the same evening to the commandant, who, knowing that the syndic was suspected, reported the same to the authorities, and this trifling circumstance only increased the suspicions against the unfortunate Mynheer Van Krause; but we must follow the cutter and those on board of her. Smallbones had remained concealed on board, his wounds had been nearly healed, and it was now again proposed that he should, as soon as they were out at sea, make his appearance to frighten Vanslyperken; and that, immediately they arrived at Portsmouth, he should go on shore and desert from the cutter, as Mr Vanslyperken would, of course, find out that his mother was killed, and the consequences to Smallbones must be dangerous, as he had no evidence, if Vanslyperken swore that he had murdered his mother; but this arrangement was overthrown by events which we shall now narrate. It was on the third morning after they sailed, that Vanslyperken walked the deck: there was no one but the man at the helm abaft. The weather was extremely sultry, for the cutter had run with a fair wind for the first eight-and-forty hours, and had then been becalmed for the last twenty-four, and had drifted to the back of the Isle of Wight, when she was not three leagues from St Helen's. The consequence was, that the ebb-tide had now drifted her down very nearly opposite to that part of the island where the cave was situated of which we have made mention. Vanslyperken heard the people talking below, and, as usual, anxious to overhear what was said, had stopped to listen. He heard the name of Smallbones repeated several times, but could not make out what was said.
Anxious to know, he went down the ladder, and, instead of going into his cabin, crept softly forward on the lower deck, when he overheard Coble, Short, and Spurey in consultation.
"We shall be in to-morrow," said Spurey, "if a breeze springs up, and then it will be too late: Smallbones must frighten him again to-night."
"Yes," replied Short.
"He shall go into his cabin at twelve o'clock, that will be the best way."
"But the corporal."
"Hush! --there is someone there," said Spurey, who, attracted by a slight noise made by Vanslyperken's boots, turned short round.
Vanslyperken retreated and gained the deck by the ladder; he had hardly been up when he observed a face at the hatchway, who was evidently looking to ascertain if he was on deck.
These few words overheard, satisfied Vanslyperken that Smallbones was alive and on board the cutter; and he perceived how he had been played with. His rage was excessive, but he did not know how to act. If Smallbones was alive, and that he appeared to be, he must have escaped from his mother, and, of course, the ship's company must know that his life had been attempted. That he did not care much about; he had not done the deed; but how the lad could have come on board! did he not see him lying dead? It was very strange, and the life of the boy must be charmed. At all events, it was a mystery which Mr Vanslyperken could not solve; at first, he thought that he would allow Smallbones to come into the cabin, and get a loaded pistol ready for him. The words, "But the corporal," which were cut short, proved to him that the corporal was no party to the affair; yet it was strange that the ship's company could have concealed the lad without the corporal's knowledge. Vanslyperken walked and walked, and thought and thought; at last he resolved to go down into his cabin, pretend to go to bed, lock his door, which was not his custom, and see if they would attempt to come in. He did so, the corporal was dismissed, and at twelve o'clock his door was tried and tried again; but being fast, the party retreated. Vanslyperken waited till two bells to ascertain if any more attempts would be made; but none were, so he rose from his bed, where he had thrown himself with his clothes on, and, opening the door softly, crept upon deck. The night was very warm, but there was a light and increasing breeze, and the cutter was standing in and close to the shore to make a long board upon next tack. Vanslyperken passed the man at the helm, and walked aft to the taffrail; he stood up on the choak to ascertain what way she was making through the water, and he was meditating upon the best method of proceeding. Had he known where Smallbones' hammock was hung, he would have gone down with the view of ascertaining the fact; but with a crew so evidently opposed to him, he could not see how even the ascertaining that Smallbones was on board, would be productive of any good consequences. The more Vanslyperken thought, the more he was puzzled. The fact is, that he was between the horns of a dilemma; but the devil, who always helps his favourites, came to the aid of Mr Vanslyperken. The small boat was, as usual, hoisted up astern, and Mr Vanslyperken's eyes were accidentally cast upon it. He perceived a black mass lying on the thwarts, and he examined it more closely: he heard snoring; it was one of the ship's company sleeping there against orders. He leant over the taffrail, and putting aside the great-coat which covered the party, he looked attentively on the face--there was no doubt it was Smallbones himself. From a knowledge of the premises, Vanslyperken knew at once that the lad was in his power.
The boat, after being hauled up with tackles, was hung by a single rope at each davit. It was very broad in proportion to its length, and was secured from motion by a single gripe, which confined it in its place, bowsing it close to the stern of the cutter, and preventing it from turning over bottom up, which, upon the least weight upon one gunnel or the other, would be inevitably the case. Smallbones was lying close to the gunnel next to the stern of the cutter. By letting go the gripe, therefore, the boat would immediately turn bottom up, and Smallbones would be dropped into the sea. Vanslyperken carefully examined the fastenings of the gripe, found that they were to be cast off by one movement, and that his success was certain; but still he was cautious. The man at the helm must hear the boat go over; he might hear Smallbones' cry for assistance. So Vanslyperken went forward to the man at the helm, and desired him to go down and to order Corporal Van Spitter to mix a glass of brandy-and-water, and send it up by him, and that he would steer the vessel till he came up again. The man went down to execute the order, and Vanslyperken steered the cutter for half a minute, during which he looked forward to ascertain if any one was moving. All was safe, the watch was all asleep forward, and Vanslyperken, leaving the cutter to steer itself, hastened aft, cast off the gripe, the boat, as he calculated, immediately turning over, and the sleeping Smallbones fell into the sea. Vanslyperken hastened back to the helm, and put the cutter's head right. He heard the cry of Smallbones, but it was not loud, for the cutter had already left him astern, and it was fainter and fainter, and at last it was heard no more, and not one of the watch had been disturbed.
"If ever you haunt me again," muttered Vanslyperken, "may I be hanged."
We particularly call the reader's attention to these words of Mr Vanslyperken.
The man returned with the brandy-and-water, with which Vanslyperken drank _bon voyage_ to poor Smallbones. He then ordered the cutter to be put about, and as soon as she was round, he went down into his cabin and turned in with greater satisfaction than he had for a long time.
"We shall have got rid of him at last, my poor dog," said he, patting Snarleyyow's head. "Your enemy is gone for ever."
And Mr Vanslyperken slept soundly, because, although he had committed a murder, there was no chance of his being found out. We soon get accustomed to crime: before, he started at the idea of murder; now, all that he cared for was detection.
"Good-night to you, Mr Vanslyperken."
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In which Smallbones changes from a king's man into a smuggler, and also changes his sex.
If we adhered to the usual plans of historical novel writers, we should, in this instance, leave Smallbones to what must appear to have been his inevitable fate, and then bring him on the stage again with a _coup de théâtre_, when least expected by the reader. But that is not our intention; we consider that the interest of this our narration of bygone events is quite sufficient, without condescending to what is called claptrap; and there are so many people in our narrative continually labouring under deception of one kind or another, that we need not add to it by attempting to mystify our readers; who, on the contrary, we shall take with us familiarly by the hand, and, like a faithful historian, lead them through the events in the order in which they occurred, and point out to them how they all lead to one common end. With this intention in view, we shall now follow the fortunes of Smallbones, whom we left floundering in about seven fathoms water.
The weather was warm, even sultry, as we said before; but notwithstanding which, and notwithstanding he was a very tolerable swimmer, considering that he was so thin, Smallbones did not like it. To be awoke out of a profound sleep, and all of a sudden to find yourself floundering out of your depth about half a mile from the nearest land, is anything but agreeable; the transition is too rapid. Smallbones descended a few feet before he could divest himself of the folds of the Flustering coat which he had wrapped himself up in. It belonged to Coble, he had purchased it at a sale-shop on the Point for seventeen shillings and sixpence, and, moreover, it was as good as new. In consequence of this delay below water-mark, Smallbones had very little breath left in his body when he rose to the surface, and he could not inflate his lungs so as to call loud until the cutter had walked away from him at least one hundred yards, for she was slipping fast through the water, and another minute plainly proved to Smallbones that he was left to his own resources.
At first, the lad had imagined that it was an accident, and that the rope had given way with his weight; but when he found that no attention was paid to his cries, he then was convinced that it was the work of Mr Vanslyperken.
"By _gum_, he's a done for me at last. Well, I don't care, I can die but once, that's sartin sure; and he'll go to the devil, that's sartin sure."
And Smallbones, with this comfortable assurance, continued to strike out for the land, which, indeed, he had but little prospect of ever making.
"A shame for to come for to go to murder a poor lad three or four times over," sputtered Smallbones, after a time, feeling his strength fail him. He then turned on his back, to ease his arms.
"I can't do it no how, I sees that," said Smallbones, "so I may just as well go down like a dipsey lead."
But, as he muttered this, and was making up his mind to discontinue further exertions,--not a very easy thing to do, when you are about to go into another world, still floating on his back, with his eyes fixed on the starry heavens, thinking, as Smallbones afterwards narrated himself, that there wa'n't much to live for in this here world, and considering what there could be in that 'ere, his head struck against something hard. Smallbones immediately turned round in the water to see what it was, and found that it was one of the large corks which supported a heavy net laid out across the tide for the taking of shoal-fish. The cork was barely sufficient to support his weight, but it gave him a certain relief, and time to look about him, as the saying is. The lad ran under the net and cork with his hands until he arrived at the nearest shoal, for it was three or four hundred yards long. When he arrived there, he contrived to bring some of the corks together, until he had quite sufficient for his support, and then Smallbones voted himself pretty comfortable after all, for the water was very warm, and now quite smooth.
Smallbones, as the reader may have observed during the narration, was a lad of most indisputable courage and of good principles. Had it been his fortune to have been born among the higher classes, and to have had all the advantages of education, he might have turned out a hero; as it was, he did his duty well in that state of life to which he had been called, and as he said in his speech to the men on the forecastle, he feared God, honoured the king, and was the natural enemy to the devil.
The Chevalier Bayard was nothing more, only he had a wider field for his exertions and his talents; but the armed and accoutred Bayard did not show more courage and conduct when leading armies to victory, than did the unarmed Smallbones against Vanslyperken and his dog. We consider that _in his way_, Smallbones was quite as great a hero as the Chevalier, for no man can do more than his best; indeed, it is unreasonable to expect it.
While Smallbones hung on to the corks, he was calculating his chances of being saved.
"If so be as how they comes to take up the nets in the morning, why then I think I may hold on; but if so be they waits, why they'll then find me dead as a fish," said Smallbones, who seldom ventured above a monosyllable, and whose language if not considered as pure English, was certainly amazingly Saxon; and then Smallbones began to reflect, whether it was not necessary that he should forgive Mr Vanslyperken before he died, and his pros and cons ended with his thinking he could, for it was his duty; however he would not be in a hurry about it, he thought that was the last thing that he need do; but as for the dog, he wa'n't obliged to forgive him that was certain--as certain as that his tail was off; and Smallbones, up to his chin in the water, grinned so at the remembrance, that he took in more salt water than was pleasant.
He spit it out again, and then looked up to the stars, which were twinkling above him.
I wonder what o'clock it is, thought Smallbones, when he thought he heard a distant sound. Smallbones pricked up his ears and listened;--yes, it was in regular cadence, and became louder and louder. It was a boat pulling.
"Well, I am sure," thought Smallbones, "they'll think they have caught a queer fish anyhow:" and he waited very patiently for the fisherman to come up. At last he perceived the boat, which was very long and pulled many oars. "They be the smuglars," thought Smallbones.
"I wonder whether they'll pick up a poor lad? Boat ahoy!"
The boat continued to pass towards the coast, impelled at the speed of seven or eight miles an hour, and was now nearly abreast of Smallbones, and not fifty yards from him.
"I say, boat ahoy!" screamed Smallbones, to the extent of his voice.
He was heard this time, and there was a pause in the pulling, the boat still driving through the water with the impulse which had been given her, as if she required no propelling power.
"I say you arn't a going for to come for to leave a poor lad here to be drowned, are you?"
"That's Smallbones, I'll swear," cried Jemmy Ducks, who was steering the boat, and who immediately shifted the helm.
But Sir Robert Barclay paused; there was too much at stake to run any risk, even to save the life of a fellow-creature.
"You takes time for to think on it anyhow," cried Smallbones--"you are going for to leave a fellow-christian stuck like a herring in a fishing net, are you? you would not like it yourself, anyhow."
"It is Smallbones, sir," repeated Jemmy Ducks, "and I'll vouch for him as a lad that's good and true."
Sir Barclay no longer hesitated: "Give way, my lads, and pick him up."
In a few minutes, Smallbones was hauled in over the gunnel, and was seated on the stern-sheets opposite to Sir Robert.
"It's a great deal colder out of the water than in, that's sartain," observed Smallbones, shivering.
"Give way, my lads, we've no time to stay," cried Sir Robert.
"Take this, Smallbones," said Jemmy.
"Why, so it is, Jemmy Ducks!" replied Smallbones, with astonishment--"why, how did you come here?"
"Sarcumstances," replied Jemmy; "how did you come there?"
"Sarcumstances too, Jemmy," replied Smallbones.
"Keep silence," said Sir Robert, and nothing more was said until the lugger dashed into the cave.
The cargo was landed, and Smallbones who was very cold was not sorry to assist. He carried up his load with the rest, and as usual the women came half-way down to receive it.
"Why, who have we here?" said one of the women to whom Smallbones was delivering his load, "why, it's Smallbones."
"Yes," replied Smallbones, it is me; "but how came you here, Nancy?"
"That's tellings, but how came you, my lad?" replied Nancy.
"I came by water anyhow."
"Well, you are one of us now, you know there's no going back."
"I'm sure I don't want to go back, Nancy; but what is to be done? nothing unchristianlike I hope."
"We're all good Christians here, Smallbones; we don't bow down to idols and pay duty to them as other people do."
"Do you fear God, and honour the king?"
"We do; the first as much as the other people, and as for the king, we love him and serve him faithfully."
"Well, then I suppose that's all right," replied Smallbones; "but where do you live?"
"Come with me, take your load up, and I will show you, for the sooner you are there the better; the boat will be off again in half-an-hour, if I mistake not."
"Off, where?"
"To France, with a message to the king."
"Why, the king's in Holland! we left him there when we sailed."
"Pooh! nonsense! come along."
When Sir Robert arrived at the cave, he found an old friend anxiously awaiting his arrival; it was Graham, who had been despatched by the Jacobites to the court of St Germains, with intelligence of great importance, which was the death of the young Duke of Gloucester, the only surviving son of King William. He had, it was said, died of a malignant fever; but if the reader will call to mind the address of one of the Jesuits on the meeting at Cherbourg, he may have some surmises as to the cause of the duke's decease. As this event rendered the succession uncertain, the hopes of the Jacobites were raised to the highest pitch: the more so as the country was in a state of anxiety and confusion, and King William was absent at the Hague. Graham had, therefore, been despatched to the exiled James, with the propositions from his friends in England, and to press the necessity of an invasion of the country. As Nancy had supposed, Sir Robert decided upon immediately crossing over to Cherbourg, the crew were allowed a short time to repose and refresh themselves, and once more returned to their laborious employment; Jemmy Ducks satisfied Sir Robert that Smallbones might be trusted and be useful, and Nancy corroborated his assertions. He was, therefore, allowed to remain in the cave with the women, and Sir Robert and his crew, long before Smallbones' garments were dry, were again crossing the English Channel.
Now, it must be observed, that Smallbones was never well off for clothes, and, on this occasion, when he fell overboard, he had nothing on but an old pair of thin linen trousers and a shirt which, from dint of long washing, from check had turned to a light cerulean blue: what with his struggles at the net and the force used to pull him into the boat, the shirt had more than one-half disappeared--that is to say, one sleeve and the back were wholly gone, and the other sleeve was well prepared to follow its fellow, on the first capful of wind. His trousers also were in almost as bad a state. In hauling him in, when his head was over the gunnel, one of the men had seized him by the seat of his trousers to lift him into the boat, and the consequence was, that the seat of his trousers having been too long set upon, was also left in his muscular gripe. All these items put together, the reader may infer, that, although Smallbones might appear merely ragged in front, that in his rear he could not be considered as decent, especially as he was the only one of the masculine sex among a body of females. No notice was taken of this by others, nor did Smallbones observe it himself, during the confusion and bustle previous to the departure of the smugglers; but now they were gone, Smallbones perceived his deficiencies, and was very much at a loss what to do, as he was aware that daylight would discover them to others as well as to himself: so he fixed his back up against one of the rocks, and remained idle while the women were busily employed storing away the cargo in the various compartments of the cave.
Nancy, who had not forgotten that he was with them, came up to him.
"Why do you stay there, Smallbones? you must be hungry and cold, come in with me, and I will find you something to eat."
"I can't, Mistress Nancy, I want your advice first. Has any of the men left any of their duds in this here cavern?"
"Duds, men! No, they keep them all on the other side. We have nothing but petticoats here and shimmeys."
"Then what must I do?" exclaimed Smallbones.
"Oh, I see, your shirt is torn off your back. Well, never mind, I'll lend you a shimmey."
"Yes, Mistress Nancy, but it be more worse than that, I an't got no behind to my trousers, they pulled it out when they pulled me into the boat. I sticks to this here rock for decency's sake. What must I do?"
Nancy burst into a laugh. "Do, why if you can't have men's clothes, you must put on the women's, and then you'll be in the regular uniform of the cave."
"I do suppose that I must, but I can't say that I like the idea much, anyhow," replied Smallbones.
"Why, you don't mean to stick to that rock like a limpit all your life, do you? there's plenty of work for you."
"If so be, I must, I must," replied Smallbones.
"You can't appear before Mistress Alice in that state," replied Nancy. "She's a lady bred and born, and very particular too, and then there's Miss Lilly, you will turn her as red as a rose, if she sees you."
"Well then, I suppose I must, Mistress Nancy, for I shall catch my death of cold here, I'm all wet and shivery, from being so long in the water, and my back against the rock, feels just as ice."
"No wonder, I'll run and fetch you something," replied Nancy, who was delighted at the idea of dressing up Smallbones as a woman.
Nancy soon returned with a chemise, a short flannel petticoat, and a shawl, which she gave to Smallbones, desiring him to take off his wet clothes, and substitute them. She would return to him as soon as he had put them on, and see that they were put tidy and right.
Smallbones retired behind one of the rocks, and soon shifted his clothes, he put everything on the hind part before, and Nancy had to alter them when she came. She adjusted the shawl, and then led him into the cave where he found Mistress Alice, and some of the women who were not busy with the cargo.
"Here's the poor lad who was thrown overboard, madam," said Nancy, retaining her gravity. "All his clothes were torn off his back, and I have been obliged to give him these to put on."
Lady Barclay could hardly repress a smile. Smallbones' appearance was that of a tall gaunt creature, pale enough, and smooth enough to be a woman certainly, but cutting a most ridiculous figure. His long thin arms were bare, his neck was like a crane's, and the petticoats were so short as to reach almost above his knees. Shoes and stockings he had none. His long hair was platted and matted with the salt water, and one side of his head was shaved, and exhibited a monstrous half-healed scar.
Lady Barclay asked him a few questions, and then desired Nancy to give him some refreshment, and find him something to lie down upon in the division of the cave which was used as a kitchen.
But we must now leave Smallbones to entertain the inhabitants of the cave with the history of his adventures, which he did at intervals, during his stay there. He retained his women's clothes, for Nancy would not let him wear any other, and was a source of great amusement not only to the smugglers' wives, but also to little Lilly, who would listen to his conversation and remarks which were almost as naive and unsophisticated as her own.
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In which Mr Vanslyperken meets with a double defeat.
It was late in the evening of the day after Smallbones had been so satisfactorily disposed of that the cutter arrived at Portsmouth; but from daylight until the time that the cutter anchored, there was no small confusion and bustle on board of the _Yungfrau_. When Vanslyperken's cabin door was found to be locked, it was determined that Smallbones should not appear as a supernatural visitant that night, but wait till the one following; consequently the parties retired to bed, and Smallbones, who found the heat between decks very oppressive, had crept up the ladder and taken a berth in the small boat that he might sleep cool and comfortable, intending to be down below again long before Mr Vanslyperken was up; but, as the reader knows, Mr Vanslyperken was up before him, and the consequence was that Smallbones went down into the sea instead of the lower deck as he had intended.
The next morning it was soon ascertained that Smallbones was not to be found, and the ship's company were in a state of dismay. The boat, as soon as Smallbones had been turned out, had resumed her upright position, and one of the men when busy washing the decks, had made fast the gripe again, which he supposed had been cast off by accident when the ropes had been coiled up for washing, Smallbones not being at that time missed. When, therefore, the decks had been searched everywhere and the lad was discovered not to be in the ship, the suspicion was very great. No one had seen him go aft to sleep in the boat. The man who was at the wheel stated that Mr Vanslyperken had sent him down for a glass of grog, and had taken the helm for the time; but this proved nothing. His disappearance was a mystery not to be unravelled. An appeal to Mr Vanslyperken was, of course, impossible, for he did not know that the lad was on board. The whole day was spent in surmises and suppositions; but things all ended in the simple fact, that somehow or another Smallbones had fallen overboard, and there was an end of the poor fellow.
So soon as the cutter was at anchor, Mr Vanslyperken hastened to perform his official duties, and anxious to learn how Smallbones had contrived to escape the clutches of his mother, bent his steps towards the half-way houses. He arrived at the door of his mother's room, and knocked as usual, but there was no reply. It was now the latter end of July, and although it was past seven o'clock it was full daylight. Vanslyperken knocked again and again. His mother must be out, he thought; and if so, she always took the key with her. He had nothing to do but to wait for her return. The passage and staircase was dark, but there was a broad light in the room from the casement, and this light streamed from under the door of the room. A shade crossing the light attracted Vanslyperken's attention, and to while away the tediousness of waiting he was curious to see what it was; he knelt down, looked under the door, and perceived the key which Smallbones had placed there; he inserted his finger and drew it forth, imagining that his mother had slid it beneath till her return.
He fitted it to the lock and opened the door, when his olfactory nerves were offended with a dreadful stench, which surprised him the more as the casement was open. Vanslyperken surveyed the room, he perceived that the blood had been washed from the floor and sand strewed over it. Had he not known that Smallbones had been on board of the cutter the day before, he would have thought that it had been the smell of the dead body not yet removed. This thought crossing his imagination, immediately made the truth flash upon him, and, as if instinctively, he went up to the bed and pulled down the clothes, when he recoiled back with horror at uncovering the face of his mother, now of a livid blue and in the last stage of putrefaction.
Overcome with the horrid sight, and the dreadful stench which accompanied it, he reeled to the casement and gasped for breath. A sickness came over him, and for some time he was incapable of acting and barely capable of reflection.
"She is gone then," thought he at last, and he shuddered when he asked himself _where_. "She must have fallen by the hands of the lad," continued he, and immediately the whole that had happened appeared to be revealed to him. "Yes, yes, he has recovered from the blow--killed her and locked the door--all is clear now, but I have revenged her death."
Vanslyperken, who had now recovered himself, went softly to the door, took out the key and locked himself in. He had been debating in his mind whether he should call in the neighbours; but, on reflection, as no one had seen him enter, he determined that he would not. He would take his gold and leave the door locked and the key under it, as he found it before her death was discovered: it would be supposed that she died a natural death, for the state of the body would render it impossible to prove the contrary. But there was one act necessary to be performed at which Vanslyperken's heart recoiled. The key of the oak chest was about his mother's person and he must obtain it, he must search for it in corruption and death, amongst creeping worms and noisome stench. It was half an hour before he could make up his mind to the task! but what will avarice not accomplish!
He covered up the face, and with a trembling hand turned over the bedclothes. But we must not disgust our readers, it will suffice to say, that the key was obtained, and the chest opened.
Vanslyperken found all his own gold, and much more than he had ever expected belonging to his mother. There were other articles belonging to him, but he thought it prudent not to touch them. He loaded himself with the treasure, and when he felt that it was all secure, for he was obliged to divide it in different parcels and stow it in various manners about his person, he relocked the chest, placed the key in the cupboard, and quitting the room made fast the door, and like a dutiful son, left the remains of his mother to be inhumed at the expense of the parish.
As he left the house without being observed, and gained the town of Portsmouth, never was Mr Vanslyperken's body so heavily loaded, or his heart lighter. He had got rid of Smallbones and of his mother, both in a way perfectly satisfactory to himself.
He had recovered his own gold, and had also been enriched beyond his hopes by his mother's savings. He felt not the weight which he carried about his person, he wished it had been heavier. All he felt was, very anxious to be on board and have his property secured. His boat waited for him, and one of the men informed him his presence was required at the admiral's immediately; but Mr Vanslyperken first went on board, and having safely locked up all his treasures, then complied with the admiral's wishes. They were to sail immediately, for the intelligence of the Duke of Gloucester's death had just arrived with the despatches, announcing the same to be taken to King William, who was still at the Hague. Vanslyperken sent the boat on board with orders to Short, to heave short and loose sails, and then hastened up to the house of Lazarus, the Jew, aware that the cutter would, in all probability, be despatched immediately to the Hague. The Jew had the letters for Ramsay all prepared. Vanslyperken once more touched his liberal fee, and, in an hour, he was again under way for the Texel.
During the passage, which was very quick, Mr Vanslyperken amused himself as usual, in copying the letters to Ramsay, which contained the most important intelligence of the projects of the Jacobites, and, from the various communications between Ramsay and the conspirators, Vanslyperken had also been made acquainted with the circumstance hitherto unknown to him, of the existence of the caves above the cove, where he had been taken to by the informer, as mentioned in the early part of this work, and also of the names of the parties who visited it.
Of this intelligence Vanslyperken determined to avail himself by-and-bye. It was evident that there were only women in the cave, and Mr Vanslyperken counted his gold, patted the head of Snarleyyow, and indulged in anticipations of further wealth, and the hand of the widow Vandersloosh.
All dreams! Mr Vanslyperken.
The cutter arrived, and he landed with his despatches for the government; and his letters to Ramsay being all delivered, Vanslyperken hastened to the widow's, who, as usual, received him, all smiles. He now confided to her the death of his mother, and astonished her by representing the amount of his wealth, which he had the precaution to state, that the major part of it was left him by his mother.
"Where have you put it all, Mr Vanslyperken?" inquired the widow. And Vanslyperken replied that he had come to ask her advice on the subject, as it was at present all on board of the cutter. The widow, who was not indifferent to money, was more gracious than ever. She had a scheme in her head of persuading him to leave the money under her charge; but Vanslyperken was anxious to go on board again, for he discovered that the key was not in his pocket, and he was fearful that he might have left it on the cabin table; so he quitted rather abruptly, and the widow had not time to bring the battery to bear. As soon as Mr Vanslyperken arrived on board, Corporal Van Spitter, without asking leave, for he felt it was not necessary, went on shore, and was soon in the arms of his enamoured widow Vandersloosh. In the meantime, Mr Vanslyperken discovered the key in the pocket of the waistcoat he had thrown off, and having locked his door, he again opened his drawer, and delighted himself for an hour or two in re-arranging his treasure; after which, feeling himself in want of occupation, it occurred to him, that he might as well dedicate a little more time to the widow, so he manned his boat and went on shore again.
It is all very well to have a morning and afternoon lover if ladies are so inclined, just as they have a morning and afternoon dress, but they should be worn separately. Now, as it never entered the head of Mr Vanslyperken that the corporal was playing him false, so did it never enter the idea of the widow, that Mr Vanslyperken would make his appearance in the evening, and leave the cutter and Snarleyyow, without the corporal being on board to watch over them.
But Mr Vanslyperken did leave the cutter and Snarleyyow, did come on shore, did walk to the widow's house, and did most unexpectedly enter it, and what was the consequence? --that he was not perceived when he entered it, and the door of the parlour as well as the front door being open to admit the air, for the widow and the corporal found that making love in the dog days was rather warm work for people of their calibre--to his mortification and rage the lieutenant beheld the corporal seated in his berth, on the little fubsy sofa, with one arm round the widow's waist, his other hand joined in hers, and, _proh pudor! _ sucking at her dewy lips like some huge carp under the water-lilies on a midsummer's afternoon.
Mr Vanslyperken was transfixed--the parties were too busy with their amorous interchange to perceive his presence; at last the corporal thought that his lips required moistening with a little of the beer of the widow's own brewing, for the honey of her lips had rather glued them together--he turned towards the table to take up his tumbler, and he beheld Mr Vanslyperken.
The corporal, for a moment, was equally transfixed, but on these occasions people act mechanically because they don't know what to do. The corporal had been well drilled, he rose from the sofa, held himself perfectly upright, and raised the back of his right hand to his forehead, there he stood like a statue saluting at the presence of his superior officer.
The widow had also perceived the presence of Vanslyperken almost as soon as the corporal, but a woman's wits are more at their command on these occasions than a man's. She felt that all concealment was now useless, and she prepared for action. At the same time, although ready to discharge a volley of abuse upon Vanslyperken, she paused, to ascertain how she should proceed. Assuming an indifferent air, she said--"Well, Mr Vanslyperken?"
"Well!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, but he could not speak for passion.
"Eaves-dropping, as usual, Mr Vanslyperken?"
"May the roof of this house drop on you, you infernal----."
"No indelicate language, if you please, sir," interrupted the widow, "I won't put up with it in my house, I can tell you--ho, ho, Mr Vanslyperken," continued the widow, working herself into a rage, "that won't do here, Mr Vanslyperken."
"Why, you audacious--you double-faced----" "Double-faced! --it's a pity you wer'n't double-faced, as you call it, with that snivelling nose and crooked chin of yours. Double-faced, heh! --oh! oh! Mr Vanslyperken--we shall see--wait a little--we shall see who's double-faced. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken--that for you, Mr Vanslyperken--I can hang you when I please, Mr Vanslyperken. Corporal, how many guineas did you see counted out to him at the house opposite?"
During all this the corporal remained fixed and immovable with his hand up to the salute; but on being questioned by his mistress, he replied, remaining in the same respectful attitude.
"Fifty golden guineas, Mistress Vandersloosh."
"A lie! an infamous lie!" cried Vanslyperken, drawing his sword. "Traitor, that you are," continued he to the corporal, "take your reward." This was a very critical moment. The corporal did not attempt the defensive, but remained in the same attitude, and Vanslyperken's rage at the falsehood of the widow, and the discovery of his treason was so great, that he had lost all command of himself. Had not a third party come in just as Vanslyperken drew his sword, it might have gone hard with the corporal; but fortunately Babette came in from the yard, and perceiving the sword fly out of the scabbard, she put her hand behind the door, and snatched two long-handled brooms, one of which she put into the hands of her mistress, and retained the other herself.
"Take your reward!" cried Vanslyperken, running furiously to cut down the corporal. But his career was stopped by the two brooms, one of which took him in the face, and the other in the chest. The widow and Babette now ranged side by side, holding their brooms as soldiers do their arms in charge of bayonets.
How did the corporal act? He retained his former respectful position, leaving the defensive or offensive in the hands of the widow and Babette.
This check on the part of Vanslyperken only added to his rage. Again he flew with his sword at the corporal, and again he was met with the besoms in his face. He caught one with his hand, and he was knocked back with the other. He attempted to cut them in two with his sword, but in vain.
"Out of my house, you villain! --you traitor--out of my house," cried the widow, pushing at him with such force as to drive him against the wall, and pinning him there while Babette charged him in his face which was now streaming with blood. The attack was now followed up with such vigour, that Vanslyperken was first obliged to retreat to the door, then out of the door into the street, followed into the street he took to his heels, and the widow and Babette returned victorious into the parlour to the corporal. Mr Vanslyperken could not accuse him of want of respect to his superior officer; he had saluted him on entering, and he was still saluting him when he made his exit.
The widow threw herself on the sofa--Corporal Van Spitter then took his seat beside her. The widow overcome by her rage and exertion, burst into tears and sobbed in his arms.
The corporal poured out a glass of beer, and persuaded her to drink it.
"I'll have him hanged to-morrow, at all events. I'll go to the Hague myself," cried the widow. "Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see who will gain the day," continued the widow, sobbing.
"You can prove it, corporal?"
"Mein Gott, yes," replied the corporal.
"As soon as he's hung, corporal, we'll marry."
"Mein Gott, yes."
"Traitorous villain! --sell his king and his country for gold!"
"Mein Gott, yes."
"You're sure it was fifty guineas, corporal?"
"Mein Gott, yes."
"Ah, well, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see," said the widow, drying her eyes. "Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, you shall be hanged, and your cur with you, or my name's not Vandersloosh."
"Mein Gott, yes," replied the corporal.
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In which Mr Vanslyperken proves his loyalty and his fidelity to King William.
Mr Vanslyperken hastened from his inglorious conflict, maddened with rage and disappointment. He returned on board, went down into his cabin, and threw himself on his bed. His hopes and calculations had been so brilliant--rid of his enemy Smallbones--with gold in possession, and more in prospect, to be so cruelly deceived by the widow--the cockatrice! Then by one to whom he fully confided, and who knew too many of his secrets already--Corporal Van Spitter--he too! --and to dare to aspire to the widow--it was madness--and then their knowledge of his treason--the corporal having witnessed his receiving the gold--with such bitter enemies what could he expect but a halter--he felt it even now round his neck, and Vanslyperken groaned in the bitterness of his spirit.
In the meantime, there was a consultation between the widow and the corporal as to the best method of proceeding. That the corporal could expect nothing but the most determined hostility from Vanslyperken was certain; but for this the corporal cared little, as he had all the crew of the cutter on his side, and he was in his own person too high in rank to be at the mercy of Vanslyperken.
After many pros and cons, and at least a dozen bottles of beer--for the excitement on the part of the corporal, and the exertion of the widow, had made them both dry--it was resolved that the Frau Vandersloosh should demand an audience at the Hague the next morning, and should communicate the treasonable practices of Mr Vanslyperken, calling upon the corporal as a witness to the receipt of the money from the Jesuit.
"Mein Gott!" exclaimed the corporal, striking his bull forehead as if a new thought had required being forced out, "but they will ask me how I came there myself, and what shall I say?"
"Say that the Jesuit father had sent for you to try and seduce you to do his treason, but that you would not consent."
"Mein Gott, yes--that will do."
The corporal then returned on board, but did not think it worth while to report himself to Mr Vanslyperken.
Mr Vanslyperken had also been thinking over the matter, and in what way he should be able to escape from the toils prepared for him. That the widow would immediately inform the authorities he was convinced. How was he to get out of his scrape?
Upon mature reflection, he decided that it was to be done. He had copies of all Ramsay's letters, and those addressed to Ramsay, and the last delivered were very important. Now, his best plan would be to set off for the Hague early the next morning--demand an interview with one of the ministers, or even his Majesty himself--state that he had been offered money from the Jacobite party to carry their letters, and that, with a view to serve his Majesty by finding out their secrets, he had consented to do it, and had taken the money to satisfy them that he was sincere. That he had opened the letters and copied them, and that now as the contents were important, he had thought it right to make them immediately known to the government, and at the same time to bring the money received for the service, to be placed at his Majesty's disposal.
"Whether she is before or after me," thought Vanslyperken, "it will then be little matter, all I shall have to fear will be from Ramsay and his party, but the government will be bound to protect me."
There certainly was much wisdom in this plan of Vanslyperken, it was the only one which could have been attended with success, or with any chance of it.
Mr Vanslyperken was up at daylight, and dressed in his best uniform; he put in his pocket all the copies of the Jacobite correspondence, and went on shore--hired a calash, for he did not know how to ride, and set off for the Hague, where he arrived about ten o'clock. He sent up his name, and requested an audience with the Duke of Portland, as an officer commanding one of his Majesty's vessels: he was immediately admitted.
"What is your pleasure, Mr Vanslyperken?" said the duke, who was standing at the table, in company with Lord Albemarle.
Vanslyperken was a little confused--he muttered, and stammered about anxiety, and loyalty, and fidelity, and excess of zeal, &c.-- No wonder he stammered, for he was talking of what he knew nothing about--but these two noblemen recollecting his confusion when presented to his sovereign on board of the frigate, made allowances.
"I have at last," cried Vanslyperken, with more confidence, "been able to discover the plots of the Jacobites, your grace."
"Indeed! Mr Vanslyperken," replied the duke, smiling incredulously, "and pray what may they be? you must be as expeditious as possible, for his Majesty is waiting for us."
"These letters will take some time to read," replied Vanslyperken; "but their contents are most important."
"Indeed, letters--how have you possession of their letters?"
"It will be rather a long story, sir--my lord! I mean," replied Vanslyperken; "but they will amply repay an hour of your time, if you can spare it."
At this moment, the door opened and his Majesty entered the room. At the sight of the king, Vanslyperken's confidence was again taking French leave.
"My lords, I am waiting for you," said the king, with a little asperity of manner.
"May it please your Majesty, here is Lieutenant Vanslyperken, commanding one of your Majesty's vessels, who states that he has important intelligence, and that he has possession of Jacobite papers."
"Indeed!" replied King William, who was always alive to Jacobite plotting, from which he had already run so much risk.
"What is it, Mr Vanslyperken? speak boldly what you have to communicate."
"Your Majesty, I beg your gracious pardon, but here are copies of the correspondence carried on by the traitors in England and this country. If your Majesty will deign to have it read, you will then perceive how important it is--after your Majesty has read it, I will have the honour to explain to you by what means it came into my possession."
King William was a man of business, and Vanslyperken had done wisely in making this proposal. His Majesty at once sat down, with the Duke of Portland on the one side and Lord Albemarle on the other: the latter took the letters which were arranged according to their dates, and read them in a clear distinct voice.
As the reading went on, his Majesty made memorandums and notes with his pencil on a sheet of paper, but did not interrupt during the whole progress of the lecture. When the last and most important was finished, the two noblemen looked at his Majesty with countenances full of meaning. For a few moments his Majesty drummed with the second and third finger of his left hand upon the table, and then said-- "Pray, Mr Vanslyperken, how did you obtain possession of these papers and letters, or make copies of these letters?"
Vanslyperken, who had been standing at the other side of the table during the time of the reading, had anxiously watched the countenance of his Majesty and the two noblemen, and perceived that the intelligence which the letters contained, had created a strong feeling, as he expected. With a certain degree of confidence, he commenced his explanation.
He stated that the crew of the cutter had been accustomed to frequent the Lust Haus of a certain widow Vandersloosh, and that he had made her acquaintance, by several times going there to look after his seamen.
That this widow had often hinted to him, and at last proposed to him, that he should take letters for some friends of hers--at last she had told him plainly that it was for the Jacobite party, and he pretended to consent.
That he had been taken by her to the house of a Jesuit, 169, in the Bur street, nearly opposite to her Lust Haus, and that the Jesuit had given him some letters and fifty guineas for his trouble.
He then stated, that he had opened, copied, and resealed them; further, that he had brought over one of the confederates, who was now residing in the house of the syndic, Van Krause. That he should have made all this known before, only that he waited till it was more important. That the last letters appeared of such consequence, that he deemed it his duty no longer to delay.
"You have done well, Mr Vanslyperken," replied his Majesty.
"And played a bold game," observed Lord Albemarle, fixing his eyes upon Vanslyperken. "Suppose you had been found out co-operating with traitors, before you made this discovery!"
"I might have forfeited my life in my zeal," replied Mr Vanslyperken, with adroitness; "but that is the duty of a king's officer."
"That is well said," observed the Duke of Portland.
"I have a few questions to put to you, Mr Vanslyperken," observed his Majesty.
"What is the cave they mention so often?"
"It is on the bank of the Isle of Wight, your Majesty. I did not know of its existence, but from the letters--but I once laid a whole night in the cove underneath it, to intercept the smugglers, upon information that I had received, but the alarm was given, and they escaped."
"Who is their agent at Portsmouth?"
"A Jew of the name of Lazarus, residing in little Orange Street, at the back of the Point, your Majesty!"
"Do you know of any of the names of the conspirators?"
"I do not, your Majesty, except a woman, who is very active, one Moggy Salisbury--her husband not a month back, was the boatswain of the cutter, but by some interest or another, he has obtained his discharge."
"My Lord of Portland, take a memorandum to inquire who it was applied for the discharge of that man. Mr Vanslyperken you may retire--we will call you in by-and-bye--you will be secret as to what has passed."
"I have one more duty to perform," replied Vanslyperken, taking some rouleaus of gold out of his pocket; "this is the money received from the traitors--it is not for a king's officer to have it in his possession."
"You are right, Mr Vanslyperken, but the gold of traitors is forfeited to the crown, and it is now mine, you will accept it as a present from your king."
Mr Vanslyperken took the gold from the table, made a bow, and retired from the royal presence.
The reader will acknowledge that it was impossible to play his cards better than Mr Vanslyperken had done in this interview, and that he deserved great credit for his astute conduct. With such diplomatic talents, he would have made a great prime minister.
"The council was ordered at twelve o'clock, my lords. These letters must be produced. That they are genuine appears to me beyond a doubt."
"That they are faithful copies, I doubt not," replied Lord Albemarle, "but--" "But what, my Lord Albemarle?"
"I very much suspect the fidelity of the copier--there is something more that has not been told, depend upon it."
"Why do you think so, my lord?"
"Because, your Majesty, allowing that a man would act the part that Mr Vanslyperken says that he has done to discover the conspiracy, still, would he not naturally, to avoid any risk to himself, have furnished government with the first correspondence, and obtained their sanction for prosecuting his plans? This officer has been employed for the last two years or more in carrying the despatches to the Hague, and it must at once strike your Majesty, that a person who can, with such dexterity, open the letters of others can also open those of his own government."
"That is true, my lord," replied his Majesty, musing.
"Your Majesty is well aware that suspicions were entertained of the fidelity of the syndic, suspicions which the evidence of this officer have verified. But why were these suspicions raised? Because he knew of the government secrets, and it was supposed he obtained them from some one who is in our trust, but inimical to us and unworthy of the confidence reposed in him.
"Your Majesty's acuteness will at once perceive that the secrets may have been obtained by Mynheer Krause, by the same means as have been resorted to, to obtain the secrets of the conspirators. I may be in error, and if I do this officer wrong by my suspicions, may God forgive me, but there is something in his looks which tells me----" "What, my lord?"
"That he is a traitor to both parties. May it please your Majesty."
"By the Lord, Albermarle, I think you have hit upon the truth," replied the Duke of Portland.
"Of that we shall soon have proof--at present, we have to decide whether it be advisable to employ him to discover more, or at once to seize upon the parties he has denounced. But that had better be canvassed in the council-chamber. Come, my lords, they be waiting for us."
The affair was of too great importance not to absorb all other business, and it was decided that the house of Mynheer Krause, and of the Jesuit, and the widow Vandersloosh should be entered by the peace-officers, at midnight, and that they and any of the conspirators who might be found should be thrown into prison. That the cutter should be despatched immediately to England, with orders to seize all the other parties informed against by Vanslyperken, and that a force should be sent to attack the cave, and secure those who might be found there, with directions to the admiral, that Mr Vanslyperken should be employed both as a guide, and to give the assistance of the cutter and his crew.
These arrangements having been made, the council broke up, King William had a conference with his two favourites, and Vanslyperken was sent for.
"Lieutenant Vanslyperken, we feel much indebted to you for your important communications, and we shall not forget, in due time, to reward your zeal and loyalty as it deserves. At present, it is necessary that you sail for England as soon as our despatches are ready, which will be before midnight; you will then receive your orders from the admiral, at Portsmouth, and I have no doubt you will take the opportunity of affording us fresh proofs of your fidelity and attachment."
Mr Vanslyperken bowed humbly and retired, delighted with the successful result of his manoeuvre, and, with a gay heart he leaped into his calash, and drove off.
"Yes, yes," thought he, "Madam Vandersloosh, you would betray me. We shall see. Yes, yes, we shall see, Madam Vandersloosh."
And sure enough he did see Madam Vandersloosh, who in another calash was driving to the palace, and who met him face to face.
Vanslyperken turned up his nose at her as he passed by, and the widow astonished at his presumption, thought as she went on her way, "Well, well, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see, you may turn up your snivelling nose, but stop till your head's in the halter--yes, Mr Vanslyperken, stop till your head's in the halter."
We must leave Mr Vanslyperken to drive, and the widow Vandersloosh to drive, while we drive on ourselves.
The subsequent events of this eventful day we will narrate in the following chapter.
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In which there is much bustle and confusion, plot and counter-plot.
About two hours after the council had broken up, the following communication was delivered into the hands of Ramsay by an old woman, who immediately took her departure.
"The lieutenant of the cutter has taken copies of all your correspondence and betrayed you. You must fly immediately, as at midnight you and all of you will be seized. In justice to Mynheer Krause, leave documents to clear him.
"The cutter will sail this evening--with orders to secure your friends at Portsmouth and the cave."
"Now, by the holy cross of our Saviour! I will have revenge upon that dastard; there is no time to lose; five minutes for reflection, and then to act," thought Ramsay, as he twisted up this timely notice, which, it must be evident to the reader, must have been sent by one who had been summoned to the council. Ramsay's plans were soon formed, he despatched a trusty messenger to the Jesuit's, desiring him to communicate immediately with the others, and upon what plan to proceed. He then wrote a note to Vanslyperken, requesting his immediate presence, and hastened to the morning apartment of Wilhelmina. In a few words, he told her that he had received timely notice that it was the intention of the government to seize her father and him as suspected traitors, and throw them that very night in prison.
Wilhelmina made no reply.
"For your father, my dearest girl, there is no fear: he will be fully acquitted; but I, Wilhelmina, must depart immediately, or my life is forfeited."
"Leave me, Edward?" replied Wilhelmina.
"No, you must go with me, Wilhelmina, for more than one reason; the government have ordered the seizure of the persons to be made in the night, to avoid a disturbance; but that they will not be able to prevent; the mob are but too happy to prove their loyalty, when they can do so by rapine and plunder, and depend upon it that this house will be sacked and levelled to the ground before to-morrow evening. You cannot go to prison with your father; you cannot remain here, to be at the mercy of an infuriated and lawless mob. You must go with me, Wilhelmina; trust to me, not only for my sake, but for your father's."
"My father's, Edward, it is that only I am thinking of; how can I leave my father at such a time?"
"You will save your father by so doing. Your departure with me will substantiate his innocence; decide, my dearest girl; decide at once; you must either fly with me, or we must part for ever."
"Oh no, that must not be, Edward," cried Wilhelmina, bursting into tears.
After some further persuasions on the part of Ramsay, and fresh tears from the attached maiden, it was agreed that she should act upon his suggestions, and with a throbbing heart, she went to her chamber to make the necessary preparations, while Ramsay requested that Mynheer Krause would give him a few minutes of his company in his room above.
The syndic soon made his appearance; "Well, Mynheer Ramsay, you have some news to tell me, I am sure;" for Mynheer Krause, notwithstanding his rebuff from the king, could not divest himself of his failing of fetching and carrying reports. Ramsay went to the door and turned the key.
"I have, indeed, most important news, Mynheer Krause, and, I am sorry to say, very unpleasant also."
"Indeed," replied the syndic, with alarm.
"Yes; I find from a notice given me by one of his Majesty's council, assembled this morning at the Hague, that you are suspected of treasonable practices."
"God in heaven!" exclaimed the syndic.
"And that this very night you are to be seized and thrown into prison."
"I, the syndic of the town! I, who put everybody else into prison!"
"Even so; such is the gratitude of King William for your long and faithful services, Mynheer Krause! I have now sent for you, that we may consult as to what had best be done. Will you fly? I have the means for your escape."
"Fly, Mynheer Ramsay; the syndic of Amsterdam fly? Never! they may accuse me falsely; they may condemn me and take off my head before the Stadt House, but I will not fly."
"I expected this answer; and you are right, Mynheer Krause; but there are other considerations worthy of your attention. When the populace know you are in prison for treason, they will level this house to the ground."
"Well, and so they ought, if they suppose me guilty; I care little for that."
"I am aware of that; but still your property will be lost; but it will be but a matter of prudence to save all you can: you have already a large sum of gold collected."
"I have four thousand guilders, at least."
"You must think of your daughter, Mynheer Krause. This gold must not find its way into the pockets of the mob. Now, observe, the king's cutter sails to-night, and I propose that your gold be embarked, and I will take it over for you and keep it safe. Then, let what will happen, your daughter will not be left to beggary."
"True, true, my dear sir, there is no saying how this will end: it may end well; but, as you say, if the house is plundered, the gold is gone for ever. Your advice is good, and I will give you, before you go, orders for all the monies in the hands of my agents at Hamburgh and Frankfort and other places. I have taken your advice my young friend, and, though I have property to the amount of some hundred thousand guilders, with the exception of this house they will hold little of it which belongs to Mynheer Krause. And my poor daughter, Mynheer Ramsay!"
"Should any accident happen to you, you may trust to me, I swear it to you, Mynheer Krause, on my hope of salvation."
Here the old man sat down much affected, and covered his face.
"Oh! my dear young friend, what a world is this, where they cannot distinguish a true and a loyal subject from a traitor. But why could you not stay here,--protect my house from the mob,--demand the civic guard."
"I stay here, my dear sir, why I am included in the warrant of treason."
"You?"
"Yes; and there would be no chance of my escaping from my enemies, they detest me too much. But cheer up, sir, I think that, by my means, you may be cleared of all suspicions."
"By your means?"
"Yes; but I must not explain; my departure is necessary for your safety: I will take the whole upon myself, and you shall be saved."
"I really cannot understand you, my dear friend; but it appears to me, as if you were going to make some great sacrifice for my sake."
"I will not be questioned, Mynheer Krause; only this I say, that I am resolved that you shall be proved innocent. It is my duty. But we have no time to lose. Let your gold be ready at sunset: I will have everything prepared."
"But my daughter must not remain here; she will be by herself, at the mercy of the mob."
"Be satisfied, Mynheer Krause, that is also cared for, your daughter must leave this house, and be in a safe retreat before the officers come in to seize you: I have arranged everything."
"Where do you propose sending her?"
"Not to any of your friends' houses, Mynheer Krause, no--no, but I'll see her in safety before I leave, do not be afraid; it must depend upon circumstances, but of that hereafter, you have no time to lose."
"God in heaven!" exclaimed Mynheer Krause, unlocking the door, "that I, the syndic, the most loyal subject! --well, well, you may truly say, 'put not your trust in princes.'"
"Trust in me, Mynheer Krause," replied Ramsay, taking his hand.
"I do, I will, my good friend, and I will go to prison proudly, and like an innocent and injured man."
And Mynheer Krause hastened down to his counting-house, to make the proposed arrangements, Ramsay returning to Wilhelmina, to whom he imparted what had taken place between him and her father, and which had the effect of conforming her resolution.
We must now return to the widow Vandersloosh, who has arrived safely, but melting with the heat of her journey, at the Palace of the Hague. She immediately informed one of the domestics that she wished to speak with his Majesty upon important business.
"I cannot take your name into his Majesty, but if you will give it me, I will speak to Lord Albemarle."
The widow wrote her name down upon a slip of paper; with which the servant went away, and then the widow sat down upon a bench in the hall, and cooled herself with her fan.
"Frau Vandersloosh," said Lord Albemarle, on reading the name.
"Let her come up,--why this," continued he, turning to the Duke of Portland, who was sitting by him, "is the woman who is ordered to be arrested this night, upon the evidence of Lieutenant Vanslyperken; we shall learn something now, depend upon it."
The Frau Vandersloosh made her appearance, sailing in the room like a Dutch man-of-war of that period, under full sail, high pooped and broad sterned. Never having stood in the presence of great men, she was not a little confused, so she fanned herself most furiously.
"You wish to speak with me," said Lord Albemarle.
"Yes, your honour's honour, I've come to expose a snivelling traitor to his Majesty's crown. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see now," continued the widow, talking to herself, and fanning away.
"We are all attentive, madam."
Mistress Vandersloosh then began, out of breath, and continued out of breath till she had told the whole of her story, which, as the reader must be aware, only corroborated all Vanslyperken had already stated, with the exception that he had denounced the widow. Lord Albemarle allowed her to proceed without interruption, he had a great insight into character, and the story of the widow confirmed him in his opinion of Vanslyperken.
"But my good woman," said Lord Albemarle, "are you aware that Mr Vanslyperken has already been here?"
"Yes, your honour, I met him going back, and he turned his nose up at me, and I then said, 'Well, well, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see; wait a little, Mr Vanslyperken.'"
"And," continued Lord Albemarle, "that he has denounced you as being a party to all these treasonable practices."
"Me--denounced me--he--O Lord, O Lord, only let me meet him face to face--let him say it then if he dares, the snivelling--cowardly--murdering wretch."
Thereupon Mrs Vandersloosh commenced the history of Vanslyperken's wooing, of his cur Snarleyyow, of her fancy for the corporal, of his finding her with the corporal the day before, of her beating him off with the brooms, and of her threats to expose his treason. "And so, now, when he finds that he was to be exposed, he comes up first himself; that's now the truth of it, or my name's not Vandersloosh, your honour," and the widow walked up and down with the march of an elephant, fanning herself violently, her bosom heaving with agitation, and her face as red as a boiled lobster.
"Mistress Vandersloosh," said Lord Albemarle, "let the affair rest as it is for the present, but I shall not forget what you have told me. I think now that you had better go home."
At this dismissal the widow turned round.
"Thank your worship kindly," said she, "I'm ready to come whenever I'm wanted. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken," resumed the widow, as she walked to the door, quite forgetting the respect due to the two noblemen, "we shall see; yes, yes, we shall see."
"Well, my lord, what think you of this?" said Lord Albemarle to the duke, as the widow closed the door.
"Upon my soul I think she is honest; she is too fat for a traitor."
"I am of your opinion. The episode of the corporal was delightful, and has thrown much light upon the lieutenant's conduct, who is a traitor in my opinion, if ever there was one; but he must be allowed to fulfil his task, and then we will soon find out the traitor; but if I mistake not, that man was born to be hung."
We must now return to Mr Vanslyperken, who received the note from Ramsay, just as he was going down to the boat. As he did not know what steps were to be taken by government, he determined to go up to Ramsay, and inform him of his order for immediately sailing.
He might gain further information from his letters, and also remove the suspicion of his having betrayed him. Ramsay received Mr Vanslyperken with an air of confidence.
"Sit down, Mr Vanslyperken, I wish to know whether there is any chance of your sailing."
"I was about to come up to you to state that I have orders to sail this evening."
"That is fortunate, as I intended to take a passage with you, and what is more, Mr Vanslyperken, I have a large sum in specie, which we must contrive to get on board. Cannot we contrive it, I cannot go without it."
"A large sum in specie?" Vanslyperken reflected. "Yes, he would secure Ramsay as a prisoner, and possess himself of the specie if he could. His entrapping Ramsay on board would be another proof of his fidelity and dexterity. But then Vanslyperken thought of the defection of the corporal, but that was of no great consequence. The crew of the cutter dare not disobey him, when they were ordered to seize a traitor."
While Vanslyperken was meditating this, Ramsay fixed his eyes upon him waiting for his reply.
"It will be difficult," observed Vanslyperken, "to get the specie on board without being seen."
"I'm afraid so too, but I have a proposition to make. Suppose you get under way, and--heave to a mile outside, I will then come off in the syndic's barge. I can have the use of it. Then nothing will be discovered."
Vanslyperken appeared to reflect again.
"I shall still run a great risk, Mr Ramsay."
"You will run some little perhaps, but you will be well paid for it, I promise you."
"Well, sir, I consent," replied Vanslyperken. "At what hour do you propose to embark?"
"About eleven or a little earlier. You will have a light over the stern; hail the boat when you see it coming, and I shall answer, 'King's messenger, with despatches;' that will be a blind to your crew--they supposed me a king's messenger before."
"Yes, that will be prudent," replied Vanslyperken, who then took his leave with great apparent cordiality.
"Villain," muttered Ramsay, as Vanslyperken shut the door, "I know your thoughts."
We must pass over the remainder of this eventful day. Wilhelmina had procured the dress of a boy, in which disguise she proposed to elope with Ramsay, and all her preparations were made long before the time. Mynheer Krause was also occupied in getting his specie ready for embarkation, and Ramsay in writing letters. The despatches from the Hague came down about nine o'clock, and Vanslyperken received them on board. About ten, he weighed and made sail, and hove-to about a mile outside, with a light shown as agreed. About the time arranged, a large boat appeared pulling up to the cutter. "Boat, ahoy!" "King's messenger with despatches," was the reply. "All's right," said Vanslyperken, "get a rope there from forward."
The boat darted alongside of the cutter. She pulled ten oars, but, as soon as she was alongside, a number of armed men sprang from her on the decks, and beat the crew below, while Ramsay, with pistols in his belt, and his sword in his hand, went aft to Vanslyperken.
"What is all this?" exclaimed the terrified lieutenant.
"Nothing, sir, but common prudence on my part," replied Ramsay. "I have an account to settle with you."
Vanslyperken perceived that his treachery was discovered, and he fell upon his knees. Ramsay turned away to give orders, and Vanslyperken darted down the hatchway, and gained the lower deck.
"Never mind," said Ramsay, "he'll not escape me; come, my lads, hand up the boxes as fast as you can."
Ramsay then went to the boat, and brought up Wilhelmina, who had remained there, and conducted her down into the cabin. The boxes were also handed down, the boat made fast, and the conspirators remained in possession of the deck. The helm was taken by one of them; sail again made on the cutter, and the boat with a boat-keeper towed astern.
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Which is rather interesting.
Mr Vanslyperken's retreat was not known to the crew, they thought him still on deck, and he hastened forward to secrete himself, even from his own crew, who were not a little astonished at this unexpected attack which they could not account for. The major part of the arms on board were always kept in Mr Vanslyperken's cabin, and that was not only in possession of the assailants, but there was a strong guard in the passage outside which led to the lower deck.
"Well, this beats my comprehension entirely," said Bill Spurey.
"Yes," replied Short.
"And mine too," added Obadiah Coble, "being as we are, as you know, at peace with all nations, to be boarded and carried in this way."
"Why, what, and who can they be?"
"I've a notion that Vanslyperken's at the bottom of it," replied Spurey.
"Yes," said Short.
"But it's a bottom that I can't fathom," continued Spurey.
"My dipsey line arn't long enough either," replied Coble.
"Gott for dam, what it can be!" exclaimed Jansen. "It must be the treason."
"Mein Gott! yes," replied Corporal Van Spitter. "It is all treason, and the traitor be Vanslyperken." But although the corporal had some confused ideas, yet he could not yet arrange them.
"Well, I've no notion of being boxed up here," observed Coble, "they can't be so many as we are, even if they were stowed away in the boat, like pilchards in a cask. Can't we get at the arms, corporal, and make a rush for it."
"Mein Gott! de arms are all in the cabin, all but three pair pistols and the bayonets."
"Well, but we've handspikes," observed Spurey.
