Mary Anerley : a Yorkshire Tale Part 27

Even now it was in his mind, as Carroway could see; his eyebrows meant it, and his very surly nod, and the way in which he put his hands far down into his pockets. The poor lieutenant, being well aware that zeal had exceeded duty (without the golden amnesty of success), and finding out that Popplewell was rich and had no children, did his very best to look with real pleasure at him, and try to raise a loftier feeling in his breast than damages. But the tanner only frowned, and squared his elbows, and stuck his knuckles sharply out of both his breeches pockets.

And Mrs. Popplewell, like a fat and most kind-hearted lady, stared at the officer as if she longed to choke him.

"I tell you again, Captain Anerley," cried the lieutenant, with his temper kindling, "that no consideration moved me, Sir, except that of duty. As for my spying after any pretty girls, my wife, who is now down with her eighth baby, would get up sooner than hear of it. If I intruded upon your daughter, so as to justify her in knocking me down, Captain Anerley, it was because--well I won't say, Mary, I won't say; we have all been young; and our place is to know better."

"Sir, you are a gentleman," cried Popplewell with heat; "here is my hand, and you may trespa.s.s on my premises, without bringing any attorney."

"Did you say her eighth baby? Oh, Commander Carroway," Mrs. Popplewell began to whisper; "what a most interesting situation! Oh, I see why you have such high color, Sir."

"Madam, it is enough to make me pale. At the same time I do like sympathy; and my dear wife loves the smell of tan."

"We have retired, Sir, many years ago, and purchased a property near the seaside; and from the front gate you must have seen--But oh, I forgot, captain, you came through the hedge, or at any rate down the row of kidney-beans."

"I want to know the truth," shouted Stephen Anerley, who had been ploughing through his brow into his brain, while he kept his eyes fixed upon his daughter's, and there found abashment, but no abas.e.m.e.nt; "naught have I to do with any little goings on, or whether an action was a gentleman's or not. That question belongs to the regulars, I wand, or to the folk who have retired. n.o.bbut a farmer am I, in little business; but concerning of my children I will have my say. All of you tell me what is this about my Mary."

As if he would drag their thoughts out of them, he went from one to another with a hard quick glance, which they all tried to shun; for they did not want to tell until he should get into a better frame of mind.

And they looked at Mistress Anerley, to come forth and take his edge off; but she knew that when his eyes were so, to interfere was mischief.

But Carroway did not understand the man.

"Come, now, Anerley," the bold lieutenant said; "what are you getting into such a way about? I would sooner have lost the hundred pounds twice over, and a hundred of my own--if so be I ever had it--than get little Mary into such a row as this. Why, Lord bless my heart, one would think that there was murder in a little bit of sweethearting. All pretty girls do it; and the plain ones too. Come and smoke a pipe, my good fellow, and don't terrify her."

For Mary was sobbing in a corner by herself, without even her mother to come up and say a word.

"My daughter never does it," answered Stephen Anerley; "my daughter is not like the foolish girls and women. My daughter knows her mind; and what she does she means to do. Mary, lof, come to your father, and tell him that every one is lying of you. Sooner would I trust a single quiet word of yours, than a pile, as big as Flambro Head, sworn by all the world together against my little Mary."

The rest of them, though much aggrieved by such a bitter calumny, held their peace, and let him go with open arms toward his Mary. The farmer smiled, that his daughter might not have any terror of his public talk; and because he was heartily expecting her to come and tell him some trifle, and be comforted, and then go for a good happy cry, while he shut off all her enemies.

But instead of any nice work of that nature, Mary Anerley arose and looked at the people in the room--which was their very best, and by no means badly furnished--and after trying to make out, as a very trifling matter, what their unsettled minds might be, her eyes came home to her father's, and did not flinch, although they were so wet.

Master Anerley, once and forever, knew that his daughter was gone from him. That a stronger love than one generation can have for the one before it--pure and devoted and enn.o.bling as that love is--now had arisen, and would force its way. He did not think it out like that, for his mind was not strictly a.n.a.lytic--however his ideas were to that effect, which is all that need be said about them.

"Every word of it is true," the girl said, gently; "father, I have done every word of what they say, except about knocking down Captain Carroway. I have promised to marry Robin Lyth, by-and-by, when you agree to it."

Stephen Anerley's ruddy cheeks grew pale, and his blue eyes glittered with amazement. He stared at his daughter till her gaze gave way; and then he turned to his wife, to see whether she had heard of it. "I told you so," was all she said; and that tended little to comfort him. But he broke forth into no pa.s.sion, as he might have done with justice and some benefit, but turned back quietly and looked at his Mary, as if he were saying, once for all, "good-by."

"Oh, don't, father, don't," the girl answered with a sob; "revile me, or beat me, or do anything but that. That is more than I can bear."

"Have I ever reviled you? Have I ever beaten you?"

"Never--never once in all my life. But I beg you--I implore of you to do it now. Oh, father, perhaps I have deserved it."

"You know best what you deserve. But no bad word shall you have of me.

