Madam, you remind me of my own wife. She asks me a question, and she will not let me answer.
That is the only way I know of getting on. Mistress Carroway must understand you, captain. I was at the point of telling you how my cousin Joan was married, before her money went, and when she was really good-looking. I was quite a child, and ran along the shore to see it. It must have been in the high summer-time, with the weather fit for bathing, and the sea as smooth as a duck-pond. And Captain Robin, being well-to-do, and established with every thing except a wife, and pleased with the pretty smile and quiet ways of Joanfor he never had heard of her money, mindput his oar into the sea and rowed from Flamborough all the way to Filey Brigg, with thirty-five fishermen after him; for the Flamborough people make a point of seeing one another through their troubles. And Robin was known for the handsomest man and the uttermost fisher of the landing, with three boats of his own, and good birth, and long sea-lines. And there at once they found my cousin Joan, with her trustees, come overland, four wagons and a cart in all of them; and after they were married, they burned sea-weed, having no fear in those days of invasions. And a merry day they made of it, and rowed back by the moonshine. For every one liked and respected Captain Cockscroft on account of his skill with the deep-sea lines, and the openness of his hands when fulla wonderful quiet and harmless man, as the manner is of all great fishermen. They had bacon for breakfast whenever they liked, and a guinea to lend to any body in distress.
Then suddenly one morning, when his hair was growing gray and his eyes getting weary of the night work, so that he said his young Robin must grow big enough to learn all the secrets of the fishes, while his father took a spell in the blankets, suddenly there came to them a shocking piece of news. All his wifes bit of money, and his own as well, which he had been putting by from year to year, was lost in a new-fangled Bank, supposed as faithful as the Bible. Joan was very nearly crazed about it; but Captain Cockscroft never heaved a sigh, though they say it was nearly seven hundred guineas. There are fish enough still in the sea, he said; and the Lord has spared our children. I will build a new boat, and not think of feather-beds.
Captain Carroway, he did so, and every body knows what befell him. The new boat, built with his own hands, was called the Mercy Robin, for his only son and daughter, little Mercy and poor Robin. The boat is there as bright as ever, scarlet within and white outside; but the name is painted off, because the little dears are in their graves. Two nicer children were never seen, clever, and sprightly, and good to learn; they never even took a common birds nest, I have heard, but loved all the little things the Lord has made, as if with a foreknowledge of going early home to Him. Their father came back very tired one morning, and went up the hill to his breakfast, and the children got into the boat and pushed off, in imitation of their daddy. It came on to blow, as it does down there, without a single whiff of warning; and when Robin awoke for his middle-day meal, the bodies of his little ones were lying on the table. And from that very day Captain Cockscroft and his wife began to grow old very quickly. The boat was recovered without much damage; and in it he sits by the hour on dry land, whenever there is no one on the cliffs to see him, with his hands upon his lap, and his eyes upon the place where his dear little children used to sit. Because he has always taken whatever fell upon him gently; and of course that makes it ever so much worse when he dwells upon the things that come inside of him.
Madam, you make me feel quite sorry for him, the lieutenant exclaimed, as she began to cry, If even one of my little ones was drowned, I declare to you, I can not tell what I should be like. And to lose them all at once, and as his own wife perhaps would say, because he was thinking of his breakfast! And when he had been robbed, and the world all gone against him! Madam, it is a long time, thank God, since I heard so sad a tale.
Now you would not, captain, I am sure you would not, said Mistress Anerley, getting up a smile, yet freshening his perception of a tear as wellyou would never have the heart to destroy that poor old couple by striking the last prop from under them. By the will of the Lord they are broken down enough. They are quietly hobbling to their graves, and would you be the man to come and knock them on their heads at once?
Mistress Anerley, have you ever heard that I am a brute and inhuman? Madam, I have no less than seven children, and I hope to have fourteen.
I hope with all my heart you may. And you will deserve them all, for promising so very kindly not to shoot poor Robin Lyth.
Robin Lyth! I never spoke of him, madam. He is outlawed, condemned, with a fine reward upon him. We shot at him to-day; we shall shoot at him again; and before very long we must hit him. Maam, it is my duty to the king, the Constitution, the service I belong to, and the babes I have begotten.
Blood-money poisons all innocent mouths, Sir, and breaks out for generations. And for it you will have to take three livesRobins, the captains, and my dear old cousin Joans.
