Mary Anerley : a Yorkshire Tale Part 37

Peppermint in the Royal Coast-Guard! Away with it, you ancient beldame!"

Muttering something about his bad tooth, the man flung his lozenge away; and his eyes flashed fire in the moonlight, while the rest grinned a low grin at him. And Adam Andrews, sitting next him, saw him lay hands upon his musketoon.

"Are your firelocks all primed, my lads?" the commander asked, quite as if he had seen him, although he had not been noticing; and the foremost to answer "Ay, ay, sir," was Cadman.

"Then be sure that you fire not, except at my command. We will take them without shedding blood, if it may be. But happen what will, we must have Lyth."

With these words, Carroway drew his sword, and laid it on the bench beside him; and the rest (who would rather use steel than powder) felt that their hangers were ready. Few of them wished to strike at all; for vexed as they were with the smugglers for having outwitted them so often, as yet there was no bad blood between them, such as must be quenched with death. And some of them had friends, and even relatives, among the large body of free-traders, and counted it too likely that they might be here.

Meanwhile in the cave there was rare work going on, speedily, cleverly, and with a merry noise. There was only one boat, with a crew of six men, besides Robin Lyth the captain; but the six men made noise enough for twelve, and the echoes made it into twice enough for any twenty-four.

The crew were trusty, hardy fellows, who liked their joke, and could work with it; and Robin Lyth knew them too well to attempt any high authority of gagging. The main of their cargo was landed and gone inland, as snugly as need be; and having kept beautifully sober over that, they were taking the liberty of beginning to say, or rather sip, the grace of the fine indulgence due to them.

Pleasant times make pleasant scenes, and everything now was fair and large in this happy cave of freedom. Lights of bright resin were burning, with strong flare and fume, upon shelves of rock; dark water softly went lapping round the sides, having dropped all rude habits at the entrance; and a pulse of quiet rise and fall opened, and spread to the discovery of light, tremulous fronds and fans of kelp. The cavern, expanding and mounting from the long narrow gut of its inlet, shone with staves of snowy crag wherever the scour of the tide ran round; bulged and scooped, or peaked and fissured, and sometimes beautifully sculptured by the pliant tools of water. Above the tide-reach darker hues prevailed, and more jagged outline, tufted here and there with yellow, where the lichen freckles spread. And the vault was framed of mountain fabric, ma.s.sed with ponderous gray slabs.

All below was limpid water, or at any rate not very muddy, but as bright as need be for the time of year, and a sea which is not tropical. No one may hope to see the bottom through ten feet of water on the Yorks.h.i.+re coast, toward the end of the month of November; but still it tries to look clear upon occasion; and here in the caves it settles down, after even a week free from churning. And perhaps the fog outside had helped it to look clearer inside; for the larger world has a share of the spirit of contrariety intensified in man.

Be that as it may, the water was too clear for any hope of sinking tubs deeper than Preventive eyes could go; and the very honest fellows who were laboring here had not brought any tubs to sink. All such coa.r.s.e gear was s.h.i.+pped off inland, as they vigorously expressed it; and what they were concerned with now was the cream and the jewel of their enterprise.

The sea reserved exclusive right of way around the rocky sides, without even a niche for human foot, so far as a stranger could perceive. At the furthermost end of the cave, however, the craggy basin had a lip of flinty pebbles and sh.e.l.ly sand. This was no more than a very narrow shelf, just enough for a bather to plunge from; but it ran across the broad end of the cavern, and from its southern corner went a deep dry fissure mounting out of sight into the body of the cliff. And here the smugglers were merrily at work.

The nose of their boat was run high upon the s.h.i.+ngle; two men on board of her were pa.s.sing out the bales, while the other four received them, and staggered with them up the cranny. Captain Lyth himself was in the stern-sheets, sitting calmly, but ordering everything, and jotting down the numbers. Now and then the gentle wash was lifting the brown timbers, and swelling with a sleepy gush of hus.h.i.+ng murmurs out of sight. And now and then the heavy vault was echoing with some sailor's song.

There was only one more bale to land, and that the most precious of the whole, being all pure lace most closely packed in a water-proof inclosure. Robin Lyth himself was ready to indulge in a careless song.

For this, as he had promised Mary, was to be his last illegal act.

Henceforth, instead of defrauding the revenue, he would most loyally cheat the public, as every reputable tradesman must. How could any man serve his time more notably, toward shop-keeping, and pave fairer way into the corporation of a grandly corrupt old English town, than by long graduation of free trade? And Robin was yet too young and careless to know that he could not endure dull work. "How pleasant, how comfortable, how secure," he was saying to himself, "it will be! I shall hardly be able to believe that I ever lived in hards.h.i.+p."