Only you must be careful for the future never to call me 'father.'"

The farmer forgot all his visitors, and walked, without looking at anybody, toward the porch. Then that hospitable spot re-awakened his good manners, and he turned and smiled as if he saw them all sitting down to something juicy.

"My good friends, make yourselves at home," he said; "the mistress will see to you while I look round. I shall be back directly, and we will have an early supper."

But when he got outside, and was alone with earth and sky, big tears arose into his brave blue eyes, and he looked at his ricks, and his workmen in the distance, and even at the favorite old horse that whinnied and came to have his white nose rubbed, as if none of them belonged to him ever any more. "A' would sooner have heard of broken bank," he muttered to himself and to the ancient horse, "fifty times sooner, and begin the world anew, only to have Mary for a little child again."

As the sound of his footsteps died away, the girl hurried out of the room, as if she were going to run after him; but suddenly stopped in the porch, as she saw that he scarcely even cared to feel the cheek of Lightfoot, who made a point of rubbing up his master's whiskers with it, "Better wait, and let him come round," thought Mary; "I never did see him so put out." Then she ran up the stairs to the window on the landing, and watched her dear father grow dimmer and dimmer up the distance of the hill, with a bright young tear for every sad old step.

CHAPTER XXV

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD WEEDS

Can it be supposed that all this time Master Geoffrey Mordacks, of the city of York, land agent, surveyor, and general factor, and maker and doer of everything whether general or particular, was spending his days in doing nothing, and his nights in dreaming? If so, he must have had a sunstroke on that very bright day of the year when he stirred up the minds of the washer-women, and the tongue of Widow Precious. But Flamborough is not at all the place for sunstroke, although it reflects so much in whitewash; neither had Mordacks the head to be sunstruck, but a hard, impenetrable, wiry poll, as weather-proof as felt asphalted. At first sight almost everybody said that he must have been a soldier, at a time when soldiers were made of iron, whalebone, whip-cord, and ramrods.

Such opinions he rewarded with a grin, and shook his straight shoulders straighter. If pride of any sort was not beneath him, as a matter of strict business, it was the pride which he allowed his friends to take in his military figure and aspect.

This gentleman's place of business was scarcely equal to the expectations which might have been formed from a view of the owner. The old King's Staith, on the right hand after crossing Ouse Bridge from the Micklegate, is a pa.s.sageway scarcely to be called a street, but combining the features of an alley, a lane, a jetty, a quay, and a barge-walk, and ending ignominiously. Nevertheless, it is a lively place sometimes, and in moments of excitement. Also it is a good place for business, and for brogue of the broadest; and a man who is unable to be happy there, must have something on his mind unusual. Geoffrey Mordacks had nothing on his mind except other people's business; which (as in the case of Lawyer Jellicorse) is a very favorable state of the human const.i.tution for happiness.

But though Mr. Mordacks attended so to other people's business, he would not have anybody to attend to his. No partner, no clerk, no pupil, had a hand in the inner breast pockets of his business; there was nothing mysterious about his work, but he liked to follow it out alone. Things that were honest and wise came to him to be carried out with judgment; and he knew that the best way to carry them out is to act with discreet candor. For the slug shall be known by his slime; and the spider who shams death shall receive it.

Now here, upon a very sad November afternoon, when the Northern day was narrowing in; and the Ouse, which is usually of a ginger-color, was nearly as dark as a nutmeg; and the bridge, and the staith, and the houses, and the people, resembled one another in tint and tone; while between the Minster and the Clifford Tower there was not much difference of outline--here and now Master Geoffrey Mordacks was sitting in the little room where strangers were received. The live part of his household consisted of his daughter, and a very young Geoffrey, who did more harm than good, and a thoroughly hard-working country maid, whose slowness was gradually giving way to pressure.

The weather was enough to make anybody dull, and the sap of every human thing insipid; and the time of day suggested tea, hot cakes, and the crossing of comfortable legs. Mordacks could well afford all these good things, and he never was hard upon his family; but every day he liked to feel that he had earned the bread of it, and this day he had labored without seeming to earn anything. For after all the ordinary business of the morning, he had been devoting several hours to the diligent revisal of his premises and data, in a matter which he was resolved to carry through, both for his credit and his interest. And this was the matter which had cost him two days' ride, from York to Flamborough, and three days on the road home, as was natural after such a dinner as he made in little Denmark. But all that trouble he would not have minded, especially after his enjoyment of the place, if it had only borne good fruit. He had felt quite certain that it must do this, and that he would have to pay another visit to the Head, and eat another duck, and have a flirt with Widow Precious.

But up to the present time nothing had come of it, and so far as he could see he might just as well have spared himself that long rough ride. Three months had pa.s.sed, and that surely was enough for even Flamborough folk to do something, if they ever meant to do it. It was plain that he had been misled for once, that what he suspected had not come to pa.s.s, and that he must seek elsewhere the light which had gleamed upon him vainly from the Danish town. To this end he went through all his case again, while hope (being very hard to beat, as usual) kept on rambling over everything unsettled, with a very sage conviction that there must be something there, and doubly sure, because there was no sign of it.