"Got for dam, gif me de handspike," cried Jansen.
"We had better wait till daylight, at all events," observed Coble, "we shall see our work better."
"Yes," replied Short.
"And, in the meantime, get everything to hand that we can."
"Yes," replied Short.
"Well, I can't understand the manoeuvre. It beats my comprehension, what they have done with Vanslyperken."
"I don't know, but they've kicked the cur out of the cabin."
"Then they've kicked him out too, depend upon it."
Thus did the crew continue to surmise during the whole night, but, as Bill Spurey said, the manoeuvre beat their comprehension.
One thing was agreed upon, that they should make an attempt to recover the vessel as soon as they could.
In the meantime, Ramsay with Wilhelmina, and the Jesuits, had taken possession of the cabin, and had opened all the despatches which acquainted them with the directions in detail, given for the taking of the conspirators at Portsmouth, and in the cave. Had it not been to save his friends, Ramsay would, at once, have taken the cutter to Cherbourg, and have there landed Wilhelmina and the treasure; but his anxiety for his friends, determined him to run at once for the cave, and send overland to Portsmouth. The wind was fair and the water smooth, and, before morning, the cutter was on her way.
In the meantime, the crew of the cutter had not been idle; the ladders had been taken up and hatches closed. The only chance of success was an attack upon the guard, who was stationed outside of the cabin.
They had six pistols, about two hundred pounds of ammunition, but with the exception of half-a-dozen bayonets, no other weapons. But they were resolute men, and as soon as they had made their arrangements, which consisted of piling up their hammocks, so as to make a barricade to fire over, they then commenced operations, the first signal of which, was a pistol-shot discharged at the men who were on guard in the passage, and which wounded one of them. Ramsay darted out of the cabin, at the report of the pistol, another and another was discharged, and Ramsay then gave the order to fire in return. This was done, but without injury to the seamen of the cutter, who were protected by the hammocks, and Ramsay having already three of his men wounded, found that the post below was no longer tenable. A consultation took place, and it was determined that the passage on the lower deck and the cabin should be abandoned, as the upper deck it would be easy to retain.
The cabin's skylight was taken off, and the boxes of gold handed up, while the party outside the cabin door maintained the conflict with the crew of the _Yungfrau_. When all the boxes were up, Wilhelmina was lifted on deck, the skylight was shipped on again, and, as soon as the after hatches were ready to put on, Ramsay's men retreated to the ladder, which they drew up after them, and then put on the hatches.
Had not the barricade of hammocks prevented them, the crew of the _Yungfrau_ might have made a rush, and followed the others on deck; but, before they could beat down the barricades, which they did as soon as they perceived their opponents' retreat, the ladder was up, and the hatches placed over the hatchways.
The _Yungfraus_ had gained the whole of the lower deck, but they could do no more; and Ramsay perceived that if he could maintain possession of the upper deck, it was as much as he could expect with such determined assailants. This warfare had been continued during the whole morning, and it was twelve o'clock before the cabin and lower deck had been abandoned by Ramsay's associates. During the whole day the skirmishes continued, the crew of the _Yungfrau_ climbing on the table of the cabin, and firing through the skylight, but in so doing, they exposed themselves to the fire of the other party who sat like cats watching for their appearance, and discharging their pieces the moment that a head presented itself. In the meantime, the cutter darted on before a strong favourable breeze, and thus passed the first day. Many attempts were made during the night by the seamen of the cutter to force their way on deck, but they were all prevented by the vigilance of Ramsay; and the next morning the Isle of Wight was in sight. Wilhelmina had passed the night on the forecastle, covered up with a sail; none of his people had had anything to eat during the time that they were on board, and Ramsay was most anxious to arrive at his destination.
About noon, the cutter was abreast of the Black Gang Chine: Ramsay had calculated upon retaining possession of the cutter, and taking the whole of the occupants of the cave over to Cherbourg, but this was now impossible. He had five of his men wounded, and he could not row the boat to the cave without leaving so few men on board, that they would be overpowered, for his ammunition was expended, with the exception of one or two charges, which were retained for an emergency. All that he could do now, was, therefore, to put his treasure in the boat, and with Wilhelmina and his whole party make for the cave, when he could send notice to Portsmouth for the others to join them, and they must be content to await the meditated attack upon the cave, and defend it till they could make their escape to France. The wind being foul for the cutter's return to Portsmouth, would enable him to give notice at Portsmouth, over land, before she could arrive.
There was a great oversight committed when the lower deck was abandoned, the despatches had been left on Mr Vanslyperken's bed. Had they been taken away or destroyed, there would have been ample time for the whole of his party to have made their escape from England, before duplicates could arrive. As it was, he could do no more than what we have already mentioned.
The boat was hauled up, the boxes of specie put in, the wounded men laid at the bottom of the boat, and having, at the suggestion of one of the men, cut the lower riggings, halyards, &c., of the cutter to retard its progress to Portsmouth, Ramsay and his associates stepped into the boat, and pulled for the cave.
Their departure was soon ascertained by the crew of the _Yungfrau_ who now forced the skylight, and gained the deck, but not before the boat had entered the cave.
"What's to be done now?" said Coble. "Smash my timbers, but they've played old Harry with the rigging. We must knot and splice."
"Yes," replied Short.
"What the devil have they done with Vanslyperken?" cried Bill Spurey.
"Either shoved him overboard, or taken him with them, I suppose," cried Coble.
"Well, it's a nice job altogether," observed Spurey.
"Mein Gott! yes," replied the corporal; "we will have a pretty story to tell de admiral."
"Well, they've rid us of him at all events; I only hope they'll hang him."
"Mein Gott! yes."
"He'll have his desarts," replied Coble.
"Got for tam! I like to see him swing."
"Now he's gone, let's send his dog after him. Hurrah, my lads! get a rope up on the yard, and let us hang Snarleyyow."
"Mein Gott! I'll go fetch him," cried the corporal.
"You will--will you?" roared a voice.
The corporal turned round, so did the others, and there, with his drawn sword, stood Mr Vanslyperken.
"You d----d mutinous scoundrel," cried Vanslyperken, "touch my dog, if you dare."
The corporal put his hand up to the salute, and Vanslyperken shook his head with a diabolical expression of countenance.
"Now where the devil could he come from?" whispered Spurey.
Coble shrugged up his shoulders, and Short gave a long whistle expending more breath than usual.
However, there was no more to be said; and as soon as the rigging was knotted and spliced, sail was made in the cutter; but the wind being dead in their teeth, they did not arrive until late the next evening, and the admiral did not see despatches till the next morning, for the best of all possible reasons, that Vanslyperken did not take them on shore. He had a long story to tell, and he thought it prudent not to disturb the admiral after dinner, as great men are apt to be very choleric during the progress of digestion.
The consequence was, that when, the next morning, Mr Vanslyperken called upon the admiral, the intelligence had been received from the cave, and all the parties had absconded. Mr Vanslyperken told his own tale, how he had been hailed by a boat purporting to have a messenger on board, how they had boarded him and beat down himself and his crew, how he and his crew had fought under hatches and beat them on deck, and how they had been forced to abandon the cutter. All this was very plausible, and then Vanslyperken gave the despatches opened by Ramsay.
The admiral read them in haste, gave immediate orders for surrounding and breaking into the house of the Jew Lazarus, in which the military found nobody but an old tom-cat, and then desired Mr Vanslyperken to hold the cutter in readiness to embark troops and sail that afternoon; but troops do not move so fast as people think, and before one hundred men had been told off by the sergeant with their accoutrements, knapsacks, and sixty pounds of ammunition, it was too late to embark them that night, so they waited until the next morning. Moreover, Mr Vanslyperken had orders to draw from the dock-yard three large boats for the debarkation of the said troops; but the boats were not quite ready, one required a new gunnel, another three planks in the bottom, and the third having her stern out, it required all the carpenters in the yard to finish it by the next morning. Mr Vanslyperken's orders were to proceed to the cave, and land the troops, to march up to the cave, and to cover the advance of the troops, rendering them all the assistance in his power in co-operating with the major commanding the detachment; but where the cave was, no one knew, except that it was thereabouts.
The next morning, at eight o'clock, the detachment, consisting of one hundred men, were embarked on board of the cutter, but the major commandant finding that the decks were excessively crowded, and that he could hardly breathe, ordered section first, section second, and section third, of twenty-five men each, to go into the boats and be towed. After which there was more room, and the cutter stood out for St Helen's.
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In which there is a great deal of correspondence, and the widow is called up very early in the morning.
We must now return to Mynheer Krause, who, after he had delivered over his gold, locked up his counting-house and went up to the saloon, determining to meet his fate with all the dignity of a Roman senator. He sent for his daughter, who sent word back that she was packing up her wardrobe, and this answer appeared but reasonable to the syndic, who, therefore, continued in his chair, reflecting upon his approaching incarceration, conning speeches, and anticipating a glorious acquittal, until the bell of the cathedral chimed the half-hour after ten. He then sent another message to his daughter, and the reply was that she was not in the room, upon which he despatched old Koop to Ramsay, requesting his attendance. The reply to this second message was a letter presented to the syndic, who broke the seal and read as follows: "MY DEAR AND HONOURED SIR, "I have sought a proper asylum for your daughter during the impending troubles, and could not find one which pleased, and in consequence I have taken the bold step, aware that I might not have received your sanction if applied for, of taking her on board the cutter with me; she will there be safe, and as her character might be, to a certain degree, impeached by being in company with a man of my age, I intend, as soon as we arrive in port, to unite myself to her, for which act, I trust, you will grant me your pardon. As for yourself, be under no apprehension, I have saved you. Treat the accusation with scorn, and if you are admitted into the presence of his Majesty, accuse him of the ingratitude which he has been guilty of; I trust that we shall soon meet again, that I may return to you the securities and specie of which I have charge, as well as your daughter, who is anxious once more to receive your blessing.
"Yours ever, till death, "EDWARD RAMSAY."
Mynheer Krause read this letter over and over again, it was very mystifying. Much depends in this world upon the humour people are in at the time; Mynheer Krause was, at that time, full of Cato-like devotion and Roman virtue, and he took the contents of the letter in true Catonic style.
"Excellent young man--to preserve my honour he has taken her away with him! and, to preserve her reputation he intends to marry her! Now, I can go to prison without a sigh. He tells me that he has saved me--saved me! --why, he has saved everything; me, my daughter, and my property! Well, they shall see how I behave! They shall witness the calmness of a stoic; I shall express no emotion or surprise at the arrest, as they will naturally expect, because I know it is to take place--no fear--no agitation when in prison, because I know that I am to be saved. I shall desire them to bear in mind that I am the syndic of this town, and must receive that respect which is due to my exalted situation," and Mynheer Van Krause lifted his pipe and ordered Koop to bring him a stone jug of beer, and thus doubly-armed like Cato, he awaited the arrival of the officer with all the stoicism of beer and tobacco.
About the same hour of night that the letter was put into the hands of Mynheer Krause, a packet was brought up to Lord Albemarle, who was playing a game of put with his Grace the Duke of Portland; at that time put was a most fashionable game; but games are like garments, as they become old they are cast off, and handed down to the servants. The outside of the despatch was marked "To Lord Albemarle's own hands. Immediate and most important." It appeared, however, as if the two noble lords considered the game of put as more important and immediate, for they finished it without looking at the packet in question, and it was midnight before they threw up the cards. After which, Lord Albemarle went to a side table, apart from the rest of the company, and broke the seals. It was a letter with enclosures, and ran as follows: "MY LORD ALBEMARLE, "Although your political enemy, I do justice to your merits, and to prove my opinion of you, address to you this letter, the object of which is to save your government from the disgrace of injuring a worthy man, and a staunch supporter, to expose the villany of a coward and a scoundrel. When I state that my name is Ramsay, you may at once be satisfied that, before this comes to your hands, I am out of your reach. I came here in the king's cutter, commanded by Mr Vanslyperken, with letters of recommendation to Mynheer Krause, which represented me as a staunch adherent of William of Orange and a Protestant, and, with that impression, I was well received, and took up my abode in his house. My object you may imagine, but fortune favoured me still more, in having in my power Lieutenant Vanslyperken. I opened the government despatches in his presence, and supplied him with false seals to enable him to do the same, and give me the extracts which were of importance, for which I hardly need say he was most liberally rewarded; this has been carried on for some time, but it appears, that in showing him how to obtain your secrets, I also showed him how to possess himself of ours, and the consequence has been that he has turned double traitor, and I have now narrowly escaped.
"The information possessed by Mynheer Krause was given by me, to win his favour for one simple reason, that I fell in love with his daughter, who has now quitted the country with me. He never was undeceived as to my real position, nor is he even now. Let me do an honest man justice. I enclose you the extracts from your duplicates made by Mr Vanslyperken, written in his own hand, which I trust will satisfy you as to his perfidy, and induce you to believe in the innocence of the worthy syndic from the assurance of a man, who, although a Catholic, a Jacobite, and if you please an attainted traitor, is incapable of telling you a falsehood. I am, my lord, with every respect for your noble character.
"Yours most obediently, "EDWARD RAMSAY."
"This is corroborative of my suspicions," said Lord Albemarle, putting down the papers before the Duke of Portland.
The duke read the letter and examined the enclosures.
"Shall we see the king to-night?"
"No, he is retired, and it is of no use, they are in prison by this time; we will wait the report to-morrow morning--ascertain how many have been secured--and then lay these documents before his Majesty."
Leaving the two noble lords to go to bed, we shall now return to Amsterdam at twelve o'clock at night precisely; as the bell tolled, a loud knock was heard at the syndic's house. Koop, who had been ordered by his master to remain up, immediately opened the door, and a _posse comitatus_ of civil power filled the yard.
"Where is Mynheer Krause?" inquired the chief in authority.
"Mynheer, the syndic, is upstairs in the saloon."
Without sending up his name, the officer went up, followed by three or four others, and found Mynheer Krause smoking his pipe.
"Ah, my very particular friend, Mynheer Engelback, what brings you here at this late hour with all your people? Is there a fire in the town?"
"No, Mynheer Syndic. It is an order I am very sorry to say to arrest you, and conduct you to prison."
"Arrest and conduct me to prison--me the syndic of the town--that is strange--will you allow me to see your warrant--yes, it is all true and countersigned by his Majesty; I have no more to say, Mynheer Engelback. As syndic of this town, and administrator of the laws, it is my duty to set the example of obedience to them, at the same time protesting my entire innocence. Koop, get me my mantle. Mynheer Engelback, I claim to be treated with the respect due to me, as syndic of this town."
The officers were not a little staggered at the coolness and _sang froid_ of Mynheer Krause, he had never appeared to so much advantage; they bowed respectfully as he finished his speech.
"I believe, Mynheer Krause, that you have some friends staying with you?"
"I have no friend in the house except my very particular friend, Mynheer Engelback," replied the syndic.
"You must excuse us, but we must search the house."
"You have his Majesty's warrant so to do, and no excuse is necessary."
After a diligent search of half an hour, nobody was found in the house, and the officers began to suspect that the government had been imposed upon. Mynheer Krause, with every mark of attention and respect, was then walked off to the Hotel de Ville, where he remained in custody, for it was not considered right by the authorities, that the syndic should be thrown into the common prison upon suspicion only. When he arrived there, Mynheer Krause surprised them all by the philosophy with which he smoked his pipe.
But, although there was nobody to be found, except the syndic in the syndic's house, and not a soul at the house inhabited by the Jesuit, there was one more person included in the warrant, which was the widow Vandersloosh; for Lord Albemarle, although convinced in his own mind of her innocence, could not take upon himself to interfere with the decisions of the council; so, about one o'clock, there was a loud knocking at the widow's door, which was repeated again and again before it awoke the widow, who was fatigued with her long and hot journey to the Hague. As for Babette, she made a rule never to wake at anything, but the magical No. 6, sounded by the church clock, or by her mistress's voice.
"Babette," cried the widow Vandersloosh, "Babette."
"Yes, ma'am."
"There's a knock at the door, Babette."
"Only some drunken sailors, ma'am--they go away when they find they cannot get in."
Here the peals were redoubled.
"Babette, get up, Babette--and threaten them with the watch."
"Yes, ma'am," replied Babette, with a terrible yawn.
Knocking and thumping with strokes louder than before.
"Babette, Babette!"
"I must put something on, ma'am," replied Babette, rather crossly.
"Speak to them out of the window, Babette."
Here poor Babette came down to the first floor, and opening the window at the landing-place on the stairs, put her head out and cried, "If you don't go away, you drunken fellows, my mistress will send for the watch."
"If you don't come down and open the door, we shall break it open," replied the officer sent to the duty.
"Tell them it's no inn, Babette, we won't let people in after hours," cried the widow, turning in her bed and anxious to resume her sound sleep.
Babette gave the message and shut down the window.
"Break open the door," cried the officer to his attendants. In a minute or two the door was burst open, and the party ascended the staircase.
"Mercy on me! Babette, if they arn't come in," cried the widow, who jumped out of her bed, and nearly shutting her door, which had been left open for ventilation, she peeped out to see who were the bold intruders; she perceived a man in black with a white staff.
"What do you want?" screamed the widow, terrified.
"We want Mistress Vandersloosh. Are you that person?" said the officer.
"To be be sure I am. But what do you want here?"
"I must request you to dress and come along with me directly to the Stadt House," replied the officer, very civilly.
"Gott in himmel! what's the matter?"
"It's on a charge of treasonable practices, madam."
"Oh, ho! I see: Mr Vanslyperken. Very well, good sir; I'll put on my clothes directly. I'll get up any hour in the night, with pleasure, to bring that villain--. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see. Babette, take the gentleman down in the parlour, and give them some bottled beer. You'll find it very good, sirs; it's of my own brewing. And Babette, you must come up and help me."
The officer did not think it necessary to undeceive the widow, who imagined that she was to give evidence against Vanslyperken, not that she was a prisoner herself. Still, the widow Vandersloosh did not like being called up at such an unseasonable hour, and thus expressed herself to Babette as she was dressing herself.
"Well, we shall see the ending of this, Babette. --My under petticoat is on the chair. --I told the lords the whole truth, every word of it; and I am convinced that they believed me, too. --Don't pull tight all at once, Babette; how often do I tell you that. I do believe you missed a hole. --The cunning villain goes there and says that I--yes, Babette--that I was a traitor myself; and I said to the lords, 'Do I look like a traitor?' --My petticoats, Babette; how stupid you are, why, your eyes are half shut now; you know I always wear the blue first, then the green, and the red last, and yet you will give me the first which comes. --He's a handsome lord, that Duke of Portland; he was one of the _bon_--before King William went over and conquered England, and he was made a lord for his valour. --My ruff, Babette. The Dutch are a brave nation. --My bustle now. --How much beer did you give the officers? Mind you take care of everything while I am gone. I shall be home by nine, I dare say. I suppose they are going to try him now, that he may be hanged at sunrise. I knew how it would be. Yes, yes, Mr Vanslyperken, every dog has his day; and there's an end of you, and of your cur also, I've a notion."
The widow being now duly equipped, walked down stairs to them, and proceeded with the officers to the Stadt House. She was brought into the presence of Mynheer Engelback, who held the office of provost.
"Here is the widow Vandersloosh, mynheer."
"Very well," replied Engelback, who was in a very bad humour at the unsuccessful search after the conspirators, "away with her."
"Away! where?" exclaimed the widow.
Engelback did not condescend to make a reply. The officers were mute; but one stout man on either side seized her arm and led her away, notwithstanding expostulation, and some resistance on her part.
"Where am I going? what is all this?" exclaimed the, widow, terrified; but there was no answer.
At last they came to a door, held open already by another man with a bunch of keys. The terrified woman perceived that it was a paved stone cell, with a brick arch over it; in short, a dungeon. The truth flashed upon her, for the first time. It was she who had been arrested for treason. But before she could shriek she was shoved in, and the door closed and locked upon her; and the widow sank down into a sitting posture on the ground, overcome with astonishment and indignation. "Was it possible? Had the villain prevailed?" was the question, which she asked herself over and over again, changing alternately from sorrow to indignation: at one time wringing her hands, and at others exclaiming, "Well, well, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see."
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In which is related much appertaining to the "pomp and glorious circumstance" of war.
The arrival of Ramsay and his party was so unexpected, that, at first, Lady Barclay imagined they had been betrayed, and that the boat was filled with armed men from the king's cutter, who had come on shore with a view of forcing an entrance into the cave. In a minute every preparation was made for defence; for it had long been arranged, that, in case of an unexpected attack, the women should make all the resistance in their power, and which the nature of the place enabled them to do.
But, as many observed, the party, although coming from the cutter, and not badly armed, did not appear to advance in a hostile manner. After waiting some time near the boat, they advanced, each with a box on his shoulder; but what those boxes might be was a puzzle; they might be hand-grenades for throwing into the cave. However, they were soon down to the rock at which the ladder was let down, and then Smallbones stood up with a musket in his hands, with his straddling legs and short petticoat, and bawled out, "Who comes there?"
Ramsay, who was assisting Wilhelmina, looked up surprised at this singular addition to the occupants of the cave. And Wilhelmina also looked at him, and said, "Can that be a woman, Ramsay?"
"At all events, I've not the honour of her acquaintance. But she is pointing her musket,--we are friends," cried Ramsay. "Tell Mistress Alice it is Ramsay."
Smallbones turned round and reported the answer; and then, in obedience to his orders from Mistress Alice, he cried out, in imitation of the sentinels, "Pass, Ramsay, and all's well!" presented his arms, and made a flying leap off the rock where he stood, down on the platform, that he might lower the ladder as soon as Ramsay was up, who desired everybody might be sent down to secure the boxes of specie as fast as they could, lest the cutter's people, releasing themselves, should attempt an attack. Now, there was no more concealment necessary, and the women as well as the men went down the precipitous path and brought up the treasure, while Ramsay introduced Wilhelmina to Lady Barclay, and, in a brief, but clear narrative, told her all that had passed, and what they had now to expect. There was not a moment for delay; the cutter's people might send the despatches over land if they thought of it, and be there as soon, if not sooner than themselves. Nancy Corbett was summoned immediately, and her instructions given. The whole of the confederates at Portsmouth were to come over to the cave with what they could collect and carry about their persons; and, in case of the cutter sending over land, with the precaution of being in disguise. Of arms and ammunition there was sufficient in the cave, which Ramsay now felt was to be defended to the last, until they could make a retreat over to the other side of the channel. In half an hour, Nancy was gone, and that very night had arrived at Portsmouth, and given notice to the whole of the confederates. Upon consultation, it was considered that the best disguise would be that of females; and, in consequence, they were all so attired, and before morning had all passed over, two or three in a boat, and landed at Ryde, where they were collected by Moggy Salisbury, who alone, of the party, knew the way to the retreat. They walked across the island by two and three, one party just keeping sight of the next ahead of them, and arrived without suspicion or interruption, conducted by Moggy Salisbury, Lazarus the Jew, and sixteen stout and desperate men, who had remained secreted in the Jew's house, ready to obey any order, however desperate the risk might be, of their employers.
When they were all assembled at the brow of the precipice, with the exception of Lazarus, who looked like a little old woman, a more gigantic race of females was never seen; for, determined upon a desperate resistance if discovered, they had their buff jerkins under their female garments. They were soon in the cave, and very busy, under Ramsay's directions, preparing against the expected attack. Sir Robert Barclay, with his boat, had been over two days before, and it was not known when he would return. That his presence was most anxiously looked for may be readily conceived, as his boat's crew would double their force if obliged to remain there; and his boat would enable them, with the one brought by Ramsay, to make their escape without leaving one behind, before the attack could be made.
Nancy Corbett, as the reader may have observed, did not return to the cave with the conspirators. As she was not suspected, she determined to remain at Portsmouth till the last, and watch the motions of the authorities.
The cutter did not arrive till the evening of the second day, and the despatches were not delivered to the admiral till the third morning, when all was bustle and preparation. Nancy Corbett was everywhere, she found out what troops were ordered to embark on the expedition, and she was acquainted with some of the officers, as well as the sergeants and corporals; an idea struck her which she thought she could turn to advantage. She slipped into the barrack-yard, and to where the men were being selected, and was soon close to a sergeant whom she was acquainted with.
"So, you've an expedition on hand, Sergeant Tanner."
"Yes, Mistress Corbett, and I'm one of the party."
"I wish you joy," replied Nancy, sarcastically.
"Oh, it's nothing, Mistress Corbett, nothing at all, only some smugglers in a cave; we'll soon rout them out."
"I've heard a different account from the admiral's clerk."
"Why, what have you heard?"
"First, tell me how many men are ordered out."
"A hundred rank and file--eight non-commissioned officers--two lieutenants--one captain--and one major."
"Bravo, sergeant, you'll carry all before you."
"Why, I hope so, Mistress Corbett, especially as we are to have the assistance of the cutter's crew."
"Better and better still," replied Nancy, ironically. "I wish you joy of your laurels, sergeant, ha, ha, ha."
"Why do you laugh, Mistress Corbett, and what is that you have heard at the admiral's office?"
"What you may hear yourself, and what I know to be true; there is not a single smuggler in the cave."
"No!" exclaimed the sergeant. "What, nobody there?"
"Yes, there is somebody there, the cave has been chosen by the smugglers to land their goods in."
"But some of them must be there in charge of the goods."
"Yes, so there are, but they are all women, the smugglers' wives, who live there; what an expedition! Let me see:--one gallant major, one gallant captain, two gallant lieutenants, eight gallant non-commissioned officers, and a hundred gallant soldiers of the Buffs, all going to attack, and rout, and defeat a score of old women."
"But you're joking, Mistress Nancy."
"Upon my life I'm not, sergeant, you'll find it true; the admiral's ashamed of the whole affair, and the cutter's crew swear they won't fire a single shot."
"By the god of war!" exclaimed the sergeant, "but this is cursed bad news you bring, Mistress Corbett."
"Not at all; your regiment will become quite the fancy, you'll go by the name of the lady-killers, ha, ha, ha. I wish you joy, sergeant, ha, ha, ha."
Nancy Corbett knew well the power of ridicule, she left the sergeant, and was accosted by one of the lieutenants; she rallied him in the same way.
"But are you really in earnest, Nancy?" said Lieutenant Dillon, at last.
"Upon my soul I am; but, at the same time I hear, that they will fight hard, for they are well-armed and desperate, like their husbands, and they swear that they'll all die to a woman, before they yield; so now we shall see who fights best, the women or the men. I'll back my own sex for a gold Jacobus, lieutenant: will you take the bet?"
"Good God, how very annoying! I can't, I won't order the men to fire at women; I could not do so if they were devils incarnate; a woman is a woman still."
"And never the worse for being brave, Lieutenant Dillon; as I said to Sergeant Tanner, your regiment, after this, will always go by the name of the lady-killers."
"D--n!" exclaimed the lieutenant; "but now I recollect there must be more there; those who had possession of the cutter and who landed in her boat."
"Yes, with forty boxes of gold they say; but do you think they would be such fools as to remain there and allow you to take their money--that boat started for France yesterday night with all the treasure, and are now safe at Cherbourg. I know it for a fact, for one of the men's wives who lives here, showed me a letter to that effect, from her husband, in which he requests her to follow him. But I must go now, good-bye, Mr Lady-killer."
The lieutenant repeated what Nancy had told him to the officers, and the major was so much annoyed, that he went up to the admiral and stated what the report was, and that there were only women to contend with.
"It is mentioned in the despatches, I believe," observed the admiral, "that there are only women supposed to be in the cave; but the smugglers who were on board the cutter--" "Have left with their specie yesternight, admiral; so that we shall gain neither honour nor profit."
"At all events, you will have the merit of obeying your orders, Major Lincoln."
The major made no reply, but went away very much dissatisfied. In the meantime, the sergeant had communicated with his non-commissioned officers and the privates ordered on the duty, and the discontent was universal. Most of the men swore that they would not pull a trigger against women, if they were shot for it, and the disaffection almost amounted to mutiny. Nancy, in the meantime, had not been idle, she had found means to speak with the boats' crews of the _Yungfrau_, stated the departure of the smugglers with their gold, and the fact that they were to fight with nothing but women, that the soldiers had vowed that they would not fire a shot, and that Moggy Salisbury, who was with them, swore that she would hoist up her smock as a flag, and fight to the last. This was soon known on board of the _Yungfrau_, and gave great disgust to every one of the crew, who declared to a man, that they would not act against petticoats, much less fire a shot at Moggy Salisbury.
What a mountain of mischief can be heaped up by the insidious tongue of one woman!
After this explanation, it may be supposed that the zeal of the party despatched was not very great. The fact is, they were all sulky, from the major downwards, among the military, and from Vanslyperken downwards, among the naval portion of the detachment. Nancy Corbett, satisfied with having effected her object, had crossed over the night before, and joined her companions in the cave, and what was extremely fortunate, on the same night Sir Robert Barclay came over in the lugger, and finding how matters stood, immediately hoisted both the boats up on the rocks, and taking up all the men, prepared with his followers for a vigorous resistance, naturally to be expected from those whose lives depended upon the issue of the conflict.
Next morning the cutter was seen coming down with the boats in tow, hardly stemming the flood, from the lightness of the breeze, when Nancy Corbett requested to speak with Sir Robert Barclay. She stated to him what she had done, and the dissatisfaction among the troops and seamen in consequence, and submitted to him the propriety of all the smugglers being dressed as women, as it would operate more in their favour than if they had fifty more men to defend the cave. Sir Robert perceived the good sense of this suggestion, and consulted with Ramsay, who strongly urged the suggestion being acted upon. The men were summoned, and the affair explained to them, and the consequence was, that there was a scene of mirth and laughter, which ended with every man being fitted with woman's attire. The only one who remained in the dress of a man was a woman, Wilhelmina Krause, but she was to remain in the cave with the other women, and take no part in the coming fray.
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In which the officers, non-commissioned officers, and rank and file, are all sent to the right about.
About noon the _Yungfrau_ hove-to off the cave, and the troops were told off into the boats.
About half-past twelve the troops were in the boats all ready.
About one Mr Vanslyperken had hoisted out his own boats, and they were manned. Mr Vanslyperken, with his pistols in his belt, and his sword drawn, told Major Lincoln that he was all ready. Major Lincoln, with his spy-glass in his hand, stepped into the boat with Mr Vanslyperken, and the whole detachment pulled for the shore, and landed in the small cove, where they found the smugglers' boats hoisted up on the rocks, at which the men appeared to be rejoiced, as they took it for granted that they would find some men to fight with instead of women. The major headed his men, and they commenced a scramble up the rocks and arrived at the foot of the high rock which formed the platform above at the mouth of the cave, when the major cried "Halt!" --a very judicious order, considering that it was impossible to go any further. The soldiers looked about everywhere, but could find no cave, and after an hour's strict search, Major Lincoln and his officers, glad to be rid of the affair, held a consultation, and it was agreed that the troops should be re-embarked. The men were marched down again very hot from their exertions, and thus the expedition would have ended without bloodshed, had it not been for the incautious behaviour of a woman. That woman was Moggy Salisbury, who, having observed that the troops were re-embarking, took the opportunity, while Sir Robert and all the men were keeping close, to hoist up a certain under-garment to a pole, as if in derision, thus betraying the locality of the cave, and running the risk of sacrificing the whole party in it. This, as it was going up, caught the eye of one of the seamen in the boat, who cried out, "There goes the ensign up to the peak at last."
"Where?" exclaimed the major, pulling out his telescope, "Yes, by heavens! there it is--and there then must be the cave."
Neither Sir Robert nor any of the conspirators were aware of this manoeuvre of Moggy's; for Smallbones, perceiving what she had done, hauled it down again in a minute afterwards. But it had been hoisted, and the major considered it his duty to return, so once more the troop ascended the precipitous path.
Moggy then went into the cave. "They have found us out, sir," said she, "they point to us, and are coming up again. I will stand as sentry. The men won't fire at me, and if they do I don't care."
Sir Robert and Ramsay were in close consultation. It appeared to them that by a bold manoeuvre they would be able to get out of their scrape. The wind had gone down altogether, the sea was as smooth as glass, and there was every appearance of a continued calm.
"If we could manage it--and I think we may--then the sooner the affair is brought to an issue the better."
Moggy had now taken a musket on her shoulder, and was pacing up and down the edge of the flat in imitation of a sentry. She was soon pointed out, and a titter ran through the whole line: at last, as the major approached, she called out, "I say, soger, what are you doing here? keep off, or I'll put a bullet in your jacket."
"My good woman," replied the major, while his men laughed, "we do not want to hurt you, but you must surrender."
"Surrender!" cried Moggy, "who talks of surrender? --hoist the colours there."
Up went the chemise to the end of the pole, and Smallbones grinned as he hoisted it.
"My good woman, we must obey our orders."
"And I must obey mine," retorted Moggy. "Turn out the guard there."
All the women now made their appearance, as had been arranged, with muskets on their shoulders, headed by little Lilly, with her drawn sword.
The sight of the child commanding the detachment was hailed with loud cheers and laughter.
"That will do, that will do," cried Sir Robert, fearful for Lilly, "let them come in again."
"They'll not fire first at all events," cried Moggy, "never fear, sir. Guard, turn in," continued she; upon which, Lilly and her squadron then disappeared.
"Upon my honour this is too ridiculous," said Lieutenant Dillon.
"Upon my soul I don't know what is to be done," rejoined the major.
"Moggy, we must commence hostilities somehow or another," cried Sir Robert from within. Smallbones here came out with his musket to release Moggy, and Moggy retired into the cave.
The major, who imagined that there must be a path to the cave on the other side, now advanced with the determination of finding it out, and somehow or another putting an end to this unusual warfare.
"If you please you'll keep back, or I'll fire," cried Smallbones, levelling his musket.
The major went on, heedless of the threat. Smallbones discharged his piece, and the major fell.
"Confound that she-devil! --Are you hurt, major?" cried Lieutenant Dillon.
"Yes, I am--I can't move."
Another shot was now fired, and the sergeant fell.
"Hell and flames! what must we do?"
But now the whole party of smugglers poured out of the cave as women with bonnets on, and commenced a murderous fire upon the troops who fell in all directions. The captain who had assumed the command, now attempted to find his way to the other side of the cave, where he had no doubt he should find the entrance, but in so doing the soldiers were exposed to a most galling fire, without being able to return it.
At first, the troops refused to fire again, for that they had to deal with the smugglers' wives, they made certain of: even in the thickest of the smoke there was nothing masculine to be seen; and those troops who were at a greater distance, and who could return the fire, did not. They were rather amused at the character of the women, and not being aware that their comrades were falling so fast, remained inactive. But there is a limit to even gallantry, and as the wounded men were carried past them, their indignation was roused, and, at last, the fire was as warmly returned, but before that took place, one half of the detachment were _hors de combat_.
All the assistance which they might have received from the covering party of sailors on the beach, was neutralised; they did not know how much the soldiers had suffered, and although they fired in pursuance of orders, they would not take any aim.
For some time the soldiers were forced on to the eastern side of the rock, which, as the reader may recollect, was much more precipitous than the western side, where it was descended from by the ladder. Here they were at the mercy of the conspirators, who, concealed below the masses of the rock on the platform, took unerring aim. The captain had fallen, Lieutenant Dillon was badly wounded and led back to the boats, and the command had devolved upon a young man who had but just joined the regiment, and who was ignorant of anything like military tactics, even if they could have been brought into play upon the service.
"Do you call this fighting with women, Sergeant Tanner?" said one of the men. "I've seen service, but such a murderous fire I was never in. Why, we've lost two-thirds of our men."
"And shall lose them all before we find out the mouth of this cursed cave. The regiment has lost its character for ever, and I don't care how soon a bullet settles my business."
Ramsay now detached a party of the men to fire at the covering party of seamen who were standing by the boats in the cove and who were unprotected, while his men were concealed behind the masses of rocks. Many fell, wounded or killed; and Vanslyperken, after shifting about from one position to another, ordered the wounded men to be put into his boat, and with two hands he pulled off as he said to procure more ammunition, leaving the remainder of his detachment on shore, to do as well as they could.
"I thought as how this work would be too warm for him," observed Bill Spurey.
"Yes," replied Short, who, at the moment received a bullet in his thigh, and fell down among the rocks.
The fire upon the seamen continued to be effective. Move from their post they did not, but one after another they sank wounded on the ground. The soldiers who were now without any one to command them, for those who had forced their way to the western side of the rock, finding that advance or retreat was alike impossible, crawled under the sides of the precipice to retreat from a murderous fire which they could not return. The others were scattered here and there, protecting themselves as well as they could below the masses of stone, and returning the fire of the conspirators surely and desperately. But of the hundred men sent on the expedition, there were not twenty who were not killed or wounded, and nearly the whole detachment of seamen had fallen where they stood.
It was then four o'clock, the few men who remained unhurt were suffering from the extreme heat and exertion, and devoured with thirst. The wounded cried for water. The sea was still, calm, and smooth as a mirror; not a breath of wind blew to cool the fevered brows of the wounded men, and the cutter, with her sails hanging listless, floated about on the glassy water, about a quarter of a mile from the beach.
"Now is our time, Sir Robert."
"Yes, Ramsay--now for one bold dash--off with this woman's gear, my men--buckle on your swords and put pistols in your belts."
In a very short time this order was complied with, and, notwithstanding some of the men were wounded in this day's affair, as well as in the struggle for the deck of the cutter, the three bands from Amsterdam, Portsmouth, and Cherbourg mustered forty resolute and powerful men.
The ladder was lowered down, and they descended. Sir Robert ordered Jemmy Ducks and Smallbones to remain and haul up the ladder again, and the whole body hastened down to the cove, headed by Sir Robert and Ramsay, seized the boats, and shoved off for the cutter.
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In which the Jacobite cause is triumphant by sea as well as by land.
The great difficulty which Sir Robert Barclay had to surmount, was to find the means of transport over the channel for their numerous friends, male and female, then collected in the cave: now that their retreat was known, it was certain that some effective measures would be taken by government, by which, if not otherwise reduced, they would be surrounded and starved into submission.
The two boats which they had were not sufficient for the transport of so numerous a body, consisting now of nearly one hundred and fifty individuals, and their means of subsistence were limited to a few days.
The arrival of the cutter with the detachments was no source of regret to Sir Robert, who hoped, by the defeat of the troops, to obtain their boats, and thus make his escape; but this would have been difficult, if not impossible, if the cutter had been under command, as she carried four guns, and could have prevented their escape, even if she did not destroy the boats; but when Sir Robert observed that it had fallen calm, it at once struck him, that if, after defeating the troops, they could board and carry the cutter, that all their difficulties were over: then they could embark the whole of their people, and run her over to Cherbourg.
This was the plan proposed by Sir Robert, and agreed to by Ramsay, and to accomplish this, now that the troops were put to the rout, they had made a rush for, and obtained the boats. As for the women left in the cave, they were perfectly secure for the time, as, without scaling-ladders, there was no possibility of the remaining troops, even if they were rallied, being able to effect anything.
That part of the crew of the _Yungfrau_ who had perceived them rush down to the beach, reported it to Mr Vanslyperken, who had gone down to his cabin, not choosing to take any further part in the affray, or to risk his valuable life. Vanslyperken came on deck, where he witnessed the manning of the boats, and their pushing out of the cove.
"They are coming to attack us, sir," said Coble, who had been left in charge of the cutter when Mr Vanslyperken went on shore.
Mr Vanslyperken turned pale as a sheet; his eyes were fixed upon the form of Ramsay, standing up on the stern-sheets of the first boat, with his sabre raised in the air--he immediately recognised him, panted for breath, and could make no reply.
The crew of the cutter, weakened as they were by the loss of most of their best men, flew to their arms; Coble, Cornelius, and Jansen, and Corporal Van Spitter were to be seen in the advance, encouraging them.
"Gott for dam--let us have one slap for it," cried Jansen.
"Mein Gott, yes," shouted the corporal.
Vanslyperken started up. "It's no use, my men--it's madness--useless sacrifice of life; they are two to one--we must surrender. Go down below, all of you--do you hear, obey my orders?"
"Yes, and report them, too, to the admiral," replied Coble; "I never heard such an order given in my born days, and fifty odd years I have served in the king's fleet."
"Corporal Van Spitter, I order you below--all of you below," cried Vanslyperken; "I command here--will you obey, sir?"
"Mein Gott, yes," replied the corporal, walking away, and coolly descending the ladder.
The boats were now within ten yards of the cutter, and the men stood irresolute; the corporal obeying orders had disheartened them: some of them followed the corporal.
"It's no use," said Coble, "I sees now it's of no use; it's only being cut to pieces for nothing, my men; but I won't leave the deck." Coble threw away his cutlass, and walked aft; the other men did the same, all but Jansen, who still hesitated. Coble caught the cutlass out of his hand, and threw it overboard, just as the boats dashed alongside.
"Gott for dam," muttered Jansen, folding his arms and facing the men who jumped on the cutter's decks. Ramsay, who was first on board when he perceived that the men were standing on the decks without making any opposition, turned and threw up the points of the swords of some of his men who were rushing blindly on, and, in a minute all was quiet on the decks of the _Yungfrau_. Mr Vanslyperken was not to be seen. At the near approach of the boats he had hastened into his cabin and locked himself in; his only feeling being, that Ramsay's wrath must cool, and his life be spared.
"My lads," said Sir Robert to the crew of the cutter, "I am very glad that you made no resistance to a force which you could not resist, as I should have been sorry if one of you had lost his life; but you must now go down below and leave the cutter's deck in our possession. Perhaps it would be better if some of you took one of your boats and went on shore to pick up your messmates who are wounded."
"If you please, sir, we will," said Coble, coming forward, "and the cutter is yours, as far as we are concerned. We will make no attempts to retake her, at all events, for your kindness in thinking of our poor fellows lying there on the beach. I think you will promise that, my lads," continued Coble, turning to the men.
"Yes, we promise that," said the men.
Coble then took the crew with him and pulled on shore to the cove, on the margin of which they found all their men lying either killed or wounded. Dick Short, Spurey, and nine others were taken on board: those that were quite dead were left upon the sand. Leaving only ten men on board the cutter, which, however, was sufficient to cope with the few of the _Yungfrau_ remaining on board, had they been inclined to forfeit their word, Sir Robert and Ramsay then returned with the rest of the party to-the boats, and pulled on shore, for the rest of their assailants were not subdued; about twenty of the soldiers still remained unhurt and were sitting down on the rocks.
Ramsay, as soon as he landed, showed a white handkerchief on a bayonet fixed to the muzzle of a musket.
"Sergeant Tanner," said one of the men, "there's a flag of truce."
"Is there? I'm not sorry for it,--they are two to one even now. I'll go forward to meet it."
The sergeant advanced to meet Ramsay.
"We might, if we pleased, oblige you to surrender or cut you to pieces--that you must own; but we have no wish to hurt you--there are too many good men dead already."
"That's true," replied the sergeant, "but it's one comfort you have turned out at last to be men and not women."
"We have; but to the terms. You were sent to take possession of the cave,--you shall have possession as soon as we are gone, if you will draw off your party higher up this cliff and allow us to embark without molestation. If you do not immediately accept these terms, we shall certainly attack you, or you may do better if you please--pile your muskets, collect your wounded men, bring them down to the beach all ready to put into the boats, which, as soon as we are safe, we will give you possession of--now is it a truce or not? --you must be immediate."
"Yes, then, it is a truce, for I see no chance of better terms. I am commanding officer, and you have the faith of Sergeant Tanner."
The sergeant then returned, and when half way, called to his men: "Party fall in--pile arms." The soldiers, worn out by the long conflict, and aware that they had no chance against such superior numbers, gladly obeyed, and were now divided in sections of three and four, collecting the wounded and carrying them down to the cove.
Sir Robert and his men hastened to the rock--the ladder was lowered, and all was on the alert for embarkation--Lady Barclay and Lilly flew into his arms, while Wilhelmina hung on Ramsay; but they allowed but a short time for endearment--time was too precious. The luggage had all been prepared and the chests of specie were lowered, the bundles thrown down, and, in a quarter of an hour, the cave was cleared of all that they could take away with them.
The women then descended, and all hands were employed carrying away the specie and luggage down to the boats. As soon as one boat was loaded with the boxes of money, Lady Ramsay, Lilly, and Wilhelmina were put in it, and one half of the men went with them on board of the cutter where Coble had already arrived with the wounded seamen. Ramsay remained with the other boat to embark the women and luggage; when all was in, he called the sergeant, pointed out to him the ladder, and told him that he might find something worth his trouble in the cave.
"Is there a drop of anything to drink, sir? for we who are whole are dying with thirst, and it's cruel to hear the poor wounded fellows beg for water."
"You will find both water and spirits in plenty there, sergeant, and you may tell your own story when you arrive at Portsmouth, we shall never contradict you."
"The list of killed, wounded, and missing, will tell the story fast enough," replied the sergeant; "but run up there, my lads, and get some water for these poor fellows. Good-bye, sir, and many thanks."
"Good-bye to you, Sergeant Tanner," said one of the women in the boat.
"Nancy Corbett, by all that's wonderful!" cried the sergeant.
"I told you so, sergeant--you'll never lose the name of lady-killer."
"Pretty lady killing," muttered the sergeant, turning away in a rage. Ramsay took the boats on board, and, as soon as they were cleared, they were towed on shore to the cove by some of the _Yungfrau's_ men.
During this time the ladies, as well as the women, had remained aft on deck, Vanslyperken having locked himself up in his cabin; but Sir Robert now ordered his men to force the cabin door, and take Mr Vanslyperken forward on the lower deck. When the door was opened, Vanslyperken was found in his bed more dead than alive: he was pulled out and dragged forward. The ladies were then handed below, and, as soon as the specie had been put down, and the luggage cleared from the upper deck, the women were ordered to go down on the lower deck, and Mr Vanslyperken ordered to be brought up.
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In which a great deal of loyalty is shown to counterbalance the treason of Vanslyperken.
We must not, however, forget the syndic and the widow Vandersloosh, whom we left in confinement at Amsterdam. We left Mynheer Krause smoking his pipe, and showing to those about him how great a great man always proves himself when under adversity. The widow also, had she performed in public, would have been acknowledged to have been a great woman. She could not but lament the present, for she was on the floor of a dungeon, so she occasionally wrung her hands; but she looked forward to the future, and to better times, not abandoning herself to despair, but comforting herself with hope, as might have been clearly proved by her constant repetition of these words: "Well, well, Mr Vanslyperken, we shall see."
That the night appeared long to both parties is not to be denied, but the longest night will have its end, so long as the world continues to turn round; the consequence was, that the morning came as usual to the syndic, although the widow from the peculiarity of her situation, had not the same advantage.
After morning, comes breakfast, in the natural order of mundane affairs, and kings, being but men, and subject to the same wants as other mortals, his Majesty, King William, sat down, and despatched a very hasty meal, in company with his Grace the Duke of Portland, and the Right Honourable the Lord Albemarle. History does not record, as it sometimes does in works of this description, by what viands his Majesty's appetite was stimulated; we must therefore pass it over, and as his Majesty did on that occasion, as soon as breakfast was over, proceed to business.
"Have you received information, my Lord Albemarle, how many of the conspirators have been seized?"
"May it please your Majesty, I am sorry to inform you, that all who were innocent have been imprisoned, and all who were guilty, have escaped."
Upon this intelligence his Majesty looked very grave.
"How do you mean, my lord?" said he, after a pause.
"The conspirators have all received some friendly notice, and the only two who are in custody are the syndic, Mynheer Krause, and the woman who keeps the Lust Haus."
"And you put the syndic down as an innocent person, my lord?"
"If your Majesty will be pleased to read this communication," replied Lord Albemarle, presenting Ramsay's letter and enclosures, "you will then be of my opinion."
King William took the letter and read it. "What Ramsay--he who was attainted with Sir Robert Barclay?"
"The same, your Majesty."
"So near us, and escaped--but what credence would you place in him?"
"Every credence, may it please your Majesty. I believe him to be incapable of a lie."
"A traitor, like him!"
"A traitor to your Majesty, but most true to his Catholic Majesty, King James that was. But if I venture to point out to your Majesty, the enclosures prove that Lieutenant Vanslyperken's word is not of much value. He, at least, is a double traitor."
"Yes, a little hanging will do him no harm--you are sure this is his writing?"
"There can be no doubt of it, your Majesty, I have compared it."
"You will see to this, my lord: and now to the syndic."
"He has, as your Majesty will perceive, been grossly deceived, and suspected without reason."
"And the woman?"
"Was here yesterday, and fully convinced me that Vanslyperken was a traitor, and that she was innocent. His Grace of Portland was present."
"Well, my lord, you may give orders for their release; of course a little surveillance will be advisable. You will justify the proceedings to the council, this afternoon."
"But may I presume to submit to your Majesty, that the public affront offered to the syndic should be repaired."
"Certainly--send for him," replied his Majesty, carelessly. "I will receive him to-morrow morning," and his Majesty left the room.
Lord Albemarle immediately despatched a courier with an order for the release of the syndic and the Frau Vandersloosh, with a note to the former, stating that his Majesty would receive him on the following day at noon. But while this act of justice had been preparing at the palace of the Hague, there were other acts, not quite so justifiable performing at the town of Amsterdam.
The sun made its appearance more than an hour, before the troops of the royal Guard. Mobs were collected in knots in the street, and in front of the Hotel de Ville, or Stadt House, and the object of their meeting, was to canvas the treason and imprisonment of the syndic, Mynheer Van Krause. "Shame--shame,"--"Death to the traitor,"--"Tear him to pieces,"--and "Long life to King William," were the first solitary remarks made--the noise and hubbub increased. The small knots of people gradually joined together, until they formed a large mob, all burning with loyalty, and each individual wishing to give a practical evidence of it--again were the cries of "Long live the King!" and "Death to traitors!" to be heard, with loud huzzas. A confused din followed, and the mob appeared, as if simultaneously, to be all impelled in one direction. At last the word was given, which they all waited for. "To his house--to his house--down with it--death to the traitor!" and the loyal mob hastened on, each individual eager to be first to prove his loyalty, by helping himself to Mynheer Krause's goods and chattels.
In the low countries, this species of loyalty always has been, and is now very much the fashion. In ten minutes, the gates were forced open--old Koop knocked down, and trod under foot till he was dead--every article of value that was portable, was secured; chairs, tables, glasses, not portable, were thrown out of the window; Wilhelmina's harp and pianoforte battered to fragments; beds, bedding, everything flew about in the air, and then the fragments of the furniture were set fire to, and in less than an hour Mynheer Krause's splendid house was burning furiously, while the mob cheered and cried, "Long live King William!"
Before the courier could arrive from the Hague, all that was left of Mr Krause's property was the bare walls. Merchandises, everything was consumed, and part of the building had fallen into the canal and choked it up, while fifteen schuyts waiting to be discharged of their cargoes had been obliged to retreat from the fury of the flames, the phlegmatic skippers looking on with their pipes in their mouths, and their hands in their wide breeches-pockets.
The loyal mob having effected their object, gradually retired. It is singular, that popular feeling is always expressed in the same way. Had the mob collected for disloyal purposes, they would have shown their disloyalty just in the like manner, only it would have been the Stadt House instead of that of Mynheer Krause.
But now there was a fresh impetus given to the feelings of the mob. The news had been spread like wildfire, that Mynheer the syndic had been proved innocent, and ordered to be immediately liberated, and was sent for by his Majesty; upon which, the mob were undecided, whether they should prove their indignation, at this unjust imprisonment of their worthy magistrate, by setting fire to some public building, or by carrying him in triumph to his own house, which they forgot they had burnt down. Fortunately they decided upon the latter, they surrounded the Stadt House with cries of "Long life to our worthy syndic--prosperity to Mynheer Krause," and rushing up stairs, they caught him in their arms, and carried him triumphantly through the streets bringing him at last to the smoking ruins of his own house, and there they left him; they had done all they could, they had carried him there in triumph, but, as for building the house up again, that was impossible; so, as Mynheer Krause looked with dismay at the wreck of all his property, the loyal mob dispersed, each feeling that he had been a little too hasty in possessing himself of a small share of it. What a fine thing is loyalty! Mynheer Krause found himself alone; he looked with scorn and indignation upon the scene of violence, and then walked away to an hotel, particularly disgusted with the loyal cry of "Long live King William."
In the meantime, the door of the dungeon where the widow Vandersloosh was incarcerated was thrown open, and she was informed that she was no longer a prisoner. The widow indignant that she should have been confined for her loyalty, raved and walked majestically out of the Stadt House, not deigning to answer to the compliments offered to her by some of the inferior officers. Her bosom swelled with indignation, and she was determined to tell his Majesty a bit of her mind, if she should obtain access to him; and the next day she took the trouble to go all the way to the Hague, again to see his Majesty, but his Majesty wasn't at home, and Lord Albemarle to whom she sent in, was indisposed, and his Grace the Duke of Portland was particularly engaged; so the widow had the journey for nothing, and she declared to Babette, that she never would put her foot under the palace roof again as long as she lived.
But, although Madam Vandersloosh was not received at court that day, the syndic Mynheer Krause was; when he sent in his name, Lord Albemarle led the syndic by the hand to his Majesty.
"We have been too hasty, Mynheer Krause," said his Majesty, with a gracious smile.
Mynheer bowed low.
"I regret to hear that the populace in their loyalty have burnt down your house, Mr Krause--they were too hasty."
Mynheer Krause made another low bow.
"You will continue your office of syndic of the town of Amsterdam."
"Pardon me, your Majesty," replied Mynheer Krause respectfully, but firmly, "I have obeyed your summons to appear in your presence, but will request that your Majesty will release me from the burden. I have come to lay my chain and staff of office at your Majesty's feet, it being my intention to quit the town."
"You are too hasty, Mynheer Krause," replied his Majesty with displeasure.
"May it please your Majesty," replied Krause. "He who has been confined as a prisoner in the Stadt House, is not fit to exercise his duties there as a judge; I have served your Majesty many years with the utmost zeal and fidelity. In return, I have been imprisoned and my property destroyed, I must now return to a station more suitable to my present condition, and once more with every assurance of loyalty, I beg to be permitted to lay my insignia of office at your Majesty's feet."
Mynheer Krause suited the action to the word. The king frowned and turned away to the window, and Mynheer Krause perceiving that his Majesty's back was turned upon him, walked out of the door.
"Too hasty," thought Mynheer Krause, "I am loyal and thrown into prison, and am expected to be satisfied with the plea of being too hasty. My house is burnt down, and the plundering mob have been too hasty. Well--well--it is fortunate I took Ramsay's advice, my house and what was in it was a trifle; but if all my gold at Hamburgh and Frankfort, and in the charge of Ramsay had been there, and I had been made a beggar, all the satisfaction I should have received would have been a smile, and the excuse of being too hasty. I wonder where my daughter and Ramsay are? I long to join them."
From which mental soliloquy, it will be evident to the reader, that Mynheer Krause's loyalty had been considerably diminished, perhaps thinking that he had paid too dear for the commodity.
Upon his return, Mynheer Krause publicly announced that he had resigned the office of syndic, much to the astonishment of those who heard of it, and much to the delight of his very particular friend Engelback, who, the next morning set off for the Hague, and had an interview with his Grace the Duke of Portland, the result of which was, that upon grounds best known to the parties; for history will not reveal everything, Mynheer Engelback was recommended to fill the office of syndic of the town of Amsterdam, vacant by the resignation of Mynheer Krause; and that in consequence of this, all those who took off their hats to Mynheer Krause but two days before, and kept them on when they met Mynheer Engelback, now kept them on when they met Mynheer Krause, and pulled them off very politely to Mynheer Krause's very particular friend, Mynheer Engelback.
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Trial and execution of two of the principal personages in our history.
We left Sir Robert Barclay on the deck of the cutter, the ladies and women sent down below, and Mr Vanslyperken on the point of being dragged aft by two of Sir Robert's men. The crew of the _Yungfrau_, at the time, were on the lower deck, some assisting the wounded men, others talking with Jemmy Salisbury and his wife, whom they were astonished to find among the assailants.
"Why, Jemmy, how did you get a berth among those chaps?"
"I'll tell you," said Moggy, interrupting: "when he was last at Portsmouth, they heard him playing his fiddle and singing, and they took such a fancy to him, that they were determined to have him to amuse them in the cave. So one evening, they _kidnapped_ him, took him away by main force, and kept him a prisoner ever since."
"That's carrying the joke rather too far," observed one of the men.
"Mein Gott! yes," replied the corporal.
"But I am at liberty again now at all events," replied Jemmy, taking the cue from his wife; "and if that chap, Vanslyperken, don't command the cutter any more, which I've a notion he will not, I shall enter as boatswain--heh, Dick."
"Yes," replied Short, who was swinging in his hammock.
"Well--when I found that Jemmy couldn't be found, that my dear darling duck of a husband--my jewel, a box of diamonds (arn't you my Jemmy), didn't I tear my hair, and run about the streets, like a mad woman," continued Moggy. "At last I met with Nancy Corbett, whose husband is one of the gang, and she told me where he was, fiddle and all, and I persuaded her to let me go to him, and that's why we both are here."
This was a good invention of Moggy's, and as there was nobody who took the trouble to disprove it, it was received as not the least apocryphal. But now Mr Vanslyperken was dragged past them by two of the conspirators, and all the men of the _Yungfrau_ followed on deck, to see what was to take place.
When Mr Vanslyperken had been brought aft, his legs tottered, and he could hardly stand. His face was livid, and his lips white with fear, and he knew too well that he had little mercy to expect.
"Now, sir," said Sir Robert, with a stern air, "hear the accusation against you, for although we may be lawless, we will still be just. You voluntarily entered into our service, and received our pay. You were one of us, with only this difference, that we have taken up the cause from principle and loyalty, and you joined us from mercenary motives. Still we kept our faith with you; for every service performed, you were well and honourably paid. But you received our money and turned against us; revealed our secrets, and gave information to your government, by which that gentleman" (pointing to Ramsay) "and many others, had not they fortunately received timely notice, would have perished by the gibbet. Now, sir, I wish to know, what you can bring forward in your defence, what have you to urge that you should not die the death which you so traitorously prepared for others."
"Die!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, "no--no--mercy, sir--mercy. I am not fit to die."
"Few are--but this is certain--that a villain like you is not fit to live."
"On my knees, I ask mercy," cried the frightened wretch, dropping down. "Mr Ramsay, speak for me."
"I will speak," replied Ramsay, "but not for you, I will show you, that even if you were to escape us, you would still be hung; for all your extracts of the despatches, I have, with full explanation, put into the hands of the English government. Do you expect mercy from them--they have not showed much as yet."
"O God--O God!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, throwing himself down on the deck in despair.
"Now, my lads, you have heard the charges against this man, and also that he has no defence to offer, what is your sentence?"
"Death!" exclaimed the conspirators.