But the great laws of human nature were not to be balked so. Robin Lyth, the prince of smugglers, and the type of hardihood, was never to wear a grocer's ap.r.o.n, was never to be "licensed to sell tea, coffee, tobacco, pepper, and snuff." For while he indulged in this vain dream, and was lifting his last most precious bale, a surge of neither wind nor tide, but of hostile invasion, washed the rocks, and broke beneath his feet.

In a moment all his wits returned, all his plenitude of resource, and unequalled vigor and coolness. With his left hand--for he was as ambidexter as a brave writer of this age requires--he caught up a handspike, and hurled it so truly along the line of torches that only two were left to blink; with his right he flung the last bale upon the shelf; then leaped out after it, and hurried it away. Then he sprang into the boat again, and held an oar in either hand.

"In the name of the king, surrender," shouted Carroway, standing, tall and grim, in the bow of the pinnace, which he had skillfully driven through the entrance, leaving the other boats outside. "We are three to one, we have muskets, and a cannon. In the name of the king, surrender."

"In the name of the devil, splas.h.!.+" cried Robin, suiting the action to the word, striking the water with both broad blades, while his men s.n.a.t.c.hed oars and did the same. A whirl of flas.h.i.+ng water filled the cave, as if with a tempest, soaked poor Carroway, and drenched his sword, and deluged the priming of the hostile guns. All was uproar, turmoil, and confusion thrice confounded; no man could tell where he was, and the grappling boats reeled to and fro.

"Club your muskets, and at 'em!" cried the lieutenant, mad with rage, as the gunwale of his boat swung over. "Their blood be upon their own heads; draw your hangers, and at 'em!"

He never spoke another word, but furiously leaping at the smuggler chief, fell back into his own boat, and died, without a syllable, without a groan. The roar of a gun and the smoke of powder mingled with the watery hubbub, and hushed in a moment all the oaths of conflict.

The revenue men drew back and sheathed their cutla.s.ses, and laid down their guns; some looked with terror at one another, and some at their dead commander. His body lay across the heel of the mast, which had been unstepped at his order; and a heavy drip of blood was weltering into a ring upon the floor.

For several moments no one spoke, nor moved, nor listened carefully; but the fall of the poor lieutenant's death-drops, like the ticking of a clock, went on. Until an old tar, who had seen a sight of battles, crooked his legs across a thwart, and propped up the limp head upon his doubled knee.

"Dead as a door-nail," he muttered, after laying his ear to the lips, and one hand on the too impetuous heart, "Who takes command? This is a hanging job, I'm thinking."

There was n.o.body to take command, not even a petty officer. The command fell to the readiest mind, as it must in such catastrophes. "Jem, you do it," whispered two or three; and being so elected, he was clear.

"Lay her broadside on to the mouth of the cave. Not a man stirs out without killing me," old Jem shouted; and to hear a plain voice was sudden relief to most of them. In the wavering dimness they laid the pinnace across the narrow entrance, while the smugglers huddled all together in their boat. "Burn two blue-lights," cried old Jem; and it was done.

"I'm not going to speechify to any cursed murderers," the old sailor said, with a sense of authority which made him use mild language; "but take heed of one thing, I'll blow you all to pieces with this here four-pounder, without you strikes peremptory."

The brilliance of the blue-lights filled the cavern, throwing out everybody's att.i.tude and features, especially those of the dead lieutenant. "A fine job you have made of it this time!" said Jem.

They were beaten, they surrendered, they could scarcely even speak to a.s.sert their own innocence of such a wicked job. They submitted to be bound, and cast down into their boat, imploring only that it might be there--that they might not be taken to the other boat and laid near the corpse of Carroway.

"Let the white-livered cowards have their way," the old sailor said, contemptuously. "Put their captain on the top of them. Now which is Robin Lyth?"

The lights were burned out, and the cave was dark again, except when a slant of moonlight came through a fissure upon the southern side. The smugglers muttered something, but they were not heeded.

"Never mind, make her fast, fetch her out, you lubbers. We shall see him well enough when we get outside."

But in spite of all their certainty, they failed of this. They had only six prisoners, and not one of them was Lyth.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

LITTLE CARROWAYS

Mrs. Carroway was always glad to be up quite early in the morning. But some few mornings seemed to slip in between whiles when, in accordance with human nature, and its operations in the baby stage, even Lauta Carroway failed to be about the world before the sun himself. Whenever this happened she was slightly cross, from the combat of conscience and self-a.s.sertion, which fly at one another worse than any dog and cat.

Geraldine knew that her mother was put out if any one of the household durst go down the stairs before her. And yet if Geraldine herself held back, and followed the example of late minutes, she was sure "to catch it worse," as the poor child expressed it.