Mistress Anerley, you deprive me of all satisfaction. It is just my luck, when my duty was so plain, and would pay so well for doing of.
Listen now, captain. It is my opinion, and I am generally borne out by the end, that instead of a hundred pounds for killing Robin Lyth, you may get a thousand for preserving him alive. Do you know how he came upon this coast, and how he has won his extraordinary name?
I have certainly heard rumors; scarcely any two alike. But I took no heed of them. My duty was to catch him; and it mattered not a straw to me who or what he was. But now I must really beg to know all about him, and what makes you think such things of him. Why should that excellent old couple hang upon him? and what can make him worth such a quantity of money? Honestly, of course, I mean; honestly worth it, maam, without any cheating of his Majesty.
Captain Carroway, his hostess said, not without a little blush, as she thought of the king and his revenue, cheating of his Majesty is a thing we leave for others. But if you wish to hear the story of that young man, so far as known, which is not so even in Flamborough, you must please to come on Sunday, Sir; for Sunday is the only day that I can spare for clacking, as the common people say. I must be off now; I have fifty things to see to. And on Sunday my master has his best things on, and loves no better than to sit with his legs up, and a long clay pipe lying on him down below his waist (or, to speak more correctly, where it used to be, as he might, indeed, almost say the very same to me), and then not to speak a word, but hear other folk tell stories, that might not have made such a dinner as himself. And as for dinner, Sir, if you will do the honor to dine with them that are no more than in the Volunteers, a saddle of good mutton fit for the Body-Guards to ride upon, the men with the skins around them all turned up, will be ready just at one oclock, if the parson lets us out.
My dear madam, I shall scarcely care to look at any slice of victuals until one oclock on Sunday, by reason of looking forward.
After all, this was not such a gross exaggeration, Anerley Farm being famous for its cheer; whereas the poor lieutenant, at the best of times, had as much as he could do to make both ends meet; and his wife, though a wonderful manager, could give him no better than coarse bread, and almost coarser meat.
And, Sir, if your good lady would oblige us also
No, madam, no! he cried, with vigorous decision, having found many festive occasions spoiled by excess of loving vigilance; we thank you most truly; but I must say no. She would jump at the chance; but a husband must consider. You may have heard it mentioned that the Lord is now considering about the production of an eighth little Carroway.
Captain, I have not, or I should not so have spoken. But with all my heart I wish you joy.
I have pleasure, I assure you, in the prospect, Mistress Anerley. My friends make wry faces, but I blow them away, Tush, I say, tush, Sir; at the rate we now are fighting, and exhausting all British material, there can not be too many, Sir, of mettle such as mine! What do you say to that, madam?
Sir, I believe it is the Lords own truth. And true it is also that our country should do more to support the brave hearts that fight for it.
Mrs. Anerley sighed, for she thought of her younger son, by his own perversity launched into the thankless peril of fighting Englands battles. His death at any time might come home, if any kind person should take the trouble even to send news of it; or he might lie at the bottom of the sea unknown, even while they were talking. But Carroway buttoned up his coat and marched, after a pleasant and kind farewell. In the course of hard service he had seen much grief, and suffered plenty of bitterness, and he knew that it is not the part of a man to multiply any of his troubles but children. He went about his work, and he thought of all his comforts, which need not have taken very long to count, but he added to their score by not counting them, and by the self-same process diminished that of troubles. And thus, upon the whole, he deserved his Sunday dinner, and the tale of his hostess after it, not a word of which Mary was allowed to hear, for some subtle reason of her mothers. But the farmer heard it all, and kept interrupting so, when his noddings and the joggings of his pipe allowed, or, perhaps one should say, compelled him, that merely for the courtesy of saving common time it is better now to set it down without them. Moreover, there are many things well worthy of production which she did not produce, for reasons which are now no hinderance. And the foremost of those reasons is that the lady did not know the things; the second that she could not tell them clearly as a man might; and the third, and best of all, that if she could, she would not do so. In which she certainly was quite right; for it would have become her very badly, as the cousin of Joan Cockscroft (half removed, and upon the mothers side), and therefore kindly received at Flamborough, and admitted into the inner circle, and allowed to buy fish at wholesale prices, if she had turned round upon all these benefits, and described all the holes to be found in the place, for the teaching of a revenue officer.