"You men, belonging to the cutter, you have heard that this man has betrayed the present government of England, in whose pay and service he was at the time--what is your opinion?"
Hereupon, Obadiah Coble hitched up his trousers, and said, "Why, as a matter of opinion, I agrees with you, sir, whomsoever you may be."
"Mein Gott! yes, sir," exclaimed the corporal.
And all the crew cried out together, "Death--death!" which, by-the-bye, was very mutinous.
"You perceive that you are doubly condemned as a double traitor," said Sir Robert. "So prepare to die; the religion you profess I know not, but the time you will be allowed to make your peace with your God is fifteen minutes."
"Oh!" groaned Vanslyperken, with his face to the deck.
"Up there, my lads, and get a whip on the yard-arm," said Ramsay.
Some of his party went to obey the order, and they were assisted by the seamen of the _Yungfrau_. But while they were getting the whip ready on the starboard, Jemmy Ducks was very quietly employed getting another on the larboard yard-arm, which nobody took notice of.
As soon as the whip, and the cord with the hangman's noose made fast to it, were all ready, it was reported to Sir Robert by Corporal Van Spitter, who stepped up to him with his usual military salute. Sir Robert took off his hat in return. His watch had been held in his hand, from the time that he had passed sentence upon Vanslyperken, who still remained prostrate on the deck.
"It is my duty to inform you, sir, that but five minutes are left of the time awarded to you," said Sir Robert to Vanslyperken.
"Five minutes!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, jumping up from the deck, "but five minutes--to die in five minutes," continued he, looking up with horror at the rope at the yard-arm, and the fatal noose at the end of it, held in the hand of Corporal Van Spitter. "Stop, I have gold--plenty of gold--I can purchase my life."
"Kingdoms would not purchase it," said Sir Robert, scornfully.
"Oh!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, wringing his hands, "must I leave all my gold?"
"You have but two minutes, sir," observed Sir Robert. "Let the rope be put round his neck."
This office was performed by Corporal Van Spitter. The corporal was quite an amateur.
"Mercy, mercy," cried Vanslyperken, again falling on his knees, and holding up his hands.
"Call upon Heaven for mercy, you have but one minute left."
But here an interruption took place.
A female made her appearance on the other side of the deck, dragging, by a cord, the hero of our novel, Snarleyyow, who held back with all his power, jerking his head to the right and to the left, but it was of no use, he was dragged opposite to where Vanslyperken knelt. As the reader may guess, this person was Smallbones, who had tied on a bonnet, and muffled up his face, so as not to be observed when he first went on board. Jemmy Ducks now assisted, and the whip on the larboard yard-arm was made fast to a cord with a running noose, for the hanging of the cur.
The sight roused Vanslyperken. "My dog!" exclaimed he, "woman, leave that dog alone--who are you that dare touch my dog?"
The female turned round, threw off her bonnet and handkerchief and exhibited to the terrified lieutenant, the face of the supposed departed Smallbones.
"Smallbones!" exclaimed the crew of the _Yungfrau_ in a breath.
"God of mercy--help me, God of mercy!" cried Vanslyperken, aghast.
"I suppose that you do come for to go to know me now, anyhow," said Smallbones.
"Hath the sea given up its dead?" replied Vanslyperken, in a hollow voice.
"No, it arn't, 'cause why? I never was a drowned," replied Smallbones; "no thanks to you, though; but if so be as I supposes, you be a going to be hung--as I'm a good Christian, I'll forgive you--that is, if you be hung, you know."
Vanslyperken, who now perceived that Smallbones had been by some miracle preserved, recovered himself.
"If you forgive me," replied Vanslyperken, "then pray do not ill-treat my dog."
"I'se not forgiven him, anyhow--I owes him enough, and now I'll have his account settled, by gum. When you goes up there, he goes up here, as sure as I'm Peter Smallbones."
"Be merciful!" exclaimed Vanslyperken, who, strange to say, forgot his own miseries in pleading for his darling cur.
"He be a convicted traitor, and he shall die, by gum!" cried Smallbones, smacking his fist into the palm of his hand.
During the conversation, the time allotted to Vanslyperken had long expired, but the interest occasioned by it had inclined Sir Robert to wait till it was over.
"Enough," cried Sir Robert, "your time is too long expired. Commend your soul to God--let the rope be manned."
"Now Jemmy, stand by to toddle forward," cried Smallbones.
"One moment--I ask but one moment," cried Vanslyperken, much agitated, "only one moment, sir."
"For what?"
"To kiss my poor dog," replied Vanslyperken, bursting into tears; strange and almost ridiculous as was the appeal, there was a seriousness and a pathos in Vanslyperken's words and manner, which affected those who were present like a gleam of sunshine, this one feeling which was unalloyed with baser metal shone upon the close of a worthless and wicked life, Sir Robert nodded his head, and Vanslyperken walked with his rope round his neck over to where the dog was held by Smallbones, bent over the cur and kissed it again and again.
"Enough," cried Sir Robert, "bring him back."
Corporal Van Spitter took hold of Vanslyperken by the arm, and dragged him to the other side of the deck. The unfortunate wretch was wholly absorbed in the fate of his cur, who had endeavoured to follow his master. His eyes were fixed upon Snarleyyow, and Snarleyyow's were fixed upon his master, thus they were permitted to remain for a few seconds, when Sir Robert gave the signal. Away went the line of men who had manned the starboard whip, and away went Jemmy Ducks on the larboard side, and, at the yard-arms' of the cutter were suspended the bodies of Vanslyperken and Snarleyyow.
Thus perished one of the greatest scoundrels, and one of the vilest curs, which ever existed. They were damnable in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.
By the manuscript records, found in the Jacobite papers, it appears that the double execution took place on the 3rd of August in the year of our Lord, 1700.
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In which affairs begin to wind up.
There are few people whose vindictive feelings are not satisfied with the death of the party against whom those feelings have been excited. The eyes of all on deck (that is all except one) were at first directed to the struggling Vanslyperken, and then, as if sickened at the sight of his sufferings, were turned away with a feeling very near akin to compassion.
One only looked or never thought of Vanslyperken, and that one was Smallbones, who watched the kicking and plunging of his natural enemy, Snarleyyow. Gradually, the dog relaxed his exertions, and Smallbones watched, somewhat doubtful, whether a dog who had defied every other kind of death, would condescend to be hanged. At last, Snarleyyow was quite still. He appeared nearly to have gone to--"Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."
"He won't a cum to life any more this time," said Smallbones; "but I'll not let you out of my hands yet. They say a cat have nine lives, but, by gum, some dogs have ninety."
There was a dead silence on the deck of the cutter for a quarter of an hour, during which the bodies remained suspended. A breeze then came sweeping along and ruffled the surface of the water. This was of too great importance to allow of further delay. Sir Robert desired the seamen of the _Yungfrau_ to come aft, told them he should take their cutter to Cherbourg, to land the Women and his own people, and that then they would be free to return to Portsmouth; all that he requested of them was to be quiet and submissive during the short time that he and his party were on board. Coble replied for the ship's company--"As for the matter of that 'ere--there was no fear of their being quiet enough when there were more than two to one against them; but that, in fact, they had no animosity: for even if they did feel a little sore at what had happened, and their messmates being wounded, what was swinging at the yard-arm made them all friends again. The gentleman might take the cutter where he pleased, and might use her as long as he liked, and when he had done with her it was quite time enough to take her back to Portsmouth."
"Well, then, as we understand one another, we had now better make sail," said Sir Robert. "Cut away that rope," continued he, pointing to the whip by which Vanslyperken's body was suspended.
Jansen stepped forward with his snickasee, the rope was divided at once, and the body of the departed Vanslyperken plunged into the wave and disappeared.
"They mayn't cut this tho'!" cried Smallbones. "I'll not trust him--Jemmy, my boy, get up a pig of ballast. I'll sink him fifty fathoms deep, and then if so be he cum up again, why then I give it up for a bad job."
Jemmy brought up the pig of ballast, the body of Snarleyyow was lowered on board, and, after having been secured with divers turns of the rope to the piece of iron, was plunged by Smallbones into the wave.
"There," said Smallbones, "I don't a think that he will ever bite me any more, anyhow; there's no knowing though. Now I'll just go down and see if my bag be to be found, and then I'll dress myself like a Christian."
The cutter flew before the breeze which was on her quarter, and now that the hanging was over the females came on deck. One of the Jesuit priests was a good surgeon, and attended to the wounded men, who all promised to do well, and as Bill Spurey said, "They'd all dance yet at the corporal's wedding."
"I say corporal, if we only could go to Amsterdam instead of going to Portsmouth."
"Mein Gott, yes;" replied the corporal, and acting upon this idea, he went aft and entered into conversation with Ramsay, giving him a detail of the affair with the widow and of her having gone to the Hague to accuse Vanslyperken, ending with expressing his wish of himself and the crew that they might go to the Hague instead of going to Portsmouth. Nothing could please Ramsay better. He was most anxious to send a letter to Mynheer Krause to inform him of the safety of his daughter, and he immediately answered that they might go if they pleased.
"Mein Gott--but how, mynheer--we no have the excuse."
"But I'll give you one," replied Ramsay--"you shall go to the Hague."
The corporal touched his hat with the greatest respect, and walked forward to communicate this good news. The crew of the _Yungfrau_ and the conspirators or smugglers were soon on the best of terms, and as there was no one to check the wasteful expenditure of stores and no one accountable, the liquor was hoisted up on the forecastle, and the night passed in carousing.
"Well, he did love his dog after all," said Jemmy Ducks.
"And he's got his love with him," replied one of the smugglers.
"Now, Jemmy, let's have a song."
"It must be without the fiddle then," replied Jemmy, "for that's jammed up with the baggage--so here goes," I've often heard the chaplain say, when Davey Jones is nigh, That we must call for help in need, to Providence on high, But then he said, most plainly too, that we must do our best, Our own exertions failing, leave to Providence the rest.
I never thought of this much till one day there came on board, A chap who ventur'd to join as _seaman_ by the Lord! His hair hung down like reef points, and his phiz was very queer, For his mouth was like a shark's, and turn'd down from ear to ear.
He hadn't stow'd his hammock, not much longer than a week, When he swore he had a call, and the Lord he was to seek. Now where he went to seek the Lord, I can't at all suppose, 'Twas not on deck for there I'm sure, he never show'd his nose.
He would not read the Bible, it warn't good enough for him, The course we steered by that he said, would lead us all to sin; That we were damn'd and hell would gape, he often would us tell, I know that when I heard his jaw, it made me gape like hell.
A storm came on, we sprung a leak, and sorely were we tired, We plied the pumps, 'twas spell and spell, with lots of work beside; And what d'ye think this beggar did, the trick I do declare, He called us all to leave the pumps and join with him in prayer.
At last our boatswain Billy, who was a thund'ring Turk, Goes up to him and says, "My man, why don't you do your work?" "Avaunt you worst of sinners, I must save my soul," he cried, "Confound your soul," says Billy, "then you shall not save your hide."
Acquaintance then he made soon with the end of the fore-brace, It would have made you laugh to see his methodisty face; He grinn'd like a roast monkey, and he howl'd like a baboon, He had a dose from Billy, that he didn't forget soon.
"Take that," said Billy, when he'd done, "and now you'll please to work, I read the Bible often--but I don't my duty shirk, The pumps they are not choked yet, nor do we yet despair, When all is up or we are saved, we'll join with you in player."
"And now we'll have one from the other side of the house," said Moggy, as soon as the plaudits were over.
"Come then, Anthony, you shall speak for us, and prove that we can sing a stave as well as honester men."
"With all my heart, William;--here's my very best."
The smuggler then sang as follows: Fill, lads, fill; Fill, lads, fill. Here we have a cure For every ill. If fortune's unkind As the north-east wind, Still we must endure, Trusting to our cure, In better luck still.
Drink, boys, drink; Drink, boys, drink. The bowl let us drain With right good will. If women deceive Why should we grieve? Forgetting our pain, Love make again, With better luck still.
Sing, lads, sing; Sing, lads, sing. Our voices we'll raise; Be merry still; If dead to-morrow, We brave all sorrow. Life's a weary maze-- When we end our days, 'Tis better luck still.
As the wounded men occupied the major part of the lower deck, and there was no accommodation for the numerous party of men and women on board, the carousing was kept up until the next morning, when, at daylight, the cutter was run into Cherbourg. The officers who came on board, went on shore with the report that the cutter belonged to the English government, and had been occupied by Sir Robert and his men, who were well known. The consequence was, an order for the cutter to leave the port immediately, as receiving her would be tantamount to an aggression on the part of France. But this order, although given, was not intended to be rigidly enforced, and there was plenty of time allowed for Sir Robert and his people to land with their specie and baggage.
Ramsay did not forget his promise to the corporal. He went to the French authorities, stated the great importance of his forwarding a letter to Amsterdam immediately, and that the way it might be effected would be very satisfactory. That, aware that King William was at the Hague, they should write a letter informing him of the arrival of the cutter; and that his Majesty might not imagine that the French government could sanction such outrages, they had sent her immediately on to him, under the charge of one of their officers, to wait upon his Majesty, and express their sentiments of regret that such a circumstance should have occurred. The authorities were aware that, to obey Sir Robert would not be displeasing to the court of Versailles, and that the excuse for so doing could only be taken as a compliment to the English court, therefore acted upon this suggestion. A French officer was sent on board of the cutter with the despatch, and Ramsay's letter to Mynheer Krause was committed to the charge of the corporal.
Before the sun had set, the _Yungfrau_ was again at sea, and, on the third morning, anchored in her usual berth off the town of Amsterdam.
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In which we trust that everything will be arranged to the satisfaction of our readers.
The French officer who was sent to explain what had occasioned the arrival of the cutter in the port of Cherbourg, immediately set off for the Hague, and was received by Lord Albemarle.
As soon as his credentials had been examined, he was introduced to his Majesty, King William.
"It appears," said his Majesty to Lord Albemarle, after the introduction, "that these Jacobite conspirators have saved us one trouble by hanging this traitor, Vanslyperken."
"Yes, your Majesty, he has met with his deserved punishment," replied Lord Albemarle.
Then addressing himself to the officer, "We will return our acknowledgments for this proof of good will on the part of the French government," said his Majesty, bowing. "My Lord Albemarle, you will see that this gentleman is suitably entertained."
The officer bowed low and retired.
"This is an over politeness which I do not admire," observed his Majesty to Lord Albemarle. "Let that person be well watched, depend upon it the letter is all a pretext, there is more plotting going on."
"I am of your Majesty's opinion, and shall be careful that your Majesty's commands are put in force," replied his lordship, as King William retired into his private apartments.
The cutter had not been half-an-hour at anchor, before Obadiah Coble went on shore with the corporal. Their first object was to apply to the authorities, that the wounded men might be sent to the hospital, which they were before the night; the next was to deliver the letter to Mynheer Krause. They thought it advisable to go first to the widow Vandersloosh, who was surprised at the sight of her dear corporal, and much more enraptured when she heard that Mr Vanslyperken and his cur had been hanged.
"I'll keep my word, corporal," cried the widow, "I told you I would not marry until he was hung, I don't care if I marry you to-morrow."
"Mein Gott, yes, to-day."
"No, no, not to-day, corporal, or to-morrow either, we must wait till the poor fellows are out of the hospital, for I must have them all to the wedding."
"Mein Gott, yes," replied the corporal.
The widow then proceeded to state how she had been thrown into a dungeon, and how she and Mynheer Krause, the syndic, had been released the next day, how Mynheer Krause's house had been burnt to the ground, and all the other particulars with which the reader is already acquainted.
This reminded the corporal of the letters to the Mynheer Krause, which he had for a time forgotten, and he inquired where he was to be found; but the widow was too prudent to allow the corporal to go himself--she sent Babette, who executed her commission without exciting any suspicion, and made Mynheer Krause very happy. He soon made his arrangements, and joined his daughter and Ramsay, who had not, however, awaited his arrival, but had been married the day after they landed at Cherbourg. Mynheer Krause was not a little surprised to find that his son-in-law was a Jacobite, but his incarceration and loss of his property had very much cooled his loyalty. He settled at Hamburgh, and became perfectly indifferent whether England was ruled by King William or King James.
Ramsay's marriage made him also less warm in the good cause; he had gained a pretty wife and a good fortune, and to be very loyal a person should be very poor. The death of King James in the year following, released him from his engagements, and, as he resided at Hamburgh, he was soon forgotten, and was never called upon to embark in the subsequent fruitless attempts on the part of the Jacobites.
As it was necessary to write to the Admiralty in England, acquainting them with the fate of Mr Vanslyperken, and demanding that another officer should be sent out to take the command of the _Yungfrau_, a delay of three or four weeks took place, during which the cutter remained at Amsterdam; for Dick Short and Coble were no navigators, if they had wished to send her back; and, moreover, she had so many of her crew at the hospital, that she was weak-handed.
It was about a month after her arrival at Amsterdam, that every soul belonging to the cutter had gone on shore, and she was left to swing to the tide and foul her hawse, or go adrift if she pleased, for she had to take care of herself. This unusual disregard to naval instructions arose from the simple fact, that on that day was to be celebrated the marriage of widow Vandersloosh and Corporal Van Spitter.
Great, indeed, had been the preparations; all the ingenuity and talent of Jemmy Ducks, and Moggy, and Bill Spurey, for he and all the others were now discharged from the hospital, had been summoned to the assistance of the widow and Babette, in preparing and decorating the Lust Haus for the important ceremony, which the widow declared King William himself should hear of, cost what it might. Festoons of flowers, wreaths of laurel garlands from the ceiling, extra chandeliers, extra musicians, all were dressed out and collected in honour of this auspicious day.
The whole of the crew of the cutter were invited, not, however, to feast at the widow's expense; neither she nor the corporal would stand treat;--but to spend their money in honour of the occasion. And it must be observed, that since their arrival in port, the _Yungfrau_ had spent a great deal of money at the widow's; which was considered strange, as they had not, for some time, received any pay. And it was further observed, that none appeared so wealthy as Smallbones and Corporal Van Spitter. Some had asserted that it was the gold of Mr Vanslyperken, which had been appropriated by the crew to their own wants, considering themselves as his legitimate heirs. Whether this be true or not, it is impossible to say; certain it is, that there was no gold found in Mr Vanslyperken's cabin when his successor took possession of it. And equally certain it was, that all the _Yungfraus_ had their pockets full of gold, and that the major part of this gold did ultimately fall into the possession of the widow Vandersloosh, who was heard to say, that Mr Vanslyperken had paid the expenses of her wedding. From these facts collected, we must leave the reader to draw what inference he may please.
The widow beautifully dressed;--a white kersey petticoat, deep blue stockings, silver buckles in her shoes, a scarlet velvet jacket, with long flaps before and behind, a golden cross six inches long, suspended to a velvet ribbon, to which was attached, half-way between the cross and her neck, a large gold heart, gold ear-rings, and on her head an ornament, which, in Holland and Germany, is called a _zitternabel_, shook and trembled as she walked along to church, hanging on the arm of her dear corporal. Some of the bridges were too narrow to admit the happy pair to pass abreast. The knot was tied. The name Vandersloosh was abandoned without regret, for the sharper one of Van Spitter; and flushed with joy, and the thermometer at ninety-six, the cavalcade returned home, and refreshed themselves with some beer of the Frau Van Spitter's own brewing.
Let it not, however, be supposed, that they dined _tête-à-tête_; no, no--the corporal and his wife were not so churlish as that. The dinner party consisted of a chosen set, the most particular friends of the corporal. Mr Short, first officer and boatswain, Mr William Spurey, Mr and Mrs Salisbury; and last, although not the least important person in this history, Peter Smallbones, Esquire, who having obtained money somehow, was now remarkable for the neatness of his apparel. The fair widow, assisted by Moggy and Babette, cooked the dinner, and when it was ready came in from the kitchen as red as a fury and announced it: and then it was served up, and they all sat down to table in the little parlour. It was very close, the gentlemen took off their jackets, and the widow and Moggy fanned themselves, and the enormous demand by evaporation was supplied with foaming beer. None could have done the honours of the table better than the corporal and his lady who sat melting and stuck together on the little fubsy sofa, which had been the witness of so much pretended and so much real love.
But the Lust Haus is now lighted up, the company are assembling fast; Babette is waddling and trotting like an armadillo from corner to corner: Babette here, and Babette there, it is Babette everywhere. The room is full, and the musicians have commenced tuning their instruments; the party run from the table to join the rest. A general cheer greets the widow as she is led into the room by the corporal--for she had asked many of her friends as well as the crew of the _Yungfrau_, and many others came who were not invited; so that the wedding day, instead of disbursement, produced one of large receipt to the happy pair.
"Now then, corporal, you must open the ball with your lady," cried Bill Spurey.
"Mein Gott, yes."
"What shall it be, Madam Van Spitter?"
"A waltz, if you please."
The musicians struck up a waltz, and Corporal Van Spitter, who had no notion of waltzing, further than having seen the dance performed by others, seized his wife by the waist, who, with an amorous glance, dropped her fat arm upon the corporal's shoulder. This was the signal for the rest--the corporal had made but one turn before a hundred couple more were turning also--the whole room seemed turning. The corporal could not waltz, but he could turn--he held on fast by the widow, and with such a firm piece of resistance he kept a centrifugal balance, and without regard to time or space, he increased his velocity at a prodigious rate. Round they went, with the dangerous force of the two iron balls suspended to the fly-wheel which regulate the power of some stupendous steam-engine.
The corporal would not, and his better half could not, stop. The first couple they came in contact with were hurled to the other side of the room; a second and a third fell, and still the corporal wheeled on; two chairs and a table were swept away in a moment. Three young women, with baskets of cakes and nuts, were thrown down together, and the contents of all their baskets scattered on the floor; and "Bravo, corporal!" resounded from the crew of the _Yungfrau_--Babette and two bottles of ginger beer were next demolished; Jemmy Ducks received a hoist, and Smallbones was flatted to a pancake. Every one fled from the orbit of these revolving spheres, and they were left to wheel by themselves. At last, Mrs Van Spitter finding that nothing else would stop her husband, who, like all heavy bodies, once put in motion, returned it in proportion to his weight, dropped down, and left him to support her whole weight. This was more than the corporal could stand, and it brought him up all standing--he stopped, dropped his wife, and reeled to a chair, for he was so giddy that he could not keep his legs, and so out of breath that he had lost his wind.
"Bravo, corporal!" was shouted throughout the room, while his spouse hardly knew whether she should laugh, or scold him well; but, it being the wedding night, she deferred the scolding for that night only, and she gained a chair, and fanned and wiped, and fanned and wiped again. The corporal, shortly afterwards, would have danced again, but Mrs Van Spitter having had quite enough for that evening, she thanked him for the offer, was satisfied with his prowess, but declined on the score of the extreme sultriness of the weather; to which observation, the corporal replied, as usual, "Mein Gott, yes."
The major part of the evening was passed in dancing and drinking. The corporal and his wife, with Babette, now attending to the wants of their customers, who, what with the exercise, the heat of the weather, and the fumes of tobacco, were more than usually thirsty, and as they became satisfied with dancing, so did they call for refreshments.
But we cannot find space to dwell upon the quantity of beer, the variety of liquors which were consumed at this eventful wedding, with which we wind up our eventful history; nor even to pity the breathless, flushed, and overheated Babette, who was so ill the next day, as to be unable to quit her bed; nor can we detail the jokes, the merriment, and the songs which went round, the peals of laughter, the loud choruses, the antic feats performed by the company; still more impossible would it be to give an idea of the three tremendous cheers, which shook the Lust Haus to its foundations, when Corporal and Mistress Van Spitter, upon their retiring, bade farewell to the company assembled.
The observation of Jemmy Salisbury, as he waddled out, was as correct as it was emphatic: "Well, Dick, this _has been_ a spree!"
"Yes," replied Dick Short.
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There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.
I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, "She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner--something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were--she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children."
"What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked.
"Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent."
A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window- seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.
Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.
I returned to my book--Bewick's History of British Birds: the letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of "the solitary rocks and promontories" by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape-- "Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls, Boils round the naked, melancholy isles Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge Pours in among the stormy Hebrides."
Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with "the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,--that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold." Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children's brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.
I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the hour of eventide.
The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms.
The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed over quickly: it was an object of terror.
So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.
Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.
With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast- room door opened.
"Boh! Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.
"Where the dickens is she!" he continued. "Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain--bad animal!"
"It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once-- "She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack."
And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack.
"What do you want?" I asked, with awkward diffidence.
"Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed?'" was the answer. "I want you to come here;" and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.
John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two, "on account of his delicate health." Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after home.
John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.
Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair.
"That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since," said he, "and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"
Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult.
"What were you doing behind the curtain?" he asked.
"I was reading."
"Show the book."
I returned to the window and fetched it thence.
"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense. Now, I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they _are_ mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows."
I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.
"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said. "You are like a murderer--you are like a slave-driver--you are like the Roman emperors!"
I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, etc. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.
"What! what!" he cried. "Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana? Won't I tell mama? but first--" He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort. I don't very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me "Rat! Rat!" and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words-- "Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!"
"Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!"
Then Mrs. Reed subjoined-- "Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there." Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.
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I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather _out_ of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.
"Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she's like a mad cat."
"For shame! for shame!" cried the lady's-maid. "What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress's son! Your young master."
"Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?"
"No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think over your wickedness."
They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had thrust me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it like a spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly.
"If you don't sit still, you must be tied down," said Bessie. "Miss Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly."
Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me.
"Don't take them off," I cried; "I will not stir."
In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands.
"Mind you don't," said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that I was really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as incredulous of my sanity.
"She never did so before," at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.
"But it was always in her," was the reply. "I've told Missis often my opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me. She's an underhand little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover."
Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said--"You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse."
I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible. Miss Abbot joined in-- "And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to them."
"What we tell you is for your good," added Bessie, in no harsh voice, "you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will send you away, I am sure."
"Besides," said Miss Abbot, "God will punish her: He might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away."
They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.
The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled- up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.
This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room--the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur.
Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the undertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration had guarded it from frequent intrusion.
My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before the looking- glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my stool.
Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present.
All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference, all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one's favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault. John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still "her own darling." I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night.
My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.
"Unjust! --unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression--as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.
What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question--_why_ I thus suffered; now, at the distance of--I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.
I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child--though equally dependent and friendless--Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery.
Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o'clock, and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought had I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death? That certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not remember him; but I knew that he was my own uncle--my mother's brother--that he had taken me when a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her; but how could she really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with her, after her husband's death, by any tie? It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group.
A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not--never doubted--that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls--occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming mirror--I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister's child, might quit its abode--whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the departed--and rise before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I endeavoured to stifle it--I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some one across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort. Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered.
"Miss Eyre, are you ill?" said Bessie.
"What a dreadful noise! it went quite through me!" exclaimed Abbot.
"Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!" was my cry.
"What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?" again demanded Bessie.
"Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come." I had now got hold of Bessie's hand, and she did not snatch it from me.
"She has screamed out on purpose," declared Abbot, in some disgust. "And what a scream! If she had been in great pain one would have excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her naughty tricks."
"What is all this?" demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling stormily. "Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left in the red-room till I came to her myself."
"Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma'am," pleaded Bessie.
"Let her go," was the only answer. "Loose Bessie's hand, child: you cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured. I abhor artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show you that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall liberate you then."
"O aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it--let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if--" "Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:" and so, no doubt, she felt it. I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity.
Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me in, without farther parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed the scene.
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The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I rested my head against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy.
In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved: I knew quite well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glare was the nursery fire. It was night: a candle burnt on the table; Bessie stood at the bed- foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.
I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised the face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician.
"Well, who am I?" he asked.
I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand: he took it, smiling and saying, "We shall do very well by-and-by." Then he laid me down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful that I was not disturbed during the night. Having given some further directions, and intimates that he should call again the next day, he departed; to my grief: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all the room darkened and my heart again sank: inexpressible sadness weighed it down.
"Do you feel as if you should sleep, Miss?" asked Bessie, rather softly.
Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might be rough. "I will try."
"Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?"
"No, thank you, Bessie."
"Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o'clock; but you may call me if you want anything in the night."
Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question.
"Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill?"
"You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-room with crying; you'll be better soon, no doubt."
Bessie went into the housemaid's apartment, which was near. I heard her say-- "Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren't for my life be alone with that poor child to-night: she might die; it's such a strange thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was rather too hard."
Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering together for half-an-hour before they fell asleep. I caught scraps of their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer the main subject discussed.
"Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished"--"A great black dog behind him"--"Three loud raps on the chamber door"--"A light in the churchyard just over his grave," etc., etc.
At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out. For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; strained by dread: such dread as children only can feel.
No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red- room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.
Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl by the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down: but my worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed. Yet, I thought, I ought to have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there, they were all gone out in the carriage with their mama. Abbot, too, was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither, putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of unwonted kindness. This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably.
Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of paradise, nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a privilege. This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it. Vain favour! coming, like most other favours long deferred and often wished for, too late! I could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded: I put both plate and tart away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word _book_ acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from the library. This book I had again and again perused with delight. I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves, having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other. Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand--when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find--all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart.
Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having washed her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana's doll. Meantime she sang: her song was-- "In the days when we went gipsying, A long time ago."
I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice,--at least, I thought so. But now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, very lingeringly; "A long time ago" came out like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful one.
"My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary; Long is the way, and the mountains are wild; Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary Over the path of the poor orphan child.
Why did they send me so far and so lonely, Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled? Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.
Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing, Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild, God, in His mercy, protection is showing, Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.
Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing, Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled, Still will my Father, with promise and blessing, Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.
There is a thought that for strength should avail me, Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled; Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me; God is a friend to the poor orphan child."
"Come, Miss Jane, don't cry," said Bessie as she finished. She might as well have said to the fire, "don't burn!" but how could she divine the morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In the course of the morning Mr. Lloyd came again.
"What, already up!" said he, as he entered the nursery. "Well, nurse, how is she?"
Bessie answered that I was doing very well.
"Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Jane: your name is Jane, is it not?"
"Yes, sir, Jane Eyre."
"Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what about? Have you any pain?"
"No, sir."
"Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with Missis in the carriage," interposed Bessie.
"Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness."
I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge, I answered promptly, "I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable."
"Oh fie, Miss!" said Bessie.
The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and grey; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face. Having considered me at leisure, he said-- "What made you ill yesterday?"
"She had a fall," said Bessie, again putting in her word.
"Fall! why, that is like a baby again! Can't she manage to walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years old."
"I was knocked down," was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by another pang of mortified pride; "but that did not make me ill," I added; while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.
As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang for the servants' dinner; he knew what it was. "That's for you, nurse," said he; "you can go down; I'll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back."
Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall.
"The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?" pursued Mr. Lloyd when Bessie was gone.
"I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark."
I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time.
"Ghost! What, you are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?"
"Of Mr. Reed's ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out there. Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night, if they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle,--so cruel that I think I shall never forget it."
"Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in daylight?"
"No: but night will come again before long: and besides,--I am unhappy,--very unhappy, for other things."
"What other things? Can you tell me some of them?"
How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words. Fearful, however, of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a meagre, though, as far as it went, true response.
"For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters."
"You have a kind aunt and cousins."
Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced-- "But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red-room."
Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff-box.
"Don't you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?" asked he. "Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?"
"It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant."
"Pooh! you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?"
"If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman."
"Perhaps you may--who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?"
"I think not, sir."
"None belonging to your father?"
"I don't know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew nothing about them."
"If you had such, would you like to go to them?"
I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.
"No; I should not like to belong to poor people," was my reply.
"Not even if they were kind to you?"
I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.
"But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?"
"I cannot tell; Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly set: I should not like to go a begging."
"Would you like to go to school?"
Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed's tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie's accounts of school-discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened. Besides, school would be a complete change: it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.
"I should indeed like to go to school," was the audible conclusion of my musings.
"Well, well! who knows what may happen?" said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. "The child ought to have change of air and scene," he added, speaking to himself; "nerves not in a good state."
Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling up the gravel-walk.
"Is that your mistress, nurse?" asked Mr. Lloyd. "I should like to speak to her before I go."
Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast-room, and led the way out. In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume, from after-occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to recommend my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, "Missis was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots underhand." Abbot, I think, gave me credit for being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes.
On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot's communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.
Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot."
"Yes," responded Abbot; "if she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that."
"Not a great deal, to be sure," agreed Bessie: "at any rate, a beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition."
"Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!" cried the fervent Abbot. "Little darling! --with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet colour as she has; just as if she were painted! --Bessie, I could fancy a Welsh rabbit for supper."
"So could I--with a roast onion. Come, we'll go down." They went.
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From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near,--I desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however: days and weeks passed: I had regained my normal state of health, but no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed surveyed me at times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed me: since my illness, she had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever between me and her own children; appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to take my meals alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the drawing-room. Not a hint, however, did she drop about sending me to school: still I felt an instinctive certainty that she would not long endure me under the same roof with her; for her glance, now more than ever, when turned on me, expressed an insuperable and rooted aversion.
Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible: John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly turned against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it better to desist, and ran from me tittering execrations, and vowing I had burst his nose. I had indeed levelled at that prominent feature as hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that either that or my look daunted him, I had the greatest inclination to follow up my advantage to purpose; but he was already with his mama. I heard him in a blubbering tone commence the tale of how "that nasty Jane Eyre" had flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped rather harshly-- "Don't talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or your sisters should associate with her."
Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and without at all deliberating on my words-- "They are not fit to associate with me."
Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange and audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me like a whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of my crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place, or utter one syllable during the remainder of the day.
"What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?" was my scarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed as if my tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had no control.
"What?" said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold composed grey eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took her hand from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child or fiend. I was now in for it.
"My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead."
Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed only bad feelings surging in my breast.
November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given. From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringletted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room door opened and closed. When tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the solitary and silent nursery: there, though somewhat sad, I was not miserable. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company, for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had but been kind and companionable, I should have deemed it a treat to spend the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the formidable eye of Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies and gentlemen. But Bessie, as soon as she had dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off to the lively regions of the kitchen and housekeeper's room, generally bearing the candle along with her. I then sat with my doll on my knee till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sank to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings as I best might, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib. To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doated on this little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it to be happy likewise.
Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie's step on the stairs: sometimes she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors, or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper--a bun or a cheese-cake--then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed me, and said, "Good night, Miss Jane." When thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; and I wished most intensely that she would always be so pleasant and amiable, and never push me about, or scold, or task me unreasonably, as she was too often wont to do. Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good natural capacity, for she was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative; so, at least, I judge from the impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty too, if my recollections of her face and person are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear complexion; but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas of principle or justice: still, such as she was, I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall.
It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning: Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been summoned to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was fond: and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and hoarding up the money she thus obtained. She had a turn for traffic, and a marked propensity for saving; shown not only in the vending of eggs and chickens, but also in driving hard bargains with the gardener about flower-roots, seeds, and slips of plants; that functionary having orders from Mrs. Reed to buy of his young lady all the products of her parterre she wished to sell: and Eliza would have sold the hair off her head if she could have made a handsome profit thereby. As to her money, she first secreted it in odd corners, wrapped in a rag or an old curl-paper; but some of these hoards having been discovered by the housemaid, Eliza, fearful of one day losing her valued treasure, consented to intrust it to her mother, at a usurious rate of interest--fifty or sixty per cent.; which interest she exacted every quarter, keeping her accounts in a little book with anxious accuracy.
Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers, of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was making my bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to get it arranged before she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed me as a sort of under- nurserymaid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs, &c.). Having spread the quilt and folded my night-dress, I went to the window-seat to put in order some picture-books and doll's house furniture scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana to let her playthings alone (for the tiny chairs and mirrors, the fairy plates and cups, were her property) stopped my proceedings; and then, for lack of other occupation, I fell to breathing on the frost-flowers with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing a space in the glass through which I might look out on the grounds, where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost.
From this window were visible the porter's lodge and the carriage-road, and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver-white foliage veiling the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown open and a carriage roll through. I watched it ascending the drive with indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, the door-bell rang loudly, the new-comer was admitted. All this being nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier attraction in the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and chirruped on the twigs of the leafless cherry-tree nailed against the wall near the casement. The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the table, and having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash to put out the crumbs on the window-sill, when Bessie came running upstairs into the nursery.
"Miss Jane, take off your pinafore; what are you doing there? Have you washed your hands and face this morning?" I gave another tug before I answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread: the sash yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill, some on the cherry-tree bough, then, closing the window, I replied-- "No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting."
"Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now? You look quite red, as if you had been about some mischief: what were you opening the window for?"
I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great a hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand, inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to the top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in the breakfast-room.
I would have asked who wanted me: I would have demanded if Mrs. Reed was there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed the nursery-door upon me. I slowly descended. For nearly three months, I had never been called to Mrs. Reed's presence; restricted so long to the nursery, the breakfast, dining, and drawing-rooms were become for me awful regions, on which it dismayed me to intrude.
I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast-room door, and I stopped, intimidated and trembling. What a miserable little poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of me in those days! I feared to return to the nursery, and feared to go forward to the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation; the vehement ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided me; I _must_ enter.
"Who could want me?" I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned the stiff door-handle, which, for a second or two, resisted my efforts. "What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment? --a man or a woman?" The handle turned, the door unclosed, and passing through and curtseying low, I looked up at--a black pillar! --such, at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow, sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug: the grim face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital.
Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stony stranger with the words: "This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you."
_He_, for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood, and having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking grey eyes which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in a bass voice, "Her size is small: what is her age?"
"Ten years."
"So much?" was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny for some minutes. Presently he addressed me--"Your name, little girl?"
"Jane Eyre, sir."
In uttering these words I looked up: he seemed to me a tall gentleman; but then I was very little; his features were large, and they and all the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim.
"Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?"
Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world held a contrary opinion: I was silent. Mrs. Reed answered for me by an expressive shake of the head, adding soon, "Perhaps the less said on that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst."
"Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk;" and bending from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the arm-chair opposite Mrs. Reed's. "Come here," he said.
I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him. What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! what a great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth!
"No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"
"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.
"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"
"A pit full of fire."
"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"
"No, sir."
"What must you do to avoid it?"
I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: "I must keep in good health, and not die."
"How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die daily. I buried a little child of five years old only a day or two since,--a good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared the same could not be said of you were you to be called hence."
Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes down on the two large feet planted on the rug, and sighed, wishing myself far enough away.
"I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever having been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress."
"Benefactress! benefactress!" said I inwardly: "they all call Mrs. Reed my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable thing."
"Do you say your prayers night and morning?" continued my interrogator.
"Yes, sir."
"Do you read your Bible?"
"Sometimes."
"With pleasure? Are you fond of it?"
"I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah."
"And the Psalms? I hope you like them?"
"No, sir."
"No? oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a gingerbread-nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! the verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;' says he, 'I wish to be a little angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety."
"Psalms are not interesting," I remarked.
"That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to change it: to give you a new and clean one: to take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which that operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs. Reed interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to carry on the conversation herself.
"Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite the character and disposition I could wish: should you admit her into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst fault, a tendency to deceit. I mention this in your hearing, Jane, that you may not attempt to impose on Mr. Brocklehurst."
Well might I dread, well might I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was her nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence; however carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as the above. Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart; I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?
"Nothing, indeed," thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob, and hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent evidences of my anguish.
"Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child," said Mr. Brocklehurst; "it is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the lake burning with fire and brimstone; she shall, however, be watched, Mrs. Reed. I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers."
"I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects," continued my benefactress; "to be made useful, to be kept humble: as for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at Lowood."
"Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam," returned Mr. Brocklehurst. "Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that especial care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them. I have studied how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment of pride; and, only the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my success. My second daughter, Augusta, went with her mama to visit the school, and on her return she exclaimed: 'Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all the girls at Lowood look, with their hair combed behind their ears, and their long pinafores, and those little holland pockets outside their frocks--they are almost like poor people's children! and,' said she, 'they looked at my dress and mama's, as if they had never seen a silk gown before.'"
"This is the state of things I quite approve," returned Mrs. Reed; "had I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found a system more exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre. Consistency, my dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things."
"Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment of Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations, hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and its inhabitants."
"Quite right, sir. I may then depend upon this child being received as a pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her position and prospects?"
"Madam, you may: she shall be placed in that nursery of chosen plants, and I trust she will show herself grateful for the inestimable privilege of her election."
"I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for, I assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility that was becoming too irksome."
"No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good morning. I shall return to Brocklehurst Hall in the course of a week or two: my good friend, the Archdeacon, will not permit me to leave him sooner. I shall send Miss Temple notice that she is to expect a new girl, so that there will be no difficulty about receiving her. Good-bye."
"Good-bye, Mr. Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss Brocklehurst, and to Augusta and Theodore, and Master Broughton Brocklehurst."
"I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the 'Child's Guide,' read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'An account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G---, a naughty child addicted to falsehood and deceit.'"
With these words Mr. Brocklehurst put into my hand a thin pamphlet sewn in a cover, and having rung for his carriage, he departed.
Mrs. Reed and I were left alone: some minutes passed in silence; she was sewing, I was watching her. Mrs. Reed might be at that time some six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame, square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not obese: she had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being much developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently regular; under her light eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her skin was dark and opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was sound as a bell--illness never came near her; she was an exact, clever manager; her household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control; her children only at times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn; she dressed well, and had a presence and port calculated to set off handsome attire.
Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm-chair, I examined her figure; I perused her features. In my hand I held the tract containing the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative my attention had been pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had just passed; what Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr. Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of their conversation, was recent, raw, and stinging in my mind; I had felt every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly, and a passion of resentment fomented now within me.
Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements.
"Go out of the room; return to the nursery," was her mandate. My look or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with extreme though suppressed irritation. I got up, I went to the door; I came back again; I walked to the window, across the room, then close up to her.
_Speak_ I must: I had been trodden on severely, and _must_ turn: but how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence-- "I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I." Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine.
"What more have you to say?" she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child.
That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued-- "I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty."
"How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?"
"How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the _truth_. You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back--roughly and violently thrust me back--into the red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, 'Have mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!' And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me--knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. _You_ are deceitful!"
{How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth: p30.jpg} Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped- for liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs. Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as if she would cry.
"Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you? Why do you tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?"
"No, Mrs. Reed."
"Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I desire to be your friend."
"Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and what you have done."
"Jane, you don't understand these things: children must be corrected for their faults."
"Deceit is not my fault!" I cried out in a savage, high voice.
"But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now return to the nursery--there's a dear--and lie down a little."
"I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here."
"I will indeed send her to school soon," murmured Mrs. Reed _sotto voce_; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.
I was left there alone--winner of the field. It was the hardest battle I had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood awhile on the rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror's solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when half-an-hour's silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position.
Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned. Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed's pardon; but I knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was the way to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby re-exciting every turbulent impulse of my nature.
I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking; fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation. I took a book--some Arabian tales; I sat down and endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my own thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found fascinating. I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was quite sequestrated; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. I leaned against a gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was a very grey day; a most opaque sky, "onding on snaw," canopied all; thence flakes felt it intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea without melting. I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to myself over and over again, "What shall I do? --what shall I do?"
All at once I heard a clear voice call, "Miss Jane! where are you? Come to lunch!"
It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light step came tripping down the path.
"You naughty little thing!" she said. "Why don't you come when you are called?"
Bessie's presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat cross. The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs. Reed, I was not disposed to care much for the nursemaid's transitory anger; and I _was_ disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of heart. I just put my two arms round her and said, "Come, Bessie! don't scold."
The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated to indulge in: somehow it pleased her.
"You are a strange child, Miss Jane," she said, as she looked down at me; "a little roving, solitary thing: and you are going to school, I suppose?"
I nodded.
"And won't you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?"
"What does Bessie care for me? She is always scolding me."
"Because you're such a queer, frightened, shy little thing. You should be bolder."
"What! to get more knocks?"
"Nonsense! But you are rather put upon, that's certain. My mother said, when she came to see me last week, that she would not like a little one of her own to be in your place. --Now, come in, and I've some good news for you."
"I don't think you have, Bessie."
"Child! what do you mean? What sorrowful eyes you fix on me! Well, but Missis and the young ladies and Master John are going out to tea this afternoon, and you shall have tea with me. I'll ask cook to bake you a little cake, and then you shall help me to look over your drawers; for I am soon to pack your trunk. Missis intends you to leave Gateshead in a day or two, and you shall choose what toys you like to take with you."
"Bessie, you must promise not to scold me any more till I go."
"Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be afraid of me. Don't start when I chance to speak rather sharply; it's so provoking."
"I don't think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because I have got used to you, and I shall soon have another set of people to dread."
"If you dread them they'll dislike you."
"As you do, Bessie?"
"I don't dislike you, Miss; I believe I am fonder of you than of all the others."
"You don't show it."
"You little sharp thing! you've got quite a new way of talking. What makes you so venturesome and hardy?"
"Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides"--I was going to say something about what had passed between me and Mrs. Reed, but on second thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on that head.
"And so you're glad to leave me?"
"Not at all, Bessie; indeed, just now I'm rather sorry."
"Just now! and rather! How coolly my little lady says it! I dare say now if I were to ask you for a kiss you wouldn't give it me: you'd say you'd _rather_ not."
"I'll kiss you and welcome: bend your head down." Bessie stooped; we mutually embraced, and I followed her into the house quite comforted. That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the evening Bessie told me some of her most enchanting stories, and sang me some of her sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.
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{
"id": "1260"
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5
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Five o'clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th of January, when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me already up and nearly dressed. I had risen half-an-hour before her entrance, and had washed my face, and put on my clothes by the light of a half-moon just setting, whose rays streamed through the narrow window near my crib. I was to leave Gateshead that day by a coach which passed the lodge gates at six a.m. Bessie was the only person yet risen; she had lit a fire in the nursery, where she now proceeded to make my breakfast. Few children can eat when excited with the thoughts of a journey; nor could I. Bessie, having pressed me in vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled milk and bread she had prepared for me, wrapped up some biscuits in a paper and put them into my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse and bonnet, and wrapping herself in a shawl, she and I left the nursery. As we passed Mrs. Reed's bedroom, she said, "Will you go in and bid Missis good- bye?"
"No, Bessie: she came to my crib last night when you were gone down to supper, and said I need not disturb her in the morning, or my cousins either; and she told me to remember that she had always been my best friend, and to speak of her and be grateful to her accordingly."
"What did you say, Miss?"
"Nothing: I covered my face with the bedclothes, and turned from her to the wall."
"That was wrong, Miss Jane."
"It was quite right, Bessie. Your Missis has not been my friend: she has been my foe."
"O Miss Jane! don't say so!"
"Good-bye to Gateshead!" cried I, as we passed through the hall and went out at the front door.
The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern, whose light glanced on wet steps and gravel road sodden by a recent thaw. Raw and chill was the winter morning: my teeth chattered as I hastened down the drive. There was a light in the porter's lodge: when we reached it, we found the porter's wife just kindling her fire: my trunk, which had been carried down the evening before, stood corded at the door. It wanted but a few minutes of six, and shortly after that hour had struck, the distant roll of wheels announced the coming coach; I went to the door and watched its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom.
"Is she going by herself?" asked the porter's wife.
"Yes."
"And how far is it?"
"Fifty miles."
"What a long way! I wonder Mrs. Reed is not afraid to trust her so far alone."
The coach drew up; there it was at the gates with its four horses and its top laden with passengers: the guard and coachman loudly urged haste; my trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie's neck, to which I clung with kisses.
"Be sure and take good care of her," cried she to the guard, as he lifted me into the inside.
"Ay, ay!" was the answer: the door was slapped to, a voice exclaimed "All right," and on we drove. Thus was I severed from Bessie and Gateshead; thus whirled away to unknown, and, as I then deemed, remote and mysterious regions.
I remember but little of the journey; I only know that the day seemed to me of a preternatural length, and that we appeared to travel over hundreds of miles of road. We passed through several towns, and in one, a very large one, the coach stopped; the horses were taken out, and the passengers alighted to dine. I was carried into an inn, where the guard wanted me to have some dinner; but, as I had no appetite, he left me in an immense room with a fireplace at each end, a chandelier pendent from the ceiling, and a little red gallery high up against the wall filled with musical instruments. Here I walked about for a long time, feeling very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie's fireside chronicles. At last the guard returned; once more I was stowed away in the coach, my protector mounted his own seat, sounded his hollow horn, and away we rattled over the "stony street" of L-.
The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty: as it waned into dusk, I began to feel that we were getting very far indeed from Gateshead: we ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; great grey hills heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we descended a valley, dark with wood, and long after night had overclouded the prospect, I heard a wild wind rushing amongst trees.
Lulled by the sound, I at last dropped asleep; I had not long slumbered when the sudden cessation of motion awoke me; the coach-door was open, and a person like a servant was standing at it: I saw her face and dress by the light of the lamps.
"Is there a little girl called Jane Eyre here?" she asked. I answered "Yes," and was then lifted out; my trunk was handed down, and the coach instantly drove away.
I was stiff with long sitting, and bewildered with the noise and motion of the coach: Gathering my faculties, I looked about me. Rain, wind, and darkness filled the air; nevertheless, I dimly discerned a wall before me and a door open in it; through this door I passed with my new guide: she shut and locked it behind her. There was now visible a house or houses--for the building spread far--with many windows, and lights burning in some; we went up a broad pebbly path, splashing wet, and were admitted at a door; then the servant led me through a passage into a room with a fire, where she left me alone.
I stood and warmed my numbed fingers over the blaze, then I looked round; there was no candle, but the uncertain light from the hearth showed, by intervals, papered walls, carpet, curtains, shining mahogany furniture: it was a parlour, not so spacious or splendid as the drawing-room at Gateshead, but comfortable enough. I was puzzling to make out the subject of a picture on the wall, when the door opened, and an individual carrying a light entered; another followed close behind.
The first was a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and large forehead; her figure was partly enveloped in a shawl, her countenance was grave, her bearing erect.
"The child is very young to be sent alone," said she, putting her candle down on the table. She considered me attentively for a minute or two, then further added-- "She had better be put to bed soon; she looks tired: are you tired?" she asked, placing her hand on my shoulder.
"A little, ma'am."
"And hungry too, no doubt: let her have some supper before she goes to bed, Miss Miller. Is this the first time you have left your parents to come to school, my little girl?"
I explained to her that I had no parents. She inquired how long they had been dead: then how old I was, what was my name, whether I could read, write, and sew a little: then she touched my cheek gently with her forefinger, and saying, "She hoped I should be a good child," dismissed me along with Miss Miller.
The lady I had left might be about twenty-nine; the one who went with me appeared some years younger: the first impressed me by her voice, look, and air. Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in complexion, though of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and action, like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand: she looked, indeed, what I afterwards found she really was, an under-teacher. Led by her, I passed from compartment to compartment, from passage to passage, of a large and irregular building; till, emerging from the total and somewhat dreary silence pervading that portion of the house we had traversed, we came upon the hum of many voices, and presently entered a wide, long room, with great deal tables, two at each end, on each of which burnt a pair of candles, and seated all round on benches, a congregation of girls of every age, from nine or ten to twenty. Seen by the dim light of the dips, their number to me appeared countless, though not in reality exceeding eighty; they were uniformly dressed in brown stuff frocks of quaint fashion, and long holland pinafores. It was the hour of study; they were engaged in conning over their to-morrow's task, and the hum I had heard was the combined result of their whispered repetitions.
Miss Miller signed to me to sit on a bench near the door, then walking up to the top of the long room she cried out-- "Monitors, collect the lesson-books and put them away!"
Four tall girls arose from different tables, and going round, gathered the books and removed them. Miss Miller again gave the word of command-- "Monitors, fetch the supper-trays!"
The tall girls went out and returned presently, each bearing a tray, with portions of something, I knew not what, arranged thereon, and a pitcher of water and mug in the middle of each tray. The portions were handed round; those who liked took a draught of the water, the mug being common to all. When it came to my turn, I drank, for I was thirsty, but did not touch the food, excitement and fatigue rendering me incapable of eating: I now saw, however, that it was a thin oaten cake shared into fragments.
The meal over, prayers were read by Miss Miller, and the classes filed off, two and two, upstairs. Overpowered by this time with weariness, I scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bedroom was, except that, like the schoolroom, I saw it was very long. To-night I was to be Miss Miller's bed-fellow; she helped me to undress: when laid down I glanced at the long rows of beds, each of which was quickly filled with two occupants; in ten minutes the single light was extinguished, and amidst silence and complete darkness I fell asleep.
The night passed rapidly. I was too tired even to dream; I only once awoke to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain fall in torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place by my side. When I again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell was ringing; the girls were up and dressing; day had not yet begun to dawn, and a rushlight or two burned in the room. I too rose reluctantly; it was bitter cold, and I dressed as well as I could for shivering, and washed when there was a basin at liberty, which did not occur soon, as there was but one basin to six girls, on the stands down the middle of the room. Again the bell rang: all formed in file, two and two, and in that order descended the stairs and entered the cold and dimly lit schoolroom: here prayers were read by Miss Miller; afterwards she called out-- "Form classes!"
A great tumult succeeded for some minutes, during which Miss Miller repeatedly exclaimed, "Silence!" and "Order!" When it subsided, I saw them all drawn up in four semicircles, before four chairs, placed at the four tables; all held books in their hands, and a great book, like a Bible, lay on each table, before the vacant seat. A pause of some seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of numbers; Miss Miller walked from class to class, hushing this indefinite sound.
A distant bell tinkled: immediately three ladies entered the room, each walked to a table and took her seat. Miss Miller assumed the fourth vacant chair, which was that nearest the door, and around which the smallest of the children were assembled: to this inferior class I was called, and placed at the bottom of it.
Business now began, the day's Collect was repeated, then certain texts of Scripture were said, and to these succeeded a protracted reading of chapters in the Bible, which lasted an hour. By the time that exercise was terminated, day had fully dawned. The indefatigable bell now sounded for the fourth time: the classes were marshalled and marched into another room to breakfast: how glad I was to behold a prospect of getting something to eat! I was now nearly sick from inanition, having taken so little the day before.
The refectory was a great, low-ceiled, gloomy room; on two long tables smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to my dismay, sent forth an odour far from inviting. I saw a universal manifestation of discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils of those destined to swallow it; from the van of the procession, the tall girls of the first class, rose the whispered words-- "Disgusting! The porridge is burnt again!"
"Silence!" ejaculated a voice; not that of Miss Miller, but one of the upper teachers, a little and dark personage, smartly dressed, but of somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top of one table, while a more buxom lady presided at the other. I looked in vain for her I had first seen the night before; she was not visible: Miss Miller occupied the foot of the table where I sat, and a strange, foreign-looking, elderly lady, the French teacher, as I afterwards found, took the corresponding seat at the other board. A long grace was said and a hymn sung; then a servant brought in some tea for the teachers, and the meal began.
Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my portion without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt porridge is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over it. The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished. Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted. Thanks being returned for what we had not got, and a second hymn chanted, the refectory was evacuated for the schoolroom. I was one of the last to go out, and in passing the tables, I saw one teacher take a basin of the porridge and taste it; she looked at the others; all their countenances expressed displeasure, and one of them, the stout one, whispered-- "Abominable stuff! How shameful!"
A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again began, during which the schoolroom was in a glorious tumult; for that space of time it seemed to be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and they used their privilege. The whole conversation ran on the breakfast, which one and all abused roundly. Poor things! it was the sole consolation they had. Miss Miller was now the only teacher in the room: a group of great girls standing about her spoke with serious and sullen gestures. I heard the name of Mr. Brocklehurst pronounced by some lips; at which Miss Miller shook her head disapprovingly; but she made no great effort to check the general wrath; doubtless she shared in it.
A clock in the schoolroom struck nine; Miss Miller left her circle, and standing in the middle of the room, cried-- "Silence! To your seats!"
Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was resolved into order, and comparative silence quelled the Babel clamour of tongues. The upper teachers now punctually resumed their posts: but still, all seemed to wait. Ranged on benches down the sides of the room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a quaint assemblage they appeared, all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl visible; in brown dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow tucker about the throat, with little pockets of holland (shaped something like a Highlander's purse) tied in front of their frocks, and destined to serve the purpose of a work-bag: all, too, wearing woollen stockings and country-made shoes, fastened with brass buckles. Above twenty of those clad in this costume were full-grown girls, or rather young women; it suited them ill, and gave an air of oddity even to the prettiest.
I was still looking at them, and also at intervals examining the teachers--none of whom precisely pleased me; for the stout one was a little coarse, the dark one not a little fierce, the foreigner harsh and grotesque, and Miss Miller, poor thing! looked purple, weather-beaten, and over-worked--when, as my eye wandered from face to face, the whole school rose simultaneously, as if moved by a common spring.
What was the matter? I had heard no order given: I was puzzled. Ere I had gathered my wits, the classes were again seated: but as all eyes were now turned to one point, mine followed the general direction, and encountered the personage who had received me last night. She stood at the bottom of the long room, on the hearth; for there was a fire at each end; she surveyed the two rows of girls silently and gravely. Miss Miller approaching, seemed to ask her a question, and having received her answer, went back to her place, and said aloud-- "Monitor of the first class, fetch the globes!"
While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved slowly up the room. I suppose I have a considerable organ of veneration, for I retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her steps. Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; brown eyes with a benignant light in their irids, and a fine pencilling of long lashes round, relieved the whiteness of her large front; on each of her temples her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in round curls, according to the fashion of those times, when neither smooth bands nor long ringlets were in vogue; her dress, also in the mode of the day, was of purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet; a gold watch (watches were not so common then as now) shone at her girdle. Let the reader add, to complete the picture, refined features; a complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately air and carriage, and he will have, at least, as clearly as words can give it, a correct idea of the exterior of Miss Temple--Maria Temple, as I afterwards saw the name written in a prayer-book intrusted to me to carry to church.
The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken her seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables, summoned the first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson on geography; the lower classes were called by the teachers: repetitions in history, grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing and arithmetic succeeded, and music lessons were given by Miss Temple to some of the elder girls. The duration of each lesson was measured by the clock, which at last struck twelve. The superintendent rose-- "I have a word to address to the pupils," said she.
The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it sank at her voice. She went on-- "You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you must be hungry:--I have ordered that a lunch of bread and cheese shall be served to all."
The teachers looked at her with a sort of surprise.
"It is to be done on my responsibility," she added, in an explanatory tone to them, and immediately afterwards left the room.
The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to the high delight and refreshment of the whole school. The order was now given "To the garden!" Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with strings of coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze. I was similarly equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into the open air.