Men at the time of life which he had reached, conducting their bodies with less suppleness of joint, and administering food to them with greater care, begin to have doubts about their intellect as well, whether it can work as briskly as it used to do. And the mind, falling under this discouragement of doubt, a.s.serts itself amiss, in making futile strokes, even as a gardener can never work his best while conscious of suspicious glances through the window-blinds. Geoffrey Mordacks told himself that it could not be the self it used to be, in the days when no mistakes were made, but everything was evident at half a glance, and carried out successfully with only half a hand. In this Flamborough matter he had felt no doubt of running triumphantly through, and being crowned with five hundred pounds in one issue of the case, and five thousand in the other. But lo! here was nothing. And he must reply, by the next mail, that he had made a sad mistake.

Suddenly, while he was rubbing his wiry head with irritation, and poring over his letters for some clew, like a dunce going back through his pot-hooks, suddenly a great knock sounded through the house--one, two, three--like the thumping of a mallet on a cask, to learn whether any beer may still be hoped for.

"This must be a Flamborough man," cried Master Mordacks, jumping up; "that is how I heard them do it; they knock the doors, instead of knocking at them. It would be a very strange thing just now if news were to come from Flamborough; but the stranger a thing is, the more it can be trusted, as often is the case with human beings. Whoever it is, show them up at once," he shouted down the narrow stairs; for no small noise was arising in the pa.s.sage.

"A' canna coom oop. I wand a' canna," was the answer in Kitty's well-known brogue; "how can a', when a' hanna got naa legs?"

"Oh ho! I see," said Mr. Mordacks to himself; "my veteran friend from the watch-tower, doubtless. A man with no legs would not have come so far for nothing. Show the gentleman into the parlor, Kitty; and Miss Arabella may bring her work up here."

The general factor, though eager for the news, knew better than to show any haste about it; so he kept the old mariner just long enough in waiting to damp a too covetous ardor, and then he complacently locked Arabella in her bedroom, and bolted off Kitty in the bas.e.m.e.nt; because they both were sadly inquisitive, and this strange arrival had excited them.

"Ah, mine ancient friend of the tower! Veteran Joseph, if my memory is right," Mr. Mordacks exclaimed, in his lively way, as he went up and offered the old tar both hands, to seat him in state upon the sofa; but the legless sailor condemned "them swabs," and crutched himself into a hard-bottomed chair. Then he pulled off his hat, and wiped his white head with a shred of old flag, and began hunting for his pipe.

"First time I ever was in York city; and don't think much of it, if this here is a sample."

"Joseph, you must not be supercilious," his host replied, with an amiable smile; "you will see things better through a gla.s.s of grog; and the state of the weather points to something dark. You have had a long journey, and the scenery is new. Rum shall it be, my friend? Your countenance says 'yes.' Rum, like a ruby of the finest water, have I; and no water shall you have with it. Said I well? A man without legs must keep himself well above water."

"First time I ever was in York city," the ancient watchman answered, "and grog must be done as they does it here. A berth on them old walls would suit me well; and no need to travel such a distance for my beer."

"And you would be the man of all the world for such a berth," said Master Mordacks, gravely, as he poured the sparkling liquor into a gla.s.s that was really a tumbler; "for such a post we want a man who is himself a post; a man who will not quit his duty, just because he can not, which is the only way of making sure. Joseph, your idea is a very good one, and your beer could be brought to you at the middle of each watch. I have interest; you shall be appointed."

"Sir, I am obligated to you," said the watchman; "but never could I live a month without a wink of sea-stuff. The coming of the clouds, and the dipping of the land, and the waiting of the distance for what may come to be in it; let alone how they goes changing of their color, and making of a noise that is always out of sight: it is the very same as my beer is to me. Master, I never could get on without it."

"Well, I can understand a thing like that," Mordacks answered, graciously; "my water-b.u.t.t leaked for three weeks, pat, pat, all night long upon a piece of slate, and when a man came and caulked it up, I put all the blame upon the pillow; but the pillow was as good as ever. Not a wink could I sleep till it began to leak again; and you may trust a York workman that it wasn't very long. But, Joseph, I have interest at Scarborough also. The castle needs a watchman for fear of tumbling down; and that is not the soldiers' business, because they are inside. There you could have quant.i.ties of sea-stuff, my good friend; and the tap at the Hooked Cod is nothing to it there. Cheer up, Joseph, we will land you yet. How the devil did you manage, now, to come so far?"

"Well, now, your honor, I had rare luck for it, as I must say, ever since I set eyes on you. There comes a son of mine as I thought were lost at sea; but not he, blow me! nearly all of him come back, with a handful of guineas, and the memory of his father. Lord! I could have cried; and he up and blubbered fairly, a trick as he learned from ten Frenchmen he had killed. Ah! he have done his work well, and aimed a good conduck--fourpence-halfpenny a day, so long as ever he shall live hereafter."