Still, it must be clearly understood that the nature of the people is fishing. They never were known to encourage free-trading, but did their very utmost to protect themselves; and if they had produced the very noblest free-trader, born before the time of Mr. Cobden, neither the credit nor the blame was theirs.
CHAPTER X
ROBIN LYTH
Half a league to the north of bold Flamborough Head the billows have carved for themselves a little cove among cliffs which are rugged, but not very high. This opening is something like the grain shoot of a mill, or a screen for riddling gravel, so steep is the pitch of the ground, and so narrow the shingly ledge at the bottom. And truly in bad weather and at high tides there is no shingle ledge at all, but the crest of the wave volleys up the incline, and the surf rushes on to the top of it. For the cove, though sheltered from other quarters, receives the full brunt of northeasterly gales, and offers no safe anchorage. But the hardy fishermen make the most of its scant convenience, and gratefully call it North Landing, albeit both wind and tide must be in good humor, or the only thing sure of any landing is the sea. The long desolation of the sea rolls in with a sound of melancholy, the gray fog droops its fold of drizzle in the leaden-tinted troughs, the pent cliffs overhang the flapping of the sail, and a few yards of pebble and of weed are all that a boat may come home upon harmlessly. Yet here in the old time landed men who carved the shape of England; and here even in these lesser days, are landed uncommonly fine cod.
The difficulties of the feat are these: to get ashore soundly, and then to make it good; and after that to clinch the exploit by getting on land, which is yet a harder step. Because the steep of the ground, like a staircase void of stairs, stands facing you, and the cliff upon either side juts up close, to forbid any flanking movement, and the scanty scarp denies fair start for a rush at the power of the hill front. Yet here must the heavy boats beach themselves, and wallow and yaw in the shingly roar, while their cargo and crew get out of them, their gunwales swinging from side to side, in the manner of a porpoise rolling, and their stem and stern going up and down like a pair of lads at seesaw.
But after these heavy boats have endured all that, they have not found their rest yet without a crowning effort. Up that gravelly and gliddery ascent, which changes every groove and run at every sudden shower, but never grows any the softerup that the heavy boats must make clamber somehow, or not a single timber of their precious frames is safe. A big rope from the capstan at the summit is made fast as soon as the tails of the jackasses (laden with three cwt. of fish apiece) have wagged their last flick at the brow of the steep; and then with yo-heave-ho above and below, through the cliffs echoing over the dull sea, the groaning and grinding of the stubborn tug begins. Each boat has her own special course to travel up, and her own special berth of safety, and she knows every jag that will gore her on the road, and every flint from which she will strike fire. By dint of sheer sturdiness of arms, legs, and lungs, keeping true time with the pant and the shout, steadily goes it with hoist and haul, and cheerily undulates the melody of call that rallies them all with a strong will together, until the steep bluff and the burden of the bulk by masculine labor are conquered, and a long row of powerful pinnaces displayed, as a mounted battery, against the fishful sea. With a view to this clambering ruggedness of life, all of these boats receive from their cradle a certain limber rake and accommodating curve, instead of a straight pertinacity of keel, so that they may ride over all the scandals of this arduous world. And happen what may to them, when they are at home, and gallantly balanced on the brow line of the steep, they make a bright show upon the dreariness of coast-land, hanging as they do above the gullet of the deep. Painted outside with the brightest of scarlet, and inside with the purest white, at a little way off they resemble gay butterflies, preening their wings for a flight into the depth.
Here it must have been, and in the middle of all these, that the very famous Robin Lythprophetically treating him, but free as yet of fame or name, and simply unable to tell himselfshone in the doubt of the early daylight (as a tidy-sized cod, if forgotten, might have shone) upon the morning of St. Swithin, A.D. 1782.
The day and the date were remembered long by all the good people of Flamborough, from the coming of the turn of a long bad luck and a bitter time of starving. For the weather of the summer had been worse than usualwhich is no little thing to sayand the fish had expressed their opinion of it by the eloquent silence of absence. Therefore, as the whole place lives on fish, whether in the fishy or the fiscal form, goodly apparel was becoming very rare, even upon high Sundays; and stomachs that might have looked well beneath it, sank into unobtrusive grief. But it is a long lane that has no turning; and turns are the essence of one very vital part.