The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to exclude every glimpse of prospect; a covered verandah ran down one side, and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into scores of little beds: these beds were assigned as gardens for the pupils to cultivate, and each bed had an owner. When full of flowers they would doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January, all was wintry blight and brown decay. I shuddered as I stood and looked round me: it was an inclement day for outdoor exercise; not positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling yellow fog; all under foot was still soaking wet with the floods of yesterday. The stronger among the girls ran about and engaged in active games, but sundry pale and thin ones herded together for shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense mist penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard frequently the sound of a hollow cough.
As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of me; I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much. I leant against a pillar of the verandah, drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within, delivered myself up to the employment of watching and thinking. My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit record: I hardly yet knew where I was; Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the future I could form no conjecture. I looked round the convent-like garden, and then up at the house--a large building, half of which seemed grey and old, the other half quite new. The new part, containing the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect; a stone tablet over the door bore this inscription:-- "Lowood Institution. --This portion was rebuilt A.D. ---, by Naomi Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county." "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." --St. Matt. v. 16.
I read these words over and over again: I felt that an explanation belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate their import. I was still pondering the signification of "Institution," and endeavouring to make out a connection between the first words and the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me made me turn my head. I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near; she was bent over a book, on the perusal of which she seemed intent: from where I stood I could see the title--it was "Rasselas;" a name that struck me as strange, and consequently attractive. In turning a leaf she happened to look up, and I said to her directly-- "Is your book interesting?" I had already formed the intention of asking her to lend it to me some day.
"I like it," she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during which she examined me.
"What is it about?" I continued. I hardly know where I found the hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial.
"You may look at it," replied the girl, offering me the book.
I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were less taking than the title: "Rasselas" looked dull to my trifling taste; I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety seemed spread over the closely-printed pages. I returned it to her; she received it quietly, and without saying anything she was about to relapse into her former studious mood: again I ventured to disturb her-- "Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means? What is Lowood Institution?"
"This house where you are come to live."
"And why do they call it Institution? Is it in any way different from other schools?"
"It is partly a charity-school: you and I, and all the rest of us, are charity-children. I suppose you are an orphan: are not either your father or your mother dead?"
"Both died before I can remember."
"Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and this is called an institution for educating orphans."
"Do we pay no money? Do they keep us for nothing?"
"We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each."
"Then why do they call us charity-children?"
"Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and the deficiency is supplied by subscription."
"Who subscribes?"
"Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this neighbourhood and in London."
"Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?"
"The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet records, and whose son overlooks and directs everything here."
"Why?"
"Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment."
"Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a watch, and who said we were to have some bread and cheese?"
"To Miss Temple? Oh, no! I wish it did: she has to answer to Mr. Brocklehurst for all she does. Mr. Brocklehurst buys all our food and all our clothes."
"Does he live here?"
"No--two miles off, at a large hall."
"Is he a good man?"
"He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good."
"Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?"
"Yes."
"And what are the other teachers called?"
"The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the work, and cuts out--for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and pelisses, and everything; the little one with black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she teaches history and grammar, and hears the second class repetitions; and the one who wears a shawl, and has a pocket-handkerchief tied to her side with a yellow ribband, is Madame Pierrot: she comes from Lisle, in France, and teaches French."
"Do you like the teachers?"
"Well enough."
"Do you like the little black one, and the Madame ---? --I cannot pronounce her name as you do."
"Miss Scatcherd is hasty--you must take care not to offend her; Madame Pierrot is not a bad sort of person."
"But Miss Temple is the best--isn't she?"
"Miss Temple is very good and very clever; she is above the rest, because she knows far more than they do."
"Have you been long here?"
"Two years."
"Are you an orphan?"
"My mother is dead."
"Are you happy here?"
"You ask rather too many questions. I have given you answers enough for the present: now I want to read."
But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner; all re-entered the house. The odour which now filled the refectory was scarcely more appetising than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast: the dinner was served in two huge tin-plated vessels, whence rose a strong steam redolent of rancid fat. I found the mess to consist of indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked together. Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was apportioned to each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered within myself whether every day's fare would be like this.
After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons recommenced, and were continued till five o'clock.
The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace by Miss Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the large schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl--she looked thirteen or upwards. I expected she would show signs of great distress and shame; but to my surprise she neither wept nor blushed: composed, though grave, she stood, the central mark of all eyes. "How can she bear it so quietly--so firmly?" I asked of myself. "Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the earth to open and swallow me up. She looks as if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment--beyond her situation: of something not round her nor before her. I have heard of day-dreams--is she in a day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure they do not see it--her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart: she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not at what is really present. I wonder what sort of a girl she is--whether good or naughty."
Soon after five p.m. we had another meal, consisting of a small mug of coffee, and half-a-slice of brown bread. I devoured my bread and drank my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad of as much more--I was still hungry. Half-an-hour's recreation succeeded, then study; then the glass of water and the piece of oat-cake, prayers, and bed. Such was my first day at Lowood.
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{
"id": "1260"
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The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by rushlight; but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the ceremony of washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change had taken place in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen north-east wind, whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windows all night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned the contents of the ewers to ice.
Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible-reading was over, I felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast-time came at last, and this morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality was eatable, the quantity small. How small my portion seemed! I wished it had been doubled.
In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the fourth class, and regular tasks and occupations were assigned me: hitherto, I had only been a spectator of the proceedings at Lowood; I was now to become an actor therein. At first, being little accustomed to learn by heart, the lessons appeared to me both long and difficult; the frequent change from task to task, too, bewildered me; and I was glad when, about three o'clock in the afternoon, Miss Smith put into my hands a border of muslin two yards long, together with needle, thimble, &c., and sent me to sit in a quiet corner of the schoolroom, with directions to hem the same. At that hour most of the others were sewing likewise; but one class still stood round Miss Scatcherd's chair reading, and as all was quiet, the subject of their lessons could be heard, together with the manner in which each girl acquitted herself, and the animadversions or commendations of Miss Scatcherd on the performance. It was English history: among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: at the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention to stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. Even in that obscure position, Miss Scatcherd continued to make her an object of constant notice: she was continually addressing to her such phrases as the following:-- "Burns" (such it seems was her name: the girls here were all called by their surnames, as boys are elsewhere), "Burns, you are standing on the side of your shoe; turn your toes out immediately." "Burns, you poke your chin most unpleasantly; draw it in." "Burns, I insist on your holding your head up; I will not have you before me in that attitude," &c. &c.
A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and the girls examined. The lesson had comprised part of the reign of Charles I., and there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage and ship- money, which most of them appeared unable to answer; still, every little difficulty was solved instantly when it reached Burns: her memory seemed to have retained the substance of the whole lesson, and she was ready with answers on every point. I kept expecting that Miss Scatcherd would praise her attention; but, instead of that, she suddenly cried out-- "You dirty, disagreeable girl! you have never cleaned your nails this morning!"
Burns made no answer: I wondered at her silence. "Why," thought I, "does she not explain that she could neither clean her nails nor wash her face, as the water was frozen?"
My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a skein of thread: while she was winding it, she talked to me from time to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether I could mark, stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me, I could not pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd's movements. When I returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order of which I did not catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful curtesy; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to Burns' eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression.
"Hardened girl!" exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; "nothing can correct you of your slatternly habits: carry the rod away."
Burns obeyed: I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into her pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek.
The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction of the day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the draught of coffee swallowed at five o'clock had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger: the long restraint of the day was slackened; the schoolroom felt warmer than in the morning--its fires being allowed to burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place of candles, not yet introduced: the ruddy gloaming, the licensed uproar, the confusion of many voices gave one a welcome sense of liberty.
On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out; it snowed fast, a drift was already forming against the lower panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside.
Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace! as it was, I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour.
Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of the fire-places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers.
"Is it still 'Rasselas'?" I asked, coming behind her.
"Yes," she said, "and I have just finished it."
And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this. "Now," thought I, "I can perhaps get her to talk." I sat down by her on the floor.
"What is your name besides Burns?"
"Helen."
"Do you come a long way from here?"
"I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of Scotland."
"Will you ever go back?"
"I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future."
"You must wish to leave Lowood?"
"No! why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it would be of no use going away until I have attained that object."
"But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?"
"Cruel? Not at all! She is severe: she dislikes my faults."
"And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her. If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should break it under her nose."
"Probably you would do nothing of the sort: but if you did, Mr. Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil."
"But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl: I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it."
"Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you _cannot bear_ what it is your fate to be required to bear."
I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season.
"You say you have faults, Helen: what are they? To me you seem very good."
"Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things, in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot _bear_ to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and particular."
"And cross and cruel," I added; but Helen Burns would not admit my addition: she kept silence.
"Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?"
At the utterance of Miss Temple's name, a soft smile flitted over her grave face.
"Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any one, even the worst in the school: she sees my errors, and tells me of them gently; and, if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me my meed liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight."
"That is curious," said I, "it is so easy to be careful."
"For _you_ I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this morning, and saw you were closely attentive: your thoughts never seemed to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you. Now, mine continually rove away; when I should be listening to Miss Scatcherd, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I lose the very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the bubbling of a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our house;--then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be awakened; and having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the visionary brook, I have no answer ready."
"Yet how well you replied this afternoon."
"It was mere chance; the subject on which we had been reading had interested me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no farther than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age was tending! Still, I like Charles--I respect him--I pity him, poor murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!"
Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not very well understand her--that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject she discussed. I recalled her to my level.
"And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?"
"No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just what I wished to gain."
"Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?"
"Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness."
"A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should--so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again."
"You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are but a little untaught girl."
"But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved."
"Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it."
"How? I don't understand."
"It is not violence that best overcomes hate--nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury."
"What then?"
"Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example."
"What does He say?"
"Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you."
"Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her son John, which is impossible."
In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or softening.
Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make a remark, but she said nothing.
"Well," I asked impatiently, "is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad woman?"
"She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,--the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man--perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest--a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end."
Helen's head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk to me, but rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not allowed much time for meditation: a monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up, exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent-- "Helen Burns, if you don't go and put your drawer in order, and fold up your work this minute, I'll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at it!"
Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor without reply as without delay.
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{
"id": "1260"
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My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot; though these were no trifles.
During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but within these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold: we had no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted there: our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet: I remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause every evening, when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning. Then the scanty supply of food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger.
Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set out cold, we arrived at church colder: during the morning service we became almost paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served round between the services.
At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.
I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, "like stalwart soldiers." The other teachers, poor things, were generally themselves too much dejected to attempt the task of cheering others.
How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got back! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied: each hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.
A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of bread--a whole, instead of a half, slice--with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself; but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.
The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank together in a heap; they were then propped up with the monitors' high stools.
I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first month after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the archdeacon: his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had my own reasons for dreading his coming: but come he did at last.
One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline; and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose _en masse_, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid than ever.
I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my disposition, &c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise,--I had been looking out daily for the "Coming Man," whose information respecting my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad child for ever: now there he was.
He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension.
"I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do; it struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico chemises, and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is not, on any account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil: if they have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them. And, O ma'am! I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to! --when I was here last, I went into the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying on the line; there was a quantity of black hose in a very bad state of repair: from the size of the holes in them I was sure they had not been well mended from time to time."
He paused.
"Your directions shall be attended to, sir," said Miss Temple.
"And, ma'am," he continued, "the laundress tells me some of the girls have two clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules limit them to one."
"I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Catherine Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton last Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for the occasion."
Mr. Brocklehurst nodded.
"Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance occur too often. And there is another thing which surprised me; I find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the past fortnight. How is this? I looked over the regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who introduced this innovation? and by what authority?"
"I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir," replied Miss Temple: "the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinner-time."
"Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and obviating the aim of this institution; it ought to be improved to the spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude under temporary privation. A brief address on those occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the opportunity of referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him; to His warnings that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; to His divine consolations, "If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye." Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!"
Mr. Brocklehurst again paused--perhaps overcome by his feelings. Miss Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; but she now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material; especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required a sculptor's chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified severity.
Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands behind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled or shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents than he had hitherto used-- "Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what--_what_ is that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma'am, curled--curled all over?" And extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.
"It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very quietly.
"Julia Severn, ma'am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she conform to the world so openly--here in an evangelical, charitable establishment--as to wear her hair one mass of curls?"
"Julia's hair curls naturally," returned Miss Temple, still more quietly.
"Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these girls to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance? I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, modestly, plainly. Miss Temple, that girl's hair must be cut off entirely; I will send a barber to-morrow: and I see others who have far too much of the excrescence--that tall girl, tell her to turn round. Tell all the first form to rise up and direct their faces to the wall."
Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth away the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order, however, and when the first class could take in what was required of them, they obeyed. Leaning a little back on my bench, I could see the looks and grimaces with which they commented on this manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr. Brocklehurst could not see them too; he would perhaps have felt that, whatever he might do with the outside of the cup and platter, the inside was further beyond his interference than he imagined.
He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes, then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom-- "All those top-knots must be cut off."
Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate.
"Madam," he pursued, "I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of--" Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now entered the room. They ought to have come a little sooner to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled; the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls.
These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. and the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the top of the room. It seems they had come in the carriage with their reverend relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the room upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper, questioned the laundress, and lectured the superintendent. They now proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who was charged with the care of the linen and the inspection of the dormitories: but I had no time to listen to what they said; other matters called off and enchanted my attention.
Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to secure my personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if I could only elude observation. To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. It came.
"A careless girl!" said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after--"It is the new pupil, I perceive." And before I could draw breath, "I must not forget I have a word to say respecting her." Then aloud: how loud it seemed to me! "Let the child who broke her slate come forward!"
Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but the two great girls who sit on each side of me, set me on my legs and pushed me towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently assisted me to his very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel-- "Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be punished."
The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.
"Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thought I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in my pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns.
"Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought.
"Place the child upon it."
And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no condition to note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard of me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me.
Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.
"Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers, and children, you all see this girl?"
Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses against my scorched skin.
"You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character. Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case."
A pause--in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must be firmly sustained.
"My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, "this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is a little castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against her; you must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut--this girl is--a liar!"
Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two younger ones whispered, "How shocking!" Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.
"This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity: she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her."
With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed to Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in state from the room. Turning at the door, my judge said-- "Let her stand half-an-hour longer on that stool, and let no one speak to her during the remainder of the day."
There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my sensations were no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm "the untidy badge;" scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.
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{
"id": "1260"
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Ere the half-hour ended, five o'clock struck; school was dismissed, and all were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ventured to descend: it was deep dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on the floor. The spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction took place, and soon, so overwhelming was the grief that seized me, I sank prostrate with my face to the ground. Now I wept: Helen Burns was not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be so good, and to do so much at Lowood: to make so many friends, to earn respect and win affection. Already I had made visible progress: that very morning I had reached the head of my class; Miss Miller had praised me warmly; Miss Temple had smiled approbation; she had promised to teach me drawing, and to let me learn French, if I continued to make similar improvement two months longer: and then I was well received by my fellow-pupils; treated as an equal by those of my own age, and not molested by any; now, here I lay again crushed and trodden on; and could I ever rise more?
"Never," I thought; and ardently I wished to die. While sobbing out this wish in broken accents, some one approached: I started up--again Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her coming up the long, vacant room; she brought my coffee and bread.
"Come, eat something," she said; but I put both away from me, feeling as if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present condition. Helen regarded me, probably with surprise: I could not now abate my agitation, though I tried hard; I continued to weep aloud. She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms, and rested her head upon them; in that attitude she remained silent as an Indian. I was the first who spoke-- "Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a liar?"
"Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions."
"But what have I to do with millions? The eighty, I know, despise me."
"Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises or dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity you much."
"How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?"
"Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man: he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression. Besides, Jane"--she paused.
"Well, Helen?" said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my fingers gently to warm them, and went on-- "If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends."
"No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don't love me I would rather die than live--I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest--" "Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness--to glory?"
I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she imparted there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. I felt the impression of woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whence it came; and when, having done speaking, she breathed a little fast and coughed a short cough, I momentarily forgot my own sorrows to yield to a vague concern for her.
Resting my head on Helen's shoulder, I put my arms round her waist; she drew me to her, and we reposed in silence. We had not sat long thus, when another person came in. Some heavy clouds, swept from the sky by a rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming in through a window near, shone full both on us and on the approaching figure, which we at once recognised as Miss Temple.
"I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre," said she; "I want you in my room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too."
We went; following the superintendent's guidance, we had to thread some intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached her apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful. Miss Temple told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair on one side of the hearth, and herself taking another, she called me to her side.
"Is it all over?" she asked, looking down at my face. "Have you cried your grief away?"
"I am afraid I never shall do that."
"Why?"
"Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody else, will now think me wicked."
"We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us."
"Shall I, Miss Temple?"
"You will," said she, passing her arm round me. "And now tell me who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?"
"Mrs. Reed, my uncle's wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to her care."
"Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?"
"No, ma'am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as I have often heard the servants say, got her to promise before he died that she would always keep me."
"Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own defence. You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as you can. Say whatever your memory suggests is true; but add nothing and exaggerate nothing."
I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most moderate--most correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order to arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story of my sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued than it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of Helen's warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused into the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible: I felt as I went on that Miss Temple fully believed me.
In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to see me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful episode of the red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark and haunted chamber.
I had finished: Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in silence; she then said-- "I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his reply agrees with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from every imputation; to me, Jane, you are clear now."
She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was well contented to stand, for I derived a child's pleasure from the contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her white forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns.
"How are you to-night, Helen? Have you coughed much to-day?"
"Not quite so much, I think, ma'am."
"And the pain in your chest?"
"It is a little better."
Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; then she returned to her own seat: as she resumed it, I heard her sigh low. She was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said cheerfully-- "But you two are my visitors to-night; I must treat you as such." She rang her bell.
"Barbara," she said to the servant who answered it, "I have not yet had tea; bring the tray and place cups for these two young ladies."
And a tray was soon brought. How pretty, to my eyes, did the china cups and bright teapot look, placed on the little round table near the fire! How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the scent of the toast! of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was beginning to be hungry) discerned only a very small portion: Miss Temple discerned it too.
"Barbara," said she, "can you not bring a little more bread and butter? There is not enough for three."
Barbara went out: she returned soon-- "Madam, Mrs. Harden says she has sent up the usual quantity."
Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper: a woman after Mr. Brocklehurst's own heart, made up of equal parts of whalebone and iron.
"Oh, very well!" returned Miss Temple; "we must make it do, Barbara, I suppose." And as the girl withdrew she added, smiling, "Fortunately, I have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this once."
Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake.
"I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you," said she, "but as there is so little toast, you must have it now," and she proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand.
We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the delicate fare she liberally supplied.
Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire; we sat one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed between her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear.
Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, by a controlling sense of awe; and such was my feeling now: but as to Helen Burns, I was struck with wonder.
The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, they kindled: first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen but pale and bloodless; then they shone in the liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more singular than that of Miss Temple's--a beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I cannot tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart large enough, vigorous enough, to hold the swelling spring of pure, full, fervid eloquence? Such was the characteristic of Helen's discourse on that, to me, memorable evening; her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very brief span as much as many live during a protracted existence.
They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times past; of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or guessed at: they spoke of books: how many they had read! What stores of knowledge they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with French names and French authors: but my amazement reached its climax when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin her father had taught her, and taking a book from a shelf, bade her read and construe a page of Virgil; and Helen obeyed, my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line. She had scarcely finished ere the bell announced bedtime! no delay could be admitted; Miss Temple embraced us both, saying, as she drew us to her heart-- "God bless you, my children!"
Helen she held a little longer than me: she let her go more reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from her cheek.
On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd: she was examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns's, and when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told that to-morrow she should have half-a-dozen of untidily folded articles pinned to her shoulder.
"My things were indeed in shameful disorder," murmured Helen to me, in a low voice: "I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot."
Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word "Slattern," and bound it like a phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.
About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared that what he said went to corroborate my account. Miss Temple, having assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been made into the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every imputation. The teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions.
Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing. I learned the first two tenses of the verb _Etre_, and sketched my first cottage (whose walls, by-the- bye, outrivalled in slope those of the leaning tower of Pisa), on the same day. That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings: I feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark; all the work of my own hands: freely pencilled houses and trees, picturesque rocks and ruins, Cuyp-like groups of cattle, sweet paintings of butterflies hovering over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe cherries, of wren's nests enclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed about with young ivy sprays. I examined, too, in thought, the possibility of my ever being able to translate currently a certain little French story which Madame Pierrot had that day shown me; nor was that problem solved to my satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep.
Well has Solomon said--"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."
I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for Gateshead and its daily luxuries.
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But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps. Flowers peeped out amongst the leaves; snow-drops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden-eyed pansies. On Thursday afternoons (half-holidays) we now took walks, and found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges.
I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls of our garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits girdling a great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow! --when mists as chill as death wandered to the impulse of east winds along those purple peaks, and rolled down "ing" and holm till they blended with the frozen fog of the beck! That beck itself was then a torrent, turbid and curbless: it tore asunder the wood, and sent a raving sound through the air, often thickened with wild rain or whirling sleet; and for the forest on its banks, _that_ showed only ranks of skeletons.
April advanced to May: a bright serene May it was; days of blue sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled up its duration. And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood shook loose its tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and oak skeletons were restored to majestic life; woodland plants sprang up profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of moss filled its hollows, and it made a strange ground-sunshine out of the wealth of its wild primrose plants: I have seen their pale gold gleam in overshadowed spots like scatterings of the sweetest lustre. All this I enjoyed often and fully, free, unwatched, and almost alone: for this unwonted liberty and pleasure there was a cause, to which it now becomes my task to advert.
Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak of it as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a stream? Assuredly, pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is another question.
That forest-dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and fog-bred pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the seminary into an hospital.
Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils to receive infection: forty-five out of the eighty girls lay ill at one time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few who continued well were allowed almost unlimited license; because the medical attendant insisted on the necessity of frequent exercise to keep them in health: and had it been otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain them. Miss Temple's whole attention was absorbed by the patients: she lived in the sick-room, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours' rest at night. The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and willing to remove them from the seat of contagion. Many, already smitten, went home only to die: some died at the school, and were buried quietly and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay.
While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls; while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug and the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality, that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful woodland out of doors. Its garden, too, glowed with flowers: hollyhocks had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opened, tulips and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars gave out, morning and evening, their scent of spice and apples; and these fragrant treasures were all useless for most of the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now and then a handful of herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin.
But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the beauties of the scene and season; they let us ramble in the wood, like gipsies, from morning till night; we did what we liked, went where we liked: we lived better too. Mr. Brocklehurst and his family never came near Lowood now: household matters were not scrutinised into; the cross housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of infection; her successor, who had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to the ways of her new abode, provided with comparative liberality. Besides, there were fewer to feed; the sick could eat little; our breakfast-basins were better filled; when there was no time to prepare a regular dinner, which often happened, she would give us a large piece of cold pie, or a thick slice of bread and cheese, and this we carried away with us to the wood, where we each chose the spot we liked best, and dined sumptuously.
My favourite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and dry from the very middle of the beck, and only to be got at by wading through the water; a feat I accomplished barefoot. The stone was just broad enough to accommodate, comfortably, another girl and me, at that time my chosen comrade--one Mary Ann Wilson; a shrewd, observant personage, whose society I took pleasure in, partly because she was witty and original, and partly because she had a manner which set me at my ease. Some years older than I, she knew more of the world, and could tell me many things I liked to hear: with her my curiosity found gratification: to my faults also she gave ample indulgence, never imposing curb or rein on anything I said. She had a turn for narrative, I for analysis; she liked to inform, I to question; so we got on swimmingly together, deriving much entertainment, if not much improvement, from our mutual intercourse.
And where, meantime, was Helen Burns? Why did I not spend these sweet days of liberty with her? Had I forgotten her? or was I so worthless as to have grown tired of her pure society? Surely the Mary Ann Wilson I have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance: she could only tell me amusing stories, and reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, she was qualified to give those who enjoyed the privilege of her converse a taste of far higher things.
True, reader; and I knew and felt this: and though I am a defective being, with many faults and few redeeming points, yet I never tired of Helen Burns; nor ever ceased to cherish for her a sentiment of attachment, as strong, tender, and respectful as any that ever animated my heart. How could it be otherwise, when Helen, at all times and under all circumstances, evinced for me a quiet and faithful friendship, which ill-humour never soured, nor irritation never troubled? But Helen was ill at present: for some weeks she had been removed from my sight to I knew not what room upstairs. She was not, I was told, in the hospital portion of the house with the fever patients; for her complaint was consumption, not typhus: and by consumption I, in my ignorance, understood something mild, which time and care would be sure to alleviate.
I was confirmed in this idea by the fact of her once or twice coming downstairs on very warm sunny afternoons, and being taken by Miss Temple into the garden; but, on these occasions, I was not allowed to go and speak to her; I only saw her from the schoolroom window, and then not distinctly; for she was much wrapped up, and sat at a distance under the verandah.
One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late with Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as usual, separated ourselves from the others, and had wandered far; so far that we lost our way, and had to ask it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman lived, who looked after a herd of half-wild swine that fed on the mast in the wood. When we got back, it was after moonrise: a pony, which we knew to be the surgeon's, was standing at the garden door. Mary Ann remarked that she supposed some one must be very ill, as Mr. Bates had been sent for at that time of the evening. She went into the house; I stayed behind a few minutes to plant in my garden a handful of roots I had dug up in the forest, and which I feared would wither if I left them till the morning. This done, I lingered yet a little longer: the flowers smelt so sweet as the dew fell; it was such a pleasant evening, so serene, so warm; the still glowing west promised so fairly another fine day on the morrow; the moon rose with such majesty in the grave east. I was noting these things and enjoying them as a child might, when it entered my mind as it had never done before:-- "How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of dying! This world is pleasant--it would be dreary to be called from it, and to have to go who knows where?"
And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the first time it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind, on each side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it felt the one point where it stood--the present; all the rest was formless cloud and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering, and plunging amid that chaos. While pondering this new idea, I heard the front door open; Mr. Bates came out, and with him was a nurse. After she had seen him mount his horse and depart, she was about to close the door, but I ran up to her.
"How is Helen Burns?"
"Very poorly," was the answer.
"Is it her Mr. Bates has been to see?"
"Yes."
"And what does he say about her?"
"He says she'll not be here long."
This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only conveyed the notion that she was about to be removed to Northumberland, to her own home. I should not have suspected that it meant she was dying; but I knew instantly now! It opened clear on my comprehension that Helen Burns was numbering her last days in this world, and that she was going to be taken to the region of spirits, if such region there were. I experienced a shock of horror, then a strong thrill of grief, then a desire--a necessity to see her; and I asked in what room she lay.
"She is in Miss Temple's room," said the nurse.
"May I go up and speak to her?"
"Oh no, child! It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come in; you'll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling."
The nurse closed the front door; I went in by the side entrance which led to the schoolroom: I was just in time; it was nine o'clock, and Miss Miller was calling the pupils to go to bed.
It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when I--not having been able to fall asleep, and deeming, from the perfect silence of the dormitory, that my companions were all wrapt in profound repose--rose softly, put on my frock over my night-dress, and, without shoes, crept from the apartment, and set off in quest of Miss Temple's room. It was quite at the other end of the house; but I knew my way; and the light of the unclouded summer moon, entering here and there at passage windows, enabled me to find it without difficulty. An odour of camphor and burnt vinegar warned me when I came near the fever room: and I passed its door quickly, fearful lest the nurse who sat up all night should hear me. I dreaded being discovered and sent back; for I _must_ see Helen,--I must embrace her before she died,--I must give her one last kiss, exchange with her one last word.
Having descended a staircase, traversed a portion of the house below, and succeeded in opening and shutting, without noise, two doors, I reached another flight of steps; these I mounted, and then just opposite to me was Miss Temple's room. A light shone through the keyhole and from under the door; a profound stillness pervaded the vicinity. Coming near, I found the door slightly ajar; probably to admit some fresh air into the close abode of sickness. Indisposed to hesitate, and full of impatient impulses--soul and senses quivering with keen throes--I put it back and looked in. My eye sought Helen, and feared to find death.
Close by Miss Temple's bed, and half covered with its white curtains, there stood a little crib. I saw the outline of a form under the clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings: the nurse I had spoken to in the garden sat in an easy-chair asleep; an unsnuffed candle burnt dimly on the table. Miss Temple was not to be seen: I knew afterwards that she had been called to a delirious patient in the fever-room. I advanced; then paused by the crib side: my hand was on the curtain, but I preferred speaking before I withdrew it. I still recoiled at the dread of seeing a corpse.
"Helen!" I whispered softly, "are you awake?"
She stirred herself, put back the curtain, and I saw her face, pale, wasted, but quite composed: she looked so little changed that my fear was instantly dissipated.
"Can it be you, Jane?" she asked, in her own gentle voice.
"Oh!" I thought, "she is not going to die; they are mistaken: she could not speak and look so calmly if she were."
I got on to her crib and kissed her: her forehead was cold, and her cheek both cold and thin, and so were her hand and wrist; but she smiled as of old.
"Why are you come here, Jane? It is past eleven o'clock: I heard it strike some minutes since."
"I came to see you, Helen: I heard you were very ill, and I could not sleep till I had spoken to you."
"You came to bid me good-bye, then: you are just in time probably."
"Are you going somewhere, Helen? Are you going home?"
"Yes; to my long home--my last home."
"No, no, Helen!" I stopped, distressed. While I tried to devour my tears, a fit of coughing seized Helen; it did not, however, wake the nurse; when it was over, she lay some minutes exhausted; then she whispered-- "Jane, your little feet are bare; lie down and cover yourself with my quilt."
I did so: she put her arm over me, and I nestled close to her. After a long silence, she resumed, still whispering-- "I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault."
"But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?"
"I believe; I have faith: I am going to God."
"Where is God? What is God?"
"My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me."
"You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven, and that our souls can get to it when we die?"
"I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me."
"And shall I see you again, Helen, when I die?"
"You will come to the same region of happiness: be received by the same mighty, universal Parent, no doubt, dear Jane."
Again I questioned, but this time only in thought. "Where is that region? Does it exist?" And I clasped my arms closer round Helen; she seemed dearer to me than ever; I felt as if I could not let her go; I lay with my face hidden on her neck. Presently she said, in the sweetest tone-- "How comfortable I am! That last fit of coughing has tired me a little; I feel as if I could sleep: but don't leave me, Jane; I like to have you near me."
"I'll stay with you, _dear_ Helen: no one shall take me away."
"Are you warm, darling?"
"Yes."
"Good-night, Jane."
"Good-night, Helen."
She kissed me, and I her, and we both soon slumbered.
When I awoke it was day: an unusual movement roused me; I looked up; I was in somebody's arms; the nurse held me; she was carrying me through the passage back to the dormitory. I was not reprimanded for leaving my bed; people had something else to think about; no explanation was afforded then to my many questions; but a day or two afterwards I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns's shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was--dead.
Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard: for fifteen years after her death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a grey marble tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word "Resurgam."
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{
"id": "1260"
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Hitherto I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificant existence: to the first ten years of my life I have given almost as many chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography. I am only bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses will possess some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years almost in silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links of connection.
When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its virulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attention on the school. Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, and by degrees various facts came out which excited public indignation in a high degree. The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and quality of the children's food; the brackish, fetid water used in its preparation; the pupils' wretched clothing and accommodations--all these things were discovered, and the discovery produced a result mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to the institution.
Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribed largely for the erection of a more convenient building in a better situation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet and clothing introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to the management of a committee. Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealth and family connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the post of treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his duties by gentlemen of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: his office of inspector, too, was shared by those who knew how to combine reason with strictness, comfort with economy, compassion with uprightness. The school, thus improved, became in time a truly useful and noble institution. I remained an inmate of its walls, after its regeneration, for eight years: six as pupil, and two as teacher; and in both capacities I bear my testimony to its value and importance.
During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy, because it was not inactive. I had the means of an excellent education placed within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a desire to excel in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my teachers, especially such as I loved, urged me on: I availed myself fully of the advantages offered me. In time I rose to be the first girl of the first class; then I was invested with the office of teacher; which I discharged with zeal for two years: but at the end of that time I altered.
Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best part of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and, latterly, companion. At this period she married, removed with her husband (a clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy of such a wife) to a distant county, and consequently was lost to me.
From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me. I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed better regulated feelings had become the inmates of my mind. I had given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the eyes of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued character.
But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between me and Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a post-chaise, shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise mount the hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my own room, and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the half-holiday granted in honour of the occasion.
I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myself only to be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; but when my reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple--or rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been breathing in her vicinity--and that now I was left in my natural element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions. It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquillity was no more. My world had for some years been in Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.
I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the two wings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts of Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other objects to rest on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed prison-ground, exile limits. I traced the white road winding round the base of one mountain, and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I longed to follow it farther! I recalled the time when I had travelled that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill at twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought me first to Lowood, and I had never quitted it since. My vacations had all been spent at school: Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit me. I had had no communication by letter or message with the outer world: school-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and antipathies--such was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus: that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space: "Then," I cried, half desperate, "grant me at least a new servitude!"
Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs.
I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till bedtime: even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me kept me from the subject to which I longed to recur, by a prolonged effusion of small talk. How I wished sleep would silence her. It seemed as if, could I but go back to the idea which had last entered my mind as I stood at the window, some inventive suggestion would rise for my relief.
Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and till now her habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half-effaced thought instantly revived.
"A new servitude! There is something in that," I soliloquised (mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud), "I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of fact. Any one may serve: I have served here eight years; now all I want is to serve elsewhere. Can I not get so much of my own will? Is not the thing feasible? Yes--yes--the end is not so difficult; if I had only a brain active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it."
I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chilly night; I covered my shoulders with a shawl, and then I proceeded _to think_ again with all my might.
"What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under new circumstances: I want this because it is of no use wanting anything better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to friends, I suppose: I have no friends. There are many others who have no friends, who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers; and what is their resource?"
I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to find a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster: I felt the pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos; and no result came of its efforts. Feverish with vain labour, I got up and took a turn in the room; undrew the curtain, noted a star or two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed.
A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required suggestion on my pillow; for as I lay down, it came quietly and naturally to my mind. --"Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the _---shire Herald_."
"How? I know nothing about advertising."
Replies rose smooth and prompt now:-- "You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a cover directed to the editor of the _Herald_; you must put it, the first opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers must be addressed to J.E., at the post-office there; you can go and inquire in about a week after you send your letter, if any are come, and act accordingly."
This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in my mind; I had it in a clear practical form: I felt satisfied, and fell asleep.
With earliest day, I was up: I had my advertisement written, enclosed, and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school; it ran thus:-- "A young lady accustomed to tuition" (had I not been a teacher two years?) "is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private family where the children are under fourteen" (I thought that as I was barely eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils nearer my own age). "She is qualified to teach the usual branches of a good English education, together with French, Drawing, and Music" (in those days, reader, this now narrow catalogue of accomplishments, would have been held tolerably comprehensive). "Address, J.E., Post-office, Lowton, --- shire."
This document remained locked in my drawer all day: after tea, I asked leave of the new superintendent to go to Lowton, in order to perform some small commissions for myself and one or two of my fellow-teachers; permission was readily granted; I went. It was a walk of two miles, and the evening was wet, but the days were still long; I visited a shop or two, slipped the letter into the post-office, and came back through heavy rain, with streaming garments, but with a relieved heart.
The succeeding week seemed long: it came to an end at last, however, like all sublunary things, and once more, towards the close of a pleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton. A picturesque track it was, by the way; lying along the side of the beck and through the sweetest curves of the dale: but that day I thought more of the letters, that might or might not be awaiting me at the little burgh whither I was bound, than of the charms of lea and water.
My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when it was done, I stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker's to the post-office: it was kept by an old dame, who wore horn spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her hands.
"Are there any letters for J.E.?" I asked.
She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer and fumbled among its contents for a long time, so long that my hopes began to falter. At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter, accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance--it was for J.E. "Is there only one?" I demanded.
"There are no more," said she; and I put it in my pocket and turned my face homeward: I could not open it then; rules obliged me to be back by eight, and it was already half-past seven.
Various duties awaited me on my arrival. I had to sit with the girls during their hour of study; then it was my turn to read prayers; to see them to bed: afterwards I supped with the other teachers. Even when we finally retired for the night, the inevitable Miss Gryce was still my companion: we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick, and I dreaded lest she should talk till it was all burnt out; fortunately, however, the heavy supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect: she was already snoring before I had finished undressing. There still remained an inch of candle: I now took out my letter; the seal was an initial F.; I broke it; the contents were brief.
"If J.E., who advertised in the _---shire Herald_ of last Thursday, possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per annum. J.E. is requested to send references, name, address, and all particulars to the direction:-- "Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote, ---shire."
I examined the document long: the writing was old-fashioned and rather uncertain, like that of an elderly lady. This circumstance was satisfactory: a private fear had haunted me, that in thus acting for myself, and by my own guidance, I ran the risk of getting into some scrape; and, above all things, I wished the result of my endeavours to be respectable, proper, _en regle_. I now felt that an elderly lady was no bad ingredient in the business I had on hand. Mrs. Fairfax! I saw her in a black gown and widow's cap; frigid, perhaps, but not uncivil: a model of elderly English respectability. Thornfield! that, doubtless, was the name of her house: a neat orderly spot, I was sure; though I failed in my efforts to conceive a correct plan of the premises. Millcote, ---shire; I brushed up my recollections of the map of England, yes, I saw it; both the shire and the town. ---shire was seventy miles nearer London than the remote county where I now resided: that was a recommendation to me. I longed to go where there was life and movement: Millcote was a large manufacturing town on the banks of the A-; a busy place enough, doubtless: so much the better; it would be a complete change at least. Not that my fancy was much captivated by the idea of long chimneys and clouds of smoke--"but," I argued, "Thornfield will, probably, be a good way from the town."
Here the socket of the candle dropped, and the wick went out.
Next day new steps were to be taken; my plans could no longer be confined to my own breast; I must impart them in order to achieve their success. Having sought and obtained an audience of the superintendent during the noontide recreation, I told her I had a prospect of getting a new situation where the salary would be double what I now received (for at Lowood I only got 15 pounds per annum); and requested she would break the matter for me to Mr. Brocklehurst, or some of the committee, and ascertain whether they would permit me to mention them as references. She obligingly consented to act as mediatrix in the matter. The next day she laid the affair before Mr. Brocklehurst, who said that Mrs. Reed must be written to, as she was my natural guardian. A note was accordingly addressed to that lady, who returned for answer, that "I might do as I pleased: she had long relinquished all interference in my affairs." This note went the round of the committee, and at last, after what appeared to me most tedious delay, formal leave was given me to better my condition if I could; and an assurance added, that as I had always conducted myself well, both as teacher and pupil, at Lowood, a testimonial of character and capacity, signed by the inspectors of that institution, should forthwith be furnished me.
This testimonial I accordingly received in about a month, forwarded a copy of it to Mrs. Fairfax, and got that lady's reply, stating that she was satisfied, and fixing that day fortnight as the period for my assuming the post of governess in her house.
I now busied myself in preparations: the fortnight passed rapidly. I had not a very large wardrobe, though it was adequate to my wants; and the last day sufficed to pack my trunk,--the same I had brought with me eight years ago from Gateshead.
The box was corded, the card nailed on. In half-an-hour the carrier was to call for it to take it to Lowton, whither I myself was to repair at an early hour the next morning to meet the coach. I had brushed my black stuff travelling-dress, prepared my bonnet, gloves, and muff; sought in all my drawers to see that no article was left behind; and now having nothing more to do, I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing to-night, a new one opening to-morrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being accomplished.
"Miss," said a servant who met me in the lobby, where I was wandering like a troubled spirit, "a person below wishes to see you."
"The carrier, no doubt," I thought, and ran downstairs without inquiry. I was passing the back-parlour or teachers' sitting-room, the door of which was half open, to go to the kitchen, when some one ran out-- "It's her, I am sure! --I could have told her anywhere!" cried the individual who stopped my progress and took my hand.
I looked: I saw a woman attired like a well-dressed servant, matronly, yet still young; very good-looking, with black hair and eyes, and lively complexion.
"Well, who is it?" she asked, in a voice and with a smile I half recognised; "you've not quite forgotten me, I think, Miss Jane?"
In another second I was embracing and kissing her rapturously: "Bessie! Bessie! Bessie!" that was all I said; whereat she half laughed, half cried, and we both went into the parlour. By the fire stood a little fellow of three years old, in plaid frock and trousers.
"That is my little boy," said Bessie directly.
"Then you are married, Bessie?"
"Yes; nearly five years since to Robert Leaven, the coachman; and I've a little girl besides Bobby there, that I've christened Jane."
"And you don't live at Gateshead?"
"I live at the lodge: the old porter has left."
"Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them, Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee, will you?" but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother.
"You're not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout," continued Mrs. Leaven. "I dare say they've not kept you too well at school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth."
"Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?"
"Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: but his relations were against the match; and--what do you think? --he and Miss Georgiana made it up to run away; but they were found out and stopped. It was Miss Reed that found them out: I believe she was envious; and now she and her sister lead a cat and dog life together; they are always quarrelling--" "Well, and what of John Reed?"
"Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to college, and he got--plucked, I think they call it: and then his uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think."
"What does he look like?"
"He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man; but he has such thick lips."
"And Mrs. Reed?"
"Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she's not quite easy in her mind: Mr. John's conduct does not please her--he spends a deal of money."
"Did she send you here, Bessie?"
"No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard that there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to another part of the country, I thought I'd just set off, and get a look at you before you were quite out of my reach."
"I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie." I said this laughing: I perceived that Bessie's glance, though it expressed regard, did in no shape denote admiration.
"No, Miss Jane, not exactly: you are genteel enough; you look like a lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you: you were no beauty as a child."
I smiled at Bessie's frank answer: I felt that it was correct, but I confess I was not quite indifferent to its import: at eighteen most people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an exterior likely to second that desire brings anything but gratification.
"I dare say you are clever, though," continued Bessie, by way of solace. "What can you do? Can you play on the piano?"
"A little."
There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then asked me to sit down and give her a tune: I played a waltz or two, and she was charmed.
"The Miss Reeds could not play as well!" said she exultingly. "I always said you would surpass them in learning: and can you draw?"
"That is one of my paintings over the chimney-piece." It was a landscape in water colours, of which I had made a present to the superintendent, in acknowledgment of her obliging mediation with the committee on my behalf, and which she had framed and glazed.
"Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture as any Miss Reed's drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies themselves, who could not come near it: and have you learnt French?"
"Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it."
"And you can work on muslin and canvas?"
"I can."
"Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane! I knew you would be: you will get on whether your relations notice you or not. There was something I wanted to ask you. Have you ever heard anything from your father's kinsfolk, the Eyres?"
"Never in my life."
"Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quite despicable: and they may be poor; but I believe they are as much gentry as the Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said you were at school fifty miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay: he was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail from London in a day or two. He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father's brother."
"What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?"
"An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine--the butler did tell me--" "Madeira?" I suggested.
"Yes, that is it--that is the very word."
"So he went?"
"Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house: Missis was very high with him; she called him afterwards a 'sneaking tradesman.' My Robert believes he was a wine-merchant."
"Very likely," I returned; "or perhaps clerk or agent to a wine-merchant."
Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and then she was obliged to leave me: I saw her again for a few minutes the next morning at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach. We parted finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms there: each went her separate way; she set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote.
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{
"id": "1260"
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A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours' exposure to the rawness of an October day: I left Lowton at four o'clock a.m., and the Millcote town clock is now just striking eight.
Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the "boots" placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see some description of carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.
It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half-an-hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring the bell.
"Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?" I asked of the waiter who answered the summons.
"Thornfield? I don't know, ma'am; I'll inquire at the bar." He vanished, but reappeared instantly-- "Is your name Eyre, Miss?"
"Yes."
"Person here waiting for you."
I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the inn-passage: a man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit street I dimly saw a one-horse conveyance.
"This will be your luggage, I suppose?" said the man rather abruptly when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage.
"Yes." He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and then I got in; before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to Thornfield.
"A matter of six miles."
"How long shall we be before we get there?"
"Happen an hour and a half."
He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated much at my ease.
"I suppose," thought I, "judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best; it is a pity that doing one's best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to stay with her! let the worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. How far are we on our road now, I wonder?"
I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude, much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of common; but there were houses scattered all over the district; I felt we were in a different region to Lowood, more populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic.
The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said-- "You're noan so far fro' Thornfield now."
Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went in.
"Will you walk this way, ma'am?" said the girl; and I followed her across a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture presented itself to my view.
A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high- backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little elderly lady, in widow's cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron; exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.
"How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John drives so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire."
"Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?" said I. "Yes, you are right: do sit down."
She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much trouble.
"Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with cold. Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are the keys of the storeroom."
And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and delivered them to the servant.
"Now, then, draw nearer to the fire," she continued. "You've brought your luggage with you, haven't you, my dear?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'll see it carried into your room," she said, and bustled out.
"She treats me like a visitor," thought I. "I little expected such a reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult too soon."
She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but as she did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her place, I thought it better to take her civilities quietly.
"Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?" I asked, when I had partaken of what she offered me.
"What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf," returned the good lady, approaching her ear to my mouth.
I repeated the question more distinctly.
"Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your future pupil."
"Indeed! Then she is not your daughter?"
"No,--I have no family."
I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.
"I am so glad," she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took the cat on her knee; "I am so glad you are come; it will be quite pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say alone--Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can't converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one's authority. I'm sure last winter (it was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don't think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining. In spring and summer one got on better: sunshine and long days make such a difference; and then, just at the commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay."
My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated.
"But I'll not keep you sitting up late to-night," said she; "it is on the stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you must feel tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I'll show you your bedroom. I've had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one of the large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but they are so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself."
I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.
When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart, and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night; my solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I slept soon and soundly: when I awoke it was broad day.
The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effect on the young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at an indefinite future period.
I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain--for I had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity--I was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock--which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety--and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and neat on the toilet table, I ventured forth.
Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and gates.
I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady appeared at the door.
"What! out already?" said she. "I see you are an early riser." I went up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand.
"How do you like Thornfield?" she asked. I told her I liked it very much.
"Yes," she said, "it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor."
"Mr. Rochester!" I exclaimed. "Who is he?"
"The owner of Thornfield," she responded quietly. "Did you not know he was called Rochester?"
Of course I did not--I had never heard of him before; but the old lady seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.
"I thought," I continued, "Thornfield belonged to you."
"To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the housekeeper--the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was; he was a clergyman, incumbent of Hay--that little village yonder on the hill--and that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester's mother was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on the connection--in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and I expect nothing more."
"And the little girl--my pupil!"
"She is Mr. Rochester's ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for her. He intended to have her brought up in ---shire, I believe. Here she comes, with her 'bonne,' as she calls her nurse." The enigma then was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; but a dependant like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so much the better--my position was all the freer.
As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.
"Good morning, Miss Adela," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Come and speak to the lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day." She approached.
"C'est la ma gouverante!" said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse; who answered-- "Mais oui, certainement."
"Are they foreigners?" I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.
"The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she first came here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a little: I don't understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you will make out her meaning very well, I dare say."
Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily--applying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.
"Ah!" cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked--how it did smoke! --and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf. And Mademoiselle--what is your name?"
"Eyre--Jane Eyre."
"Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great city--a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs."
"Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?" asked Mrs. Fairfax.
I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot.
"I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?"
"Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?"
"I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?"
She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has affected her.
The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was: at least I thought so.
Adele sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the _naivete_ of her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, "Now, Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry."
Assuming an attitude, she began, "La Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine." She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had been carefully trained.
"Was it your mama who taught you that piece?" I asked.
"Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: 'Qu' avez vous donc? lui dit un de ces rats; parlez!' She made me lift my hand--so--to remind me to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you?"
"No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you say, with whom did you live then?"
"With Madame Frederic and her husband: she took care of me, but she is nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame Frederic, and he was always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his word, for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself, and I never see him."
After breakfast, Adele and I withdrew to the library, which room, it appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for the present; compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information. In this room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.
I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her use.
As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called to me: "Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose," said she. She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast window rich in slanted glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard.
"What a beautiful room!" I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before seen any half so imposing.
"Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault."
She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it with a Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire.
"In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!" said I. "No dust, no canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily."
"Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness."
"Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?"
"Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman's tastes and habits, and he expects to have things managed in conformity to them."
"Do you like him? Is he generally liked?"
"Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time out of mind."
"Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked for himself?"
"I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never lived much amongst them."
"But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?"
"Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation with him."
"In what way is he peculiar?"
"I don't know--it is not easy to describe--nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don't thoroughly understand him, in short--at least, I don't: but it is of no consequence, he is a very good master."
This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor--nothing more: she inquired and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish to gain a more definite notion of his identity.
When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I thought especially grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs' heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings,--all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.
"Do the servants sleep in these rooms?" I asked.
"No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt."
"So I think: you have no ghost, then?"
"None that I ever heard of," returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.
"Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?"
"I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now."
"Yes--'after life's fitful fever they sleep well,'" I muttered. "Where are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?" for she was moving away.
"On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?" I followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and over which I had been gazing with delight.
Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by drift of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard's castle.
While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents issued.
"Mrs. Fairfax!" I called out: for I now heard her descending the great stairs. "Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?"
"Some of the servants, very likely," she answered: "perhaps Grace Poole."
"Did you hear it?" I again inquired.
"Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms. Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together."
The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd murmur.
"Grace!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.
I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.
The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,--a woman of between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be conceived.
"Too much noise, Grace," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Remember directions!" Grace curtseyed silently and went in.
"She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid's work," continued the widow; "not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but she does well enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new pupil this morning?"
The conversation, thus turned on Adele, continued till we reached the light and cheerful region below. Adele came running to meet us in the hall, exclaiming-- "Mesdames, vous etes servies!" adding, "J'ai bien faim, moi!"
We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax's room.
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The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintance with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to be what she appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of competent education and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively child, who had been spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes wayward; but as she was committed entirely to my care, and no injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans for her improvement, she soon forgot her little freaks, and became obedient and teachable. She had no great talents, no marked traits of character, no peculiar development of feeling or taste which raised her one inch above the ordinary level of childhood; but neither had she any deficiency or vice which sunk her below it. She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay prattle, and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.
This, _par parenthese_, will be thought cool language by persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and progress, and a quiet liking for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for me, and the moderation of her mind and character.
Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line--that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen--that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adele; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold.
Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it--and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended--a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.
When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole's laugh: the same peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I saw her: she would come out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a tray in her hand, go down to the kitchen and shortly return, generally (oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort of that sort.
The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah the housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in no respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and sometimes I asked her questions about her native country; but she was not of a descriptive or narrative turn, and generally gave such vapid and confused answers as were calculated rather to check than encourage inquiry.
October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in January, Mrs. Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adele, because she had a cold; and, as Adele seconded the request with an ardour that reminded me how precious occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it, deeming that I did well in showing pliability on the point. It was a fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the library through a whole long morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a pleasant winter afternoon walk. Having seen Adele comfortably seated in her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax's parlour fireside, and given her her best wax doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a drawer) to play with, and a story-book for change of amusement; and having replied to her "Revenez bientot, ma bonne amie, ma chere Mdlle. Jeannette," with a kiss I set out.
The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was three o'clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path. Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.
This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the middle, I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field. Gathering my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel the cold, though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering the causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since. From my seat I could look down on Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose against the west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and clear behind them. I then turned eastward.
On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile distant, but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life. My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote.
A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong on the foreground, efface the aerial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon, and blended clouds where tint melts into tint.
The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the lane yet hid it, but it approached. I was just leaving the stile; yet, as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In those days I was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give. As this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a "Gytrash," which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me.
It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie's Gytrash--a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected it would. The horse followed,--a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form. No Gytrash was this,--only a traveller taking the short cut to Millcote. He passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a sliding sound and an exclamation of "What the deuce is to do now?" and a clattering tumble, arrested my attention. Man and horse were down; they had slipped on the sheet of ice which glazed the causeway. The dog came bounding back, and seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing the horse groan, barked till the evening hills echoed the sound, which was deep in proportion to his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate group, and then he ran up to me; it was all he could do,--there was no other help at hand to summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the traveller, by this time struggling himself free of his steed. His efforts were so vigorous, I thought he could not be much hurt; but I asked him the question-- "Are you injured, sir?"
I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was pronouncing some formula which prevented him from replying to me directly.
"Can I do anything?" I asked again.
"You must just stand on one side," he answered as he rose, first to his knees, and then to his feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving, stamping, clattering process, accompanied by a barking and baying which removed me effectually some yards' distance; but I would not be driven quite away till I saw the event. This was finally fortunate; the horse was re-established, and the dog was silenced with a "Down, Pilot!" The traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and leg, as if trying whether they were sound; apparently something ailed them, for he halted to the stile whence I had just risen, and sat down.
I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think, for I now drew near him again.
"If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either from Thornfield Hall or from Hay."
"Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,--only a sprain;" and again he stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an involuntary "Ugh!"
Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I could see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest. He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth, but had not reached middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, heroic- looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one. I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would fire, lightning, or anything else that is bright but antipathetic.
If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go, and announced-- "I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse."
He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my direction before.
"I should think you ought to be at home yourself," said he, "if you have a home in this neighbourhood: where do you come from?"
"From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it is moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if you wish it: indeed, I am going there to post a letter."
"You live just below--do you mean at that house with the battlements?" pointing to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a hoary gleam, bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods that, by contrast with the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow.
"Yes, sir."
"Whose house is it?"
"Mr. Rochester's."
"Do you know Mr. Rochester?"
"No, I have never seen him."
"He is not resident, then?"
"No."
"Can you tell me where he is?"
"I cannot."
"You are not a servant at the hall, of course. You are--" He stopped, ran his eye over my dress, which, as usual, was quite simple: a black merino cloak, a black beaver bonnet; neither of them half fine enough for a lady's-maid. He seemed puzzled to decide what I was; I helped him.
"I am the governess."
"Ah, the governess!" he repeated; "deuce take me, if I had not forgotten! The governess!" and again my raiment underwent scrutiny. In two minutes he rose from the stile: his face expressed pain when he tried to move.
"I cannot commission you to fetch help," he said; "but you may help me a little yourself, if you will be so kind."
"Yes, sir."
"You have not an umbrella that I can use as a stick?"
"No."
"Try to get hold of my horse's bridle and lead him to me: you are not afraid?"
I should have been afraid to touch a horse when alone, but when told to do it, I was disposed to obey. I put down my muff on the stile, and went up to the tall steed; I endeavoured to catch the bridle, but it was a spirited thing, and would not let me come near its head; I made effort on effort, though in vain: meantime, I was mortally afraid of its trampling fore-feet. The traveller waited and watched for some time, and at last he laughed.
{I was mortally afraid of its trampling forefeet: p107.jpg} "I see," he said, "the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must beg of you to come here."
I came. "Excuse me," he continued: "necessity compels me to make you useful." He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and leaning on me with some stress, limped to his horse. Having once caught the bridle, he mastered it directly and sprang to his saddle; grimacing grimly as he made the effort, for it wrenched his sprain.
"Now," said he, releasing his under lip from a hard bite, "just hand me my whip; it lies there under the hedge."
I sought it and found it.
"Thank you; now make haste with the letter to Hay, and return as fast as you can."
A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear, and then bound away; the dog rushed in his traces; all three vanished, "Like heath that, in the wilderness, The wild wind whirls away."
I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and was gone for me: it _was_ an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life. My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have done something; trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive. The new face, too, was like a new picture introduced to the gallery of memory; and it was dissimilar to all the others hanging there: firstly, because it was masculine; and, secondly, because it was dark, strong, and stern. I had it still before me when I entered Hay, and slipped the letter into the post-office; I saw it as I walked fast down-hill all the way home. When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked round and listened, with an idea that a horse's hoofs might ring on the causeway again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard willow before me, rising up still and straight to meet the moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing the hall-front, caught a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late, and I hurried on.
I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk,--to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain struggling life, and to have been taught by rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes, just as much good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a "too easy chair" to take a long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be under his.
I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and forwards on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door were closed; I could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house--from the grey-hollow filled with rayless cells, as it appeared to me--to that sky expanded before me,--a blue sea absolved from taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; her orb seeming to look up as she left the hill-tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the zenith, midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for those trembling stars that followed her course; they made my heart tremble, my veins glow when I viewed them. Little things recall us to earth; the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon and stars, opened a side- door, and went in.
The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung bronze lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak staircase. This ruddy shine issued from the great dining-room, whose two- leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate, glancing on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing purple draperies and polished furniture, in the most pleasant radiance. It revealed, too, a group near the mantelpiece: I had scarcely caught it, and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling of voices, amongst which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adele, when the door closed.
I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax's room; there was a fire there too, but no candle, and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting upright on the rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a great black and white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the lane. It was so like it that I went forward and said--"Pilot" and the thing got up and came to me and snuffed me. I caressed him, and he wagged his great tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone with, and I could not tell whence he had come. I rang the bell, for I wanted a candle; and I wanted, too, to get an account of this visitant. Leah entered.
"What dog is this?"
"He came with master."
"With whom?"
"With master--Mr. Rochester--he is just arrived."
"Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?"
"Yes, and Miss Adele; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone for a surgeon; for master has had an accident; his horse fell and his ankle is sprained."
"Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?"
"Yes, coming down-hill; it slipped on some ice."
"Ah! Bring me a candle will you Leah?"
Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who repeated the news; adding that Mr. Carter the surgeon was come, and was now with Mr. Rochester: then she hurried out to give orders about tea, and I went upstairs to take off my things.
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Mr. Rochester, it seems, by the surgeon's orders, went to bed early that night; nor did he rise soon next morning. When he did come down, it was to attend to business: his agent and some of his tenants were arrived, and waiting to speak with him.
Adele and I had now to vacate the library: it would be in daily requisition as a reception-room for callers. A fire was lit in an apartment upstairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for the future schoolroom. I discerned in the course of the morning that Thornfield Hall was a changed place: no longer silent as a church, it echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door, or a clang of the bell; steps, too, often traversed the hall, and new voices spoke in different keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing through it; it had a master: for my part, I liked it better.
Adele was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library, where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her "ami, Monsieur Edouard Fairfax _de_ Rochester," as she dubbed him (I had not before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that when his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found amongst it a little box in whose contents she had an interest.
"Et cela doit signifier," said she, "qu'il y aura la dedans un cadeau pour moi, et peut-etre pour vous aussi, mademoiselle. Monsieur a parle de vous: il m'a demande le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n'etait pas une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pale. J'ai dit qu'oui: car c'est vrai, n'est-ce pas, mademoiselle?"