If any active youth with a very small income (such as an active youth is pretty sure to have) wants a good wife, and has the courage to set out with one, his proper course is to choose the eldest daughter of a numerous family. When the others come thickly, this daughter of the house gets worked down into a wonderful perfection of looking after others, while she overlooks herself. Such a course is even better for her than to have a step-mother--which also is a goodly thing, but sometimes leads to sourness. Whereas no girl of any decent staple can revolt against her duty to her own good mother, and the proud sense of fostering and working for the little ones. Now Geraldine was wise in all these ways, and pleased to be called the little woman of the house.

The baby had been troublous in the night, and scant of reason, as the rising race can be, even while so immature; and after being up with it, and herself producing a long series of noises--which lead to peace through the born desire of contradiction--the mother fell asleep at last, perhaps from simple sympathy, and slept beyond her usual hour. But instead of being grateful for this, she was angry and bitter to any one awake before her.

"I can not tell why it is," she said to Geraldine, who was toasting a herring for her brothers and sisters, and enjoying the smell (which was all that she would get), "but perpetually now you stand exactly like your father. There is every excuse for your father, because he is an officer, and has been knocked about, as he always is; but there is no excuse for you, miss. Put your heel decently under your dress. If we can afford nothing else, we can surely afford to behave well."

The child made no answer, but tucked her heel in, and went on toasting n.o.bly, while she counted the waves on the side of the herring, where his ribs should have been if he were not too fat; and she mentally divided him into seven pieces, not one of which, alas! would be for hungry Geraldine. "Tom must have two, after being out all night," she was saying to herself; "and to grudge him would be greedy. But the bit of skin upon the toasting-fork will be for me, I am almost sure."

"Geraldine, the least thing you can do, when I speak to you, is to answer. This morning you are in a most provoking temper, and giving yourself the most intolerable airs. And who gave you leave to do your hair like that? One would fancy that you were some rising court beauty, or a child of the n.o.bility at the very least, instead of a plain little thing that has to work--or at any rate that ought to work--to help its poor mother! Oh, now you are going to cry, I suppose. Let me see a tear, and you shall go to bed again."

"Oh, mother, mother, now what do you think has happened?" little Tom shouted, as he rushed in from the beach. "Father has caught all the smugglers, every one, and the Royal George is coming home before a spanking breeze, with three boats behind her, and they can't be all ours; and one of them must belong to Robin Lyth himself; and I would almost bet a penny they have been and shot him; though everybody said that he never could be shot. Jerry, come and look--never mind the old fish. I never did see such a sight in all my life. They have got the jib-sail on him, so he must be dead at last; and instead of half a crown, I am sure to get a guinea. Come along, Jerry, and perhaps I'll give you some of it!"

"Tommy," said his mother, "you are always so impetuous! I never will believe in such good luck until I see it. But you have been a wonderfully good brave boy, and your father may thank you for whatever he has done. I shall not allow Geraldine to go; for she is not a good child this morning. And of course I can not go myself, for your father will come home absolutely starving. And it would not be right for the little ones to go, if things are at all as you suppose. Now, if I let you go yourself, you are not to go beyond the flag-staff. Keep far away from the boats, remember; unless your father calls for you to run on any errand. All the rest of you go in here, with your bread and milk, and wait until I call you."

Mrs. Carroway locked all the little ones in a room from which they could see nothing of the beach, with orders to Cissy, the next girl, to feed them, and keep them all quiet till she came again. But while she was busy, with a very lively stir, to fetch out whatever could be found of fatness or grease that could be hoped to turn to gravy in the pan--for Carroway, being so lean, loved fat, and to put a fish before him was an insult to his bones--just at the moment when she had struck oil, in the shape of a very fat chop, from forth a stew, which had beaten all the children by stearine inertia--then at this moment, when she was rejoicing, the latch of the door clicked, and a man came in.

"Whoever you are, you seem to me to make yourself very much at home,"

the lady said, sharply, without turning round, because she supposed it to be a well-accustomed enemy, armed with that odious "little bill." The intruder made no answer, and she turned to rate him thoroughly; but the petulance of her eyes drew back before the sad stern gaze of his. "Who are you, and what do you want?" she asked, with a yellow dish in one hand, and a frying-pan in the other. "Geraldine, come here: that man looks wild."

Her visitor did look wild enough, but without any menace in his sorrowful dark eyes. "Can't the man speak?" she cried. "Are you mad, or starving? We are not very rich; but we can give you bread, poor fellow.

Captain Carroway will be at home directly, and he will see what can be done for you."

"Have you not heard of the thing that has been done?" the young man asked her, word by word, and staying himself with one hand upon the dresser, because he was trembling dreadfully.

"Yes, I have heard of it all. They have shot the smuggler Robin Lyth at last. I am very sorry for him. But it was needful; and he had no family."

"Lady, I am Robin Lyth. I have not been shot; nor even shot at. The man that has been shot, I know not how, instead of me, was--was somebody quite different. With all my heart I wish it had been me; and no more trouble."