I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax's parlour; the afternoon was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the schoolroom. At dark I allowed Adele to put away books and work, and to run downstairs; for, from the comparative silence below, and from the cessation of appeals to the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr. Rochester was now at liberty. Left alone, I walked to the window; but nothing was to be seen thence: twilight and snowflakes together thickened the air, and hid the very shrubs on the lawn. I let down the curtain and went back to the fireside.
In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I remembered to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine, when Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I had been piercing together, and scattering too some heavy unwelcome thoughts that were beginning to throng on my solitude.
"Mr. Rochester would be glad if you and your pupil would take tea with him in the drawing-room this evening," said she: "he has been so much engaged all day that he could not ask to see you before."
"When is his tea-time?" I inquired.
"Oh, at six o'clock: he keeps early hours in the country. You had better change your frock now; I will go with you and fasten it. Here is a candle."
"Is it necessary to change my frock?"
"Yes, you had better: I always dress for the evening when Mr. Rochester is here."
This additional ceremony seemed somewhat stately; however, I repaired to my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax's aid, replaced my black stuff dress by one of black silk; the best and the only additional one I had, except one of light grey, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilette, I thought too fine to be worn, except on first-rate occasions.
"You want a brooch," said Mrs. Fairfax. I had a single little pearl ornament which Miss Temple gave me as a parting keepsake: I put it on, and then we went downstairs. Unused as I was to strangers, it was rather a trial to appear thus formally summoned in Mr. Rochester's presence. I let Mrs. Fairfax precede me into the dining-room, and kept in her shade as we crossed that apartment; and, passing the arch, whose curtain was now dropped, entered the elegant recess beyond.
Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the mantelpiece; basking in the light and heat of a superb fire, lay Pilot--Adele knelt near him. Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester, his foot supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adele and the dog: the fire shone full on his face. I knew my traveller with his broad and jetty eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of his black hair. I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and jaw--yes, all three were very grim, and no mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose it was a good figure in the athletic sense of the term--broad chested and thin flanked, though neither tall nor graceful.
Mr. Rochester must have been aware of the entrance of Mrs. Fairfax and myself; but it appeared he was not in the mood to notice us, for he never lifted his head as we approached.
"Here is Miss Eyre, sir," said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way. He bowed, still not taking his eyes from the group of the dog and child.
"Let Miss Eyre be seated," said he: and there was something in the forced stiff bow, in the impatient yet formal tone, which seemed further to express, "What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her."
I sat down quite disembarrassed. A reception of finished politeness would probably have confused me: I could not have returned or repaid it by answering grace and elegance on my part; but harsh caprice laid me under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence, under the freak of manner, gave me the advantage. Besides, the eccentricity of the proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see how he would go on.
He went on as a statue would, that is, he neither spoke nor moved. Mrs. Fairfax seemed to think it necessary that some one should be amiable, and she began to talk. Kindly, as usual--and, as usual, rather trite--she condoled with him on the pressure of business he had had all day; on the annoyance it must have been to him with that painful sprain: then she commended his patience and perseverance in going through with it.
"Madam, I should like some tea," was the sole rejoinder she got. She hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded to arrange the cups, spoons, &c., with assiduous celerity. I and Adele went to the table; but the master did not leave his couch.
"Will you hand Mr. Rochester's cup?" said Mrs. Fairfax to me; "Adele might perhaps spill it."
I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adele, thinking the moment propitious for making a request in my favour, cried out-- "N'est-ce pas, monsieur, qu'il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre dans votre petit coffre?"
"Who talks of cadeaux?" said he gruffly. "Did you expect a present, Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?" and he searched my face with eyes that I saw were dark, irate, and piercing.
"I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are generally thought pleasant things."
"Generally thought? But what do _you_ think?"
"I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer worthy of your acceptance: a present has many faces to it, has it not? and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion as to its nature."
"Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adele: she demands a 'cadeau,' clamorously, the moment she sees me: you beat about the bush."
"Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adele has: she can prefer the claim of old acquaintance, and the right too of custom; for she says you have always been in the habit of giving her playthings; but if I had to make out a case I should be puzzled, since I am a stranger, and have done nothing to entitle me to an acknowledgment."
"Oh, don't fall back on over-modesty! I have examined Adele, and find you have taken great pains with her: she is not bright, she has no talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement."
"Sir, you have now given me my 'cadeau;' I am obliged to you: it is the meed teachers most covet--praise of their pupils' progress."
"Humph!" said Mr. Rochester, and he took his tea in silence.
"Come to the fire," said the master, when the tray was taken away, and Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting; while Adele was leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful books and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnieres. We obeyed, as in duty bound; Adele wanted to take a seat on my knee, but she was ordered to amuse herself with Pilot.
"You have been resident in my house three months?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you came from--?"
"From Lowood school, in ---shire."
"Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?"
"Eight years."
"Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?"
"I have none."
"Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?"
"No."
"I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?"
"For whom, sir?"
"For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did I break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on the causeway?"
I shook my head. "The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago," said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. "And not even in Hay Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them. I don't think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more."
Mrs. Fairfax had dropped her knitting, and, with raised eyebrows, seemed wondering what sort of talk this was.
"Well," resumed Mr. Rochester, "if you disown parents, you must have some sort of kinsfolk: uncles and aunts?"
"No; none that I ever saw."
"And your home?"
"I have none."
"Where do your brothers and sisters live?"
"I have no brothers or sisters."
"Who recommended you to come here?"
"I advertised, and Mrs. Fairfax answered my advertisement."
"Yes," said the good lady, who now knew what ground we were upon, "and I am daily thankful for the choice Providence led me to make. Miss Eyre has been an invaluable companion to me, and a kind and careful teacher to Adele."
"Don't trouble yourself to give her a character," returned Mr. Rochester: "eulogiums will not bias me; I shall judge for myself. She began by felling my horse."
"Sir?" said Mrs. Fairfax.
"I have to thank her for this sprain."
The widow looked bewildered.
"Miss Eyre, have you ever lived in a town?"
"No, sir."
"Have you seen much society?"
"None but the pupils and teachers of Lowood, and now the inmates of Thornfield."
"Have you read much?"
"Only such books as came in my way; and they have not been numerous or very learned."
"You have lived the life of a nun: no doubt you are well drilled in religious forms;--Brocklehurst, who I understand directs Lowood, is a parson, is he not?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you girls probably worshipped him, as a convent full of religieuses would worship their director."
"Oh, no."
"You are very cool! No! What! a novice not worship her priest! That sounds blasphemous."
"I disliked Mr. Brocklehurst; and I was not alone in the feeling. He is a harsh man; at once pompous and meddling; he cut off our hair; and for economy's sake bought us bad needles and thread, with which we could hardly sew."
"That was very false economy," remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again caught the drift of the dialogue.
"And was that the head and front of his offending?" demanded Mr. Rochester.
"He starved us when he had the sole superintendence of the provision department, before the committee was appointed; and he bored us with long lectures once a week, and with evening readings from books of his own inditing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which made us afraid to go to bed."
"What age were you when you went to Lowood?"
"About ten."
"And you stayed there eight years: you are now, then, eighteen?"
I assented.
"Arithmetic, you see, is useful; without its aid, I should hardly have been able to guess your age. It is a point difficult to fix where the features and countenance are so much at variance as in your case. And now what did you learn at Lowood? Can you play?"
"A little."
"Of course: that is the established answer. Go into the library--I mean, if you please. --(Excuse my tone of command; I am used to say, 'Do this,' and it is done: I cannot alter my customary habits for one new inmate.) --Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you; leave the door open; sit down to the piano, and play a tune."
I departed, obeying his directions.
"Enough!" he called out in a few minutes. "You play _a little_, I see; like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some, but not well."
I closed the piano and returned. Mr. Rochester continued--"Adele showed me some sketches this morning, which she said were yours. I don't know whether they were entirely of your doing; probably a master aided you?"
"No, indeed!" I interjected.
"Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can vouch for its contents being original; but don't pass your word unless you are certain: I can recognise patchwork."
"Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir."
I brought the portfolio from the library.
"Approach the table," said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adele and Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the pictures.
"No crowding," said Mr. Rochester: "take the drawings from my hand as I finish with them; but don't push your faces up to mine."
He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him.
"Take them off to the other table, Mrs. Fairfax," said he, "and look at them with Adele;--you" (glancing at me) "resume your seat, and answer my questions. I perceive those pictures were done by one hand: was that hand yours?"
"Yes."
"And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and some thought."
"I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no other occupation."
"Where did you get your copies?"
"Out of my head."
"That head I see now on your shoulders?"
"Yes, sir."
"Has it other furniture of the same kind within?"
"I should think it may have: I should hope--better."
He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately.
While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived.
These pictures were in water-colours. The first represented clouds low and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched with as brilliant tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering distinctness as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was the only limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or torn.
The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a hill, with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze. Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into the sky was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dusk and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck lay a pale reflection like moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star.
The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter sky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close serried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the foreground, a head,--a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and resting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and supporting it, drew up before the lower features a sable veil, a brow quite bloodless, white as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of meaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were visible. Above the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was "the likeness of a kingly crown;" what it diademed was "the shape which shape had none."
"Were you happy when you painted these pictures?" asked Mr. Rochester presently.
"I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known."
"That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have been few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist's dreamland while you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you sit at them long each day?"
"I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at them from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length of the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply."
"And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?"
"Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realise."
"Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought; but no more, probably. You had not enough of the artist's skill and science to give it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school-girl, peculiar. As to the thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the Evening Star you must have seen in a dream. How could you make them look so clear, and yet not at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays. And what meaning is that in their solemn depth? And who taught you to paint wind? There is a high gale in that sky, and on this hill-top. Where did you see Latmos? For that is Latmos. There! put the drawings away!"
I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio, when, looking at his watch, he said abruptly-- "It is nine o'clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adele sit up so long? Take her to bed."
Adele went to kiss him before quitting the room: he endured the caress, but scarcely seemed to relish it more than Pilot would have done, nor so much.
"I wish you all good-night, now," said he, making a movement of the hand towards the door, in token that he was tired of our company, and wished to dismiss us. Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting: I took my portfolio: we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in return, and so withdrew.
"You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax," I observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adele to bed.
"Well, is he?"
"I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt."
"True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed to his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities of temper, allowance should be made."
"Why?"
"Partly because it is his nature--and we can none of us help our nature; and partly because he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to harass him, and make his spirits unequal."
"What about?"
"Family troubles, for one thing."
"But he has no family."
"Not now, but he has had--or, at least, relatives. He lost his elder brother a few years since."
"His _elder_ brother?"
"Yes. The present Mr. Rochester has not been very long in possession of the property; only about nine years."
"Nine years is a tolerable time. Was he so very fond of his brother as to be still inconsolable for his loss?"
"Why, no--perhaps not. I believe there were some misunderstandings between them. Mr. Rowland Rochester was not quite just to Mr. Edward; and perhaps he prejudiced his father against him. The old gentleman was fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together. He did not like to diminish the property by division, and yet he was anxious that Mr. Edward should have wealth, too, to keep up the consequence of the name; and, soon after he was of age, some steps were taken that were not quite fair, and made a great deal of mischief. Old Mr. Rochester and Mr. Rowland combined to bring Mr. Edward into what he considered a painful position, for the sake of making his fortune: what the precise nature of that position was I never clearly knew, but his spirit could not brook what he had to suffer in it. He is not very forgiving: he broke with his family, and now for many years he has led an unsettled kind of life. I don't think he has ever been resident at Thornfield for a fortnight together, since the death of his brother without a will left him master of the estate; and, indeed, no wonder he shuns the old place."
"Why should he shun it?"
"Perhaps he thinks it gloomy."
The answer was evasive. I should have liked something clearer; but Mrs. Fairfax either could not, or would not, give me more explicit information of the origin and nature of Mr. Rochester's trials. She averred they were a mystery to herself, and that what she knew was chiefly from conjecture. It was evident, indeed, that she wished me to drop the subject, which I did accordingly.
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{
"id": "1260"
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For several subsequent days I saw little of Mr. Rochester. In the mornings he seemed much engaged with business, and, in the afternoon, gentlemen from Millcote or the neighbourhood called, and sometimes stayed to dine with him. When his sprain was well enough to admit of horse exercise, he rode out a good deal; probably to return these visits, as he generally did not come back till late at night.
During this interval, even Adele was seldom sent for to his presence, and all my acquaintance with him was confined to an occasional rencontre in the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery, when he would sometimes pass me haughtily and coldly, just acknowledging my presence by a distant nod or a cool glance, and sometimes bow and smile with gentlemanlike affability. His changes of mood did not offend me, because I saw that I had nothing to do with their alternation; the ebb and flow depended on causes quite disconnected with me.
One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio; in order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents: the gentlemen went away early, to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs. Fairfax informed me; but the night being wet and inclement, Mr. Rochester did not accompany them. Soon after they were gone he rang the bell: a message came that I and Adele were to go downstairs. I brushed Adele's hair and made her neat, and having ascertained that I was myself in my usual Quaker trim, where there was nothing to retouch--all being too close and plain, braided locks included, to admit of disarrangement--we descended, Adele wondering whether the _petit coffre_ was at length come; for, owing to some mistake, its arrival had hitherto been delayed. She was gratified: there it stood, a little carton, on the table when we entered the dining-room. She appeared to know it by instinct.
"Ma boite! ma boite!" exclaimed she, running towards it.
"Yes, there is your 'boite' at last: take it into a corner, you genuine daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it," said the deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside. "And mind," he continued, "don't bother me with any details of the anatomical process, or any notice of the condition of the entrails: let your operation be conducted in silence: tiens-toi tranquille, enfant; comprends-tu?"
Adele seemed scarcely to need the warning--she had already retired to a sofa with her treasure, and was busy untying the cord which secured the lid. Having removed this impediment, and lifted certain silvery envelopes of tissue paper, she merely exclaimed-- "Oh ciel! Que c'est beau!" and then remained absorbed in ecstatic contemplation.
"Is Miss Eyre there?" now demanded the master, half rising from his seat to look round to the door, near which I still stood.
"Ah! well, come forward; be seated here." He drew a chair near his own. "I am not fond of the prattle of children," he continued; "for, old bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations connected with their lisp. It would be intolerable to me to pass a whole evening _tete-a-tete_ with a brat. Don't draw that chair farther off, Miss Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed it--if you please, that is. Confound these civilities! I continually forget them. Nor do I particularly affect simple-minded old ladies. By-the-bye, I must have mine in mind; it won't do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to one; and blood is said to be thicker than water."
He rang, and despatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon arrived, knitting-basket in hand.
"Good evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose. I have forbidden Adele to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting with repletion: have the goodness to serve her as auditress and interlocutrice; it will be one of the most benevolent acts you ever performed."
Adele, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax, than she summoned her to her sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with the porcelain, the ivory, the waxen contents of her "boite;" pouring out, meantime, explanations and raptures in such broken English as she was mistress of.
"Now I have performed the part of a good host," pursued Mr. Rochester, "put my guests into the way of amusing each other, I ought to be at liberty to attend to my own pleasure. Miss Eyre, draw your chair still a little farther forward: you are yet too far back; I cannot see you without disturbing my position in this comfortable chair, which I have no mind to do."
I did as I was bid, though I would much rather have remained somewhat in the shade; but Mr. Rochester had such a direct way of giving orders, it seemed a matter of course to obey him promptly.
We were, as I have said, in the dining-room: the lustre, which had been lit for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of light; the large fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and ample before the lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, save the subdued chat of Adele (she dared not speak loud), and, filling up each pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes.
Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different to what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern--much less gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether with wine or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable. He was, in short, in his after-dinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also more self- indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite- hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too--not without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling.
He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze fastened on his physiognomy.
"You examine me, Miss Eyre," said he: "do you think me handsome?"
I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware--"No, sir."
"Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you," said he: "you have the air of a little _nonnette_; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you mean by it?"
"Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied that it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little consequence, or something of that sort."
"You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence, indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under my ear! Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have all my limbs and all my features like any other man?"
"Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no pointed repartee: it was only a blunder."
"Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise me: does my forehead not please you?"
He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen.
"Now, ma'am, am I a fool?"
"Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in return whether you are a philanthropist?"
"There again! Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended to pat my head: and that is because I said I did not like the society of children and old women (low be it spoken!) . No, young lady, I am not a general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience;" and he pointed to the prominences which are said to indicate that faculty, and which, fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving, indeed, a marked breadth to the upper part of his head: "and, besides, I once had a kind of rude tenderness of heart. When I was as old as you, I was a feeling fellow enough, partial to the unfledged, unfostered, and unlucky; but Fortune has knocked me about since: she has even kneaded me with her knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am hard and tough as an India-rubber ball; pervious, though, through a chink or two still, and with one sentient point in the middle of the lump. Yes: does that leave hope for me?"
"Hope of what, sir?"
"Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?"
"Decidedly he has had too much wine," I thought; and I did not know what answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether he was capable of being re-transformed?
"You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night."
With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his arm on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence.
"I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night," he repeated, "and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these can talk. Adele is a degree better, but still far below the mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will: you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here. I have almost forgotten you since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to draw you out--to learn more of you--therefore speak."
Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive smile either.
"Speak," he urged.
"What about, sir?"
"Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the manner of treating it entirely to yourself."
Accordingly I sat and said nothing: "If he expects me to talk for the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed himself to the wrong person," I thought.
"You are dumb, Miss Eyre."
I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes.
"Stubborn?" he said, "and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don't wish to treat you like an inferior: that is" (correcting himself), "I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years' difference in age and a century's advance in experience. This is legitimate, _et j'y tiens_, as Adele would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one point--cankering as a rusty nail."
He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so.
"I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir--quite willing; but I cannot introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you? Ask me questions, and I will do my best to answer them."
"Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right to be a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on the grounds I stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and that I have battled through a varied experience with many men of many nations, and roamed over half the globe, while you have lived quietly with one set of people in one house?"
"Do as you please, sir."
"That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a very evasive one. Reply clearly."
"I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience."
"Humph! Promptly spoken. But I won't allow that, seeing that it would never suit my case, as I have made an indifferent, not to say a bad, use of both advantages. Leaving superiority out of the question, then, you must still agree to receive my orders now and then, without being piqued or hurt by the tone of command. Will you?"
I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester _is_ peculiar--he seems to forget that he pays me 30 pounds per annum for receiving his orders.
"The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing expression; "but speak too."
"I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders."
"Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary ground, will you agree to let me hector a little?"
"No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget it, and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in his dependency, I agree heartily."
"And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?"
"I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a salary."
"Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; therefore, keep to yourself, and don't venture on generalities of which you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of one's meaning are the usual rewards of candour. Not three in three thousand raw school-girl-governesses would have answered me as you have just done. But I don't mean to flatter you: if you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it. And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions: for what I yet know, you may be no better than the rest; you may have intolerable defects to counterbalance your few good points."
"And so may you," I thought. My eye met his as the idea crossed my mind: he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been spoken as well as imagined-- "Yes, yes, you are right," said he; "I have plenty of faults of my own: I know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you. God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself. I started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you--wiser--almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure--an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?"
"How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?"
"All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen--quite your equal. Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the better kind, and you see I am not so. You would say you don't see it; at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, by-the-bye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at interpreting its language). Then take my word for it,--I am not a villain: you are not to suppose that--not to attribute to me any such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put on life. Do you wonder that I avow this to you? Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances' secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations."
"How do you know? --how can you guess all this, sir?"
"I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were writing my thoughts in a diary. You would say, I should have been superior to circumstances; so I should--so I should; but you see I was not. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level. I wish I had stood firm--God knows I do! Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life."
"Repentance is said to be its cure, sir."
"It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform--I have strength yet for that--if--but where is the use of thinking of it, hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and I _will_ get it, cost what it may."
"Then you will degenerate still more, sir."
"Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure? And I may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the moor."
"It will sting--it will taste bitter, sir."
"How do you know? --you never tried it. How very serious--how very solemn you look: and you are as ignorant of the matter as this cameo head" (taking one from the mantelpiece). "You have no right to preach to me, you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are absolutely unacquainted with its mysteries."
"I only remind you of your own words, sir: you said error brought remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of existence."
"And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flittered across my brain was an error. I believe it was an inspiration rather than a temptation: it was very genial, very soothing--I know that. Here it comes again! It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put on the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit so fair a guest when it asks entrance to my heart."
"Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel."
"Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the eternal throne--between a guide and a seducer?"
"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more misery if you listen to it."
"Not at all--it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself uneasy. Here, come in, bonny wanderer!"
He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being.
"Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the pilgrim--a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine."
"To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing, I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection;--one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure."
"Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am paving hell with energy."
"Sir?"
"I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint. Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have been."
"And better?"
"And better--so much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You seem to doubt me; I don't doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes and Persians, that both are right."
"They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise them."
"They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute: unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules."
"That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it is liable to abuse."
"Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not to abuse it."
"You are human and fallible."
"I am: so are you--what then?"
"The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted."
"What power?"
"That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,--'Let it be right.'" " 'Let it be right'--the very words: you have pronounced them." " _May_ it be right then," I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides, sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my penetration; at least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which accompanies a conviction of ignorance.
"Where are you going?"
"To put Adele to bed: it is past her bedtime."
"You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx."
"Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I am certainly not afraid."
"You _are_ afraid--your self-love dreads a blunder."
"In that sense I do feel apprehensive--I have no wish to talk nonsense."
"If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre? Don't trouble yourself to answer--I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother--or father, or master, or what you will--to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. You are still bent on going?"
"It has struck nine, sir."
"Never mind,--wait a minute: Adele is not ready to go to bed yet. My position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the room, favours observation. While talking to you, I have also occasionally watched Adele (I have my own reasons for thinking her a curious study,--reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you some day). She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones. 'Il faut que je l'essaie!' cried she, 'et a l'instant meme!' and she rushed out of the room. She is now with Sophie, undergoing a robing process: in a few minutes she will re-enter; and I know what I shall see,--a miniature of Celine Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the rising of--But never mind that. However, my tenderest feelings are about to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether it will be realised."
Ere long, Adele's little foot was heard tripping across the hall. She entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk stockings and small white satin sandals.
"Est-ce que ma robe va bien?" cried she, bounding forwards; "et mes souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!"
And spreading out her dress, she chasseed across the room till, having reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him on tip-toe, then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming-- "Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonte;" then rising, she added, "C'est comme cela que maman faisait, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?"
"Pre-cise-ly!" was the answer; "and, 'comme cela,' she charmed my English gold out of my British breeches' pocket. I have been green, too, Miss Eyre,--ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you now than once freshened me. My Spring is gone, however, but it has left me that French floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I would fain be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but half a liking to the blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work. I'll explain all this some day. Good-night."
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Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adele in the grounds: and while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up and down a long beech avenue within sight of her.
He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer, Celine Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a "_grande passion_." This passion Celine had professed to return with even superior ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he believed, as he said, that she preferred his "_taille d'athlete_" to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.
"And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an hotel; gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, diamonds, dentelles, &c. In short, I began the process of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony. I had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had--as I deserved to have--the fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening when Celine did not expect me, I found her out; but it was a warm night, and I was tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air consecrated so lately by her presence. No,--I exaggerate; I never thought there was any consecrating virtue about her: it was rather a sort of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of musk and amber, than an odour of sanctity. I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself to open the window and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight and gaslight besides, and very still and serene. The balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,--I will take one now, if you will excuse me."
Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on-- "I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was _croquant_--(overlook the barbarism)--_croquant_ chocolate comfits, and smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in an elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the 'voiture' I had given Celine. She was returning: of course my heart thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leant upon. The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a cloak--an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June evening--I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur 'Mon ange'--in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the ear of love alone--when a figure jumped from the carriage after her; cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement, and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched _porte cochere_ of the hotel.
"You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell you--and you may mark my words--you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current--as I am now.
"I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its grey facade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a great plague-house? How I do still abhor--" He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have him in its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance.
We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before us. Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare such as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust, detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed: something hard and cynical: self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his countenance: he went on-- "During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk--a hag like one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. 'You like Thornfield?' she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the air a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the house-front, between the upper and lower row of windows, 'Like it if you can! Like it if you dare!' " 'I will like it,' said I; 'I dare like it;' and" (he subjoined moodily) "I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to goodness--yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been, than I am; as Job's leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will esteem but straw and rotten wood."
Adele here ran before him with her shuttlecock. "Away!" he cried harshly; "keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!" Continuing then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the point whence he had abruptly diverged-- "Did you leave the balcony, sir," I asked, "when Mdlle. Varens entered?"
I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. "Oh, I had forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!" he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the point. "Strange that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, young lady; passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were the most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before: you, with your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me." After this digression he proceeded-- "I remained in the balcony. 'They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,' thought I: 'let me prepare an ambush.' So putting my hand in through the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to lovers' whispered vows: then I stole back to my chair; and as I resumed it the pair came in. My eye was quickly at the aperture. Celine's chamber-maid entered, lit a lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew. The couple were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there was 'the Varens,' shining in satin and jewels,--my gifts of course,--and there was her companion in an officer's uniform; and I knew him for a young roue of a vicomte--a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely. On recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy was instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Celine sank under an extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such a rival was not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, however, than I, who had been her dupe.
"They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous, mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on the table; this being perceived, brought my name under discussion. Neither of them possessed energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but they insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way: especially Celine, who even waxed rather brilliant on my personal defects--deformities she termed them. Now it had been her custom to launch out into fervent admiration of what she called my '_beaute male_:' wherein she differed diametrically from you, who told me point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think me handsome. The contrast struck me at the time and--" Adele here came running up again.
"Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and wishes to see you."
"Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in upon them; liberated Celine from my protection; gave her notice to vacate her hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded screams, hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an appointment with the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne. Next morning I had the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in one of his poor etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the pip, and then thought I had done with the whole crew. But unluckily the Varens, six months before, had given me this filette Adele, who, she affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more like me than she. Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child, and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no natural claim on Adele's part to be supported by me, nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite destitute, I e'en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now you know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera-girl, you will perhaps think differently of your post and protegee: you will be coming to me some day with notice that you have found another place--that you beg me to look out for a new governess, &c.--Eh?"
"No: Adele is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless--forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir--I shall cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?"
"Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; and you too: it darkens."
But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adele and Pilot--ran a race with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an English mind. Still she had her merits; and I was disposed to appreciate all that was good in her to the utmost. I sought in her countenance and features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: no trait, no turn of expression announced relationship. It was a pity: if she could but have been proved to resemble him, he would have thought more of her.
It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night, that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As he had said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion for a French dancer, and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly revived pleasure in the old hall and its environs. I meditated wonderingly on this incident; but gradually quitting it, as I found it for the present inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my master's manner to myself. The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a tribute to my discretion: I regarded and accepted it as such. His deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform towards me than at the first. I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits of chilling hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the encounter seemed welcome; he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me: when summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a cordiality of reception that made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that these evening conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my benefit.
I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with relish. It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a mind unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do not mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion.
The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master: yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength.
And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could not, for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say _former_, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it.
Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be happy at Thornfield.
"Why not?" I asked myself. "What alienates him from the house? Will he leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight weeks. If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!"
I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed.
I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two. Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside. I said, "Who is there?" Nothing answered. I was chilled with fear.
All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchen- door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up to the threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had seen him lying there myself in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down. Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it was not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely approached my ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing incident enough.
This was a demoniac laugh--low, suppressed, and deep--uttered, as it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my bedside--or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, "Who is there?"
Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still.
"Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?" thought I. Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax. I hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the door with a trembling hand. There was a candle burning just outside, and on the matting in the gallery. I was surprised at this circumstance: but still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and left, to find whence these blue wreaths issued, I became further aware of a strong smell of burning.
Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. Rochester's, and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh: in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.
"Wake! wake!" I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were devouring it.
The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last. Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of water.
"Is there a flood?" he cried.
"No, sir," I answered; "but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are quenched now; I will fetch you a candle."
"In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?" he demanded. "What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?"
"I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven's name, get up. Somebody has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and what it is."
"There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait two minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be--yes, here is my dressing-gown. Now run!"
I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water.
"What is it? and who did it?" he asked. I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery: the step ascending to the third storey; the smoke,--the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on.
{"What is it and who did it?" he asked: p140.jpg} He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had concluded.
"Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?" I asked.
"Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What can she do? Let her sleep unmolested."
"Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife."
"Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not warm enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and sit down in the arm-chair: there,--I will put it on. Now place your feet on the stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave you a few minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are till I return; be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the second storey. Don't move, remember, or call any one."
He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A very long time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the cloak; and then I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to rouse the house. I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester's displeasure by disobeying his orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery wall, and I heard his unshod feet tread the matting. "I hope it is he," thought I, "and not something worse."
He re-entered, pale and very gloomy. "I have found it all out," said he, setting his candle down on the washstand; "it is as I thought."
"How, sir?"
He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the ground. At the end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar tone-- "I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your chamber door."
"No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground."
"But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should think, or something like it?"
"Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,--she laughs in that way. She is a singular person."
"Just so. Grace Poole--you have guessed it. She is, as you say, singular--very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the precise details of to-night's incident. You are no talking fool: say nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs" (pointing to the bed): "and now return to your own room. I shall do very well on the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It is near four:--in two hours the servants will be up."
"Good-night, then, sir," said I, departing.
He seemed surprised--very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to go.
"What!" he exclaimed, "are you quitting me already, and in that way?"
"You said I might go, sir."
"But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion. Why, you have saved my life! --snatched me from a horrible and excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual strangers! At least shake hands."
He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, them in both his own.
"You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: but you: it is different;--I feel your benefits no burden, Jane."
He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,--but his voice was checked.
"Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation, in the case."
"I knew," he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some time;--I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not"--(again he stopped)--"did not" (he proceeded hastily) "strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, goodnight!"
Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.
"I am glad I happened to be awake," I said: and then I was going.
"What! you _will_ go?"
"I am cold, sir."
"Cold? Yes,--and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!" But he still retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an expedient.
"I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir," said I. "Well, leave me:" he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone.
I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy--a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned.
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I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye. During the early part of the morning, I momentarily expected his coming; he was not in the frequent habit of entering the schoolroom, but he did step in for a few minutes sometimes, and I had the impression that he was sure to visit it that day.
But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt the quiet course of Adele's studies; only soon after breakfast, I heard some bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester's chamber, Mrs. Fairfax's voice, and Leah's, and the cook's--that is, John's wife--and even John's own gruff tones. There were exclamations of "What a mercy master was not burnt in his bed!" "It is always dangerous to keep a candle lit at night." "How providential that he had presence of mind to think of the water-jug!" "I wonder he waked nobody!" "It is to be hoped he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa," &c. To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to rights; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I saw through the open door that all was again restored to complete order; only the bed was stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in the window-seat, rubbing the panes of glass dimmed with smoke. I was about to address her, for I wished to know what account had been given of the affair: but, on advancing, I saw a second person in the chamber--a woman sitting on a chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to new curtains. That woman was no other than Grace Poole.
There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as usual, in her brown stuff gown, her check apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was intent on her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her hard forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either of the paleness or desperation one would have expected to see marking the countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I believed), charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I was amazed--confounded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start, no increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion, consciousness of guilt, or fear of detection. She said "Good morning, Miss," in her usual phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more tape, went on with her sewing.
"I will put her to some test," thought I: "such absolute impenetrability is past comprehension."
"Good morning, Grace," I said. "Has anything happened here? I thought I heard the servants all talking together a while ago."
"Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with his candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he awoke before the bed-clothes or the wood-work caught, and contrived to quench the flames with the water in the ewer."
"A strange affair!" I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her fixedly--"Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?"
She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of consciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; then she answered-- "The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be likely to hear. Mrs. Fairfax's room and yours are the nearest to master's; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get elderly, they often sleep heavy." She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed indifference, but still in a marked and significant tone--"But you are young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: perhaps you may have heard a noise?"
"I did," said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing the panes, could not hear me, "and at first I thought it was Pilot: but Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one."
She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure-- "It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he was in such danger: You must have been dreaming."
"I was not dreaming," I said, with some warmth, for her brazen coolness provoked me. Again she looked at me; and with the same scrutinising and conscious eye.
"Have you told master that you heard a laugh?" she inquired.
"I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this morning."
"You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the gallery?" she further asked.
She appeared to be cross-questioning me, attempting to draw from me information unawares. The idea struck me that if she discovered I knew or suspected her guilt, she would be playing of some of her malignant pranks on me; I thought it advisable to be on my guard.
"On the contrary," said I, "I bolted my door."
"Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night before you get into bed?"
"Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans accordingly!" Indignation again prevailed over prudence: I replied sharply, "Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did not think it necessary. I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to be dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future" (and I laid marked stress on the words) "I shall take good care to make all secure before I venture to lie down."
"It will be wise so to do," was her answer: "this neighbourhood is as quiet as any I know, and I never heard of the hall being attempted by robbers since it was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds' worth of plate in the plate-closet, as is well known. And you see, for such a large house, there are very few servants, because master has never lived here much; and when he does come, being a bachelor, he needs little waiting on: but I always think it best to err on the safe side; a door is soon fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn bolt between one and any mischief that may be about. A deal of people, Miss, are for trusting all to Providence; but I say Providence will not dispense with the means, though He often blesses them when they are used discreetly." And here she closed her harangue: a long one for her, and uttered with the demureness of a Quakeress.
I still stood absolutely dumfoundered at what appeared to me her miraculous self-possession and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the cook entered.
"Mrs. Poole," said she, addressing Grace, "the servants' dinner will soon be ready: will you come down?"
"No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and I'll carry it upstairs."
"You'll have some meat?"
"Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that's all."
"And the sago?"
"Never mind it at present: I shall be coming down before teatime: I'll make it myself."
The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for me: so I departed.
I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax's account of the curtain conflagration during dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my brains over the enigmatical character of Grace Poole, and still more in pondering the problem of her position at Thornfield and questioning why she had not been given into custody that morning, or, at the very least, dismissed from her master's service. He had almost as much as declared his conviction of her criminality last night: what mysterious cause withheld him from accusing her? Why had he enjoined me, too, to secrecy? It was strange: a bold, vindictive, and haughty gentleman seemed somehow in the power of one of the meanest of his dependants; so much in her power, that even when she lifted her hand against his life, he dared not openly charge her with the attempt, much less punish her for it.
Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to think that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester in her behalf; but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was, the idea could not be admitted. "Yet," I reflected, "she has been young once; her youth would be contemporary with her master's: Mrs. Fairfax told me once, she had lived here many years. I don't think she can ever have been pretty; but, for aught I know, she may possess originality and strength of character to compensate for the want of personal advantages. Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric: Grace is eccentric at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him into her power, and she now exercises over his actions a secret influence, the result of his own indiscretion, which he cannot shake off, and dare not disregard?" But, having reached this point of conjecture, Mrs. Poole's square, flat figure, and uncomely, dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind's eye, that I thought, "No; impossible! my supposition cannot be correct. Yet," suggested the secret voice which talks to us in our own hearts, "you are not beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you: at any rate, you have often felt as if he did; and last night--remember his words; remember his look; remember his voice!"
I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment vividly renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adele was drawing; I bent over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start.
"Qu' avez-vous, mademoiselle?" said she. "Vos doigts tremblent comme la feuille, et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises!"
"I am hot, Adele, with stooping!" She went on sketching; I went on thinking.
I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been conceiving respecting Grace Poole; it disgusted me. I compared myself with her, and found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a lady; and she spoke truth--I was a lady. And now I looked much better than I did when Bessie saw me; I had more colour and more flesh, more life, more vivacity, because I had brighter hopes and keener enjoyments.
"Evening approaches," said I, as I looked towards the window. "I have never heard Mr. Rochester's voice or step in the house to-day; but surely I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the morning; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown impatient."
When dusk actually closed, and when Adele left me to go and play in the nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester's own tread, and I turned to the door, expecting it to open and admit him. The door remained shut; darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late; he often sent for me at seven and eight o'clock, and it was yet but six. Surely I should not be wholly disappointed to-night, when I had so many things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if he really believed it was she who had made last night's hideous attempt; and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every propriety of my station, I could still meet him in argument without fear or uneasy restraint; this suited both him and me.
A tread creaked on the stairs at last. Leah made her appearance; but it was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax's room. Thither I repaired, glad at least to go downstairs; for that brought me, I imagined, nearer to Mr. Rochester's presence.
"You must want your tea," said the good lady, as I joined her; "you ate so little at dinner. I am afraid," she continued, "you are not well to- day: you look flushed and feverish."
"Oh, quite well! I never felt better."
"Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you fill the teapot while I knit off this needle?" Having completed her task, she rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now fast deepening into total obscurity.
"It is fair to-night," said she, as she looked through the panes, "though not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a favourable day for his journey."
"Journey! --Is Mr. Rochester gone anywhere? I did not know he was out."
"Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted! He is gone to the Leas, Mr. Eshton's place, ten miles on the other side Millcote. I believe there is quite a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and others."
"Do you expect him back to-night?"
"No--nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a week or more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they are so surrounded by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all that can please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate. Gentlemen especially are often in request on such occasions; and Mr. Rochester is so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is a general favourite: the ladies are very fond of him; though you would not think his appearance calculated to recommend him particularly in their eyes: but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his wealth and good blood, make amends for any little fault of look."
"Are there ladies at the Leas?"
"There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters--very elegant young ladies indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanche and Mary Ingram, most beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche, six or seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen the dining-room that day--how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lit up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen present--all of the first county families; and Miss Ingram was considered the belle of the evening."
"You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax: what was she like?"
"Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors were thrown open; and, as it was Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall, to hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have me to come in, and I sat down in a quiet corner and watched them. I never saw a more splendid scene: the ladies were magnificently dressed; most of them--at least most of the younger ones--looked handsome; but Miss Ingram was certainly the queen."
"And what was she like?"
"Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr. Rochester's: large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then she had such a fine head of hair; raven-black and so becomingly arranged: a crown of thick plaits behind, and in front the longest, the glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an amber-coloured scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below her knee. She wore an amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair: it contrasted well with the jetty mass of her curls."
"She was greatly admired, of course?"
"Yes, indeed: and not only for her beauty, but for her accomplishments. She was one of the ladies who sang: a gentleman accompanied her on the piano. She and Mr. Rochester sang a duet."
"Mr. Rochester? I was not aware he could sing."
"Oh! he has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music."
"And Miss Ingram: what sort of a voice had she?"
"A very rich and powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a treat to listen to her;--and she played afterwards. I am no judge of music, but Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably good."
"And this beautiful and accomplished lady, she is not yet married?"
"It appears not: I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large fortunes. Old Lord Ingram's estates were chiefly entailed, and the eldest son came in for everything almost."
"But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to her: Mr. Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?"
"Oh! yes. But you see there is a considerable difference in age: Mr. Rochester is nearly forty; she is but twenty-five."
"What of that? More unequal matches are made every day."
"True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an idea of the sort. But you eat nothing: you have scarcely tasted since you began tea."
"No: I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?"
I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr. Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adele came in, and the conversation was turned into another channel.
When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination's boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense.
Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night--of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;--I pronounced judgment to this effect:-- That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar. " _You_," I said, "a favourite with Mr. Rochester? _You_ gifted with the power of pleasing him? _You_ of importance to him in any way? Go! your folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens of preference--equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man of the world to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe! --Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to yourself this morning the brief scene of last night? --Cover your face and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, _ignis-fatuus_-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication.
"Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: to-morrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write under it, 'Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain.'
"Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory--you have one prepared in your drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate carefully the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest lines, according to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental eye;--What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel! --no sentiment! --no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution. Recall the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust; let the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire, aerial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call it 'Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank.'
"Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them: say, 'Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady's love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?'"
"I'll do it," I resolved: and having framed this determination, I grew calm, and fell asleep.
I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face enough, and when compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was as great as self- control could desire. I derived benefit from the task: it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force and fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my heart.
Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of wholesome discipline to which I had thus forced my feelings to submit. Thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a decent calm, which, had they found me unprepared, I should probably have been unequal to maintain, even externally.
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{
"id": "1260"
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A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days, and still he did not come. Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be surprised if he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the Continent, and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt and unexpected. When I heard this, I was beginning to feel a strange chill and failing at the heart. I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder--how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's movements a matter in which I had any cause to take a vital interest. Not that I humbled myself by a slavish notion of inferiority: on the contrary, I just said-- "You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protegee, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don't make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your order: keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised."
I went on with my day's business tranquilly; but ever and anon vague suggestions kept wandering across my brain of reasons why I should quit Thornfield; and I kept involuntarily framing advertisements and pondering conjectures about new situations: these thoughts I did not think to check; they might germinate and bear fruit if they could.
Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight, when the post brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter.
"It is from the master," said she, as she looked at the direction. "Now I suppose we shall know whether we are to expect his return or not."
And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on taking my coffee (we were at breakfast): it was hot, and I attributed to that circumstance a fiery glow which suddenly rose to my face. Why my hand shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into my saucer, I did not choose to consider.
"Well, I sometimes think we are too quiet; but we run a chance of being busy enough now: for a little while at least," said Mrs. Fairfax, still holding the note before her spectacles.
Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string of Adele's pinafore, which happened to be loose: having helped her also to another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said, nonchalantly-- "Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon, I suppose?"
"Indeed he is--in three days, he says: that will be next Thursday; and not alone either. I don't know how many of the fine people at the Leas are coming with him: he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; I am to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the gentlemen their valets: so we shall have a full house of it." And Mrs. Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away to commence operations.
The three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough. I had thought all the rooms at Thornfield beautifully clean and well arranged; but it appears I was mistaken. Three women were got to help; and such scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since. Adele ran quite wild in the midst of it: the preparations for company and the prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies. She would have Sophie to look over all her "toilettes," as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were "_passees_," and to air and arrange the new. For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys. From school duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her service, and I was all day in the storeroom, helping (or hindering) her and the cook; learning to make custards and cheese-cakes and French pastry, to truss game and garnish desert-dishes.
The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time for dinner at six. During the intervening period I had no time to nurse chimeras; and I believe I was as active and gay as anybody--Adele excepted. Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the region of doubts and portents, and dark conjectures. This was when I chanced to see the third-storey staircase door (which of late had always been kept locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form of Grace Poole, in prim cap, white apron, and handkerchief; when I watched her glide along the gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a list slipper; when I saw her look into the bustling, topsy-turvy bedrooms,--just say a word, perhaps, to the charwoman about the proper way to polish a grate, or clean a marble mantelpiece, or take stains from papered walls, and then pass on. She would thus descend to the kitchen once a day, eat her dinner, smoke a moderate pipe on the hearth, and go back, carrying her pot of porter with her, for her private solace, in her own gloomy, upper haunt. Only one hour in the twenty-four did she pass with her fellow-servants below; all the rest of her time was spent in some low-ceiled, oaken chamber of the second storey: there she sat and sewed--and probably laughed drearily to herself,--as companionless as a prisoner in his dungeon.
The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house, except me, noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel at them: no one discussed her position or employment; no one pitied her solitude or isolation. I once, indeed, overheard part of a dialogue between Leah and one of the charwomen, of which Grace formed the subject. Leah had been saying something I had not caught, and the charwoman remarked-- "She gets good wages, I guess?"
"Yes," said Leah; "I wish I had as good; not that mine are to complain of,--there's no stinginess at Thornfield; but they're not one fifth of the sum Mrs. Poole receives. And she is laying by: she goes every quarter to the bank at Millcote. I should not wonder but she has saved enough to keep her independent if she liked to leave; but I suppose she's got used to the place; and then she's not forty yet, and strong and able for anything. It is too soon for her to give up business."
"She is a good hand, I daresay," said the charwoman.
"Ah! --she understands what she has to do,--nobody better," rejoined Leah significantly; "and it is not every one could fill her shoes--not for all the money she gets."
"That it is not!" was the reply. "I wonder whether the master--" The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived me, and she instantly gave her companion a nudge.
"Doesn't she know?" I heard the woman whisper.
Leah shook her head, and the conversation was of course dropped. All I had gathered from it amounted to this,--that there was a mystery at Thornfield; and that from participation in that mystery I was purposely excluded.
Thursday came: all work had been completed the previous evening; carpets were laid down, bed-hangings festooned, radiant white counterpanes spread, toilet tables arranged, furniture rubbed, flowers piled in vases: both chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright as hands could make them. The hall, too, was scoured; and the great carved clock, as well as the steps and banisters of the staircase, were polished to the brightness of glass; in the dining-room, the sideboard flashed resplendent with plate; in the drawing-room and boudoir, vases of exotics bloomed on all sides.
Afternoon arrived: Mrs. Fairfax assumed her best black satin gown, her gloves, and her gold watch; for it was her part to receive the company,--to conduct the ladies to their rooms, &c. Adele, too, would be dressed: though I thought she had little chance of being introduced to the party that day at least. However, to please her, I allowed Sophie to apparel her in one of her short, full muslin frocks. For myself, I had no need to make any change; I should not be called upon to quit my sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now become to me,--"a very pleasant refuge in time of trouble."
It had been a mild, serene spring day--one of those days which, towards the end of March or the beginning of April, rise shining over the earth as heralds of summer. It was drawing to an end now; but the evening was even warm, and I sat at work in the schoolroom with the window open.
"It gets late," said Mrs. Fairfax, entering in rustling state. "I am glad I ordered dinner an hour after the time Mr. Rochester mentioned; for it is past six now. I have sent John down to the gates to see if there is anything on the road: one can see a long way from thence in the direction of Millcote." She went to the window. "Here he is!" said she. "Well, John" (leaning out), "any news?"
"They're coming, ma'am," was the answer. "They'll be here in ten minutes."
Adele flew to the window. I followed, taking care to stand on one side, so that, screened by the curtain, I could see without being seen.
The ten minutes John had given seemed very long, but at last wheels were heard; four equestrians galloped up the drive, and after them came two open carriages. Fluttering veils and waving plumes filled the vehicles; two of the cavaliers were young, dashing-looking gentlemen; the third was Mr. Rochester, on his black horse, Mesrour, Pilot bounding before him; at his side rode a lady, and he and she were the first of the party. Her purple riding-habit almost swept the ground, her veil streamed long on the breeze; mingling with its transparent folds, and gleaming through them, shone rich raven ringlets.
"Miss Ingram!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax, and away she hurried to her post below.
The cavalcade, following the sweep of the drive, quickly turned the angle of the house, and I lost sight of it. Adele now petitioned to go down; but I took her on my knee, and gave her to understand that she must not on any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies, either now or at any other time, unless expressly sent for: that Mr. Rochester would be very angry, &c. "Some natural tears she shed" on being told this; but as I began to look very grave, she consented at last to wipe them.
A joyous stir was now audible in the hall: gentlemen's deep tones and ladies' silvery accents blent harmoniously together, and distinguishable above all, though not loud, was the sonorous voice of the master of Thornfield Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant guests under its roof. Then light steps ascended the stairs; and there was a tripping through the gallery, and soft cheerful laughs, and opening and closing doors, and, for a time, a hush.
"Elles changent de toilettes," said Adele; who, listening attentively, had followed every movement; and she sighed.
"Chez maman," said she, "quand il y avait du monde, je le suivais partout, au salon et a leurs chambres; souvent je regardais les femmes de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c'etait si amusant: comme cela on apprend."
"Don't you feel hungry, Adele?"
"Mais oui, mademoiselle: voila cinq ou six heures que nous n'avons pas mange."
"Well now, while the ladies are in their rooms, I will venture down and get you something to eat."
And issuing from my asylum with precaution, I sought a back-stairs which conducted directly to the kitchen. All in that region was fire and commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection, and the cook hung over her crucibles in a frame of mind and body threatening spontaneous combustion. In the servants' hall two coachmen and three gentlemen's gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about everywhere. Threading this chaos, I at last reached the larder; there I took possession of a cold chicken, a roll of bread, some tarts, a plate or two and a knife and fork: with this booty I made a hasty retreat. I had regained the gallery, and was just shutting the back-door behind me, when an accelerated hum warned me that the ladies were about to issue from their chambers. I could not proceed to the schoolroom without passing some of their doors, and running the risk of being surprised with my cargo of victualage; so I stood still at this end, which, being windowless, was dark: quite dark now, for the sun was set and twilight gathering.
Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another: each came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous through the dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at the other extremity of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued vivacity: they then descended the staircase almost as noiselessly as a bright mist rolls down a hill. Their collective appearance had left on me an impression of high- born elegance, such as I had never before received.
I found Adele peeping through the schoolroom door, which she held ajar. "What beautiful ladies!" cried she in English. "Oh, I wish I might go to them! Do you think Mr. Rochester will send for us by-and-bye, after dinner?"
"No, indeed, I don't; Mr. Rochester has something else to think about. Never mind the ladies to-night; perhaps you will see them to-morrow: here is your dinner."
She was really hungry, so the chicken and tarts served to divert her attention for a time. It was well I secured this forage, or both she, I, and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of our repast, would have run a chance of getting no dinner at all: every one downstairs was too much engaged to think of us. The dessert was not carried out till after nine and at ten footmen were still running to and fro with trays and coffee- cups. I allowed Adele to sit up much later than usual; for she declared she could not possibly go to sleep while the doors kept opening and shutting below, and people bustling about. Besides, she added, a message might possibly come from Mr. Rochester when she was undressed; "et alors quel dommage!"
I told her stories as long as she would listen to them; and then for a change I took her out into the gallery. The hall lamp was now lit, and it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants passing backwards and forwards. When the evening was far advanced, a sound of music issued from the drawing-room, whither the piano had been removed; Adele and I sat down on the top step of the stairs to listen. Presently a voice blent with the rich tones of the instrument; it was a lady who sang, and very sweet her notes were. The solo over, a duet followed, and then a glee: a joyous conversational murmur filled up the intervals. I listened long: suddenly I discovered that my ear was wholly intent on analysing the mingled sounds, and trying to discriminate amidst the confusion of accents those of Mr. Rochester; and when it caught them, which it soon did, it found a further task in framing the tones, rendered by distance inarticulate, into words.
The clock struck eleven. I looked at Adele, whose head leant against my shoulder; her eyes were waxing heavy, so I took her up in my arms and carried her off to bed. It was near one before the gentlemen and ladies sought their chambers.
The next day was as fine as its predecessor: it was devoted by the party to an excursion to some site in the neighbourhood. They set out early in the forenoon, some on horseback, the rest in carriages; I witnessed both the departure and the return. Miss Ingram, as before, was the only lady equestrian; and, as before, Mr. Rochester galloped at her side; the two rode a little apart from the rest. I pointed out this circumstance to Mrs. Fairfax, who was standing at the window with me-- "You said it was not likely they should think of being married," said I, "but you see Mr. Rochester evidently prefers her to any of the other ladies."
"Yes, I daresay: no doubt he admires her."
"And she him," I added; "look how she leans her head towards him as if she were conversing confidentially; I wish I could see her face; I have never had a glimpse of it yet."
"You will see her this evening," answered Mrs. Fairfax. "I happened to remark to Mr. Rochester how much Adele wished to be introduced to the ladies, and he said: 'Oh! let her come into the drawing-room after dinner; and request Miss Eyre to accompany her.'"
"Yes; he said that from mere politeness: I need not go, I am sure," I answered.
"Well, I observed to him that as you were unused to company, I did not think you would like appearing before so gay a party--all strangers; and he replied, in his quick way--'Nonsense! If she objects, tell her it is my particular wish; and if she resists, say I shall come and fetch her in case of contumacy.'"
"I will not give him that trouble," I answered. "I will go, if no better may be; but I don't like it. Shall you be there, Mrs. Fairfax?"
"No; I pleaded off, and he admitted my plea. I'll tell you how to manage so as to avoid the embarrassment of making a formal entrance, which is the most disagreeable part of the business. You must go into the drawing- room while it is empty, before the ladies leave the dinner-table; choose your seat in any quiet nook you like; you need not stay long after the gentlemen come in, unless you please: just let Mr. Rochester see you are there and then slip away--nobody will notice you."
"Will these people remain long, do you think?"
"Perhaps two or three weeks, certainly not more. After the Easter recess, Sir George Lynn, who was lately elected member for Millcote, will have to go up to town and take his seat; I daresay Mr. Rochester will accompany him: it surprises me that he has already made so protracted a stay at Thornfield."
It was with some trepidation that I perceived the hour approach when I was to repair with my charge to the drawing-room. Adele had been in a state of ecstasy all day, after hearing she was to be presented to the ladies in the evening; and it was not till Sophie commenced the operation of dressing her that she sobered down. Then the importance of the process quickly steadied her, and by the time she had her curls arranged in well-smoothed, drooping clusters, her pink satin frock put on, her long sash tied, and her lace mittens adjusted, she looked as grave as any judge. No need to warn her not to disarrange her attire: when she was dressed, she sat demurely down in her little chair, taking care previously to lift up the satin skirt for fear she should crease it, and assured me she would not stir thence till I was ready. This I quickly was: my best dress (the silver-grey one, purchased for Miss Temple's wedding, and never worn since) was soon put on; my hair was soon smoothed; my sole ornament, the pearl brooch, soon assumed. We descended.
Fortunately there was another entrance to the drawing-room than that through the saloon where they were all seated at dinner. We found the apartment vacant; a large fire burning silently on the marble hearth, and wax candles shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite flowers with which the tables were adorned. The crimson curtain hung before the arch: slight as was the separation this drapery formed from the party in the adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that nothing of their conversation could be distinguished beyond a soothing murmur.
Adele, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most solemnising impression, sat down, without a word, on the footstool I pointed out to her. I retired to a window-seat, and taking a book from a table near, endeavoured to read. Adele brought her stool to my feet; ere long she touched my knee.
"What is it, Adele?"
"Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendrie une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques, mademoiselle? Seulement pour completer ma toilette."
"You think too much of your 'toilette,' Adele: but you may have a flower." And I took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her sash. She sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of happiness were now full. I turned my face away to conceal a smile I could not suppress: there was something ludicrous as well as painful in the little Parisienne's earnest and innate devotion to matters of dress.
A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept back from the arch; through it appeared the dining-room, with its lit lustre pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent dessert-service covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them.
There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave the impression of a much larger number. Some of them were very tall; many were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon. I rose and curtseyed to them: one or two bent their heads in return, the others only stared at me.
They dispersed about the room, reminding me, by the lightness and buoyancy of their movements, of a flock of white plumy birds. Some of them threw themselves in half-reclining positions on the sofas and ottomans: some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and books: the rest gathered in a group round the fire: all talked in a low but clear tone which seemed habitual to them. I knew their names afterwards, and may as well mention them now.
First, there was Mrs. Eshton and two of her daughters. She had evidently been a handsome woman, and was well preserved still. Of her daughters, the eldest, Amy, was rather little: naive, and child-like in face and manner, and piquant in form; her white muslin dress and blue sash became her well. The second, Louisa, was taller and more elegant in figure; with a very pretty face, of that order the French term _minois chiffone_: both sisters were fair as lilies.
Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage of about forty, very erect, very haughty-looking, richly dressed in a satin robe of changeful sheen: her dark hair shone glossily under the shade of an azure plume, and within the circlet of a band of gems.
Mrs. Colonel Dent was less showy; but, I thought, more lady-like. She had a slight figure, a pale, gentle face, and fair hair. Her black satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl ornaments, pleased me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled dame.
But the three most distinguished--partly, perhaps, because the tallest figures of the band--were the Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters, Blanche and Mary. They were all three of the loftiest stature of women. The Dowager might be between forty and fifty: her shape was still fine; her hair (by candle-light at least) still black; her teeth, too, were still apparently perfect. Most people would have termed her a splendid woman of her age: and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking; but then there was an expression of almost insupportable haughtiness in her bearing and countenance. She had Roman features and a double chin, disappearing into a throat like a pillar: these features appeared to me not only inflated and darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the chin was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost preternatural erectness. She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it reminded me of Mrs. Reed's; she mouthed her words in speaking; her voice was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical,--very intolerable, in short. A crimson velvet robe, and a shawl turban of some gold-wrought Indian fabric, invested her (I suppose she thought) with a truly imperial dignity.
Blanche and Mary were of equal stature,--straight and tall as poplars. Mary was too slim for her height, but Blanche was moulded like a Dian. I regarded her, of course, with special interest. First, I wished to see whether her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax's description; secondly, whether it at all resembled the fancy miniature I had painted of her; and thirdly--it will out! --whether it were such as I should fancy likely to suit Mr. Rochester's taste.
As far as person went, she answered point for point, both to my picture and Mrs. Fairfax's description. The noble bust, the sloping shoulders, the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets were all there;--but her face? Her face was like her mother's; a youthful unfurrowed likeness: the same low brow, the same high features, the same pride. It was not, however, so saturnine a pride! she laughed continually; her laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual expression of her arched and haughty lip.
Genius is said to be self-conscious. I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram was a genius, but she was self-conscious--remarkably self-conscious indeed. She entered into a discourse on botany with the gentle Mrs. Dent. It seemed Mrs. Dent had not studied that science: though, as she said, she liked flowers, "especially wild ones;" Miss Ingram had, and she ran over its vocabulary with an air. I presently perceived she was (what is vernacularly termed) _trailing_ Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on her ignorance--her _trail_ might be clever, but it was decidedly not good- natured. She played: her execution was brilliant; she sang: her voice was fine; she talked French apart to her mamma; and she talked it well, with fluency and with a good accent.
Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer features too, and a skin some shades fairer (Miss Ingram was dark as a Spaniard)--but Mary was deficient in life: her face lacked expression, her eye lustre; she had nothing to say, and having once taken her seat, remained fixed like a statue in its niche. The sisters were both attired in spotless white.
And did I now think Miss Ingram such a choice as Mr. Rochester would be likely to make? I could not tell--I did not know his taste in female beauty. If he liked the majestic, she was the very type of majesty: then she was accomplished, sprightly. Most gentlemen would admire her, I thought; and that he _did_ admire her, I already seemed to have obtained proof: to remove the last shade of doubt, it remained but to see them together.
You are not to suppose, reader, that Adele has all this time been sitting motionless on the stool at my feet: no; when the ladies entered, she rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence, and said with gravity-- "Bon jour, mesdames."
And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and exclaimed, "Oh, what a little puppet!"
Lady Lynn had remarked, "It is Mr. Rochester's ward, I suppose--the little French girl he was speaking of."
Mrs. Dent had kindly taken her hand, and given her a kiss.
Amy and Louisa Eshton had cried out simultaneously--"What a love of a child!"
And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat, ensconced between them, chattering alternately in French and broken English; absorbing not only the young ladies' attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton and Lady Lynn, and getting spoilt to her heart's content.
At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned. I sit in the shade--if any shade there be in this brilliantly-lit apartment; the window-curtain half hides me. Again the arch yawns; they come. The collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is very imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of them are tall, some young. Henry and Frederick Lynn are very dashing sparks indeed; and Colonel Dent is a fine soldierly man. Mr. Eshton, the magistrate of the district, is gentleman-like: his hair is quite white, his eyebrows and whiskers still dark, which gives him something of the appearance of a "pere noble de theatre." Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall; like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary's apathetic and listless look: he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of blood or vigour of brain.
And where is Mr. Rochester?
He comes in last: I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him enter. I try to concentrate my attention on those netting-needles, on the meshes of the purse I am forming--I wish to think only of the work I have in my hands, to see only the silver beads and silk threads that lie in my lap; whereas, I distinctly behold his figure, and I inevitably recall the moment when I last saw it; just after I had rendered him, what he deemed, an essential service, and he, holding my hand, and looking down on my face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed a heart full and eager to overflow; in whose emotions I had a part. How near had I approached him at that moment! What had occurred since, calculated to change his and my relative positions? Yet now, how distant, how far estranged we were! So far estranged, that I did not expect him to come and speak to me. I did not wonder, when, without looking at me, he took a seat at the other side of the room, and began conversing with some of the ladies.
No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: they would rise, and the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking,--a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless.
Most true is it that "beauty is in the eye of the gazer." My master's colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth,--all energy, decision, will,--were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite mastered me,--that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his. I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.
I compared him with his guests. What was the gallant grace of the Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord Ingram,--even the military distinction of Colonel Dent, contrasted with his look of native pith and genuine power? I had no sympathy in their appearance, their expression: yet I could imagine that most observers would call them attractive, handsome, imposing; while they would pronounce Mr. Rochester at once harsh-featured and melancholy-looking. I saw them smile, laugh--it was nothing; the light of the candles had as much soul in it as their smile; the tinkle of the bell as much significance as their laugh. I saw Mr. Rochester smile:--his stern features softened; his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both searching and sweet. He was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and Amy Eshton. I wondered to see them receive with calm that look which seemed to me so penetrating: I expected their eyes to fall, their colour to rise under it; yet I was glad when I found they were in no sense moved. "He is not to them what he is to me," I thought: "he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;--I am sure he is--I feel akin to him--I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days since, that I had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other light than as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:--and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him."
Coffee is handed. The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have become lively as larks; conversation waxes brisk and merry. Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen. The two proud dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together. Sir George--whom, by-the-bye, I have forgotten to describe,--a very big, and very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands before their sofa, coffee- cup in hand, and occasionally puts in a word. Mr. Frederick Lynn has taken a seat beside Mary Ingram, and is showing her the engravings of a splendid volume: she looks, smiles now and then, but apparently says little. The tall and phlegmatic Lord Ingram leans with folded arms on the chair-back of the little and lively Amy Eshton; she glances up at him, and chatters like a wren: she likes him better than she does Mr. Rochester. Henry Lynn has taken possession of an ottoman at the feet of Louisa: Adele shares it with him: he is trying to talk French with her, and Louisa laughs at his blunders. With whom will Blanche Ingram pair? She is standing alone at the table, bending gracefully over an album. She seems waiting to be sought; but she will not wait too long: she herself selects a mate.
Mr. Rochester, having quitted the Eshtons, stands on the hearth as solitary as she stands by the table: she confronts him, taking her station on the opposite side of the mantelpiece.
"Mr. Rochester, I thought you were not fond of children?"
"Nor am I." "Then, what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that?" (pointing to Adele). "Where did you pick her up?"
"I did not pick her up; she was left on my hands."
"You should have sent her to school."
"I could not afford it: schools are so dear."
"Why, I suppose you have a governess for her: I saw a person with her just now--is she gone? Oh, no! there she is still, behind the window- curtain. You pay her, of course; I should think it quite as expensive,--more so; for you have them both to keep in addition."
I feared--or should I say, hoped? --the allusion to me would make Mr. Rochester glance my way; and I involuntarily shrank farther into the shade: but he never turned his eyes.
"I have not considered the subject," said he indifferently, looking straight before him.
"No, you men never do consider economy and common sense. You should hear mama on the chapter of governesses: Mary and I have had, I should think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous, and all incubi--were they not, mama?"
"Did you speak, my own?"
The young lady thus claimed as the dowager's special property, reiterated her question with an explanation.
"My dearest, don't mention governesses; the word makes me nervous. I have suffered a martyrdom from their incompetency and caprice. I thank Heaven I have now done with them!"
Mrs. Dent here bent over to the pious lady and whispered something in her ear; I suppose, from the answer elicited, it was a reminder that one of the anathematised race was present.
"Tant pis!" said her Ladyship, "I hope it may do her good!" Then, in a lower tone, but still loud enough for me to hear, "I noticed her; I am a judge of physiognomy, and in hers I see all the faults of her class."
"What are they, madam?" inquired Mr. Rochester aloud.
"I will tell you in your private ear," replied she, wagging her turban three times with portentous significancy.
"But my curiosity will be past its appetite; it craves food now."
"Ask Blanche; she is nearer you than I." "Oh, don't refer him to me, mama! I have just one word to say of the whole tribe; they are a nuisance. Not that I ever suffered much from them; I took care to turn the tables. What tricks Theodore and I used to play on our Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame Jouberts! Mary was always too sleepy to join in a plot with spirit. The best fun was with Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose and low- spirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no blow took effect on her. But poor Madame Joubert! I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had driven her to extremities--spilt our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, tossed our books up to the ceiling, and played a charivari with the ruler and desk, the fender and fire-irons. Theodore, do you remember those merry days?"
"Yaas, to be sure I do," drawled Lord Ingram; "and the poor old stick used to cry out 'Oh you villains childs!' --and then we sermonised her on the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we were, when she was herself so ignorant."
"We did; and, Tedo, you know, I helped you in prosecuting (or persecuting) your tutor, whey-faced Mr. Vining--the parson in the pip, as we used to call him. He and Miss Wilson took the liberty of falling in love with each other--at least Tedo and I thought so; we surprised sundry tender glances and sighs which we interpreted as tokens of 'la belle passion,' and I promise you the public soon had the benefit of our discovery; we employed it as a sort of lever to hoist our dead-weights from the house. Dear mama, there, as soon as she got an inkling of the business, found out that it was of an immoral tendency. Did you not, my lady-mother?"
"Certainly, my best. And I was quite right: depend on that: there are a thousand reasons why liaisons between governesses and tutors should never be tolerated a moment in any well-regulated house; firstly--" "Oh, gracious, mama! Spare us the enumeration! _Au reste_, we all know them: danger of bad example to innocence of childhood; distractions and consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attached--mutual alliance and reliance; confidence thence resulting--insolence accompanying--mutiny and general blow-up. Am I right, Baroness Ingram, of Ingram Park?"
"My lily-flower, you are right now, as always."
"Then no more need be said: change the subject."
Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in with her soft, infantine tone: "Louisa and I used to quiz our governess too; but she was such a good creature, she would bear anything: nothing put her out. She was never cross with us; was she, Louisa?"
"No, never: we might do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her workbox, and turn her drawers inside out; and she was so good-natured, she would give us anything we asked for."
"I suppose, now," said Miss Ingram, curling her lip sarcastically, "we shall have an abstract of the memoirs of all the governesses extant: in order to avert such a visitation, I again move the introduction of a new topic. Mr. Rochester, do you second my motion?"
"Madam, I support you on this point, as on every other."
"Then on me be the onus of bringing it forward. Signior Eduardo, are you in voice to-night?"
"Donna Bianca, if you command it, I will be."
"Then, signior, I lay on you my sovereign behest to furbish up your lungs and other vocal organs, as they will be wanted on my royal service."
"Who would not be the Rizzio of so divine a Mary?"
"A fig for Rizzio!" cried she, tossing her head with all its curls, as she moved to the piano. "It is my opinion the fiddler David must have been an insipid sort of fellow; I like black Bothwell better: to my mind a man is nothing without a spice of the devil in him; and history may say what it will of James Hepburn, but I have a notion, he was just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to gift with my hand."
"Gentlemen, you hear! Now which of you most resembles Bothwell?" cried Mr. Rochester.
"I should say the preference lies with you," responded Colonel Dent.
"On my honour, I am much obliged to you," was the reply.
Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the piano, spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced a brilliant prelude; talking meantime. She appeared to be on her high horse to-night; both her words and her air seemed intended to excite not only the admiration, but the amazement of her auditors: she was evidently bent on striking them as something very dashing and daring indeed.
"Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!" exclaimed she, rattling away at the instrument. "Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a step beyond papa's park gates: nor to go even so far without mama's permission and guardianship! Creatures so absorbed in care about their pretty faces, and their white hands, and their small feet; as if a man had anything to do with beauty! As if loveliness were not the special prerogative of woman--her legitimate appanage and heritage! I grant an ugly _woman_ is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the _gentlemen_, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valour: let their motto be:--Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a fillip. Such should be my device, were I a man."
"Whenever I marry," she continued after a pause which none interrupted, "I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me. I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided homage: his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he sees in his mirror. Mr. Rochester, now sing, and I will play for you."
"I am all obedience," was the response.
"Here then is a Corsair-song. Know that I doat on Corsairs; and for that reason, sing it _con spirito_."
"Commands from Miss Ingram's lips would put spirit into a mug of milk and water."
"Take care, then: if you don't please me, I will shame you by showing how such things _should_ be done."
"That is offering a premium on incapacity: I shall now endeavour to fail."
"Gardez-vous en bien! If you err wilfully, I shall devise a proportionate punishment."
"Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she has it in her power to inflict a chastisement beyond mortal endurance."
"Ha! explain!" commanded the lady.
"Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute for capital punishment."
"Sing!" said she, and again touching the piano, she commenced an accompaniment in spirited style.
"Now is my time to slip away," thought I: but the tones that then severed the air arrested me. Mrs. Fairfax had said Mr. Rochester possessed a fine voice: he did--a mellow, powerful bass, into which he threw his own feeling, his own force; finding a way through the ear to the heart, and there waking sensation strangely. I waited till the last deep and full vibration had expired--till the tide of talk, checked an instant, had resumed its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and made my exit by the side-door, which was fortunately near. Thence a narrow passage led into the hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stopped to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the staircase. I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was Mr. Rochester.
"How do you do?" he asked.
"I am very well, sir."
"Why did you not come and speak to me in the room?"
I thought I might have retorted the question on him who put it: but I would not take that freedom. I answered-- "I did not wish to disturb you, as you seemed engaged, sir."
"What have you been doing during my absence?"
"Nothing particular; teaching Adele as usual."
"And getting a good deal paler than you were--as I saw at first sight. What is the matter?"
"Nothing at all, sir."
"Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?"
"Not the least."
"Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early."
"I am tired, sir."
He looked at me for a minute.
"And a little depressed," he said. "What about? Tell me."
"Nothing--nothing, sir. I am not depressed."
"But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes--indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, to-night I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adele. Good-night, my--" He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.
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{
"id": "1260"
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18
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Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and solitude I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemed now driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there was life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not now traverse the gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers, once so tenantless, without encountering a smart lady's-maid or a dandy valet.
The kitchen, the butler's pantry, the servants' hall, the entrance hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void and still when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring weather called their occupants out into the grounds. Even when that weather was broken, and continuous rain set in for some days, no damp seemed cast over enjoyment: indoor amusements only became more lively and varied, in consequence of the stop put to outdoor gaiety.
I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change of entertainment was proposed: they spoke of "playing charades," but in my ignorance I did not understand the term. The servants were called in, the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lights otherwise disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the arch. While Mr. Rochester and the other gentlemen directed these alterations, the ladies were running up and down stairs ringing for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give information respecting the resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain wardrobes of the third storey were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, &c., were brought down in armfuls by the abigails; then a selection was made, and such things as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room.
Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him, and was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. "Miss Ingram is mine, of course," said he: afterwards he named the two Misses Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happened to be near him, as I had been fastening the clasp of Mrs. Dent's bracelet, which had got loose.
"Will you play?" he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist, which I rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to return quietly to my usual seat.
He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party, which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose that I should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly negatived the notion.
"No," I heard her say: "she looks too stupid for any game of the sort."
Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the arch, the bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewise chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on a table, lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton, draped in Mr. Rochester's cloak, and holding a book in her hand. Somebody, unseen, rang the bell merrily; then Adele (who had insisted on being one of her guardian's party), bounded forward, scattering round her the contents of a basket of flowers she carried on her arm. Then appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, clad in white, a long veil on her head, and a wreath of roses round her brow; by her side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they drew near the table. They knelt; while Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressed also in white, took up their stations behind them. A ceremony followed, in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognise the pantomime of a marriage. At its termination, Colonel Dent and his party consulted in whispers for two minutes, then the Colonel called out-- "Bride!" Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell.
A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its second rising displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last. The drawing- room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps above the dining- room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a yard or two back within the room, appeared a large marble basin--which I recognised as an ornament of the conservatory--where it usually stood, surrounded by exotics, and tenanted by gold fish--and whence it must have been transported with some trouble, on account of its size and weight.
Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr. Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. His dark eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costume exactly: he looked the very model of an Eastern emir, an agent or a victim of the bowstring. Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram. She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the waist: an embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her beautifully-moulded arms bare, one of them upraised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head. Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion and her general air, suggested the idea of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless the character she intended to represent.
She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request:--"She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink." From the bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears. It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting.
The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated. Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded "the tableau of the whole;" whereupon the curtain again descended.
On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place, stood a deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles being all extinguished.
Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting on his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester; though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough, bristling hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chain clanked; to his wrists were attached fetters.
"Bridewell!" exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.
A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.
"Do you know," said she, "that, of the three characters, I liked you in the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!"
"Is all the soot washed from my face?" he asked, turning it towards her.
"Alas! yes: the more's the pity! Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian's rouge."
"You would like a hero of the road then?"
"An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate."
"Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour since, in the presence of all these witnesses." She giggled, and her colour rose.
"Now, Dent," continued Mr. Rochester, "it is your turn." And as the other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats. Miss Ingram placed herself at her leader's right hand; the other diviners filled the chairs on each side of him and her. I did not now watch the actors; I no longer waited with interest for the curtain to rise; my attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs. What charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see the consultation which followed each scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards him, till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek; I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns in memory at this moment.
I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me--because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction--because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation. I could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady--because I read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her--because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its very pride, irresistible.
There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though much to create despair. Much too, you will think, reader, to engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram's. But I was not jealous: or very rarely;--the nature of the pain I suffered could not be explained by that word. Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too inferior to excite the feeling. Pardon the seeming paradox; I mean what I say. She was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were not in her. Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adele: pushing her away with some contumelious epithet if she happened to approach her; sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with coldness and acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched these manifestations of character--watched them closely, keenly, shrewdly. Yes; the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this sagacity--this guardedness of his--this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one's defects--this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her, that my ever- torturing pain arose.
I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons, because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted to win from him that treasure. This was the point--this was where the nerve was touched and teased--this was where the fever was sustained and fed: _she could not charm him_.
If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face, turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour, kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers--jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I should have admired her--acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper would have been my admiration--the more truly tranquil my quiescence. But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram's efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated failure--herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled further and further what she wished to allure--to witness _this_, was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.
Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart--have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.
"Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so near to him?" I asked myself. "Surely she cannot truly like him, or not like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems to me that she might, by merely sitting quietly at his side, saying little and looking less, get nigher his heart. I have seen in his face a far different expression from that which hardens it now while she is so vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of itself: it was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated manoeuvres; and one had but to accept it--to answer what he asked without pretension, to address him when needful without grimace--and it increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed one like a fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when they are married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest woman the sun shines on."
I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester's project of marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when I first discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a man unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice of a wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood. All their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom. It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the advantages to the husband's own happiness offered by this plan convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all the world would act as I wished to act.
But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid. And as for the vague something--was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression? --that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare--to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their nature.
Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride--saw only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only their movements of importance--the rest of the party were occupied with their own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn and Ingram continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded their two turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets. Mild Mrs. Dent talked with good-natured Mrs. Eshton; and the two sometimes bestowed a courteous word or smile on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed politics, or county affairs, or justice business. Lord Ingram flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang to and with one of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly to the gallant speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with one consent, suspended their by-play to observe and listen to the principal actors: for, after all, Mr. Rochester and--because closely connected with him--Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party. If he was absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal over the spirits of his guests; and his re-entrance was sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation.
The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was not likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the gentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room. The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards. Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence. The room and the house were silent: only now and then the merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above.
It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of the hour to dress for dinner, when little Adele, who knelt by me in the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed-- "Voila, Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!"
I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the same time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became audible on the wet gravel. A post-chaise was approaching.
"What can possess him to come home in that style?" said Miss Ingram. "He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went out? and Pilot was with him:--what has he done with the animals?"
As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments so near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the breaking of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at first, but when she did, she curled her lip and moved to another casement. The post-chaise stopped; the driver rang the door-bell, and a gentleman alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not Mr. Rochester; it was a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger.
"How provoking!" exclaimed Miss Ingram: "you tiresome monkey!" (apostrophising Adele), "who perched you up in the window to give false intelligence?" and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in fault.
Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer entered. He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady present.
"It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam," said he, "when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns."
His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being somewhat unusual,--not precisely foreign, but still not altogether English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester's,--between thirty and forty; his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was a fine-looking man, at first sight especially. On closer examination, you detected something in his face that displeased, or rather that failed to please. His features were regular, but too relaxed: his eye was large and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a tame, vacant life--at least so I thought.
The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party. It was not till after dinner that I saw him again: he then seemed quite at his ease. But I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as being at the same time unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such as I never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly: there was no power in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in that aquiline nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye.
As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full over him--for he occupied an arm-chair drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as if he were cold, I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and the rough-coated keen-eyed dog, its guardian.
He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious friendship theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage that "extremes meet."
Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals. These last were discussing the stranger; they both called him "a beautiful man." Louisa said he was "a love of a creature," and she "adored him;" and Mary instanced his "pretty little mouth, and nice nose," as her ideal of the charming.
"And what a sweet-tempered forehead he has!" cried Louisa,--"so smooth--none of those frowning irregularities I dislike so much; and such a placid eye and smile!"
And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned them to the other side of the room, to settle some point about the deferred excursion to Hay Common.
I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, and I presently gathered that the new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came from some hot country: which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the house. Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and become acquainted with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend's dislike of the burning heats, the hurricanes, and rainy seasons of that region. I knew Mr. Rochester had been a traveller: Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought the continent of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had never heard a hint given of visits to more distant shores.
I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman,"--"quite troublesome."
"Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take herself off," replied the magistrate.
"No--stop!" interrupted Colonel Dent. "Don't send her away, Eshton; we might turn the thing to account; better consult the ladies." And speaking aloud, he continued--"Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common to visit the gipsy camp; Sam here says that one of the old Mother Bunches is in the servants' hall at this moment, and insists upon being brought in before 'the quality,' to tell them their fortunes. Would you like to see her?"
"Surely, colonel," cried Lady Ingram, "you would not encourage such a low impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!"
"But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady," said the footman; "nor can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to come in here."
"What does she want?" asked Mrs. Eshton. " 'To tell the gentry their fortunes,' she says, ma'am; and she swears she must and will do it."
"What is she like?" inquired the Misses Eshton, in a breath.
"A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock."
"Why, she's a real sorceress!" cried Frederick Lynn. "Let us have her in, of course."
"To be sure," rejoined his brother; "it would be a thousand pities to throw away such a chance of fun."
"My dear boys, what are you thinking about?" exclaimed Mrs. Lynn.
"I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding," chimed in the Dowager Ingram.
"Indeed, mama, but you can--and will," pronounced the haughty voice of Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool; where till now she had sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. "I have a curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame forward."
"My darling Blanche! recollect--" "I do--I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will--quick, Sam!"
"Yes--yes--yes!" cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. "Let her come--it will be excellent sport!"
The footman still lingered. "She looks such a rough one," said he.
"Go!" ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went.
Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery and jests was proceeding when Sam returned.
"She won't come now," said he. "She says it's not her mission to appear before the 'vulgar herd' (them's her words). I must show her into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by one."
"You see now, my queenly Blanche," began Lady Ingram, "she encroaches. Be advised, my angel girl--and--" "Show her into the library, of course," cut in the "angel girl." "It is not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either: I mean to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?"
"Yes, ma'am--but she looks such a tinkler."
"Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding."
Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full flow once more.
"She's ready now," said the footman, as he reappeared. "She wishes to know who will be her first visitor."
"I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go," said Colonel Dent.
"Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming."
Sam went and returned.
"She says, sir, that she'll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble themselves to come near her; nor," he added, with difficulty suppressing a titter, "any ladies either, except the young, and single."
"By Jove, she has taste!" exclaimed Henry Lynn.
Miss Ingram rose solemnly: "I go first," she said, in a tone which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in the van of his men.
"Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause--reflect!" was her mama's cry; but she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.
A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it "le cas" to wring her hands: which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered under their breath, and looked a little frightened.
The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the library- door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch.
Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with a glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence.
"Well, Blanche?" said Lord Ingram.
"What did she say, sister?" asked Mary.
"What did you think? How do you feel? --Is she a real fortune-teller?" demanded the Misses Eshton.
"Now, now, good people," returned Miss Ingram, "don't press upon me. Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you seem, by the importance of you all--my good mama included--ascribe to this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman. I have seen a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened."
Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined further conversation. I watched her for nearly half-an-hour: during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She had obviously not heard anything to her advantage: and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had been made her.
{During all that time she never turned a page: p184.jpg} Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Sam's calves must have ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body.
Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram's had been: we heard hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their wits.
"I am sure she is something not right!" they cried, one and all. "She told us such things! She knows all about us!" and they sank breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them.
Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of things they had said and done when they were mere children; described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of what they most wished for.
Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones.
In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I turned, and saw Sam.
"If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be you: there is no one else for it. What shall I tell her?"
"Oh, I will go by all means," I answered: and I was glad of the unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped out of the room, unobserved by any eye--for the company were gathered in one mass about the trembling trio just returned--and I closed the door quietly behind me.
"If you like, miss," said Sam, "I'll wait in the hall for you; and if she frightens you, just call and I'll come in."
"No, Sam, return to the kitchen: I am not in the least afraid." Nor was I; but I was a good deal interested and excited.
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The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl--if Sibyl she were--was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney- corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a broad- brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer-book, by the light of the blaze: she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read; she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.
I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the gipsy's appearance to trouble one's calm. She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elf- locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze.
"Well, and you want your fortune told?" she said, in a voice as decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.
"I don't care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to warn you, I have no faith."
"It's like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold."
"Did you? You've a quick ear."
"I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain."
"You need them all in your trade."
"I do; especially when I've customers like you to deal with. Why don't you tremble?"
"I'm not cold."
"Why don't you turn pale?"
"I am not sick."
"Why don't you consult my art?"
"I'm not silly."
The old crone "nichered" a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to smoke. Having indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body, took the pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire, said very deliberately--"You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly."
"Prove it," I rejoined.
"I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick; because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it waits you."
She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking with vigour.
"You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a solitary dependent in a great house."
"I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost any one?"
"In my circumstances."
"Yes; just so, in _your_ circumstances: but find me another precisely placed as you are."
"It would be easy to find you thousands."
"You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them. Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss results."
"I don't understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my life."
"If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm."
"And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?"
"To be sure."
I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned it, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She approached her face to the palm, and pored over it without touching it.
"It is too fine," said she. "I can make nothing of such a hand as that; almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not written there."
"I believe you," said I. "No," she continued, "it is in the face: on the forehead, about the eyes, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head."
"Ah! now you are coming to reality," I said, as I obeyed her. "I shall begin to put some faith in you presently."
I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however, as she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it illumined.
"I wonder with what feelings you came to me to-night," she said, when she had examined me a while. "I wonder what thoughts are busy in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic-lantern: just as little sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if they were really mere shadows of human forms, and not the actual substance."
"I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad."
"Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with whispers of the future?"
"Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself."
"A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that window- seat (you see I know your habits )--" "You have learned them from the servants."
"Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak truth, I have an acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole--" I started to my feet when I heard the name.
"You have--have you?" thought I; "there is diablerie in the business after all, then!"
"Don't be alarmed," continued the strange being; "she's a safe hand is Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her. But, as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of nothing but your future school? Have you no present interest in any of the company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not one face you study? one figure whose movements you follow with at least curiosity?"
"I like to observe all the faces and all the figures."
"But do you never single one from the rest--or it may be, two?"
"I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a tale: it amuses me to watch them."
"What tale do you like best to hear?"
"Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme--courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe--marriage."
"And do you like that monotonous theme?"
"Positively, I don't care about it: it is nothing to me."
"Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health, charming with beauty and endowed with the gifts of rank and fortune, sits and smiles in the eyes of a gentleman you--" "I what?"
"You know--and perhaps think well of."
"I don't know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I consider some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others young, dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty to be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me."
"You don't know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a syllable with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the house!"
"He is not at home."
"A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance--blot him, as it were, out of existence?"
"No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the theme you had introduced."
"I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of late so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester's eyes that they overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never remarked that?"
"Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests."
"No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured with the most lively and the most continuous?"
"The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator." I said this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk, voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and taking record of every pulse.
"Eagerness of a listener!" repeated she: "yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have noticed this?"
"Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face."
"Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if not gratitude?"
I said nothing.
"You have seen love: have you not? --and, looking forward, you have seen him married, and beheld his bride happy?"
"Humph! Not exactly. Your witch's skill is rather at fault sometimes."
"What the devil have you seen, then?"
"Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that Mr. Rochester is to be married?"
"Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram."
"Shortly?"
"Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt (though, with an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem to question it), they will be a superlatively happy pair. He must love such a handsome, noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she loves him, or, if not his person, at least his purse. I know she considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her something on that point about an hour ago which made her look wondrous grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an inch. I would advise her blackaviced suitor to look out: if another comes, with a longer or clearer rent-roll,--he's dished--" "But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester's fortune: I came to hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it."
"Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness: that I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid it carefully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends on yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you will do so, is the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug."
"Don't keep me long; the fire scorches me."
{She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair: p190.jpg} I knelt. She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair. She began muttering,-- "The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made,--to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only confirm me in my opinion. The eye is favourable.
"As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of solitude: it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often, and have human affection for its interlocutor. That feature too is propitious.
"I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say,--'I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.' The forehead declares, 'Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience.'
"Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have formed my plans--right plans I deem them--and in them I have attended to the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution--such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight--to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood--no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet--That will do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish now to protract this moment _ad infinitum_; but I dare not. So far I have governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me; the play is played out'."
Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I dream still? The old woman's voice had changed: her accent, her gesture, and all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass--as the speech of my own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred the fire, and I looked again: but she drew her bonnet and her bandage closer about her face, and again beckoned me to depart. The flame illuminated her hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at once noticed that hand. It was no more the withered limb of eld than my own; it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times before. Again I looked at the face; which was no longer turned from me--on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the head advanced.
"Well, Jane, do you know me?" asked the familiar voice.
"Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then--" "But the string is in a knot--help me."
"Break it, sir."
"There, then--'Off, ye lendings!'" And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his disguise.
"Now, sir, what a strange idea!"
"But well carried out, eh? Don't you think so?"
"With the ladies you must have managed well."
"But not with you?"
"You did not act the character of a gipsy with me."
"What character did I act? My own?"
"No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you have been trying to draw me out--or in; you have been talking nonsense to make me talk nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir."
"Do you forgive me, Jane?"
"I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on reflection, I find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive you; but it was not right."
"Oh, you have been very correct--very careful, very sensible."
I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had. It was a comfort; but, indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the interview. Something of masquerade I suspected. I knew gipsies and fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman had expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her anxiety to conceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace Poole--that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I considered her. I had never thought of Mr. Rochester.
"Well," said he, "what are you musing about? What does that grave smile signify?"
"Wonder and self-congratulation, sir. I have your permission to retire now, I suppose?"
"No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room yonder are doing."
"Discussing the gipsy, I daresay."
"Sit down! --Let me hear what they said about me."
"I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o'clock. Oh, are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since you left this morning?"
"A stranger! --no; who can it be? I expected no one; is he gone?"
"No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty of installing himself here till you returned."
"The devil he did! Did he give his name?"
"His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think."
Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if to lead me to a chair. As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath.
"Mason! --the West Indies!" he said, in the tone one might fancy a speaking automaton to enounce its single words; "Mason! --the West Indies!" he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times, growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly seemed to know what he was doing.
"Do you feel ill, sir?" I inquired.
"Jane, I've got a blow; I've got a blow, Jane!" He staggered.
"Oh, lean on me, sir."
"Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now."
"Yes, sir, yes; and my arm."
He sat down, and made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both his own, he chafed it; gazing on me, at the same time, with the most troubled and dreary look.
"My little friend!" said he, "I wish I were in a quiet island with only you; and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections removed from me."
"Can I help you, sir? --I'd give my life to serve you."
"Jane, if aid is wanted, I'll seek it at your hands; I promise you that."
"Thank you, sir. Tell me what to do,--I'll try, at least, to do it."
"Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the dining-room: they will be at supper there; and tell me if Mason is with them, and what he is doing."
I went. I found all the party in the dining-room at supper, as Mr. Rochester had said; they were not seated at table,--the supper was arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they stood about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in their hands. Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and conversation were general and animated. Mr. Mason stood near the fire, talking to Colonel and Mrs. Dent, and appeared as merry as any of them. I filled a wine-glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did so: she thought I was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I returned to the library.
Mr. Rochester's extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more firm and stern. He took the glass from my hand.
"Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!" he said. He swallowed the contents and returned it to me. "What are they doing, Jane?"
"Laughing and talking, sir."
"They don't look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard something strange?"
"Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety."
"And Mason?"
"He was laughing too."
"If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you do, Jane?"
"Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could."
He half smiled. "But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at me coldly, and whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and then dropped off and left me one by one, what then? Would you go with them?"
"I rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with you."
"To comfort me?"
"Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could."
"And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?"
"I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I should care nothing about it."
"Then, you could dare censure for my sake?"
"I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; as you, I am sure, do."
"Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in his ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show him in here and then leave me."
"Yes, sir."
I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight among them. I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went upstairs.
At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester's voice, and heard him say, "This way, Mason; this is your room."
He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was soon asleep.
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I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to let down my window-blind. The consequence was, that when the moon, which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awaking in the dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk--silver-white and crystal clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn; I half rose, and stretched my arm to draw the curtain.
Good God! What a cry!
The night--its silence--its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.
My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed. The cry died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being uttered that fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the widest-winged condor on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the cloud shrouding his eyrie. The thing delivering such utterance must rest ere it could repeat the effort.
It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And overhead--yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling--I now heard a struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered voice shouted-- "Help! help! help!" three times rapidly.
"Will no one come?" it cried; and then, while the staggering and stamping went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:-- "Rochester! Rochester! for God's sake, come!"
A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery. Another step stamped on the flooring above and something fell; and there was silence.
I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations, terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and ladies alike had quitted their beds; and "Oh! what is it?" --"Who is hurt?" --"What has happened?" --"Fetch a light!" --"Is it fire?" --"Are there robbers?" --"Where shall we run?" was demanded confusedly on all hands. But for the moonlight they would have been in complete darkness. They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the confusion was inextricable.
"Where the devil is Rochester?" cried Colonel Dent. "I cannot find him in his bed."
"Here! here!" was shouted in return. "Be composed, all of you: I'm coming."
And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey. One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss Ingram.
"What awful event has taken place?" said she. "Speak! let us know the worst at once!"
"But don't pull me down or strangle me," he replied: for the Misses Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.
"All's right! --all's right!" he cried. "It's a mere rehearsal of Much Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous."
And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself by an effort, he added-- "A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She's an excitable, nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright. Now, then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is settled, she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the goodness to set the ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in evincing superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames" (to the dowagers), "you will take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill gallery any longer."
And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived to get them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories. I did not wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as unnoticed I had left it.
Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed myself carefully. The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the words that had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for they had proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it was not a servant's dream which had thus struck horror through the house; and that the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention framed to pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready for emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long time by the window looking out over the silent grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew not what. It seemed to me that some event must follow the strange cry, struggle, and call.
No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and in about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as a desert. It seemed that sleep and night had resumed their empire. Meantime the moon declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in the cold and darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed as I was. I left the window, and moved with little noise across the carpet; as I stooped to take off my shoes, a cautious hand tapped low at the door.
"Am I wanted?" I asked.
"Are you up?" asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my master's.
"Yes, sir."
"And dressed?"
"Yes."
"Come out, then, quietly."
I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.
"I want you," he said: "come this way: take your time, and make no noise."
My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a cat. He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and stood at his side.
"Have you a sponge in your room?" he asked in a whisper.
"Yes, sir."
"Have you any salts--volatile salts?"
"Yes."
"Go back and fetch both."
I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer, and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a key in his hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock; he paused, and addressed me again.
"You don't turn sick at the sight of blood?"
"I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet."
I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no faintness.
"Just give me your hand," he said: "it will not do to risk a fainting fit."
I put my fingers into his. "Warm and steady," was his remark: he turned the key and opened the door.
I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, "Wait a minute," and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole's own goblin ha! ha! _She_ then was there. He made some sort of arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him: he came out and closed the door behind him.
"Here, Jane!" he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face--the stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in blood.
"Hold the candle," said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a basin of water from the washstand: "Hold that," said he. I obeyed. He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils. Mr. Mason shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester opened the shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged away blood, trickling fast down.
"Is there immediate danger?" murmured Mr. Mason.
"Pooh! No--a mere scratch. Don't be so overcome, man: bear up! I'll fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you'll be able to be removed by morning, I hope. Jane," he continued.
"Sir?"
"I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an hour, or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when it returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to him on any pretext--and--Richard, it will be at the peril of your life if you speak to her: open your lips--agitate yourself--and I'll not answer for the consequences."
Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear, either of death or of something else, appeared almost to paralyse him. Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded to use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then saying, "Remember! --No conversation," he left the room. I experienced a strange feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating step ceased to be heard.
Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes--that was appalling--the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.
I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly countenance--these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose--these eyes now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, and ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand again and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling gore. I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite--whose front, divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ.
According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here or glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that bent his brow; now St. John's long hair that waved; and anon the devilish face of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed gathering life and threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor--of Satan himself--in his subordinate's form.
Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den. But since Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I heard but three sounds at three long intervals,--a step creak, a momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan.
Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this that lived incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner? --what mystery, that broke out now in fire and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?
And this man I bent over--this commonplace, quiet stranger--how had he become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at him? What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr. Rochester assign him an apartment below--what brought him here! And why, now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him? Why did he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced? Why _did_ Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment? His guest had been outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the inertness of the former: the few words which had passed between them assured me of this. It was evident that in their former intercourse, the passive disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by the active energy of the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester's dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's arrival? Why had the mere name of this unresisting individual--whom his word now sufficed to control like a child--fallen on him, a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on an oak?
Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered: "Jane, I have got a blow--I have got a blow, Jane." I could not forget how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester.
"When will he come? When will he come?" I cried inwardly, as the night lingered and lingered--as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened: and neither day nor aid arrived. I had, again and again, held the water to Mason's white lips; again and again offered him the stimulating salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or mental suffering, or loss of blood, or all three combined, were fast prostrating his strength. He moaned so, and looked so weak, wild, and lost, I feared he was dying; and I might not even speak to him.
The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived streaks of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his distant kennel in the courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted: in five minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me my watch was relieved. It could not have lasted more than two hours: many a week has seemed shorter.
Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to fetch.
"Now, Carter, be on the alert," he said to this last: "I give you but half-an-hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages, getting the patient downstairs and all."
"But is he fit to move, sir?"
"No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his spirits must be kept up. Come, set to work."
Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland blind, let in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and cheered to see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were beginning to brighten the east. Then he approached Mason, whom the surgeon was already handling.
"Now, my good fellow, how are you?" he asked.
"She's done for me, I fear," was the faint reply.
"Not a whit! --courage! This day fortnight you'll hardly be a pin the worse of it: you've lost a little blood; that's all. Carter, assure him there's no danger."
"I can do that conscientiously," said Carter, who had now undone the bandages; "only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would not have bled so much--but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there have been teeth here!"
"She bit me," he murmured. "She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife from her."
"You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at once," said Mr. Rochester.
"But under such circumstances, what could one do?" returned Mason. "Oh, it was frightful!" he added, shuddering. "And I did not expect it: she looked so quiet at first."
"I warned you," was his friend's answer; "I said--be on your guard when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the interview to-night, and alone."
"I thought I could have done some good."
"You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear you: but, however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer enough for not taking my advice; so I'll say no more. Carter--hurry! --hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off."
"Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this other wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think."
"She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart," said Mason.
I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust, horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he only said-- "Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don't repeat it."
"I wish I could forget it," was the answer.
"You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish Town, you may think of her as dead and buried--or rather, you need not think of her at all."
"Impossible to forget this night!"
"It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you were as dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and talking now. There! --Carter has done with you or nearly so; I'll make you decent in a trice. Jane" (he turned to me for the first time since his re-entrance), "take this key: go down into my bedroom, and walk straight forward into my dressing-room: open the top drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and neck-handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble."
I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles named, and returned with them.
"Now," said he, "go to the other side of the bed while I order his toilet; but don't leave the room: you may be wanted again."
I retired as directed.
"Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?" inquired Mr. Rochester presently.
"No, sir; all was very still."
"We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both for your sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have striven long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at last. Here, Carter, help him on with his waist-coat. Where did you leave your furred cloak? You can't travel a mile without that, I know, in this damned cold climate. In your room? --Jane, run down to Mr. Mason's room,--the one next mine,--and fetch a cloak you will see there."
Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined and edged with fur.
"Now, I've another errand for you," said my untiring master; "you must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane! --a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find there,--quick!"
I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.
"That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan--a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance. Jane, a little water."
He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on the washstand.
"That will do;--now wet the lip of the phial."
I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it to Mason.
"Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so."
"But will it hurt me? --is it inflammatory?"
"Drink! drink! drink!"
Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm-- "Now I am sure you can get on your feet," he said--"try."
The patient rose.
"Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard; step out--that's it!"
"I do feel better," remarked Mr. Mason.
"I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the backstairs; unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the post-chaise you will see in the yard--or just outside, for I told him not to drive his rattling wheels over the pavement--to be ready; we are coming: and, Jane, if any one is about, come to the foot of the stairs and hem."
It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The side-passage door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as possible: all the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there was a post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box, stationed outside. I approached him, and said the gentlemen were coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round and listened. The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet drawn over the servants' chamber windows; little birds were just twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped from time to time in their closed stables: all else was still.
The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him into the chaise; Carter followed.
"Take care of him," said Mr. Rochester to the latter, "and keep him at your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two to see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?"
"The fresh air revives me, Fairfax."
"Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind--good-bye, Dick."
"Fairfax--" "Well what is it?"
"Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: let her--" he stopped and burst into tears.
"I do my best; and have done it, and will do it," was the answer: he shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.
"Yet would to God there was an end of all this!" added Mr. Rochester, as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates.
This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a door in the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done with me, prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call "Jane!" He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for me.
"Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments," he said; "that house is a mere dungeon: don't you feel it so?"
"It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir."
"The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes," he answered; "and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now _here_" (he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) "all is real, sweet, and pure."
He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies, mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them: the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them.
"Jane, will you have a flower?"
He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to me.
"Thank you, sir."
"Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm--this placid and balmly atmosphere?"
"I do, very much."
"You have passed a strange night, Jane."
"Yes, sir."
"And it has made you look pale--were you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?"
"I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room."
"But I had fastened the door--I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb--my pet lamb--so near a wolf's den, unguarded: you were safe."
"Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?"
"Oh yes! don't trouble your head about her--put the thing out of your thoughts."
"Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays."
"Never fear--I will take care of myself."
"Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?"
"I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any day."
"But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or wilfully injure you."
"Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me--but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness."
"Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show him how to avert the danger."
He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it from him.
"If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only had to say to him 'Do that,' and the thing has been done. But I cannot give him orders in this case: I cannot say 'Beware of harming me, Richard;' for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is possible. Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you further. You are my little friend, are you not?"
"I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right."
"Precisely: I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait and mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing me--working for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say, '_all that is right_:' for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there would be no light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no lively glance and animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, quiet and pale, and would say, 'No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot do it, because it is wrong;' and would become immutable as a fixed star. Well, you too have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare not show you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you are, you should transfix me at once."
"If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me, sir, you are very safe."
"God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down."
The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me: but I stood before him.
"Sit," he said; "the bench is long enough for two. You don't hesitate to take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane?"
I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been unwise.
"Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew--while all the flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their young ones' breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do their first spell of work--I'll put a case to you, which you must endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you err in staying."
"No, sir; I am content."
"Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:--suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I don't say a _crime_; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is _error_. The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel will not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure--I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure--such as dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment: you make a new acquaintance--how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come back--higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom--a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment approves?"
He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.
Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query: "Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant, man justified in daring the world's opinion, in order to attach to him for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?"
"Sir," I answered, "a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend and solace to heal."
"But the instrument--the instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the instrument. I have myself--I tell it you without parable--been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for my cure in--" He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling. I almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many minutes--so long was the silence protracted. At last I looked up at the tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.
"Little friend," said he, in quite a changed tone--while his face changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh and sarcastic--"you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: don't you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a vengeance?"
He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and when he came back he was humming a tune.
"Jane, Jane," said he, stopping before me, "you are quite pale with your vigils: don't you curse me for disturbing your rest?"
"Curse you? No, sir."
"Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers! They were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?"
"Whenever I can be useful, sir."
"For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall not be able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company? To you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have seen her and know her."
"Yes, sir."
"She's a rare one, is she not, Jane?"
"Yes, sir."
"A strapper--a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me! there's Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery, through that wicket."
As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard, saying cheerfully-- "Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before sunrise: I rose at four to see him off."
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{
"id": "1260"
}
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21
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Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life, because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension. And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies of Nature with man.
When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble, either to one's self or one's kin. The saying might have worn out of my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which served indelibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie was sent for home to the deathbed of her little sister.
Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in running water. It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it nestled close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven successive nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber.
I did not like this iteration of one idea--this strange recurrence of one image, and I grew nervous as bedtime approached and the hour of the vision drew near. It was from companionship with this baby-phantom I had been roused on that moonlight night when I heard the cry; and it was on the afternoon of the day following I was summoned downstairs by a message that some one wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax's room. On repairing thither, I found a man waiting for me, having the appearance of a gentleman's servant: he was dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he held in his hand was surrounded with a crape band.
"I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss," he said, rising as I entered; "but my name is Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live there still."
"Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well: you used to give me a ride sometimes on Miss Georgiana's bay pony. And how is Bessie? You are married to Bessie?"
"Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me another little one about two months since--we have three now--and both mother and child are thriving."
"And are the family well at the house, Robert?"
"I am sorry I can't give you better news of them, Miss: they are very badly at present--in great trouble."
"I hope no one is dead," I said, glancing at his black dress. He too looked down at the crape round his hat and replied-- "Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London."
"Mr. John?"
"Yes."
"And how does his mother bear it?"
"Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has been very wild: these last three years he gave himself up to strange ways, and his death was shocking."
"I heard from Bessie he was not doing well."
"Doing well! He could not do worse: he ruined his health and his estate amongst the worst men and the worst women. He got into debt and into jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free he returned to his old companions and habits. His head was not strong: the knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever heard. He came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted missis to give up all to him. Missis refused: her means have long been much reduced by his extravagance; so he went back again, and the next news was that he was dead. How he died, God knows! --they say he killed himself."
I was silent: the things were frightful. Robert Leaven resumed-- "Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got very stout, but was not strong with it; and the loss of money and fear of poverty were quite breaking her down. The information about Mr. John's death and the manner of it came too suddenly: it brought on a stroke. She was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she seemed rather better: she appeared as if she wanted to say something, and kept making signs to my wife and mumbling. It was only yesterday morning, however, that Bessie understood she was pronouncing your name; and at last she made out the words, 'Bring Jane--fetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to her.' Bessie is not sure whether she is in her right mind, or means anything by the words; but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana, and advised them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but their mother grew so restless, and said, 'Jane, Jane,' so many times, that at last they consented. I left Gateshead yesterday: and if you can get ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with me early to-morrow morning."
"Yes, Robert, I shall be ready: it seems to me that I ought to go."
"I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse: but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get off?"
"Yes; and I will do it now;" and having directed him to the servants' hall, and recommended him to the care of John's wife, and the attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester.
He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the stables, or the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him;--yes: she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram. To the billiard- room I hastened: the click of balls and the hum of voices resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton, and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some courage to disturb so interesting a party; my errand, however, was one I could not defer, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss Ingram's side. She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily: her eyes seemed to demand, "What can the creeping creature want now?" and when I said, in a low voice, "Mr. Rochester," she made a movement as if tempted to order me away. I remember her appearance at the moment--it was very graceful and very striking: she wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure scarf was twisted in her hair. She had been all animation with the game, and irritated pride did not lower the expression of her haughty lineaments.
"Does that person want you?" she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. Rochester turned to see who the "person" was. He made a curious grimace--one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations--threw down his cue and followed me from the room.
"Well, Jane?" he said, as he rested his back against the schoolroom door, which he had shut.
"If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two."
"What to do? --where to go?"
"To see a sick lady who has sent for me."
"What sick lady? --where does she live?"
"At Gateshead; in ---shire." " -shire? That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends for people to see her that distance?"
"Her name is Reed, sir--Mrs. Reed."
"Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate."
"It is his widow, sir."
"And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?"
"Mr. Reed was my uncle--my mother's brother."
"The deuce he was! You never told me that before: you always said you had no relations."
"None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me off."
"Why?"
"Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me."
"But Reed left children? --you must have cousins? Sir George Lynn was talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of the veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season or two ago in London."
"John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined his family, and is supposed to have committed suicide. The news so shocked his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack."
"And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never think of running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps, be dead before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off."
"Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now."
"How long will you stay?"
"As short a time as possible, sir."
"Promise me only to stay a week--" "I had better not pass my word: I might be obliged to break it."
"At all events you _will_ come back: you will not be induced under any pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?"
"Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well."
"And who goes with you? You don't travel a hundred miles alone."
"No, sir, she has sent her coachman."
"A person to be trusted?"
"Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family."
Mr. Rochester meditated. "When do you wish to go?"
"Early to-morrow morning, sir."
"Well, you must have some money; you can't travel without money, and I daresay you have not much: I have given you no salary yet. How much have you in the world, Jane?" he asked, smiling.
I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. "Five shillings, sir." He took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over it as if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his pocket-book: "Here," said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds, and he owed me but fifteen. I told him I had no change.
"I don't want change; you know that. Take your wages."
I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first; then, as if recollecting something, he said-- "Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps, stay away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is it not plenty?"
"Yes, sir, but now you owe me five."
"Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds."
"Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you while I have the opportunity."
"Matter of business? I am curious to hear it."
"You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be married?"
"Yes; what then?"
"In that case, sir, Adele ought to go to school: I am sure you will perceive the necessity of it."
"To get her out of my bride's way, who might otherwise walk over her rather too emphatically? There's sense in the suggestion; not a doubt of it. Adele, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must march straight to--the devil?"
"I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere."
"In course!" he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some minutes.
"And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?"
"No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify me in asking favours of them--but I shall advertise."
"You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!" he growled. "At your peril you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I've a use for it."
"And so have I, sir," I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind me. "I could not spare the money on any account."
"Little niggard!" said he, "refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me five pounds, Jane."
"Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence."
"Just let me look at the cash."
"No, sir; you are not to be trusted."
"Jane!"
"Sir?"
"Promise me one thing."
"I'll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to perform."
"Not to advertise: and to trust this quest of a situation to me. I'll find you one in time."
"I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise that I and Adele shall be both safe out of the house before your bride enters it."
"Very well! very well! I'll pledge my word on it. You go to-morrow, then?"
"Yes, sir; early."
"Shall you come down to the drawing-room after dinner?"
"No, sir, I must prepare for the journey."
"Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?"
"I suppose so, sir."
"And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; I'm not quite up to it."
"They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer."
"Then say it."
"Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present."
"What must I say?"
"The same, if you like, sir."
"Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?"
"Yes?"
"It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should like something else: a little addition to the rite. If one shook hands, for instance; but no--that would not content me either. So you'll do no more than say Farewell, Jane?"
"It is enough, sir: as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty word as in many."
"Very likely; but it is blank and cool--'Farewell.'"
"How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?" I asked myself; "I want to commence my packing." The dinner-bell rang, and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I saw him no more during the day, and was off before he had risen in the morning.
I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o'clock in the afternoon of the first of May: I stepped in there before going up to the hall. It was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung with little white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and fire-irons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear. Bessie sat on the hearth, nursing her last-born, and Robert and his sister played quietly in a corner.
"Bless you! --I knew you would come!" exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I entered.
"Yes, Bessie," said I, after I had kissed her; "and I trust I am not too late. How is Mrs. Reed? --Alive still, I hope."
"Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was. The doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks she will finally recover."
"Has she mentioned me lately?"
"She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would come, but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up at the house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and wakes up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself here an hour, Miss, and then I will go up with you?"
Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the cradle and went to welcome him: afterwards she insisted on my taking off my bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and tired. I was glad to accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be relieved of my travelling garb just as passively as I used to let her undress me when a child.
Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about--setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light foot and good looks.
Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit still, quite in her old peremptory tones. I must be served at the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.
She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told her he was rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me kindly, and I was content. Then I went on to describe to her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details Bessie listened with interest: they were precisely of the kind she relished.
In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me my bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the hall. It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years ago, walked down the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart--a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation--to seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored. The same hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.
"You shall go into the breakfast-room first," said Bessie, as she preceded me through the hall; "the young ladies will be there."
In another moment I was within that apartment. There was every article of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was first introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still covered the hearth. Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I could distinguish the two volumes of Bewick's British Birds occupying their old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver's Travels and the Arabian Nights ranged just above. The inanimate objects were not changed; but the living things had altered past recognition.
Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as tall as Miss Ingram--very thin too, with a sallow face and severe mien. There was something ascetic in her look, which was augmented by the extreme plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress, a starched linen collar, hair combed away from the temples, and the nun-like ornament of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix. This I felt sure was Eliza, though I could trace little resemblance to her former self in that elongated and colourless visage.
The other was as certainly Georgiana: but not the Georgiana I remembered--the slim and fairy-like girl of eleven. This was a full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome and regular features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair. The hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so different from her sister's--so much more flowing and becoming--it looked as stylish as the other's looked puritanical.
In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother--and only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent's Cairngorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and chin--perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom.
Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both addressed me by the name of "Miss Eyre." Eliza's greeting was delivered in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she sat down again, fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me. Georgiana added to her "How d'ye do?" several commonplaces about my journey, the weather, and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone: and accompanied by sundry side-glances that measured me from head to foot--now traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they think you a "quiz" without actually saying the words. A certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing them by any positive rudeness in word or deed.
A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I was surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one and the semi- sarcastic attentions of the other--Eliza did not mortify, nor Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had other things to think about; within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent than any they could raise--pains and pleasures so much more acute and exquisite had been excited than any it was in their power to inflict or bestow--that their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad.
"How is Mrs. Reed?" I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana, who thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an unexpected liberty.
"Mrs. Reed? Ah! mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt if you can see her to-night."
"If," said I, "you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come, I should be much obliged to you."
Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and wide. "I know she had a particular wish to see me," I added, "and I would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely necessary."
"Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening," remarked Eliza. I soon rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and said I would just step out to Bessie--who was, I dared say, in the kitchen--and ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to receive me or not to- night. I went, and having found Bessie and despatched her on my errand, I proceeded to take further measures. It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink from arrogance: received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved to quit Gateshead the very next morning; now, it was disclosed to me all at once that that would be a foolish plan. I had taken a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt, and I must stay with her till she was better--or dead: as to her daughters' pride or folly, I must put it on one side, make myself independent of it. So I addressed the housekeeper; asked her to show me a room, told her I should probably be a visitor here for a week or two, had my trunk conveyed to my chamber, and followed it thither myself: I met Bessie on the landing.
"Missis is awake," said she; "I have told her you are here: come and let us see if she will know you."
I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I had so often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former days. I hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded light stood on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the great four-post bed with amber hangings as of old; there the toilet-table, the armchair, and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, half-expecting to see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk there, waiting to leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and leant over the high-piled pillows.
Well did I remember Mrs. Reed's face, and I eagerly sought the familiar image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries--to be reconciled and clasp hands in amity.
The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever--there was that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors and sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped down and kissed her: she looked at me.
"Is this Jane Eyre?" she said.
"Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?"
I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened on her hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and, turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night was warm. Again she regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her opinion of me--her feeling towards me--was unchanged and unchangeable. I knew by her stony eye--opaque to tenderness, indissoluble to tears--that she was resolved to consider me bad to the last; because to believe me good would give her no generous pleasure: only a sense of mortification.
I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination to subdue her--to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and her will. My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them back to their source. I brought a chair to the bed-head: I sat down and leaned over the pillow.
"You sent for me," I said, "and I am here; and it is my intention to stay till I see how you get on."
"Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?"
"Yes."
"Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some things over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is too late, and I have a difficulty in recalling them. But there was something I wished to say--let me see--" The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken place in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew the bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt, fixed it down: she was at once irritated.
"Sit up!" said she; "don't annoy me with holding the clothes fast. Are you Jane Eyre?"
"I am Jane Eyre."
"I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe. Such a burden to be left on my hands--and so much annoyance as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition, and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural watchings of one's movements! I declare she talked to me once like something mad, or like a fiend--no child ever spoke or looked as she did; I was glad to get her away from the house. What did they do with her at Lowood? The fever broke out there, and many of the pupils died. She, however, did not die: but I said she did--I wish she had died!"
"A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?"
"I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's only sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family's disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby; though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it--a sickly, whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all night long--not screaming heartily like any other child, but whimpering and moaning. Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he ever noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike. In his last illness, he had it brought continually to his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep the creature. I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak. John does not at all resemble his father, and I am glad of it: John is like me and like my brothers--he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease tormenting me with letters for money? I have no more money to give him: we are getting poor. I must send away half the servants and shut up part of the house; or let it off. I can never submit to do that--yet how are we to get on? Two-thirds of my income goes in paying the interest of mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and always loses--poor boy! He is beset by sharpers: John is sunk and degraded--his look is frightful--I feel ashamed for him when I see him."
She was getting much excited. "I think I had better leave her now," said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed.
"Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards night--in the morning she is calmer."
I rose. "Stop!" exclaimed Mrs. Reed, "there is another thing I wished to say. He threatens me--he continually threatens me with his own death, or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with a great wound in his throat, or with a swollen and blackened face. I am come to a strange pass: I have heavy troubles. What is to be done? How is the money to be had?"
Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative draught: she succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more composed, and sank into a dozing state. I then left her.
More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with her. She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I got on as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very cold, indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing, reading, or writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her sister. Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her canary bird by the hour, and take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem at a loss for occupation or amusement: I had brought my drawing materials with me, and they served me for both.
Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad's head, crowned with lotus- flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom.
One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had left them to the last, because they required the most careful working. I drew them large; I shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the irids lustrous and large. "Good! but not quite the thing," I thought, as I surveyed the effect: "they want more force and spirit;" and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might flash more brilliantly--a happy touch or two secured success. There, I had a friend's face under my gaze; and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it; I smiled at the speaking likeness: I was absorbed and content.
"Is that a portrait of some one you know?" asked Eliza, who had approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied: it was, in fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But what was that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also advanced to look. The other drawings pleased her much, but she called that "an ugly man." They both seemed surprised at my skill. I offered to sketch their portraits; and each, in turn, sat for a pencil outline. Then Georgiana produced her album. I promised to contribute a water-colour drawing: this put her at once into good humour. She proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we had been out two hours, we were deep in a confidential conversation: she had favoured me with a description of the brilliant winter she had spent in London two seasons ago--of the admiration she had there excited--the attention she had received; and I even got hints of the titled conquest she had made. In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints were enlarged on: various soft conversations were reported, and sentimental scenes represented; and, in short, a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit. The communications were renewed from day to day: they always ran on the same theme--herself, her loves, and woes. It was strange she never once adverted either to her mother's illness, or her brother's death, or the present gloomy state of the family prospects. Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety, and aspirations after dissipations to come. She passed about five minutes each day in her mother's sick-room, and no more.
Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I never saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result of her diligence. She had an alarm to call her up early. I know not how she occupied herself before breakfast, but after that meal she divided her time into regular portions, and each hour had its allotted task. Three times a day she studied a little book, which I found, on inspection, was a Common Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the great attraction of that volume, and she said, "the Rubric." Three hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread, the border of a square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a carpet. In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article, she informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church lately erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her diary; two to working by herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the regulation of her accounts. She seemed to want no company; no conversation. I believe she was happy in her way: this routine sufficed for her; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her to vary its clockwork regularity.
She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative than usual, that John's conduct, and the threatened ruin of the family, had been a source of profound affliction to her: but she had now, she said, settled her mind, and formed her resolution. Her own fortune she had taken care to secure; and when her mother died--and it was wholly improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either recover or linger long--she would execute a long-cherished project: seek a retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured from disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous world. I asked if Georgiana would accompany her.
"Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common: they never had had. She would not be burdened with her society for any consideration. Georgiana should take her own course; and she, Eliza, would take hers."
Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her time in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house, and wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send her an invitation up to town. "It would be so much better," she said, "if she could only get out of the way for a month or two, till all was over." I did not ask what she meant by "all being over," but I suppose she referred to the expected decease of her mother and the gloomy sequel of funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more notice of her sister's indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring, lounging object had been before her. One day, however, as she put away her account-book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus-- "Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength: if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered--you must have music, dancing, and society--or you languish, you die away. Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day; share it into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five minutes--include all; do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid regularity. The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment: you have had to seek no one's company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do. Take this advice: the first and last I shall offer you; then you will not want me or any one else, happen what may. Neglect it--go on as heretofore, craving, whining, and idling--and suffer the results of your idiocy, however bad and insuperable they may be. I tell you this plainly; and listen: for though I shall no more repeat what I am now about to say, I shall steadily act on it. After my mother's death, I wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is carried to the vault in Gateshead Church, you and I will be as separate as if we had never known each other. You need not think that because we chanced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me down by even the feeblest claim: I can tell you this--if the whole human race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we two stood alone on the earth, I would leave you in the old world, and betake myself to the new."
She closed her lips.
"You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade," answered Georgiana. "Everybody knows you are the most selfish, heartless creature in existence: and _I_ know your spiteful hatred towards me: I have had a specimen of it before in the trick you played me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to be raised above you, to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare not show your face, and so you acted the spy and informer, and ruined my prospects for ever." Georgiana took out her handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassable, and assiduously industrious.
True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.
It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a saint's-day service at the new church--for in matters of religion she was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on week-days as there were prayers.
I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped, who lay there almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a remittent attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after, would slip out of the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful; but she had her own family to mind, and could only come occasionally to the hall. I found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse was there; the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid face sunk in the pillows: the fire was dying in the grate. I renewed the fuel, re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the window.
The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew tempestuously: "One lies there," I thought, "who will soon be beyond the war of earthly elements. Whither will that spirit--now struggling to quit its material tenement--flit when at length released?"
In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns, recalled her dying words--her faith--her doctrine of the equality of disembodied souls. I was still listening in thought to her well-remembered tones--still picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed, and whispered her longing to be restored to her divine Father's bosom--when a feeble voice murmured from the couch behind: "Who is that?"
I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days: was she reviving? I went up to her.
"It is I, Aunt Reed."
"Who--I?" was her answer. "Who are you?" looking at me with surprise and a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. "You are quite a stranger to me--where is Bessie?"
"She is at the lodge, aunt."
"Aunt," she repeated. "Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the Gibsons; and yet I know you--that face, and the eyes and forehead, are quiet familiar to me: you are like--why, you are like Jane Eyre!"
I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring my identity.
"Yet," said she, "I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts deceive me. I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where none exists: besides, in eight years she must be so changed." I now gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me to be: and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield.
"I am very ill, I know," she said ere long. "I was trying to turn myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?"
I assured her we were alone.
"Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own child; the other--" she stopped. "After all, it is of no great importance, perhaps," she murmured to herself: "and then I may get better; and to humble myself so to her is painful."
She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face changed; she seemed to experience some inward sensation--the precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.
"Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better tell her. --Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you will see there."
I obeyed her directions. "Read the letter," she said.
It was short, and thus conceived:-- "Madam,--Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my intention to write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave. --I am, Madam, &c., &c., "JOHN EYRE, Madeira."
It was dated three years back.
"Why did I never hear of this?" I asked.
"Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane--the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice. --Bring me some water! Oh, make haste!"
"Dear Mrs. Reed," said I, as I offered her the draught she required, "think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind. Forgive me for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine years have passed since that day."
She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water and drawn breath, she went on thus-- "I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died of typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please: write and contradict my assertion--expose my falsehood as soon as you like. You were born, I think, to be my torment: my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit."
"If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to regard me with kindness and forgiveness" "You have a very bad disposition," said she, "and one to this day I feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend."
"My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to be reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt."
I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She said I oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water. As I laid her down--for I raised her and supported her on my arm while she drank--I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine: the feeble fingers shrank from my touch--the glazing eyes shunned my gaze.
"Love me, then, or hate me, as you will," I said at last, "you have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God's, and be at peace."
Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the effort to change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever hated me--dying, she must hate me still.
The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half-an-hour longer, hoping to see some sign of amity: but she gave none. She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally: at twelve o'clock that night she died. I was not present to close her eyes, nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the next morning that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza and I went to look at her: Georgiana, who had burst out into loud weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed's once robust and active frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul. A strange and solemn object was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and pain: nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or subduing did it inspire; only a grating anguish for _her_ woes--not _my_ loss--and a sombre tearless dismay at the fearfulness of death in such a form.
Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes she observed-- "With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her life was shortened by trouble." And then a spasm constricted her mouth for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear.
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Mr. Rochester had given me but one week's leave of absence: yet a month elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister's interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle; and I thought to myself, "If you and I were destined to live always together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing. I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I should assign you your share of labour, and compel you to accomplish it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your keeping some of those drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part."
At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to request me to stay another week. Her plans required all her time and attention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and holding no communication with any one. She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence.
One morning she told me I was at liberty. "And," she added, "I am obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct! There is some difference between living with such an one as you and with Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no one. To-morrow," she continued, "I set out for the Continent. I shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle--a nunnery you would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the veil."
I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade her from it. "The vocation will fit you to a hair," I thought: "much good may it do you!"
When we parted, she said: "Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well: you have some sense."
I then returned: "You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don't much care."
"You are in the right," said she; and with these words we each went our separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana made an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she endowed with her fortune.
How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.
My journey seemed tedious--very tedious: fifty miles one day, a night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her disfigured and discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and servants--few was the number of relatives--the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on and analysed their separate peculiarities of person and character. The evening arrival at the great town of--scattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: laid down on my traveller's bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.
I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there? Not long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said, and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly take place. "You would be strangely incredulous if you did doubt it," was my mental comment. "I don't doubt it."
The question followed, "Where was I to go?" I dreamt of Miss Ingram all the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. Rochester looked on with his arms folded--smiling sardonically, as it seemed, at both her and me.
I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return; for I did not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly, after leaving my box in the ostler's care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about six o'clock of a June evening, and take the old road to Thornfield: a road which lay chiefly through fields, and was now little frequented.
It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: the haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky, though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its blue--where blue was visible--was mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam chilled it--it seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of apertures shone a golden redness.
I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped once to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. "Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure," said I; "and little Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know very well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking of you."
But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience? These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they added--"Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for ever!" And then I strangled a new-born agony--a deformed thing which I could not persuade myself to own and rear--and ran on.
They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the labourers are just quitting their work, and returning home with their rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have no time to gather any; I want to be at the house. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path; I see the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see--Mr. Rochester sitting there, a book and a pencil in his hand; he is writing.
Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir: I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way to the house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has seen me.
"Hillo!" he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. "There you are! Come on, if you please."
I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being scarcely cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face--which I feel rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a veil--it is down: I may make shift yet to behave with decent composure.
"And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? Yes--just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and come clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to steal into the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with yourself this last month?"
"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."
"A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world--from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf! --but I'd as soon offer to take hold of a blue _ignis fatuus_ light in a marsh. Truant! truant!" he added, when he had paused an instant. "Absent from me a whole month, and forgetting me quite, I'll be sworn!"
I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially. His last words were balm: they seemed to imply that it imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. And he had spoken of Thornfield as my home--would that it were my home!
He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I inquired soon if he had not been to London.
"Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight."
"Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter."
"And did she inform you what I went to do?"
"Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand."
"You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think it will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won't look like Queen Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, fairy as you are--can't you give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?"
"It would be past the power of magic, sir;" and, in thought, I added, "A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty."
Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think it too good for common purposes: it was the real sunshine of feeling--he shed it over me now.
"Pass, Janet," said he, making room for me to cross the stile: "go up home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend's threshold."
All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant to leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast--a force turned me round. I said--or something in me said for me, and in spite of me-- "Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home--my only home."
I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he tried. Little Adele was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and even Sophie bid me "bon soir" with glee. This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.
I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adele, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable--when he said he supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter back again, and added that he saw Adele was "prete a croquer sa petite maman Anglaise"--I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.
A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall. Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the negative. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr. Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but he had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she could not tell what to make of him.
One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no journeyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but what was that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised and indefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a morning's ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive: that the match was broken off; that rumour had been mistaken; that one or both parties had changed their minds. I used to look at my master's face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable dejection, he became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to his presence; never been kinder to me when there--and, alas! never had I loved him so well.
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A splendid Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even singly, our wave- girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between.
On Midsummer-eve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.
It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:--"Day its fervid fires had wasted," and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state--pure of the pomp of clouds--spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a casino and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the horizon.
I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent--that of a cigar--stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a handbreadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech avenue screened it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation from lonely fields: a winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step is stayed--not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance.
Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of shrub nor flower; it is--I know it well--it is Mr. Rochester's cigar. I look round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee. I make for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy recess; he will not stay long: he will soon return whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me.
But no--eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot: he sees it, and bends to examine it.
"Now, he has his back towards me," thought I, "and he is occupied too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed."
I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly gravel might not betray me: he was standing among the beds at a yard or two distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged him. "I shall get by very well," I meditated. As I crossed his shadow, thrown long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen high, he said quietly, without turning-- "Jane, come and look at this fellow."
I had made no noise: he had not eyes behind--could his shadow feel? I started at first, and then I approached him.
"Look at his wings," said he, "he reminds me rather of a West Indian insect; one does not often see so large and gay a night-rover in England; there! he is flown."
The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr. Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said-- "Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house; and surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at meeting with moonrise."
It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour alone with Mr. Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a reason to allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and thoughts busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any confusion: the evil--if evil existent or prospective there was--seemed to lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet.
"Jane," he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly strayed down in the direction of the sunk fence and the horse-chestnut, "Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?"
"Yes, sir."
"You must have become in some degree attached to the house,--you, who have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ of Adhesiveness?"
"I am attached to it, indeed."
"And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adele, too; and even for simple dame Fairfax?"
"Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both."
"And would be sorry to part with them?"
"Yes."
"Pity!" he said, and sighed and paused. "It is always the way of events in this life," he continued presently: "no sooner have you got settled in a pleasant resting-place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired."
"Must I move on, sir?" I asked. "Must I leave Thornfield?"
"I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet, but I believe indeed you must."
This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me.
"Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes."
"It is come now--I must give it to-night."
"Then you _are_ going to be married, sir?"
"Ex-act-ly--pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail straight on the head."
"Soon, sir?"
"Very soon, my--that is, Miss Eyre: and you'll remember, Jane, the first time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my intention to put my old bachelor's neck into the sacred noose, to enter into the holy estate of matrimony--to take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short (she's an extensive armful: but that's not to the point--one can't have too much of such a very excellent thing as my beautiful Blanche): well, as I was saying--listen to me, Jane! You're not turning your head to look after more moths, are you? That was only a lady-clock, child, 'flying away home.' I wish to remind you that it was you who first said to me, with that discretion I respect in you--with that foresight, prudence, and humility which befit your responsible and dependent position--that in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adele had better trot forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur conveyed in this suggestion on the character of my beloved; indeed, when you are far away, Janet, I'll try to forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; which is such that I have made it my law of action. Adele must go to school; and you, Miss Eyre, must get a new situation."
"Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose--" I was going to say, "I suppose I may stay here, till I find another shelter to betake myself to:" but I stopped, feeling it would not do to risk a long sentence, for my voice was not quite under command.
"In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom," continued Mr. Rochester; "and in the interim, I shall myself look out for employment and an asylum for you."
"Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give--" "Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependent does her duty as well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim upon her employer for any little assistance he can conveniently render her; indeed I have already, through my future mother-in-law, heard of a place that I think will suit: it is to undertake the education of the five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O'Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland. You'll like Ireland, I think: they're such warm-hearted people there, they say."
"It is a long way off, sir."
"No matter--a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or the distance."
"Not the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier--" "From what, Jane?"
"From England and from Thornfield: and--" "Well?"
"From _you_, sir."
I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of free will, my tears gushed out. I did not cry so as to be heard, however; I avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to my heart; and colder the thought of all the brine and foam, destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and the master at whose side I now walked, and coldest the remembrance of the wider ocean--wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and what I naturally and inevitably loved.
"It is a long way," I again said.
"It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jane: that's morally certain. I never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of a fancy for the country. We have been good friends, Jane; have we not?"
"Yes, sir."
"And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the little time that remains to them close to each other. Come! we'll talk over the voyage and the parting quietly half-an-hour or so, while the stars enter into their shining life up in heaven yonder: here is the chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old roots. Come, we will sit there in peace to-night, though we should never more be destined to sit there together." He seated me and himself.
"It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little friend on such weary travels: but if I can't do better, how is it to be helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"
I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.
"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you--especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,--you'd forget me."
"That I _never_ should, sir: you know--" Impossible to proceed.
"Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!"
In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I endured no longer; I was obliged to yield, and I was shaken from head to foot with acute distress. When I did speak, it was only to express an impetuous wish that I had never been born, or never come to Thornfield.
"Because you are sorry to leave it?"
The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a right to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last: yes,--and to speak.
"I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:--I love it, because I have lived in it a full and delightful life,--momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence, with what I delight in,--with an original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death."
"Where do you see the necessity?" he asked suddenly.
"Where? You, sir, have placed it before me."
"In what shape?"
"In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman,--your bride."
"My bride! What bride? I have no bride!"
"But you will have."
"Yes;--I will! --I will!" He set his teeth.
"Then I must go:--you have said it yourself."
"No: you must stay! I swear it--and the oath shall be kept."
"I tell you I must go!" I retorted, roused to something like passion. "Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton? --a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! --I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;--it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,--as we are!"
"As we are!" repeated Mr. Rochester--"so," he added, enclosing me in his arms. Gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips: "so, Jane!"
"Yes, so, sir," I rejoined: "and yet not so; for you are a married man--or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you--to one with whom you have no sympathy--whom I do not believe you truly love; for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union: therefore I am better than you--let me go!"
"Where, Jane? To Ireland?"
"Yes--to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now."
"Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in its desperation."
"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you."
Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him.
"And your will shall decide your destiny," he said: "I offer you my hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions."
"You play a farce, which I merely laugh at."
"I ask you to pass through life at my side--to be my second self, and best earthly companion."
"For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by it."
"Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be still too."
A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away--away--to an indefinite distance--it died. The nightingale's song was then the only voice of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before he spoke; he at last said-- "Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another."
"I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and cannot return."
"But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to marry."
I was silent: I thought he mocked me.
"Come, Jane--come hither."
"Your bride stands between us."
He rose, and with a stride reached me.
"My bride is here," he said, again drawing me to him, "because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?"
Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp: for I was still incredulous.
"Do you doubt me, Jane?"
"Entirely."
"You have no faith in me?"
"Not a whit."
"Am I a liar in your eyes?" he asked passionately. "Little sceptic, you _shall_ be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains to prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a third of what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see the result; it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would not--I could not--marry Miss Ingram. You--you strange, you almost unearthly thing! --I love as my own flesh. You--poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are--I entreat to accept me as a husband."
"What, me!" I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness--and especially in his incivility--to credit his sincerity: "me who have not a friend in the world but you--if you are my friend: not a shilling but what you have given me?"
"You, Jane, I must have you for my own--entirely my own. Will you be mine? Say yes, quickly."
"Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight."
"Why?"
"Because I want to read your countenance--turn!"
"There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled, scratched page. Read on: only make haste, for I suffer."
His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there were strong workings in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes.
"Oh, Jane, you torture me!" he exclaimed. "With that searching and yet faithful and generous look, you torture me!"
"How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion--they cannot torture."
"Gratitude!" he ejaculated; and added wildly--"Jane accept me quickly. Say, Edward--give me my name--Edward--I will marry you."
"Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to be your wife?"
"I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it."
"Then, sir, I will marry you."
"Edward--my little wife!"
"Dear Edward!"
"Come to me--come to me entirely now," said he; and added, in his deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, "Make my happiness--I will make yours."
"God pardon me!" he subjoined ere long; "and man meddle not with me: I have her, and will hold her."
"There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no kindred to interfere."
"No--that is the best of it," he said. And if I had loved him less I should have thought his accent and look of exultation savage; but, sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting--called to the paradise of union--I thought only of the bliss given me to drink in so abundant a flow. Again and again he said, "Are you happy, Jane?" And again and again I answered, "Yes." After which he murmured, "It will atone--it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her? Is there not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It will expiate at God's tribunal. I know my Maker sanctions what I do. For the world's judgment--I wash my hands thereof. For man's opinion--I defy it."
But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we were all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master's face, near as I was. And what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while wind roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us.
"We must go in," said Mr. Rochester: "the weather changes. I could have sat with thee till morning, Jane."
"And so," thought I, "could I with you." I should have said so, perhaps, but a livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud at which I was looking, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling peal; and I thought only of hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr. Rochester's shoulder.
The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the grounds, and into the house; but we were quite wet before we could pass the threshold. He was taking off my shawl in the hall, and shaking the water out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged from her room. I did not observe her at first, nor did Mr. Rochester. The lamp was lit. The clock was on the stroke of twelve.
"Hasten to take off your wet things," said he; "and before you go, good- night--good-night, my darling!"
He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms, there stood the widow, pale, grave, and amazed. I only smiled at her, and ran upstairs. "Explanation will do for another time," thought I. Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours' duration, I experienced no fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my door in the course of it, to ask if I was safe and tranquil: and that was comfort, that was strength for anything.
Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adele came running in to tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away.
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{
"id": "1260"
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As I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and wondered if it were a dream. I could not be certain of the reality till I had seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words of love and promise.
While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt it was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect and life in its colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often been unwilling to look at my master, because I feared he could not be pleased at my look; but I was sure I might lift my face to his now, and not cool his affection by its expression. I took a plain but clean and light summer dress from my drawer and put it on: it seemed no attire had ever so well become me, because none had I ever worn in so blissful a mood.
I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the night; and to feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh and fragrant breeze. Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy. A beggar-woman and her little boy--pale, ragged objects both--were coming up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I happened to have in my purse--some three or four shillings: good or bad, they must partake of my jubilee. The rooks cawed, and blither birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart.
Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad countenance, and saying gravely--"Miss Eyre, will you come to breakfast?" During the meal she was quiet and cool: but I could not undeceive her then. I must wait for my master to give explanations; and so must she. I ate what I could, and then I hastened upstairs. I met Adele leaving the schoolroom.
"Where are you going? It is time for lessons."
"Mr. Rochester has sent me away to the nursery."
"Where is he?"
"In there," pointing to the apartment she had left; and I went in, and there he stood.
"Come and bid me good-morning," said he. I gladly advanced; and it was not merely a cold word now, or even a shake of the hand that I received, but an embrace and a kiss. It seemed natural: it seemed genial to be so well loved, so caressed by him.
"Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty," said he: "truly pretty this morning. Is this my pale, little elf? Is this my mustard- seed? This little sunny-faced girl with the dimpled cheek and rosy lips; the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel eyes?" (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake: for him they were new-dyed, I suppose.)
"It is Jane Eyre, sir."
"Soon to be Jane Rochester," he added: "in four weeks, Janet; not a day more. Do you hear that?"
I did, and I could not quite comprehend it: it made me giddy. The feeling, the announcement sent through me, was something stronger than was consistent with joy--something that smote and stunned. It was, I think almost fear.
"You blushed, and now you are white, Jane: what is that for?"
"Because you gave me a new name--Jane Rochester; and it seems so strange."
"Yes, Mrs. Rochester," said he; "young Mrs. Rochester--Fairfax Rochester's girl-bride."
"It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy tale--a day-dream."
"Which I can and will realise. I shall begin to-day. This morning I wrote to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in his keeping,--heirlooms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I hope to pour them into your lap: for every privilege, every attention shall be yours that I would accord a peer's daughter, if about to marry her."
"Oh, sir! --never rain jewels! I don't like to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would rather not have them."
"I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the circlet on your forehead,--which it will become: for nature, at least, has stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will clasp the bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like fingers with rings."
"No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things, and in another strain. Don't address me as if I were a beauty; I am your plain, Quakerish governess."
"You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my heart,--delicate and aerial."
"Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir,--or you are sneering. For God's sake don't be ironical!"
"I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too," he went on, while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because I felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. "I will attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair; and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil."
"And then you won't know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket--a jay in borrowed plumes. I would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in stage-trappings, as myself clad in a court-lady's robe; and I don't call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. Don't flatter me."
He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my deprecation. "This very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you must choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we shall be married in four weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the church down below yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to town. After a brief stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions nearer the sun: to French vineyards and Italian plains; and she shall see whatever is famous in old story and in modern record: she shall taste, too, of the life of cities; and she shall learn to value herself by just comparison with others."
"Shall I travel? --and with you, sir?"
"You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice, and Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step also. Ten years since, I flew through Europe half mad; with disgust, hate, and rage as my companions: now I shall revisit it healed and cleansed, with a very angel as my comforter."
I laughed at him as he said this. "I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me--for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate."
"What do you anticipate of me?"
"For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now,--a very little while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be capricious; and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to please you: but when you get well used to me, you will perhaps like me again,--_like_ me, I say, not _love_ me. I suppose your love will effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband's ardour extends. Yet, after all, as a friend and companion, I hope never to become quite distasteful to my dear master."
"Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again, and yet again: and I will make you confess I do not only _like_, but _love_ you--with truth, fervour, constancy."
"Yet are you not capricious, sir?"
"To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts--when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break--at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent--I am ever tender and true."
"Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever love such an one?"
"I love it now."
"But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your difficult standard?"
"I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me--you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up my arm to my heart. I am influenced--conquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile, Jane? What does that inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?"
"I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary), I was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charmers--" "You were, you little elfish--" "Hush, sir! You don't talk very wisely just now; any more than those gentlemen acted very wisely. However, had they been married, they would no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for their softness as suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how you will answer me a year hence, should I ask a favour it does not suit your convenience or pleasure to grant."
"Ask me something now, Jane,--the least thing: I desire to be entreated--" "Indeed I will, sir; I have my petition all ready."
"Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of me."
"Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don't send for the jewels, and don't crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold lace round that plain pocket handkerchief you have there."
"I might as well 'gild refined gold.' I know it: your request is granted then--for the time. I will remand the order I despatched to my banker. But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed a gift to be withdrawn: try again."
"Well then, sir, have the goodness to gratify my curiosity, which is much piqued on one point."
He looked disturbed. "What? what?" he said hastily. "Curiosity is a dangerous petition: it is well I have not taken a vow to accord every request--" "But there can be no danger in complying with this, sir."
"Utter it, Jane: but I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into, perhaps, a secret, it was a wish for half my estate."
"Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do you think I am a Jew-usurer, seeking good investment in land? I would much rather have all your confidence. You will not exclude me from your confidence if you admit me to your heart?"
"You are welcome to all my confidence that is worth having, Jane; but for God's sake, don't desire a useless burden! Don't long for poison--don't turn out a downright Eve on my hands!"
"Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you liked to be conquered, and how pleasant over-persuasion is to you. Don't you think I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and coax and entreat--even cry and be sulky if necessary--for the sake of a mere essay of my power?"
"I dare you to any such experiment. Encroach, presume, and the game is up."
"Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your eyebrows have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead resembles what, in some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled, 'a blue-piled thunderloft.' That will be your married look, sir, I suppose?"
"If that will be _your_ married look, I, as a Christian, will soon give up the notion of consorting with a mere sprite or salamander. But what had you to ask, thing,--out with it?"
"There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great deal better than flattery. I had rather be a _thing_ than an angel. This is what I have to ask,--Why did you take such pains to make me believe you wished to marry Miss Ingram?"
"Is that all? Thank God it is no worse!" And now he unknit his black brows; looked down, smiling at me, and stroked my hair, as if well pleased at seeing a danger averted. "I think I may confess," he continued, "even although I should make you a little indignant, Jane--and I have seen what a fire-spirit you can be when you are indignant. You glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet, by-the-bye, it was you who made me the offer."
"Of course I did. But to the point if you please, sir--Miss Ingram?"
"Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to render you as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew jealousy would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of that end."
"Excellent! Now you are small--not one whit bigger than the end of my little finger. It was a burning shame and a scandalous disgrace to act in that way. Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram's feelings, sir?"
"Her feelings are concentrated in one--pride; and that needs humbling. Were you jealous, Jane?"
"Never mind, Mr. Rochester: it is in no way interesting to you to know that. Answer me truly once more. Do you think Miss Ingram will not suffer from your dishonest coquetry? Won't she feel forsaken and deserted?"
"Impossible! --when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted me: the idea of my insolvency cooled, or rather extinguished, her flame in a moment."
"You have a curious, designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid your principles on some points are eccentric."
"My principles were never trained, Jane: they may have grown a little awry for want of attention."
"Once again, seriously; may I enjoy the great good that has been vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any one else is suffering the bitter pain I myself felt a while ago?"
"That you may, my good little girl: there is not another being in the world has the same pure love for me as yourself--for I lay that pleasant unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection."
I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him very much--more than I could trust myself to say--more than words had power to express.
"Ask something more," he said presently; "it is my delight to be entreated, and to yield."
I was again ready with my request. "Communicate your intentions to Mrs. Fairfax, sir: she saw me with you last night in the hall, and she was shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again. It pains me to be misjudged by so good a woman."
"Go to your room, and put on your bonnet," he replied. "I mean you to accompany me to Millcote this morning; and while you prepare for the drive, I will enlighten the old lady's understanding. Did she think, Janet, you had given the world for love, and considered it well lost?"
"I believe she thought I had forgotten my station, and yours, sir."
"Station! station! --your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you, now or hereafter. --Go."
I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs. Fairfax's parlour, I hurried down to it. The old lady, had been reading her morning portion of Scripture--the Lesson for the day; her Bible lay open before her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her occupation, suspended by Mr. Rochester's announcement, seemed now forgotten: her eyes, fixed on the blank wall opposite, expressed the surprise of a quiet mind stirred by unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she roused herself: she made a sort of effort to smile, and framed a few words of congratulation; but the smile expired, and the sentence was abandoned unfinished. She put up her spectacles, shut the Bible, and pushed her chair back from the table.
"I feel so astonished," she began, "I hardly know what to say to you, Miss Eyre. I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes I half fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have never happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in a doze, that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since, has come in and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by my name, Alice, as he used to do. Now, can you tell me whether it is actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to marry him? Don't laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago, and said that in a month you would be his wife."
"He has said the same thing to me," I replied.
"He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?"
"Yes."
She looked at me bewildered. "I could never have thought it. He is a proud man: all the Rochesters were proud: and his father, at least, liked money. He, too, has always been called careful. He means to marry you?"
"He tells me so."
She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had there found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma.
"It passes me!" she continued; "but no doubt, it is true since you say so. How it will answer, I cannot tell: I really don't know. Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and there are twenty years of difference in your ages. He might almost be your father."
"No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!" exclaimed I, nettled; "he is nothing like my father! No one, who saw us together, would suppose it for an instant. Mr. Rochester looks as young, and is as young, as some men at five-and- twenty."
"Is it really for love he is going to marry you?" she asked.
I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism, that the tears rose to my eyes.
"I am sorry to grieve you," pursued the widow; "but you are so young, and so little acquainted with men, I wished to put you on your guard. It is an old saying that 'all is not gold that glitters;' and in this case I do fear there will be something found to be different to what either you or I expect."
"Why? --am I a monster?" I said: "is it impossible that Mr. Rochester should have a sincere affection for me?"
"No: you are very well; and much improved of late; and Mr. Rochester, I daresay, is fond of you. I have always noticed that you were a sort of pet of his. There are times when, for your sake, I have been a little uneasy at his marked preference, and have wished to put you on your guard: but I did not like to suggest even the possibility of wrong. I knew such an idea would shock, perhaps offend you; and you were so discreet, and so thoroughly modest and sensible, I hoped you might be trusted to protect yourself. Last night I cannot tell you what I suffered when I sought all over the house, and could find you nowhere, nor the master either; and then, at twelve o'clock, saw you come in with him."
"Well, never mind that now," I interrupted impatiently; "it is enough that all was right."
"I hope all will be right in the end," she said: "but believe me, you cannot be too careful. Try and keep Mr. Rochester at a distance: distrust yourself as well as him. Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry their governesses."
I was growing truly irritated: happily, Adele ran in.
"Let me go,--let me go to Millcote too!" she cried. "Mr. Rochester won't: though there is so much room in the new carriage. Beg him to let me go mademoiselle."
"That I will, Adele;" and I hastened away with her, glad to quit my gloomy monitress. The carriage was ready: they were bringing it round to the front, and my master was pacing the pavement, Pilot following him backwards and forwards.
"Adele may accompany us, may she not, sir?"
"I told her no. I'll have no brats! --I'll have only you."
"Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you please: it would be better."
"Not it: she will be a restraint."
He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice. The chill of Mrs. Fairfax's warnings, and the damp of her doubts were upon me: something of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes. I half lost the sense of power over him. I was about mechanically to obey him, without further remonstrance; but as he helped me into the carriage, he looked at my face.
"What is the matter?" he asked; "all the sunshine is gone. Do you really wish the bairn to go? Will it annoy you if she is left behind?"
"I would far rather she went, sir."
"Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!" cried he to Adele.
She obeyed him with what speed she might.
"After all, a single morning's interruption will not matter much," said he, "when I mean shortly to claim you--your thoughts, conversation, and company--for life."
Adele, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing her gratitude for my intercession: she was instantly stowed away into a corner on the other side of him. She then peeped round to where I sat; so stern a neighbour was too restrictive to him, in his present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any information.
"Let her come to me," I entreated: "she will, perhaps, trouble you, sir: there is plenty of room on this side."
He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog. "I'll send her to school yet," he said, but now he was smiling.
Adele heard him, and asked if she was to go to school "sans mademoiselle?"
"Yes," he replied, "absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and only me."
"She will have nothing to eat: you will starve her," observed Adele.
"I shall gather manna for her morning and night: the plains and hillsides in the moon are bleached with manna, Adele."
"She will want to warm herself: what will she do for a fire?"
"Fire rises out of the lunar mountains: when she is cold, I'll carry her up to a peak, and lay her down on the edge of a crater."
"Oh, qu' elle y sera mal--peu comfortable! And her clothes, they will wear out: how can she get new ones?"
Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled. "Hem!" said he. "What would you do, Adele? Cudgel your brains for an expedient. How would a white or a pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could cut a pretty enough scarf out of a rainbow."
"She is far better as she is," concluded Adele, after musing some time: "besides, she would get tired of living with only you in the moon. If I were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you."
"She has consented: she has pledged her word."
"But you can't get her there; there is no road to the moon: it is all air; and neither you nor she can fly."
"Adele, look at that field." We were now outside Thornfield gates, and bowling lightly along the smooth road to Millcote, where the dust was well laid by the thunderstorm, and, where the low hedges and lofty timber trees on each side glistened green and rain-refreshed.
"In that field, Adele, I was walking late one evening about a fortnight since--the evening of the day you helped me to make hay in the orchard meadows; and, as I was tired with raking swaths, I sat down to rest me on a stile; and there I took out a little book and a pencil, and began to write about a misfortune that befell me long ago, and a wish I had for happy days to come: I was writing away very fast, though daylight was fading from the leaf, when something came up the path and stopped two yards off me. I looked at it. It was a little thing with a veil of gossamer on its head. I beckoned it to come near me; it stood soon at my knee. I never spoke to it, and it never spoke to me, in words; but I read its eyes, and it read mine; and our speechless colloquy was to this effect-- "It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand was to make me happy: I must go with it out of the common world to a lonely place--such as the moon, for instance--and it nodded its head towards her horn, rising over Hay-hill: it told me of the alabaster cave and silver vale where we might live. I said I should like to go; but reminded it, as you did me, that I had no wings to fly. " 'Oh,' returned the fairy, 'that does not signify! Here is a talisman will remove all difficulties;' and she held out a pretty gold ring. 'Put it,' she said, 'on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I am yours, and you are mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own heaven yonder.' She nodded again at the moon. The ring, Adele, is in my breeches-pocket, under the disguise of a sovereign: but I mean soon to change it to a ring again."
"But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don't care for the fairy: you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon?"
"Mademoiselle is a fairy," he said, whispering mysteriously. Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced a fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr. Rochester "un vrai menteur," and assuring him that she made no account whatever of his "contes de fee," and that "du reste, il n'y avait pas de fees, et quand meme il y en avait:" she was sure they would never appear to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live with him in the moon.
The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me. Mr. Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse: there I was ordered to choose half-a-dozen dresses. I hated the business, I begged leave to defer it: no--it should be gone through with now. By dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the half-dozen to two: these however, he vowed he would select himself. With anxiety I watched his eye rove over the gay stores: he fixed on a rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink satin. I told him in a new series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a gold gown and a silver bonnet at once: I should certainly never venture to wear his choice. With infinite difficulty, for he was stubborn as a stone, I persuaded him to make an exchange in favour of a sober black satin and pearl-grey silk. "It might pass for the present," he said; "but he would yet see me glittering like a parterre."
Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of a jewellers shop: the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation. As we re-entered the carriage, and I sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in the hurry of events, dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten--the letter of my uncle, John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt me and make me his legatee. "It would, indeed, be a relief," I thought, "if I had ever so small an independency; I never can bear being dressed like a doll by Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae with the golden shower falling daily round me. I will write to Madeira the moment I get home, and tell my uncle John I am going to be married, and to whom: if I had but a prospect of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better endure to be kept by him now." And somewhat relieved by this idea (which I failed not to execute that day), I ventured once more to meet my master's and lover's eye, which most pertinaciously sought mine, though I averted both face and gaze. He smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a sultan might, in a blissful and fond moment, bestow on a slave his gold and gems had enriched: I crushed his hand, which was ever hunting mine, vigorously, and thrust it back to him red with the passionate pressure.
"You need not look in that way," I said; "if you do, I'll wear nothing but my old Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I'll be married in this lilac gingham: you may make a dressing-gown for yourself out of the pearl-grey silk, and an infinite series of waistcoats out of the black satin."
He chuckled; he rubbed his hands. "Oh, it is rich to see and hear her?" he exclaimed. "Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk's whole seraglio, gazelle- eyes, houri forms, and all!"
The Eastern allusion bit me again. "I'll not stand you an inch in the stead of a seraglio," I said; "so don't consider me an equivalent for one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line, away with you, sir, to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and lay out in extensive slave- purchases some of that spare cash you seem at a loss to spend satisfactorily here."
"And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many tons of flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?"
"I'll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach liberty to them that are enslaved--your harem inmates amongst the rest. I'll get admitted there, and I'll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered amongst our hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds till you have signed a charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred."
"I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane."
"I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it with an eye like that. While you looked so, I should be certain that whatever charter you might grant under coercion, your first act, when released, would be to violate its conditions."
"Why, Jane, what would you have? I fear you will compel me to go through a private marriage ceremony, besides that performed at the altar. You will stipulate, I see, for peculiar terms--what will they be?"
"I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations. Do you remember what you said of Celine Varens? --of the diamonds, the cashmeres you gave her? I will not be your English Celine Varens. I shall continue to act as Adele's governess; by that I shall earn my board and lodging, and thirty pounds a year besides. I'll furnish my own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give me nothing but--" "Well, but what?"
"Your regard; and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be quit."
"Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven't your equal," said he. We were now approaching Thornfield. "Will it please you to dine with me to-day?" he asked, as we re-entered the gates.
"No, thank you, sir."
"And what for, 'no, thank you?' if one may inquire."
"I never have dined with you, sir: and I see no reason why I should now: till--" "Till what? You delight in half-phrases."
"Till I can't help it."
"Do you suppose I eat like an ogre or a ghoul, that you dread being the companion of my repast?"
"I have formed no supposition on the subject, sir; but I want to go on as usual for another month."
"You will give up your governessing slavery at once."
"Indeed, begging your pardon, sir, I shall not. I shall just go on with it as usual. I shall keep out of your way all day, as I have been accustomed to do: you may send for me in the evening, when you feel disposed to see me, and I'll come then; but at no other time."
"I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all this, 'pour me donner une contenance,' as Adele would say; and unfortunately I have neither my cigar-case, nor my snuff-box. But listen--whisper. It is your time now, little tyrant, but it will be mine presently; and when once I have fairly seized you, to have and to hold, I'll just--figuratively speaking--attach you to a chain like this" (touching his watch-guard). "Yes, bonny wee thing, I'll wear you in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne."
He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage, and while he afterwards lifted out Adele, I entered the house, and made good my retreat upstairs.
He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had prepared an occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend the whole time in a _tete-a-tete_ conversation. I remembered his fine voice; I knew he liked to sing--good singers generally do. I was no vocalist myself, and, in his fastidious judgment, no musician, either; but I delighted in listening when the performance was good. No sooner had twilight, that hour of romance, began to lower her blue and starry banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and entreated him, for the love of heaven, to give me a song. He said I was a capricious witch, and that he would rather sing another time; but I averred that no time was like the present.
"Did I like his voice?" he asked.
"Very much." I was not fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of his; but for once, and from motives of expediency, I would e'en soothe and stimulate it.
"Then, Jane, you must play the accompaniment."
"Very well, sir, I will try."
I did try, but was presently swept off the stool and denominated "a little bungler." Being pushed unceremoniously to one side--which was precisely what I wished--he usurped my place, and proceeded to accompany himself: for he could play as well as sing. I hied me to the window-recess. And while I sat there and looked out on the still trees and dim lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones the following strain:-- "The truest love that ever heart Felt at its kindled core, Did through each vein, in quickened start, The tide of being pour.
Her coming was my hope each day, Her parting was my pain; The chance that did her steps delay Was ice in every vein.
I dreamed it would be nameless bliss, As I loved, loved to be; And to this object did I press As blind as eagerly.
But wide as pathless was the space That lay our lives between, And dangerous as the foamy race Of ocean-surges green.
And haunted as a robber-path Through wilderness or wood; For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath, Between our spirits stood.
I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned; I omens did defy: Whatever menaced, harassed, warned, I passed impetuous by.
On sped my rainbow, fast as light; I flew as in a dream; For glorious rose upon my sight That child of Shower and Gleam.
Still bright on clouds of suffering dim Shines that soft, solemn joy; Nor care I now, how dense and grim Disasters gather nigh.
I care not in this moment sweet, Though all I have rushed o'er Should come on pinion, strong and fleet, Proclaiming vengeance sore: Though haughty Hate should strike me down, Right, bar approach to me, And grinding Might, with furious frown, Swear endless enmity.
My love has placed her little hand With noble faith in mine, And vowed that wedlock's sacred band Our nature shall entwine.
My love has sworn, with sealing kiss, With me to live--to die; I have at last my nameless bliss. As I love--loved am I!"
He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and his full falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every lineament. I quailed momentarily--then I rallied. Soft scene, daring demonstration, I would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a weapon of defence must be prepared--I whetted my tongue: as he reached me, I asked with asperity, "whom he was going to marry now?"
"That was a strange question to be put by his darling Jane."
"Indeed! I considered it a very natural and necessary one: he had talked of his future wife dying with him. What did he mean by such a pagan idea? _I_ had no intention of dying with him--he might depend on that."
"Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was that I might live with him! Death was not for such as I." "Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as he had: but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a suttee."
"Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a reconciling kiss?"
"No: I would rather be excused."
Here I heard myself apostrophised as a "hard little thing;" and it was added, "any other woman would have been melted to marrow at hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise."
I assured him I was naturally hard--very flinty, and that he would often find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show him divers rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks elapsed: he should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made, while there was yet time to rescind it.
"Would I be quiet and talk rationally?"
"I would be quiet if he liked, and as to talking rationally, I flattered myself I was doing that now."
He fretted, pished, and pshawed. "Very good," I thought; "you may fume and fidget as you please: but this is the best plan to pursue with you, I am certain. I like you more than I can say; but I'll not sink into a bathos of sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I'll keep you from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its pungent aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our real mutual advantage."
From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation; then, after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to the other end of the room, I got up, and saying, "I wish you good-night, sir," in my natural and wonted respectful manner, I slipped out by the side-door and got away.
The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of probation; and with the best success. He was kept, to be sure, rather cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was excellently entertained, and that a lamb-like submission and turtle-dove sensibility, while fostering his despotism more, would have pleased his judgment, satisfied his common-sense, and even suited his taste less.
In other people's presence I was, as formerly, deferential and quiet; any other line of conduct being uncalled for: it was only in the evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He continued to send for me punctually the moment the clock struck seven; though when I appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as "love" and "darling" on his lips: the best words at my service were "provoking puppet," "malicious elf," "sprite," "changeling," &c. For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear. It was all right: at present I decidedly preferred these fierce favours to anything more tender. Mrs. Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her anxiety on my account vanished; therefore I was certain I did well. Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to skin and bone, and threatened awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period fast coming. I laughed in my sleeve at his menaces. "I can keep you in reasonable check now," I reflected; "and I don't doubt to be able to do it hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be devised."
Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather have pleased than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.
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{
"id": "1260"
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The month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced--the bridal day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. _I_, at least, had nothing more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked, corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber; to-morrow, at this time, they would be far on their road to London: and so should I (D.V.),--or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet I knew not. The cards of address alone remained to nail on: they lay, four little squares, in the drawer. Mr. Rochester had himself written the direction, "Mrs. Rochester, --- Hotel, London," on each: I could not persuade myself to affix them, or to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester! She did not exist: she would not be born till to-morrow, some time after eight o'clock a.m.; and I would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive before I assigned to her all that property. It was enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau. I shut the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour--nine o'clock--gave out certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. "I will leave you by yourself, white dream," I said. "I am feverish: I hear the wind blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it."
It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not only the anticipation of the great change--the new life which was to commence to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share, doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds: but a third cause influenced my mind more than they.
I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had happened which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen the event but myself: it had taken place the preceding night. Mr. Rochester that night was absent from home; nor was he yet returned: business had called him to a small estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty miles off--business it was requisite he should settle in person, previous to his meditated departure from England. I waited now his return; eager to disburthen my mind, and to seek of him the solution of the enigma that perplexed me. Stay till he comes, reader; and, when I disclose my secret to him, you shall share the confidence.
I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which all day had blown strong and full from the south, without, however, bringing a speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it seemed to augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew steadfastly one way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back their boughs once in an hour; so continuous was the strain bending their branchy heads northward--the clouds drifted from pole to pole, fast following, mass on mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been visible that July day.
It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of the chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk, split down the centre, gasped ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; though community of vitality was destroyed--the sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree--a ruin, but an entire ruin.
"You did right to hold fast to each other," I said: as if the monster- splinters were living things, and could hear me. "I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more--never more see birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay." As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water, poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again.
Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the apples with which the grass round the tree roots was thickly strewn; then I employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried them into the house and put them away in the store-room. Then I repaired to the library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for, though summer, I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would like to see a cheerful hearth when he came in: yes, the fire had been kindled some time, and burnt well. I placed his arm-chair by the chimney-corner: I wheeled the table near it: I let down the curtain, and had the candles brought in ready for lighting. More restless than ever, when I had completed these arrangements I could not sit still, nor even remain in the house: a little time-piece in the room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten.
"How late it grows!" I said. "I will run down to the gates: it is moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road. He may be coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense."
The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the gates; but the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the left, was all still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds crossing it at intervals as the moon looked out, it was but a long pale line, unvaried by one moving speck.
A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked--a tear of disappointment and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away. I lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of dense cloud: the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale.
"I wish he would come! I wish he would come!" I exclaimed, seized with hypochondriac foreboding. I had expected his arrival before tea; now it was dark: what could keep him? Had an accident happened? The event of last night again recurred to me. I interpreted it as a warning of disaster. I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and must now decline.
"Well, I cannot return to the house," I thought; "I cannot sit by the fireside, while he is abroad in inclement weather: better tire my limbs than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him."
I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere I had measured a quarter of a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a horseman came on, full gallop; a dog ran by his side. Away with evil presentiment! It was he: here he was, mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot. He saw me; for the moon had opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright: he took his hat off, and waved it round his head. I now ran to meet him.
"There!" he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from the saddle: "You can't do without me, that is evident. Step on my boot-toe; give me both hands: mount!"
I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him. A hearty kissing I got for a welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I swallowed as well as I could. He checked himself in his exultation to demand, "But is there anything the matter, Janet, that you come to meet me at such an hour? Is there anything wrong?"
"No, but I thought you would never come. I could not bear to wait in the house for you, especially with this rain and wind."
"Rain and wind, indeed! Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid; pull my cloak round you: but I think you are feverish, Jane: both your cheek and hand are burning hot. I ask again, is there anything the matter?"
"Nothing now; I am neither afraid nor unhappy."
"Then you have been both?"
"Rather: but I'll tell you all about it by-and-bye, sir; and I daresay you will only laugh at me for my pains."
"I'll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I dare not: my prize is not certain. This is you, who have been as slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose? I could not lay a finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms. You wandered out of the fold to seek your shepherd, did you, Jane?"
"I wanted you: but don't boast. Here we are at Thornfield: now let me get down."
He landed me on the pavement. As John took his horse, and he followed me into the hall, he told me to make haste and put something dry on, and then return to him in the library; and he stopped me, as I made for the staircase, to extort a promise that I would not be long: nor was I long; in five minutes I rejoined him. I found him at supper.
"Take a seat and bear me company, Jane: please God, it is the last meal but one you will eat at Thornfield Hall for a long time."
I sat down near him, but told him I could not eat. "Is it because you have the prospect of a journey before you, Jane? Is it the thoughts of going to London that takes away your appetite?"
"I cannot see my prospects clearly to-night, sir; and I hardly know what thoughts I have in my head. Everything in life seems unreal."
"Except me: I am substantial enough--touch me."
"You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream."
He held out his hand, laughing. "Is that a dream?" said he, placing it close to my eyes. He had a rounded, muscular, and vigorous hand, as well as a long, strong arm.
"Yes; though I touch it, it is a dream," said I, as I put it down from before my face. "Sir, have you finished supper?"
"Yes, Jane."
I rang the bell and ordered away the tray. When we were again alone, I stirred the fire, and then took a low seat at my master's knee.
"It is near midnight," I said.
"Yes: but remember, Jane, you promised to wake with me the night before my wedding."
"I did; and I will keep my promise, for an hour or two at least: I have no wish to go to bed."
"Are all your arrangements complete?"
"All, sir."
"And on my part likewise," he returned, "I have settled everything; and we shall leave Thornfield to-morrow, within half-an-hour after our return from church."
"Very well, sir."
"With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word--'very well,' Jane! What a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek! and how strangely your eyes glitter! Are you well?"
"I believe I am."
"Believe! What is the matter? Tell me what you feel."
"I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next may come charged?"
"This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited, or over-fatigued."
"Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?"
"Calm? --no: but happy--to the heart's core."
I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was ardent and flushed.
"Give me your confidence, Jane," he said: "relieve your mind of any weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear? --that I shall not prove a good husband?"
"It is the idea farthest from my thoughts."
"Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter? --of the new life into which you are passing?"
"No."
"You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex and pain me. I want an explanation."
"Then, sir, listen. You were from home last night?"
"I was: I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something which had happened in my absence:--nothing, probably, of consequence; but, in short, it has disturbed you. Let me hear it. Mrs. Fairfax has said something, perhaps? or you have overheard the servants talk? --your sensitive self-respect has been wounded?"
"No, sir." It struck twelve--I waited till the time-piece had concluded its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating stroke, and then I proceeded.
"All day yesterday I was very busy, and very happy in my ceaseless bustle; for I am not, as you seem to think, troubled by any haunting fears about the new sphere, et cetera: I think it a glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, because I love you. No, sir, don't caress me now--let me talk undisturbed. Yesterday I trusted well in Providence, and believed that events were working together for your good and mine: it was a fine day, if you recollect--the calmness of the air and sky forbade apprehensions respecting your safety or comfort on your journey. I walked a little while on the pavement after tea, thinking of you; and I beheld you in imagination so near me, I scarcely missed your actual presence. I thought of the life that lay before me--_your_ life, sir--an existence more expansive and stirring than my own: as much more so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows of its own strait channel. I wondered why moralists call this world a dreary wilderness: for me it blossomed like a rose. Just at sunset, the air turned cold and the sky cloudy: I went in, Sophie called me upstairs to look at my wedding-dress, which they had just brought; and under it in the box I found your present--the veil which, in your princely extravagance, you sent for from London: resolved, I suppose, since I would not have jewels, to cheat me into accepting something as costly. I smiled as I unfolded it, and devised how I would tease you about your aristocratic tastes, and your efforts to masque your plebeian bride in the attributes of a peeress. I thought how I would carry down to you the square of unembroidered blond I had myself prepared as a covering for my low-born head, and ask if that was not good enough for a woman who could bring her husband neither fortune, beauty, nor connections. I saw plainly how you would look; and heard your impetuous republican answers, and your haughty disavowal of any necessity on your part to augment your wealth, or elevate your standing, by marrying either a purse or a coronet."
"How well you read me, you witch!" interposed Mr. Rochester: "but what did you find in the veil besides its embroidery? Did you find poison, or a dagger, that you look so mournful now?"
"No, no, sir; besides the delicacy and richness of the fabric, I found nothing save Fairfax Rochester's pride; and that did not scare me, because I am used to the sight of the demon. But, sir, as it grew dark, the wind rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows now--wild and high--but 'with a sullen, moaning sound' far more eerie. I wished you were at home. I came into this room, and the sight of the empty chair and fireless hearth chilled me. For some time after I went to bed, I could not sleep--a sense of anxious excitement distressed me. The gale still rising, seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful under-sound; whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made out it must be some dog howling at a distance. I was glad when it ceased. On sleeping, I continued in dreams the idea of a dark and gusty night. I continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced a strange, regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us. During all my first sleep, I was following the windings of an unknown road; total obscurity environed me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with the charge of a little child: a very small creature, too young and feeble to walk, and which shivered in my cold arms, and wailed piteously in my ear. I thought, sir, that you were on the road a long way before me; and I strained every nerve to overtake you, and made effort on effort to utter your name and entreat you to stop--but my movements were fettered, and my voice still died away inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew farther and farther every moment."
"And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am close to you? Little nervous subject! Forget visionary woe, and think only of real happiness! You say you love me, Janet: yes--I will not forget that; and you cannot deny it. _Those_ words did not die inarticulate on your lips. I heard them clear and soft: a thought too solemn perhaps, but sweet as music--'I think it is a glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, Edward, because I love you.' Do you love me, Jane? --repeat it."
"I do, sir--I do, with my whole heart."
"Well," he said, after some minutes' silence, "it is strange; but that sentence has penetrated my breast painfully. Why? I think because you said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your upward gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and devotion: it is too much as if some spirit were near me. Look wicked, Jane: as you know well how to look: coin one of your wild, shy, provoking smiles; tell me you hate me--tease me, vex me; do anything but move me: I would rather be incensed than saddened."
"I will tease you and vex you to your heart's content, when I have finished my tale: but hear me to the end."
"I thought, Jane, you had told me all. I thought I had found the source of your melancholy in a dream."
I shook my head. "What! is there more? But I will not believe it to be anything important. I warn you of incredulity beforehand. Go on."
The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of his manner, surprised me: but I proceeded.
"I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of bats and owls. I thought that of all the stately front nothing remained but a shell-like wall, very high and very fragile-looking. I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the grass- grown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble hearth, and there over a fallen fragment of cornice. Wrapped up in a shawl, I still carried the unknown little child: I might not lay it down anywhere, however tired were my arms--however much its weight impeded my progress, I must retain it. I heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on the road; I was sure it was you; and you were departing for many years and for a distant country. I climbed the thin wall with frantic perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top: the stones rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I grasped gave way, the child clung round my neck in terror, and almost strangled me; at last I gained the summit. I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening every moment. The blast blew so strong I could not stand. I sat down on the narrow ledge; I hushed the scared infant in my lap: you turned an angle of the road: I bent forward to take a last look; the wall crumbled; I was shaken; the child rolled from my knee, I lost my balance, fell, and woke."
"Now, Jane, that is all."
"All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come. On waking, a gleam dazzled my eyes; I thought--Oh, it is daylight! But I was mistaken; it was only candlelight. Sophie, I supposed, had come in. There was a light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet, where, before going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open; I heard a rustling there. I asked, 'Sophie, what are you doing?' No one answered; but a form emerged from the closet; it took the light, held it aloft, and surveyed the garments pendent from the portmanteau. 'Sophie! Sophie!' I again cried: and still it was silent. I had risen up in bed, I bent forward: first surprise, then bewilderment, came over me; and then my blood crept cold through my veins. Mr. Rochester, this was not Sophie, it was not Leah, it was not Mrs. Fairfax: it was not--no, I was sure of it, and am still--it was not even that strange woman, Grace Poole."
"It must have been one of them," interrupted my master.
"No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the contrary. The shape standing before me had never crossed my eyes within the precincts of Thornfield Hall before; the height, the contour were new to me."
"Describe it, Jane."
"It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell."
"Did you see her face?"
"Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass."
"And how were they?"
"Fearful and ghastly to me--oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured face--it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!"
"Ghosts are usually pale, Jane."
"This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes. Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?"
"You may."
"Of the foul German spectre--the Vampyre."
"Ah! --what did it do?"
"Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them."
{It removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them: p272.jpg} "Afterwards?"
"It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door. Just at my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me--she thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my eyes. I was aware her lurid visage flamed over mine, and I lost consciousness: for the second time in my life--only the second time--I became insensible from terror."
"Who was with you when you revived?"
"No one, sir, but the broad day. I rose, bathed my head and face in water, drank a long draught; felt that though enfeebled I was not ill, and determined that to none but you would I impart this vision. Now, sir, tell me who and what that woman was?"
"The creature of an over-stimulated brain; that is certain. I must be careful of you, my treasure: nerves like yours were not made for rough handling."
"Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was real: the transaction actually took place."
"And your previous dreams, were they real too? Is Thornfield Hall a ruin? Am I severed from you by insuperable obstacles? Am I leaving you without a tear--without a kiss--without a word?"
"Not yet."
"Am I about to do it? Why, the day is already commenced which is to bind us indissolubly; and when we are once united, there shall be no recurrence of these mental terrors: I guarantee that."
"Mental terrors, sir! I wish I could believe them to be only such: I wish it more now than ever; since even you cannot explain to me the mystery of that awful visitant."
"And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal."
"But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there--on the carpet--I saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis,--the veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves!"
I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms round me. "Thank God!" he exclaimed, "that if anything malignant did come near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed. Oh, to think what might have happened!"
He drew his breath short, and strained me so close to him, I could scarcely pant. After some minutes' silence, he continued, cheerily-- "Now, Janet, I'll explain to you all about it. It was half dream, half reality. A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that woman was--must have been--Grace Poole. You call her a strange being yourself: from all you know, you have reason so to call her--what did she do to me? what to Mason? In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated stature, were figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is like her. I see you would ask why I keep such a woman in my house: when we have been married a year and a day, I will tell you; but not now. Are you satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my solution of the mystery?"
I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible one: satisfied I was not, but to please him I endeavoured to appear so--relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered him with a contented smile. And now, as it was long past one, I prepared to leave him.
"Does not Sophie sleep with Adele in the nursery?" he asked, as I lit my candle.
"Yes, sir."
"And there is room enough in Adele's little bed for you. You must share it with her to-night, Jane: it is no wonder that the incident you have related should make you nervous, and I would rather you did not sleep alone: promise me to go to the nursery."
"I shall be very glad to do so, sir."
"And fasten the door securely on the inside. Wake Sophie when you go upstairs, under pretence of requesting her to rouse you in good time to- morrow; for you must be dressed and have finished breakfast before eight. And now, no more sombre thoughts: chase dull care away, Janet. Don't you hear to what soft whispers the wind has fallen? and there is no more beating of rain against the window-panes: look here" (he lifted up the curtain)--"it is a lovely night!"
It was. Half heaven was pure and stainless: the clouds, now trooping before the wind, which had shifted to the west, were filing off eastward in long, silvered columns. The moon shone peacefully.
"Well," said Mr. Rochester, gazing inquiringly into my eyes, "how is my Janet now?"
"The night is serene, sir; and so am I." "And you will not dream of separation and sorrow to-night; but of happy love and blissful union."
This prediction was but half fulfilled: I did not indeed dream of sorrow, but as little did I dream of joy; for I never slept at all. With little Adele in my arms, I watched the slumber of childhood--so tranquil, so passionless, so innocent--and waited for the coming day: all my life was awake and astir in my frame: and as soon as the sun rose I rose too. I remember Adele clung to me as I left her: I remember I kissed her as I loosened her little hands from my neck; and I cried over her with strange emotion, and quitted her because I feared my sobs would break her still sound repose. She seemed the emblem of my past life; and here I was now to array myself to meet, the dread, but adored, type of my unknown future day.
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Sophie came at seven to dress me: she was very long indeed in accomplishing her task; so long that Mr. Rochester, grown, I suppose, impatient of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not come. She was just fastening my veil (the plain square of blond after all) to my hair with a brooch; I hurried from under her hands as soon as I could.
"Stop!" she cried in French. "Look at yourself in the mirror: you have not taken one peep."
So I turned at the door: I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger. "Jane!" called a voice, and I hastened down. I was received at the foot of the stairs by Mr. Rochester.
"Lingerer!" he said, "my brain is on fire with impatience, and you tarry so long!"
He took me into the dining-room, surveyed me keenly all over, pronounced me "fair as a lily, and not only the pride of his life, but the desire of his eyes," and then telling me he would give me but ten minutes to eat some breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately hired servants, a footman, answered it.
"Is John getting the carriage ready?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is the luggage brought down?"
"They are bringing it down, sir."
"Go you to the church: see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the clerk are there: return and tell me."
The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the footman soon returned.
"Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on his surplice."
"And the carriage?"
"The horses are harnessing."
"We shall not want it to go to church; but it must be ready the moment we return: all the boxes and luggage arranged and strapped on, and the coachman in his seat."
"Yes, sir."
"Jane, are you ready?"
I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives to wait for or marshal: none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax stood in the hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but my hand was held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I could hardly follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester's face was to feel that not a second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I wonder what other bridegroom ever looked as he did--so bent up to a purpose, so grimly resolute: or who, under such steadfast brows, ever revealed such flaming and flashing eyes.
I know not whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the drive, I gazed neither on sky nor earth: my heart was with my eyes; and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester's frame. I wanted to see the invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose force he seemed breasting and resisting.
At the churchyard wicket he stopped: he discovered I was quite out of breath. "Am I cruel in my love?" he said. "Delay an instant: lean on me, Jane."
And now I can recall the picture of the grey old house of God rising calm before me, of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a ruddy morning sky beyond. I remember something, too, of the green grave-mounds; and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of strangers straying amongst the low hillocks and reading the mementoes graven on the few mossy head-stones. I noticed them, because, as they saw us, they passed round to the back of the church; and I doubted not they were going to enter by the side-aisle door and witness the ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not observed; he was earnestly looking at my face from which the blood had, I daresay, momentarily fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips cold. When I rallied, which I soon did, he walked gently with me up the path to the porch.
We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was still: two shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had been correct: the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault of the Rochesters, their backs towards us, viewing through the rails the old time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife.
Our place was taken at the communion rails. Hearing a cautious step behind me, I glanced over my shoulder: one of the strangers--a gentleman, evidently--was advancing up the chancel. The service began. The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then the clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly towards Mr. Rochester, went on.
"I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed), that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's Word doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful."
He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that sentence ever broken by reply? Not, perhaps, once in a hundred years. And the clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book, and had held his breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was already stretched towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to ask, "Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?" --when a distinct and near voice said-- "The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment."
The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head or eyes, he said, "Proceed."
Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep but low intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said-- "I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been asserted, and evidence of its truth or falsehood."
"The ceremony is quite broken off," subjoined the voice behind us. "I am in a condition to prove my allegation: an insuperable impediment to this marriage exists."
Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid, making no movement but to possess himself of my hand. What a hot and strong grasp he had! and how like quarried marble was his pale, firm, massive front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful, and yet wild beneath!
Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. "What is the nature of the impediment?" he asked. "Perhaps it may be got over--explained away?"
"Hardly," was the answer. "I have called it insuperable, and I speak advisedly."
The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, uttering each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly-- "It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr. Rochester has a wife now living."
My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder--my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side.
"Who are you?" he asked of the intruder.
"My name is Briggs, a solicitor of --- Street, London."
"And you would thrust on me a wife?"
"I would remind you of your lady's existence, sir, which the law recognises, if you do not."
"Favour me with an account of her--with her name, her parentage, her place of abode."
"Certainly." Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read out in a sort of official, nasal voice:-- "'I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October A.D. --- (a date of fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in the county of ---, and of Ferndean Manor, in ---shire, England, was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at --- church, Spanish Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be found in the register of that church--a copy of it is now in my possession. Signed, Richard Mason.'"
"That--if a genuine document--may prove I have been married, but it does not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living."
"She was living three months ago," returned the lawyer.
"How do you know?"
"I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir, will scarcely controvert."
"Produce him--or go to hell."
"I will produce him first--he is on the spot. Mr. Mason, have the goodness to step forward."
Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame. The second stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background, now drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor's shoulder--yes, it was Mason himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared at him. His eye, as I have often said, was a black eye: it had now a tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushed--olive cheek and hueless forehead received a glow as from spreading, ascending heart-fire: and he stirred, lifted his strong arm--he could have struck Mason, dashed him on the church-floor, shocked by ruthless blow the breath from his body--but Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, "Good God!" Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester--his passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only asked--"What have _you_ to say?"
An inaudible reply escaped Mason's white lips.
"The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again demand, what have you to say?"
"Sir--sir," interrupted the clergyman, "do not forget you are in a sacred place." Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently, "Are you aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman's wife is still living?"
"Courage," urged the lawyer,--"speak out."
"She is now living at Thornfield Hall," said Mason, in more articulate tones: "I saw her there last April. I am her brother."
"At Thornfield Hall!" ejaculated the clergyman. "Impossible! I am an old resident in this neighbourhood, sir, and I never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield Hall."
I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester's lips, and he muttered-- "No, by God! I took care that none should hear of it--or of her under that name." He mused--for ten minutes he held counsel with himself: he formed his resolve, and announced it-- "Enough! all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the barrel. Wood, close your book and take off your surplice; John Green (to the clerk), leave the church: there will be no wedding to-day." The man obeyed.
Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: "Bigamy is an ugly word! --I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out-manoeuvred me, or Providence has checked me,--perhaps the last. I am little better than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the quenchless fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken up:--what this lawyer and his client say is true: I have been married, and the woman to whom I was married lives! You say you never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you have many a time inclined your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic kept there under watch and ward. Some have whispered to you that she is my bastard half-sister: some, my cast-off mistress. I now inform you that she is my wife, whom I married fifteen years ago,--Bertha Mason by name; sister of this resolute personage, who is now, with his quivering limbs and white cheeks, showing you what a stout heart men may bear. Cheer up, Dick! --never fear me! --I'd almost as soon strike a woman as you. Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard! --as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points. I had a charming partner--pure, wise, modest: you can fancy I was a happy man. I went through rich scenes! Oh! my experience has been heavenly, if you only knew it! But I owe you no further explanation. Briggs, Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come up to the house and visit Mrs. Poole's patient, and _my wife_! You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not I had a right to break the compact, and seek sympathy with something at least human. This girl," he continued, looking at me, "knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret: she thought all was fair and legal and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted partner! Come all of you--follow!"
Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage.
"Take it back to the coach-house, John," said Mr. Rochester coolly; "it will not be wanted to-day."
At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adele, Sophie, Leah, advanced to meet and greet us.
"To the right-about--every soul!" cried the master; "away with your congratulations! Who wants them? Not I! --they are fifteen years too late!"
He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and still beckoning the gentlemen to follow him, which they did. We mounted the first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the third storey: the low, black door, opened by Mr. Rochester's master-key, admitted us to the tapestried room, with its great bed and its pictorial cabinet.
"You know this place, Mason," said our guide; "she bit and stabbed you here."
He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door: this, too, he opened. In a room without a window, there burnt a fire guarded by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a chain. Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking something in a saucepan. In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face.
"Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!" said Mr. Rochester. "How are you? and how is your charge to-day?"
"We're tolerable, sir, I thank you," replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob: "rather snappish, but not 'rageous."
A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet.
"Ah! sir, she sees you!" exclaimed Grace: "you'd better not stay."
"Only a few moments, Grace: you must allow me a few moments."
"Take care then, sir! --for God's sake, take care!"
The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognised well that purple face,--those bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced.
"Keep out of the way," said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside: "she has no knife now, I suppose, and I'm on my guard."
"One never knows what she has, sir: she is so cunning: it is not in mortal discretion to fathom her craft."
"We had better leave her," whispered Mason.
"Go to the devil!" was his brother-in-law's recommendation. " 'Ware!" cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr. Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the contest--more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her with a well-planted blow; but he would not strike: he would only wrestle. At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a chair. The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the spectators: he looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate.
"That is _my wife_," said he. "Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am ever to know--such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure hours! And _this_ is what I wished to have" (laying his hand on my shoulder): "this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon, I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder--this face with that mask--this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up my prize."
We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give some further order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed me as he descended the stair.
"You, madam," said he, "are cleared from all blame: your uncle will be glad to hear it--if, indeed, he should be still living--when Mr. Mason returns to Madeira."
"My uncle! What of him? Do you know him?"
"Mr. Mason does. Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of his house for some years. When your uncle received your letter intimating the contemplated union between yourself and Mr. Rochester, Mr. Mason, who was staying at Madeira to recruit his health, on his way back to Jamaica, happened to be with him. Mr. Eyre mentioned the intelligence; for he knew that my client here was acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished and distressed as you may suppose, revealed the real state of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is now on a sick bed; from which, considering the nature of his disease--decline--and the stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will ever rise. He could not then hasten to England himself, to extricate you from the snare into which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to lose no time in taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He referred him to me for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful I was not too late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not morally certain that your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise you to accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had better remain in England till you can hear further, either from or of Mr. Eyre. Have we anything else to stay for?" he inquired of Mr. Mason.
"No, no--let us be gone," was the anxious reply; and without waiting to take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the hall door. The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of admonition or reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done, he too departed.
I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room, to which I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in, fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded--not to weep, not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but--mechanically to take off the wedding dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them. And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen, moved--followed up and down where I was led or dragged--watched event rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but _now_, _I thought_.
The morning had been a quiet morning enough--all except the brief scene with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no dispute, no defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words had been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made; some stern, short questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers, explanations given, evidence adduced; an open admission of the truth had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been seen; the intruders were gone, and all was over.
I was in my own room as usual--just myself, without obvious change: nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was the Jane Eyre of yesterday? --where was her life? --where were her prospects?
Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman--almost a bride, was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My hopes were all dead--struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive. I looked at my love: that feeling which was my master's--which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr. Rochester's arms--it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted--confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I must go: _that_ I perceived well. When--how--whither, I could not yet discern; but he himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I should fear even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind had been my eyes! How weak my conduct!
My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow. Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only still throbbed life-like within me--a remembrance of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them-- "Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help."
It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it--as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips--it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, "the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me."
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{
"id": "1260"
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Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked, "What am I to do?"
But the answer my mind gave--"Leave Thornfield at once"--was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part of my woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it."
But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.
"Let me be torn away," then I cried. "Let another help me!"
"No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it."
I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless a judge haunted,--at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had been sent to ask how I was, or to invite me to come down: not even little Adele had tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had sought me. "Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes," I murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out. I stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were feeble. I could not soon recover myself. I fell, but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up--I was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber threshold.
"You come out at last," he said. "Well, I have been waiting for you long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob: five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced the lock like a burglar. So you shun me? --you shut yourself up and grieve alone! I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence. You are passionate. I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood?"
"Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter--nothing poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look."
"Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?"
Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look and mien--I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my heart's core.
"You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?" ere long he inquired wistfully--wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness, the result rather of weakness than of will.
"Yes, sir."
"Then tell me so roundly and sharply--don't spare me."
"I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water." He heaved a sort of shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me downstairs. At first I did not know to what room he had borne me; all was cloudy to my glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my chamber. He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate something he offered me, and was soon myself. I was in the library--sitting in his chair--he was quite near. "If I could go out of life now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well for me," I thought; "then I should not have to make the effort of cracking my heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester's. I must leave him, it appears. I do not want to leave him--I cannot leave him."
"How are you now, Jane?"
"Much better, sir; I shall be well soon."
"Taste the wine again, Jane."
I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before me, and looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind; he walked fast through the room and came back; he stooped towards me as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I turned my face away and put his aside.
"What! --How is this?" he exclaimed hastily. "Oh, I know! you won't kiss the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled and my embraces appropriated?"
"At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir."
"Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will answer for you--Because I have a wife already, you would reply. --I guess rightly?"
"Yes."
"If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must regard me as a plotting profligate--a base and low rake who has been simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of self-respect. What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing in the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of tears are opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking how _to act_--_talking_ you consider is of no use. I know you--I am on my guard."
"Sir, I do not wish to act against you," I said; and my unsteady voice warned me to curtail my sentence.
"Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man--as a married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to me: to live under this roof only as Adele's governess; if ever I say a friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to me, you will say,--'That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must be ice and rock to him;' and ice and rock you will accordingly become."
I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: "All is changed about me, sir; I must change too--there is no doubt of that; and to avoid fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections and associations, there is only one way--Adele must have a new governess, sir."
"Oh, Adele will go to school--I have settled that already; nor do I mean to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of Thornfield Hall--this accursed place--this tent of Achan--this insolent vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to the light of the open sky--this narrow stone hell, with its one real fiend, worse than a legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall not stay here, nor will I. I was wrong ever to bring you to Thornfield Hall, knowing as I did how it was haunted. I charged them to conceal from you, before I ever saw you, all knowledge of the curse of the place; merely because I feared Adele never would have a governess to stay if she knew with what inmate she was housed, and my plans would not permit me to remove the maniac elsewhere--though I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even more retired and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement. Probably those damp walls would soon have eased me of her charge: but to each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect assassination, even of what I most hate.
"Concealing the mad-woman's neighbourhood from you, however, was something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near a upas-tree: that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always was. But I'll shut up Thornfield Hall: I'll nail up the front door and board the lower windows: I'll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live here with _my wife_, as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for money, and she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to bear her company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when _my wife_ is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at night, to stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on--" "Sir," I interrupted him, "you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady: you speak of her with hate--with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel--she cannot help being mad."
"Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don't know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?"
"I do indeed, sir."
"Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat--your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me. --But why do I follow that train of ideas? I was talking of removing you from Thornfield. All, you know, is prepared for prompt departure: to-morrow you shall go. I only ask you to endure one more night under this roof, Jane; and then, farewell to its miseries and terrors for ever! I have a place to repair to, which will be a secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from unwelcome intrusion--even from falsehood and slander."
"And take Adele with you, sir," I interrupted; "she will be a companion for you."
"What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adele to school; and what do I want with a child for a companion, and not my own child,--a French dancer's bastard? Why do you importune me about her! I say, why do you assign Adele to me for a companion?"
"You spoke of a retirement, sir; and retirement and solitude are dull: too dull for you."
"Solitude! solitude!" he reiterated with irritation. "I see I must come to an explanation. I don't know what sphynx-like expression is forming in your countenance. You are to share my solitude. Do you understand?"
I shook my head: it required a degree of courage, excited as he was becoming, even to risk that mute sign of dissent. He had been walking fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted to one spot. He looked at me long and hard: I turned my eyes from him, fixed them on the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet, collected aspect.
"Now for the hitch in Jane's character," he said at last, speaking more calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak. "The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and endless trouble! By God! I long to exert a fraction of Samson's strength, and break the entanglement like tow!"
He recommenced his walk, but soon again stopped, and this time just before me.
"Jane! will you hear reason?" (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear); "because, if you won't, I'll try violence." His voice was hoarse; his look that of a man who is just about to burst an insufferable bond and plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in another moment, and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be able to do nothing with him. The present--the passing second of time--was all I had in which to control and restrain him--a movement of repulsion, flight, fear would have sealed my doom,--and his. But I was not afraid: not in the least. I felt an inward power; a sense of influence, which supported me. The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm: such as the Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe. I took hold of his clenched hand, loosened the contorted fingers, and said to him, soothingly-- "Sit down; I'll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you have to say, whether reasonable or unreasonable."
He sat down: but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been struggling with tears for some time: I had taken great pains to repress them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now, however, I considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long as they liked. If the flood annoyed him, so much the better. So I gave way and cried heartily.
Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I could not while he was in such a passion.
"But I am not angry, Jane: I only love you too well; and you had steeled your little pale face with such a resolute, frozen look, I could not endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your eyes."
His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn, became calm. Now he made an effort to rest his head on my shoulder, but I would not permit it. Then he would draw me to him: no.
"Jane! Jane!" he said, in such an accent of bitter sadness it thrilled along every nerve I had; "you don't love me, then? It was only my station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued? Now that you think me disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my touch as if I were some toad or ape."
These words cut me: yet what could I do or I say? I ought probably to have done or said nothing; but I was so tortured by a sense of remorse at thus hurting his feelings, I could not control the wish to drop balm where I had wounded.
"I _do_ love you," I said, "more than ever: but I must not show or indulge the feeling: and this is the last time I must express it."
"The last time, Jane! What! do you think you can live with me, and see me daily, and yet, if you still love me, be always cold and distant?"
"No, sir; that I am certain I could not; and therefore I see there is but one way: but you will be furious if I mention it."
"Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping."
"Mr. Rochester, I must leave you."
"For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair--which is somewhat dishevelled; and bathe your face--which looks feverish?"
"I must leave Adele and Thornfield. I must part with you for my whole life: I must begin a new existence among strange faces and strange scenes."
"Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about parting from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the new existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not married. You shall be Mrs. Rochester--both virtually and nominally. I shall keep only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to a place I have in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the shores of the Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and guarded, and most innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you into error--to make you my mistress. Why did you shake your head? Jane, you must be reasonable, or in truth I shall again become frantic."
His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye blazed: still I dared to speak.
"Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical--is false."
"Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man--you forget that: I am not long- enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me and yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and--beware!"
He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking his cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all hands. To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was cruel: to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity--looked for aid to one higher than man: the words "God help me!" burst involuntarily from my lips.
"I am a fool!" cried Mr. Rochester suddenly. "I keep telling her I am not married, and do not explain to her why. I forget she knows nothing of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances attending my infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree with me in opinion, when she knows all that I know! Just put your hand in mine, Janet--that I may have the evidence of touch as well as sight, to prove you are near me--and I will in a few words show you the real state of the case. Can you listen to me?"
"Yes, sir; for hours if you will."
"I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear or know that I was not the eldest son of my house: that I had once a brother older than I?"
"I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once."
"And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping man?"
"I have understood something to that effect."
"Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property together; he could not bear the idea of dividing his estate and leaving me a fair portion: all, he resolved, should go to my brother, Rowland. Yet as little could he endure that a son of his should be a poor man. I must be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He sought me a partner betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and merchant, was his old acquaintance. He was certain his possessions were real and vast: he made inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a son and daughter; and he learned from him that he could and would give the latter a fortune of thirty thousand pounds: that sufficed. When I left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride already courted for me. My father said nothing about her money; but he told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her beauty: and this was no lie. I found her a fine woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram: tall, dark, and majestic. Her family wished to secure me because I was of a good race; and so did she. They showed her to me in parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw her alone, and had very little private conversation with her. She flattered me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her charms and accomplishments. All the men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy me. I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission. Her relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she allured me: a marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. Oh, I have no respect for myself when I think of that act! --an agony of inward contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not even know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her nature: I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor refinement in her mind or manners--and, I married her:--gross, grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might have--But let me remember to whom I am speaking."
"My bride's mother I had never seen: I understood she was dead. The honeymoon over, I learned my mistake; she was only mad, and shut up in a lunatic asylum. There was a younger brother, too--a complete dumb idiot. The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate, whilst I abhor all his kindred, because he has some grains of affection in his feeble mind, shown in the continued interest he takes in his wretched sister, and also in a dog-like attachment he once bore me), will probably be in the same state one day. My father and my brother Rowland knew all this; but they thought only of the thirty thousand pounds, and joined in the plot against me."
"These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger--when I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile--when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders--even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.
"Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some strong words shall express what I have to say. I lived with that woman upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check them, and I would not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and what giant propensities! How fearful were the curses those propensities entailed on me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an infamous mother, dragged me through all the hideous and degrading agonies which must attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate and unchaste.
"My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four years my father died too. I was rich enough now--yet poor to hideous indigence: a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was associated with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the doctors now discovered that _my wife_ was mad--her excesses had prematurely developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don't like my narrative; you look almost sick--shall I defer the rest to another day?"
"No, sir, finish it now; I pity you--I do earnestly pity you."
"Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full at this moment--with which your eyes are now almost overflowing--with which your heart is heaving--with which your hand is trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent--my arms wait to receive her."
"Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?"
"Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect was all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the world, I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved to be clean in my own sight--and to the last I repudiated the contamination of her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection with her mental defects. Still, society associated my name and person with hers; I yet saw her and heard her daily: something of her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I breathed; and besides, I remembered I had once been her husband--that recollection was then, and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I knew that while she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife; and, though five years my senior (her family and her father had lied to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus, at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless.
"One night I had been awakened by her yells--(since the medical men had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)--it was a fiery West Indian night; one of the description that frequently precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like sulphur-steams--I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake--black clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball--she threw her last bloody glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest. I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with such language! --no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word--the thin partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish cries. " 'This life,' said I at last, 'is hell: this is the air--those are the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself from it if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic's burning eternity I have no fear: there is not a future state worse than this present one--let me break away, and go home to God!'
"I said this whilst I knelt down at, and unlocked a trunk which contained a brace of loaded pistols: I mean to shoot myself. I only entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the wish and design of self-destruction, was past in a second.
"A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and the air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst its drenched pomegranates and pine-apples, and while the refulgent dawn of the tropics kindled round me--I reasoned thus, Jane--and now listen; for it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and showed me the right path to follow.
"The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart, dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled with living blood--my being longed for renewal--my soul thirsted for a pure draught. I saw hope revive--and felt regeneration possible. From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea--bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened thus:-- "'Go,' said Hope, 'and live again in Europe: there it is not known what a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you. You may take the maniac with you to England; confine her with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel yourself to what clime you will, and form what new tie you like. That woman, who has so abused your long- suffering, so sullied your name, so outraged your honour, so blighted your youth, is not your wife, nor are you her husband. See that she is cared for as her condition demands, and you have done all that God and humanity require of you. Let her identity, her connection with yourself, be buried in oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being. Place her in safety and comfort: shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave her.'
"I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had not made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union--having already begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me--I added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring to publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as myself.
"To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield, and saw her safely lodged in that third-storey room, of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast's den--a goblin's cell. I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret: besides, she had lucid intervals of days--sometimes weeks--which she filled up with abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from the Grimbsy Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed Mason's wounds that night he was stabbed and worried), are the only two I have ever admitted to my confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never failed to take advantage of her guardian's temporary lapses; once to secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she then spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what might have happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the thing which flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet visage over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles--" "And what, sir," I asked, while he paused, "did you do when you had settled her here? Where did you go?"
"What did I do, Jane? I transformed myself into a will-o'-the-wisp. Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the March-spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its lands. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent woman, whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at Thornfield--" "But you could not marry, sir."
"I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It was not my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I meant to tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly: and it appeared to me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free to love and be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found willing and able to understand my case and accept me, in spite of the curse with which I was burdened."
"Well, sir?"
"When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open your eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you, and you wanted to read the tablet of one's heart. But before I go on, tell me what you mean by your 'Well, sir?' It is a small phrase very frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on through interminable talk: I don't very well know why."
"I mean,--What next? How did you proceed? What came of such an event?"
"Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?"
"Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to marry you; and what she said."
"I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I asked her to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in the book of Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, then another: sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in Paris; occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own society: no circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a woman amongst English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras, and German grafinnen. I could not find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, I thought I caught a glance, heard a tone, beheld a form, which announced the realisation of my dream: but I was presently undeserved. You are not to suppose that I desired perfection, either of mind or person. I longed only for what suited me--for the antipodes of the Creole: and I longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not one whom, had I been ever so free, I--warned as I was of the risks, the horrors, the loathings of incongruous unions--would have asked to marry me. Disappointment made me reckless. I tried dissipation--never debauchery: that I hated, and hate. That was my Indian Messalina's attribute: rooted disgust at it and her restrained me much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it.
"Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of mistresses. The first I chose was Celine Varens--another of those steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks? Giacinta was unprincipled and violent: I tired of her in three months. Clara was honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless, and unimpressible: not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set her up in a good line of business, and so get decently rid of her. But, Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very favourable opinion of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled rake: don't you?"
"I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir. Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first with one mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of course."
"It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion of existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with Celine, Giacinta, and Clara."
I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me, as--under any pretext--with any justification--through any temptation--to become the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not give utterance to this conviction: it was enough to feel it. I impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve me as aid in the time of trial.
"Now, Jane, why don't you say 'Well, sir?' I have not done. You are looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses--in a harsh, bitter frame of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life--corroded with disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and especially against all womankind (for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual, faithful, loving woman as a mere dream), recalled by business, I came back to England.
"On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield Hall. Abhorred spot! I expected no peace--no pleasure there. On a stile in Hay Lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it: I had no presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning that the arbitress of my life--my genius for good or evil--waited there in humble guise. I did not know it, even when, on the occasion of Mesrour's accident, it came up and gravely offered me help. Childish and slender creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly; but the thing would not go: it stood by me with strange perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of authority. I must be aided, and by that hand: and aided I was.
"When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new--a fresh sap and sense--stole into my frame. It was well I had learnt that this elf must return to me--that it belonged to my house down below--or I could not have felt it pass away from under my hand, and seen it vanish behind the dim hedge, without singular regret. I heard you come home that night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I thought of you or watched for you. The next day I observed you--myself unseen--for half-an- hour, while you played with Adele in the gallery. It was a snowy day, I recollect, and you could not go out of doors. I was in my room; the door was ajar: I could both listen and watch. Adele claimed your outward attention for a while; yet I fancied your thoughts were elsewhere: but you were very patient with her, my little Jane; you talked to her and amused her a long time. When at last she left you, you lapsed at once into deep reverie: you betook yourself slowly to pace the gallery. Now and then, in passing a casement, you glanced out at the thick-falling snow; you listened to the sobbing wind, and again you paced gently on and dreamed. I think those day visions were not dark: there was a pleasurable illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in your aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding: your look revealed rather the sweet musings of youth when its spirit follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal heaven. The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the hall, wakened you: and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself, Janet! There was much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd, and seemed to make light of your own abstraction. It seemed to say--'My fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough tract to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter.' You ran downstairs and demanded of Mrs. Fairfax some occupation: the weekly house accounts to make up, or something of that sort, I think it was. I was vexed with you for getting out of my sight.
"Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my presence. An unusual--to me--a perfectly new character I suspected was yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better. You entered the room with a look and air at once shy and independent: you were quaintly dressed--much as you are now. I made you talk: ere long I found you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder; yet when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor's face: there was penetration and power in each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready and round answers. Very soon you seemed to get used to me: I believe you felt the existence of sympathy between you and your grim and cross master, Jane; for it was astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillised your manner: snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasure at my moroseness; you watched me, and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what I saw: I liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of making this novel and piquant acquaintance: besides, I was for a while troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its bloom would fade--the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I did not then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the radiant resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover, I wished to see whether you would seek me if I shunned you--but you did not; you kept in the schoolroom as still as your own desk and easel; if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and with as little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not despondent, for you were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had little hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of me, or if you ever thought of me, and resolved to find this out.
"I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your glance, and genial in your manner, when you conversed: I saw you had a social heart; it was the silent schoolroom--it was the tedium of your life--that made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon: your face became soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a grateful happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, at this time: there was a curious hesitation in your manner: you glanced at me with a slight trouble--a hovering doubt: you did not know what my caprice might be--whether I was going to play the master and be stern, or the friend and be benignant. I was now too fond of you often to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my hand out cordially, such bloom and light and bliss rose to your young, wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and there to my heart."
"Don't talk any more of those days, sir," I interrupted, furtively dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was torture to me; for I knew what I must do--and do soon--and all these reminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings only made my work more difficult.
"No, Jane," he returned: "what necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer--the Future so much brighter?"
I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion.
"You see now how the case stands--do you not?" he continued. "After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love--I have found you. You are my sympathy--my better self--my good angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.
"It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you. To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before hazarding confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now--opened to you plainly my life of agony--described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier existence--shown to you, not my _resolution_ (that word is weak), but my resistless _bent_ to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours. Jane--give it me now."
A pause.
"Why are you silent, Jane?"
I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals. Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable duty--"Depart!"
"Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise--'I will be yours, Mr. Rochester.'"
"Mr. Rochester, I will _not_ be yours."
Another long silence.
"Jane!" recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror--for this still voice was the pant of a lion rising--"Jane, do you mean to go one way in the world, and to let me go another?"
"I do."
"Jane" (bending towards and embracing me), "do you mean it now?"
"I do."
"And now?" softly kissing my forehead and cheek.
"I do," extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely.
"Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This--this is wicked. It would not be wicked to love me."
"It would to obey you."
A wild look raised his brows--crossed his features: he rose; but he forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I shook, I feared--but I resolved.
"One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left? For a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer me to some corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for a companion and for some hope?"
"Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet again there."
"Then you will not yield?"
"No."
"Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?" His voice rose.
"I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil."
"Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on lust for a passion--vice for an occupation?"
"Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and endure--you as well as I: do so. You will forget me before I forget you."
"You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I declared I could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change soon. And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in your ideas, is proved by your conduct! Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me?"
This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. "Oh, comply!" it said. "Think of his misery; think of his danger--look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair--soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for _you_? or who will be injured by what you do?"
Still indomitable was the reply--"_I_ care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad--as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth--so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane--quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot."
I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so. His fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment, whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance: physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter--often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter--in the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and my over-taxed strength almost exhausted.
"Never," said he, as he ground his teeth, "never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!" (And he shook me with the force of his hold.) "I could bend her with my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage--with a stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it--the savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit--with will and energy, and virtue and purity--that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself you could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will, you will elude the grasp like an essence--you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!"
As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at me. The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only an idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled his fury; I must elude his sorrow: I retired to the door.
"You are going, Jane?"
"I am going, sir."
"You are leaving me?"
"Yes."
"You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?"
What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to reiterate firmly, "I am going."
"Jane!"
"Mr. Rochester!"
"Withdraw, then,--I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish. Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings--think of me."
He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. "Oh, Jane! my hope--my love--my life!" broke in anguish from his lips. Then came a deep, strong sob.
I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back--walked back as determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him; I turned his face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his hair with my hand.
"God bless you, my dear master!" I said. "God keep you from harm and wrong--direct you, solace you--reward you well for your past kindness to me."
"Little Jane's love would have been my best reward," he answered; "without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love: yes--nobly, generously."
Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes; erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace, and at once quitted the room.
"Farewell!" was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added, "Farewell for ever!"
* * * * * That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as soon as I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the scenes of childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that the night was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The light that long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of the obscured ceiling. I lifted up my head to look: the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever. I watched her come--watched with the strangest anticipation; as though some word of doom were to be written on her disk. She broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first penetrated the sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a white human form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my heart-- "My daughter, flee temptation."
"Mother, I will."
So I answered after I had waked from the trance-like dream. It was yet night, but July nights are short: soon after midnight, dawn comes. "It cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil," thought I. I rose: I was dressed; for I had taken off nothing but my shoes. I knew where to find in my drawers some linen, a locket, a ring. In seeking these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr. Rochester had forced me to accept a few days ago. I left that; it was not mine: it was the visionary bride's who had melted in air. The other articles I made up in a parcel; my purse, containing twenty shillings (it was all I had), I put in my pocket: I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl, took the parcel and my slippers, which I would not put on yet, and stole from my room.
"Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!" I whispered, as I glided past her door. "Farewell, my darling Adele!" I said, as I glanced towards the nursery. No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I had to deceive a fine ear: for aught I knew it might now be listening.
I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause; but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was walking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I listened. There was a heaven--a temporary heaven--in this room for me, if I chose: I had but to go in and to say-- "Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till death," and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of this.
That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with impatience for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be gone. He would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself forsaken; his love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow desperate. I thought of this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I caught it back, and glided on.
Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and I did it mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the kitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the lock. I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I should have to walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must not break down. All this I did without one sound. I opened the door, passed out, shut it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard. The great gates were closed and locked; but a wicket in one of them was only latched. Through that I departed: it, too, I shut; and now I was out of Thornfield.
A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the contrary direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, but often noticed, and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps. No reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet--so deadly sad--that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank: something like the world when the deluge was gone by.
I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. I believe it was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had put on when I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked neither to rising sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge; of the disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I thought of drear flight and homeless wandering--and oh! with agony I thought of what I left. I could not help it. I thought of him now--in his room--watching the sunrise; hoping I should soon come to say I would stay with him and be his. I longed to be his; I panted to return: it was not too late; I could yet spare him the bitter pang of bereavement. As yet my flight, I was sure, was undiscovered. I could go back and be his comforter--his pride; his redeemer from misery, perhaps from ruin. Oh, that fear of his self-abandonment--far worse than my abandonment--how it goaded me! It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it farther in. Birds began singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their mates; birds were emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of my pain of heart and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself. I had no solace from self-approbation: none even from self-respect. I had injured--wounded--left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. Still I could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me on. As to my own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one and stifled the other. I was weeping wildly as I walked along my solitary way: fast, fast I went like one delirious. A weakness, beginning inwardly, extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell: I lay on the ground some minutes, pressing my face to the wet turf. I had some fear--or hope--that here I should die: but I was soon up; crawling forwards on my hands and knees, and then again raised to my feet--as eager and as determined as ever to reach the road.
When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge; and while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood up and lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going: the driver named a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had no connections. I asked for what sum he would take me there; he said thirty shillings; I answered I had but twenty; well, he would try to make it do. He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the vehicle was empty: I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way.
Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.
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Two days are passed. It is a summer evening; the coachman has set me down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no farther for the sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in the world. The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone. At this moment I discover that I forgot to take my parcel out of the pocket of the coach, where I had placed it for safety; there it remains, there it must remain; and now, I am absolutely destitute.
Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar set up where four roads meet: whitewashed, I suppose, to be more obvious at a distance and in darkness. Four arms spring from its summit: the nearest town to which these point is, according to the inscription, distant ten miles; the farthest, above twenty. From the well-known names of these towns I learn in what county I have lighted; a north-midland shire, dusk with moorland, ridged with mountain: this I see. There are great moors behind and on each hand of me; there are waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley at my feet. The population here must be thin, and I see no passengers on these roads: they stretch out east, west, north, and south--white, broad, lonely; they are all cut in the moor, and the heather grows deep and wild to their very verge. Yet a chance traveller might pass by; and I wish no eye to see me now: strangers would wonder what I am doing, lingering here at the sign-post, evidently objectless and lost. I might be questioned: I could give no answer but what would sound incredible and excite suspicion. Not a tie holds me to human society at this moment--not a charm or hope calls me where my fellow-creatures are--none that saw me would have a kind thought or a good wish for me. I have no relative but the universal mother, Nature: I will seek her breast and ask repose.
I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me; the crag protected my head: the sky was over that.
Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague dread that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or poacher might discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man. Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and calmed by the deep silence that reigned as evening declined at nightfall, I took confidence. As yet I had not thought; I had only listened, watched, dreaded; now I regained the faculty of reflection.
What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I could do nothing and go nowhere! --when a long way must yet be measured by my weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human habitation--when cold charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging: reluctant sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved!
I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star twinkled just above the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. To-night, at least, I would be her guest, as I was her child: my mother would lodge me without money and without price. I had one morsel of bread yet: the remnant of a roll I had bought in a town we passed through at noon with a stray penny--my last coin. I saw ripe bilberries gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the heath: I gathered a handful and ate them with the bread. My hunger, sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased by this hermit's meal. I said my evening prayers at its conclusion, and then chose my couch.
{I said my evening prayers: p311.jpg} Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet were buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow space for the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and spread it over me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow. Thus lodged, I was not, at least--at the commencement of the night, cold.
My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it. It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords. It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.
Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky- way. Remembering what it was--what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light--I felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe; he was God's, and by God would he be guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long in sleep forgot sorrow.
But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried--when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and sky--I got up, and I looked round me.
What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here. But I was a human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not linger where there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked back at the bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but this--that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness. Life, however, was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled. I set out.
Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now fervent and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost overpowered me--might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on a stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged heart and limb--I heard a bell chime--a church bell.
I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the romantic hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an hour ago, I saw a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right hand was full of pasture- fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a glittering stream ran zig-zag through the varied shades of green, the mellowing grain, the sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea. Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to the road before me, I saw a heavily-laden waggon labouring up the hill, and not far beyond were two cows and their drover. Human life and human labour were near. I must struggle on: strive to live and bend to toil like the rest.
About two o'clock p.m. I entered the village. At the bottom of its one street there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the window. I coveted a cake of bread. With that refreshment I could perhaps regain a degree of energy: without it, it would be difficult to proceed. The wish to have some strength and some vigour returned to me as soon as I was amongst my fellow-beings. I felt it would be degrading to faint with hunger on the causeway of a hamlet. Had I nothing about me I could offer in exchange for one of these rolls? I considered. I had a small silk handkerchief tied round my throat; I had my gloves. I could hardly tell how men and women in extremities of destitution proceeded. I did not know whether either of these articles would be accepted: probably they would not; but I must try.
I entered the shop: a woman was there. Seeing a respectably-dressed person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility. How could she serve me? I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter the request I had prepared. I dared not offer her the half-worn gloves, the creased handkerchief: besides, I felt it would be absurd. I only begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired. Disappointed in the expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to my request. She pointed to a seat; I sank into it. I felt sorely urged to weep; but conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be, I restrained it. Soon I asked her "if there were any dressmaker or plain-workwoman in the village?"
"Yes; two or three. Quite as many as there was employment for."
I reflected. I was driven to the point now. I was brought face to face with Necessity. I stood in the position of one without a resource, without a friend, without a coin. I must do something. What? I must apply somewhere. Where?
"Did she know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant was wanted?"
"Nay; she couldn't say."
"What was the chief trade in this place? What did most of the people do?"
"Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver's needle-factory, and at the foundry."
"Did Mr. Oliver employ women?"
"Nay; it was men's work."
"And what do the women do?"
"I knawn't," was the answer. "Some does one thing, and some another. Poor folk mun get on as they can."
She seemed to be tired of my questions: and, indeed, what claim had I to importune her? A neighbour or two came in; my chair was evidently wanted. I took leave.
I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to the right hand and to the left; but I could discover no pretext, nor see an inducement to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet, going sometimes to a little distance and returning again, for an hour or more. Much exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of food, I turned aside into a lane and sat down under the hedge. Ere many minutes had elapsed, I was again on my feet, however, and again searching something--a resource, or at least an informant. A pretty little house stood at the top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat and brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it. What business had I to approach the white door or touch the glittering knocker? In what way could it possibly be the interest of the inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me? Yet I drew near and knocked. A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young woman opened the door. In such a voice as might be expected from a hopeless heart and fainting frame--a voice wretchedly low and faltering--I asked if a servant was wanted here?
"No," said she; "we do not keep a servant."
"Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?" I continued. "I am a stranger, without acquaintance in this place. I want some work: no matter what."
But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for me: besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must have appeared my character, position, tale. She shook her head, she "was sorry she could give me no information," and the white door closed, quite gently and civilly: but it shut me out. If she had held it open a little longer, I believe I should have begged a piece of bread; for I was now brought low.
I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no prospect of aid was visible. I should have longed rather to deviate to a wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to offer inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with nature's cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there was a chance of food. Solitude would be no solitude--rest no rest--while the vulture, hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side.
I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I wandered away: always repelled by the consciousness of having no claim to ask--no right to expect interest in my isolated lot. Meantime, the afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and starving dog. In crossing a field, I saw the church spire before me: I hastened towards it. Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a garden, stood a well-built though small house, which I had no doubt was the parsonage. I remembered that strangers who arrive at a place where they have no friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply to the clergyman for introduction and aid. It is the clergyman's function to help--at least with advice--those who wished to help themselves. I seemed to have something like a right to seek counsel here. Renewing then my courage, and gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed on. I reached the house, and knocked at the kitchen-door. An old woman opened: I asked was this the parsonage?
"Yes."
"Was the clergyman in?"
"No."
"Would he be in soon?"
"No, he was gone from home."
"To a distance?"
"Not so far--happen three mile. He had been called away by the sudden death of his father: he was at Marsh End now, and would very likely stay there a fortnight longer."
"Was there any lady of the house?"
"Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper;" and of her, reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I was sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away.
Once more I took off my handkerchief--once more I thought of the cakes of bread in the little shop. Oh, for but a crust! for but one mouthful to allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my face again to the village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and though others were there besides the woman I ventured the request--"Would she give me a roll for this handkerchief?"
She looked at me with evident suspicion: "Nay, she never sold stuff i' that way."
Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused. "How could she tell where I had got the handkerchief?" she said.
"Would she take my gloves?"
"No! what could she do with them?"
Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say there is enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this day I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not be helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably so. To be sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment? Not, certainly, that of persons who saw me then for the first time, and who knew nothing about my character. And as to the woman who would not take my handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me condense now. I am sick of the subject.
A little before dark I passed a farm-house, at the open door of which the farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese. I stopped and said-- "Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry." He cast on me a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick slice from his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I was a beggar, but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a fancy to his brown loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I sat down and ate it.
I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the wood I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my rest broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed near me more than once, and I had again and again to change my quarters; no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me. Towards morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet. Do not ask me, reader, to give a minute account of that day; as before, I sought work; as before, I was repulsed; as before, I starved; but once did food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage I saw a little girl about to throw a mess of cold porridge into a pig trough. "Will you give me that?" I asked.
{"Will you give me that?" I asked: p316.jpg} She stared at me. "Mother!" she exclaimed, "there is a woman wants me to give her these porridge."
"Well lass," replied a voice within, "give it her if she's a beggar. T' pig doesn't want it."
The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it ravenously.
As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path, which I had been pursuing an hour or more.
"My strength is quite failing me," I said in a soliloquy. "I feel I cannot go much farther. Shall I be an outcast again this night? While the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched ground? I fear I cannot do otherwise: for who will receive me? But it will be very dreadful, with this feeling of hunger, faintness, chill, and this sense of desolation--this total prostration of hope. In all likelihood, though, I should die before morning. And why cannot I reconcile myself to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life? Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is living: and then, to die of want and cold is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively. Oh, Providence! sustain me a little longer! Aid! --direct me!"
My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape. I saw I had strayed far from the village: it was quite out of sight. The very cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by cross-ways and by- paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and now, only a few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the heath from which they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the dusky hill.
"Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a frequented road," I reflected. "And far better that crows and ravens--if any ravens there be in these regions--should pick my flesh from my bones, than that they should be prisoned in a workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper's grave."
To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It remained now only to find a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden, if not secure. But all the surface of the waste looked level. It showed no variation but of tint: green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; black, where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was getting, I could still see these changes, though but as mere alternations of light and shade; for colour had faded with the daylight.
My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge, vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. "That is an _ignis fatuus_," was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish. It burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing. "Is it, then, a bonfire just kindled?" I questioned. I watched to see whether it would spread: but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not enlarge. "It may be a candle in a house," I then conjectured; "but if so, I can never reach it. It is much too far away: and were it within a yard of me, what would it avail? I should but knock at the door to have it shut in my face."
And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the ground. I lay still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and over me, and died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me afresh to the skin. Could I but have stiffened to the still frost--the friendly numbness of death--it might have pelted on; I should not have felt it; but my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling influence. I rose ere long.
The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain. I tried to walk again: I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it. It led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have been impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in the height of summer. Here I fell twice; but as often I rose and rallied my faculties. This light was my forlorn hope: I must gain it.
Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor. I approached it; it was a road or a track: it led straight up to the light, which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of trees--firs, apparently, from what I could distinguish of the character of their forms and foliage through the gloom. My star vanished as I drew near: some obstacle had intervened between me and it. I put out my hand to feel the dark mass before me: I discriminated the rough stones of a low wall--above it, something like palisades, and within, a high and prickly hedge. I groped on. Again a whitish object gleamed before me: it was a gate--a wicket; it moved on its hinges as I touched it. On each side stood a sable bush-holly or yew.
Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house rose to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light shone nowhere. All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to rest? I feared it must be so. In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot out the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very small latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller by the growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick over the portion of the house wall in which it was set. The aperture was so screened and narrow, that curtain or shutter had been deemed unnecessary; and when I stooped down and put aside the spray of foliage shooting over it, I could see all within. I could see clearly a room with a sanded floor, clean scoured; a dresser of walnut, with pewter plates ranged in rows, reflecting the redness and radiance of a glowing peat-fire. I could see a clock, a white deal table, some chairs. The candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on the table; and by its light an elderly woman, somewhat rough-looking, but scrupulously clean, like all about her, was knitting a stocking.
I noticed these objects cursorily only--in them there was nothing extraordinary. A group of more interest appeared near the hearth, sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two young, graceful women--ladies in every point--sat, one in a low rocking-chair, the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning of crape and bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair necks and faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of one girl--in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat.
A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who were they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at the table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy and cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet, as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot call them handsome--they were too pale and grave for the word: as they each bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A stand between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to which they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the smaller books they held in their hands, like people consulting a dictionary to aid them in the task of translation. This scene was as silent as if all the figures had been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock tick in its obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the click-click of the woman's knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me.
"Listen, Diana," said one of the absorbed students; "Franz and old Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream from which he has awakened in terror--listen!" And in a low voice she read something, of which not one word was intelligible to me; for it was in an unknown tongue--neither French nor Latin. Whether it were Greek or German I could not tell.
"That is strong," she said, when she had finished: "I relish it." The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read. At a later day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will here quote the line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on sounding brass to me--conveying no meaning:-- "'Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.' Good! good!" she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. "There you have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is worth a hundred pages of fustian. 'Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.' I like it!"
Both were again silent.
"Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?" asked the old woman, looking up from her knitting.
"Yes, Hannah--a far larger country than England, where they talk in no other way."
"Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t' one t'other: and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess?"
"We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all--for we are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don't speak German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us."
"And what good does it do you?"
"We mean to teach it some time--or at least the elements, as they say; and then we shall get more money than we do now."
"Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for to-night."
"I think we have: at least I'm tired. Mary, are you?"
"Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language with no master but a lexicon."
"It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home."
"Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a little gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah: will you have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?"
The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage: soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back.
"Ah, childer!" said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond' room now: it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a corner."
She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked sad now.
"But he is in a better place," continued Hannah: "we shouldn't wish him here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had."
"You say he never mentioned us?" inquired one of the ladies.
"He hadn't time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father. He had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be sent for, he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his head the next day--that is, a fortnight sin'--and he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a'most stark when your brother went into t' chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that's t' last o' t' old stock--for ye and Mr. St. John is like of different soart to them 'at's gone; for all your mother wor mich i' your way, and a'most as book-learned. She wor the pictur' o' ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father."
I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing it; Mary's pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana's duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck ten.
"Ye'll want your supper, I am sure," observed Hannah; "and so will Mr. St. John when he comes in."
And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited in me so keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible did it appear to touch the inmates of this house with concern on my behalf; to make them believe in the truth of my wants and woes--to induce them to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As I groped out the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah opened.
"What do you want?" she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she surveyed me by the light of the candle she held.
"May I speak to your mistresses?" I said.
"You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you come from?"
"I am a stranger."
"What is your business here at this hour?"
"I want a night's shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel of bread to eat."
Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face. "I'll give you a piece of bread," she said, after a pause; "but we can't take in a vagrant to lodge. It isn't likely."
"Do let me speak to your mistresses."
"No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about now; it looks very ill."
"But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?"
"Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don't do wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go--" "A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don't shut the door:--oh, don't, for God's sake!"
"I must; the rain is driving in--" "Tell the young ladies. Let me see them--" "Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn't make such a noise. Move off."
"But I must die if I am turned away."
"Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any followers--housebreakers or such like--anywhere near, you may tell them we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and guns." Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and bolted it within.
This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering--a throe of true despair--rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned--I wrung my hands--I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation--this banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone--at least for a moment; but the last I soon endeavoured to regain.
"I can but die," I said, "and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His will in silence."
These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain there--dumb and still.
"All men must die," said a voice quite close at hand; "but all are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be if you perished here of want."
"Who or what speaks?" I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A form was near--what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock, the new-comer appealed to the door.
"Is it you, Mr. St. John?" cried Hannah.
"Yes--yes; open quickly."
"Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is! Come in--your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad folks about. There has been a beggar-woman--I declare she is not gone yet! --laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move off, I say!"
"Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done your duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was near, and listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar case--I must at least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass before me into the house."
{Hush, Hannah; I have a word to say to the woman: p323.jpg} With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean, bright kitchen--on the very hearth--trembling, sickening; conscious of an aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten. The two ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing at me.
"St. John, who is it?" I heard one ask.
"I cannot tell: I found her at the door," was the reply.
"She does look white," said Hannah.
"As white as clay or death," was responded. "She will fall: let her sit."
And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I still possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak.
"Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some. But she is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!"
"A mere spectre!"
"Is she ill, or only famished?"
"Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece of bread."
Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me and the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk, and put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it, and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words, too, the same balm-like emotion spoke: "Try to eat."
"Yes--try," repeated Mary gently; and Mary's hand removed my sodden bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me: feebly at first, eagerly soon.
"Not too much at first--restrain her," said the brother; "she has had enough." And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread.
"A little more, St. John--look at the avidity in her eyes."
"No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now--ask her her name."
I felt I could speak, and I answered--"My name is Jane Elliott." Anxious as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an _alias_.
"And where do you live? Where are your friends?"
I was silent.
"Can we send for any one you know?"
I shook my head.
"What account can you give of yourself?"
Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off the mendicant--to resume my natural manner and character. I began once more to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account--which at present I was far too weak to render--I said after a brief pause-- "Sir, I can give you no details to-night."
"But what, then," said he, "do you expect me to do for you?"
"Nothing," I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers. Diana took the word-- "Do you mean," she asked, "that we have now given you what aid you require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy night?"
I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage. Answering her compassionate gaze with a smile, I said--"I will trust you. If I were a masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear. Do with me and for me as you like; but excuse me from much discourse--my breath is short--I feel a spasm when I speak." All three surveyed me, and all three were silent.
"Hannah," said Mr. St. John, at last, "let her sit there at present, and ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the remainder of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the parlour and talk the matter over."
They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned--I could not tell which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I thanked God--experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful joy--and slept.
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{
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The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew I was in a small room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have been almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse of time--of the change from morning to noon, from noon to evening. I observed when any one entered or left the apartment: I could even tell who they were; I could understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible. Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed me. I had a feeling that she wished me away: that she did not understand me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me. Diana and Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day. They would whisper sentences of this sort at my bedside-- "It is very well we took her in."
"Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the morning had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone through?"
"Strange hardships, I imagine--poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer?"
"She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off, though splashed and wet, were little worn and fine."
"She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy would be agreeable."
Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or aversion to, myself. I was comforted.
Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he was sure, would manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve had been overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a while. There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would be rapid enough when once commenced. These opinions he delivered in a few words, in a quiet, low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of a man little accustomed to expansive comment, "Rather an unusual physiognomy; certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation."
"Far otherwise," responded Diana. "To speak truth, St. John, my heart rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able to benefit her permanently."
"That is hardly likely," was the reply. "You will find she is some young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in restoring her to them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines of force in her face which make me sceptical of her tractability." He stood considering me some minutes; then added, "She looks sensible, but not at all handsome."
"She is so ill, St. John."
"Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of beauty are quite wanting in those features."
On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move, rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with relish: the food was good--void of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed. When she left me, I felt comparatively strong and revived: ere long satiety of repose and desire for action stirred me. I wished to rise; but what could I put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear before my benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation.
On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was quite decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered presentable. There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting every five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung loose on me; for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and once more, clean and respectable looking--no speck of the dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, left--I crept down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow low passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen.
It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first: latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled.
"What, you have got up!" she said. "You are better, then. You may sit you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will."
She pointed to the rocking-chair: I took it. She bustled about, examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning to me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly-- "Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?"
I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of the question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness-- "You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar; any more than yourself or your young ladies."
After a pause she said, "I dunnut understand that: you've like no house, nor no brass, I guess?"
"The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money) does not make a beggar in your sense of the word."
"Are you book-learned?" she inquired presently.
"Yes, very."
"But you've never been to a boarding-school?"
"I was at a boarding-school eight years."
She opened her eyes wide. "Whatever cannot ye keep yourself for, then?"
"I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What are you going to do with these gooseberries?" I inquired, as she brought out a basket of the fruit.
"Mak' 'em into pies."
"Give them to me and I'll pick them."
"Nay; I dunnut want ye to do nought."
"But I must do something. Let me have them."
She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over my dress, "lest," as she said, "I should mucky it."
"Ye've not been used to sarvant's wark, I see by your hands," she remarked. "Happen ye've been a dressmaker?"
"No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been: don't trouble your head further about me; but tell me the name of the house where we are."
"Some calls it Marsh End, and some calls it Moor House."
"And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?"
"Nay; he doesn't live here: he is only staying a while. When he is at home, he is in his own parish at Morton."
"That village a few miles off?
"Aye."
"And what is he?"
"He is a parson."
I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage, when I had asked to see the clergyman. "This, then, was his father's residence?"
"Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather, and gurt (great) grandfather afore him."
"The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?"
"Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name."
"And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?"
"Yes."
"Their father is dead?"
"Dead three weeks sin' of a stroke."
"They have no mother?"
"The mistress has been dead this mony a year."
"Have you lived with the family long?"
"I've lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three."
"That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I will say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a beggar."
She again regarded me with a surprised stare. "I believe," she said, "I was quite mista'en in my thoughts of you: but there is so mony cheats goes about, you mun forgie me."
"And though," I continued, rather severely, "you wished to turn me from the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog."
"Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o' th' childer nor of mysel: poor things! They've like nobody to tak' care on 'em but me. I'm like to look sharpish."
I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.
"You munnut think too hardly of me," she again remarked.
"But I do think hardly of you," I said; "and I'll tell you why--not so much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I had no 'brass' and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime."
"No more I ought," said she: "Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I see I wor wrang--but I've clear a different notion on you now to what I had. You look a raight down dacent little crater."
"That will do--I forgive you now. Shake hands."
She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier smile illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends.
Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and she made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details about her deceased master and mistress, and "the childer," as she called the young people.
Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and of as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End had belonged to the Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed, "aboon two hundred year old--for all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall down i' Morton Vale. But she could remember Bill Oliver's father a journeyman needlemaker; and th' Rivers wor gentry i' th' owd days o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking into th' registers i' Morton Church vestry." Still, she allowed, "the owd maister was like other folk--naught mich out o' t' common way: stark mad o' shooting, and farming, and sich like." The mistress was different. She was a great reader, and studied a deal; and the "bairns" had taken after her. There was nothing like them in these parts, nor ever had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time they could speak; and they had always been "of a mak' of their own." Mr. St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a parson; and the girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places as governesses: for they had told her their father had some years ago lost a great deal of money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt; and as he was now not rich enough to give them fortunes, they must provide for themselves. They had lived very little at home for a long while, and were only come now to stay a few weeks on account of their father's death; but they did so like Marsh End and Morton, and all these moors and hills about. They had been in London, and many other grand towns; but they always said there was no place like home; and then they were so agreeable with each other--never fell out nor "threaped." She did not know where there was such a family for being united.
Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two ladies and their brother were now.
"Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half-an-hour to tea."
They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they entered by the kitchen door. Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few words, kindly and calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be able to come down; Diana took my hand: she shook her head at me.
"You should have waited for my leave to descend," she said. "You still look very pale--and so thin! Poor child! --poor girl!"
Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove. She possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face seemed to me full of charm. Mary's countenance was equally intelligent--her features equally pretty; but her expression was more reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will, evidently. It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active will.
"And what business have you here?" she continued. "It is not your place. Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we like to be free, even to license--but you are a visitor, and must go into the parlour."
"I am very well here."
"Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour."
"Besides, the fire is too hot for you," interposed Mary.
"To be sure," added her sister. "Come, you must be obedient." And still holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner room.
"Sit there," she said, placing me on the sofa, "while we take our things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we exercise in our little moorland home--to prepare our own meals when we are so inclined, or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing."
She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined first, the parlour, and then its occupant.
The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were very bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A few strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained some books and an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous ornament in the room--not one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of workboxes and a lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on a side-table: everything--including the carpet and curtains--looked at once well worn and well saved.
Mr. St. John--sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on the walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips mutely sealed--was easy enough to examine. Had he been a statue instead of a man, he could not have been easier. He was young--perhaps from twenty- eight to thirty--tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight, classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin. It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes so near the antique models as did his. He might well be a little shocked at the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being so harmonious. His eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead, colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair.
This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor even direct to me one glance, till his sisters returned. Diana, as she passed in and out, in the course of preparing tea, brought me a little cake, baked on the top of the oven.
"Eat that now," she said: "you must be hungry. Hannah says you have had nothing but some gruel since breakfast."
I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr. Rivers now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a seat, fixed his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There was an unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto kept it averted from the stranger.
"You are very hungry," he said.
"I am, sir." It is my way--it always was my way, by instinct--ever to meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness.
"It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to the cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though still not immoderately."
"I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir," was my very clumsily- contrived, unpolished answer.
"No," he said coolly: "when you have indicated to us the residence of your friends, we can write to them, and you may be restored to home."
"That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being absolutely without home and friends."
The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was no suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak particularly of the young ladies. St. John's eyes, though clear enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people's thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than to encourage.
"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you are completely isolated from every connection?"
"I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess to admittance under any roof in England."
"A most singular position at your age!"
Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on the table before me. I wondered what he sought there: his words soon explained the quest.
"You have never been married? You are a spinster?"
Diana laughed. "Why, she can't be above seventeen or eighteen years old, St. John," said she.
"I am near nineteen: but I am not married. No."
I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all saw the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me by turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the colder and sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble he had excited forced out tears as well as colour.
"Where did you last reside?" he now asked.
"You are too inquisitive, St. John," murmured Mary in a low voice; but he leaned over the table and required an answer by a second firm and piercing look.
"The name of the place where, and of the person with whom I lived, is my secret," I replied concisely.
"Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both from St. John and every other questioner," remarked Diana.
"Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help you," he said. "And you need help, do you not?"
"I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist will put me in the way of getting work which I can do, and the remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries of life."
"I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to aid you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest. First, then, tell me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you _can_ do."
I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the beverage; as much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my unstrung nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young judge steadily.
"Mr. Rivers," I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he looked at me, openly and without diffidence, "you and your sisters have done me a great service--the greatest man can do his fellow-being; you have rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death. This benefit conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my gratitude, and a claim, to a certain extent, on my confidence. I will tell you as much of the history of the wanderer you have harboured, as I can tell without compromising my own peace of mind--my own security, moral and physical, and that of others.
"I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died before I could know them. I was brought up a dependant; educated in a charitable institution. I will even tell you the name of the establishment, where I passed six years as a pupil, and two as a teacher--Lowood Orphan Asylum, ---shire: you will have heard of it, Mr. Rivers? --the Rev. Robert Brocklehurst is the treasurer."
"I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have seen the school."
"I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess. I obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was obliged to leave four days before I came here. The reason of my departure I cannot and ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and would sound incredible. No blame attached to me: I am as free from culpability as any one of you three. Miserable I am, and must be for a time; for the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a paradise was of a strange and direful nature. I observed but two points in planning my departure--speed, secrecy: to secure these, I had to leave behind me everything I possessed except a small parcel; which, in my hurry and trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of the coach that brought me to Whitcross. To this neighbourhood, then, I came, quite destitute. I slept two nights in the open air, and wandered about two days without crossing a threshold: but twice in that space of time did I taste food; and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost to the last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to perish of want at your door, and took me under the shelter of your roof. I know all your sisters have done for me since--for I have not been insensible during my seeming torpor--and I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as to your evangelical charity."
"Don't make her talk any more now, St. John," said Diana, as I paused; "she is evidently not yet fit for excitement. Come to the sofa and sit down now, Miss Elliott."
I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the _alias_: I had forgotten my new name. Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape, noticed it at once.
"You said your name was Jane Elliott?" he observed.
"I did say so; and it is the name by which I think it expedient to be called at present, but it is not my real name, and when I hear it, it sounds strange to me."
"Your real name you will not give?"
"No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure would lead to it, I avoid."
"You are quite right, I am sure," said Diana. "Now do, brother, let her be at peace a while."
But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as imperturbably and with as much acumen as ever.
"You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality--you would wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters' compassion, and, above all, with my _charity_ (I am quite sensible of the distinction drawn, nor do I resent it--it is just): you desire to be independent of us?"
"I do: I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to seek work: that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to the meanest cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread another essay of the horrors of homeless destitution."
"Indeed you _shall_ stay here," said Diana, putting her white hand on my head. "You _shall_," repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative sincerity which seemed natural to her.
"My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you," said Mr. St. John, "as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen bird, some wintry wind might have driven through their casement. I feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is narrow. I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be of the humblest sort. And if you are inclined to despise the day of small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can offer."
"She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she can do," answered Diana for me; "and you know, St. John, she has no choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people as you."
"I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better," I answered.
"Right," said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. "If such is your spirit, I promise to aid you, in my own time and way."
He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea. I soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my present strength would permit.
|
{
"id": "1260"
}
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