Mary Anerley : a Yorkshire Tale Part 7

"Neither Captain Robin c.o.c.kscroft nor his wife was in any way to blame,"

answered Mrs. Anerley. "I have framed my mind to tell you about them; and I will do it truly, if I am not interrupted. Two hammers never yet drove a nail straight, and I make a rule of silence when my betters wish to talk."

"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 sh.o.r.e 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 Joan--for he never had heard of her money, mind--put 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 moons.h.i.+ne. For every one liked and respected Captain c.o.c.kscroft on account of his skill with the deep-sea lines, and the openness of his hands when full--a 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 wife's 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 c.o.c.kscroft 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 bird's 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 c.o.c.kscroft 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 G.o.d, 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 well--"you 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. Ma'am, it is my duty to the king, the Const.i.tution, 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 lives--Robin's, the captain's, and my dear old cousin Joan's."

"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 quant.i.ty of money? Honestly, of course, I mean; honestly worth it, ma'am, 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 o'clock, if the parson lets us out."

"My dear madam, I shall scarcely care to look at any slice of victuals until one o'clock 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 coa.r.s.e bread, and almost coa.r.s.er 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 a.s.sure 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 Lord's 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 England's 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 b.u.t.toned 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 mother's. 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 c.o.c.kscroft (half removed, and upon the mother's 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 fis.h.i.+ng. They never were known to encourage free-trading, but did their very utmost to protect themselves; and if they had produced the very n.o.blest 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 s.h.i.+ngly ledge at the bottom. And truly in bad weather and at high tides there is no s.h.i.+ngle 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 ash.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+ngly 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 softer--up 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 jacka.s.ses (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 st.u.r.diness 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 b.u.t.terflies, 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 Lyth--prophetically treating him, but free as yet of fame or name, and simply unable to tell himself--shone 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 usual--which is no little thing to say--and 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 un.o.btrusive grief. But it is a long lane that has no turning; and turns are the essence of one very vital part.

Suddenly over the village had flown the news of a n.o.ble arrival of fish. From the cross-roads, and the public-house, and the licensed head-quarters of pepper and snuff, and the loop-hole where a sheep had been known to hang, in times of better trade, but never could dream of hanging now; also from the window of the man who had had a hundred heads (superior to his own) shaken at him because he set up for making breeches in opposition to the women, and showed a few patterns of what he could do if any man of legs would trade with him--from all these head-centres of intelligence, and others not so prominent but equally potent, into the very smallest hole it went (like the thrill in a troublesome tooth) that here was a chance come of feeding, a chance at last of feeding. For the man on the cliff, the despairing watchman, weary of fastening his eyes upon the sea, through constant fog and drizzle, at length had discovered the well-known flicker, the gla.s.sy flaw, and the hovering of gulls, and had run along Weighing Lane so fast, to tell his good news in the village, that down he fell and broke his leg, exactly opposite the tailor's shop. And this was on St.

Swithin's Eve.

There was nothing to be done that night, of course, for mackerel must be delicately worked; but long before the sun arose, all Flamborough, able to put leg in front of leg, and some who could not yet do that, gathered together where the land-hold was, above the incline for the launching of the boats. Here was a medley, not of fisher-folk alone, and all their bodily belongings, but also of the thousand things that have no soul, and get kicked about and sworn at much because they can not answer.

Rollers, buoys, nets, kegs, swabs, fenders, blocks, buckets, kedges, corks, buckie-pots, oars, poppies, tillers, sprits, gaffs, and every kind of gear (more than Theocritus himself could tell) lay about, and rolled about, and upset their own masters, here and there and everywhere, upon this half acre of slip and stumble, at the top of the boat channel down to the sea, and in the faint rivalry of three vague lights, all making darkness visible.

For very ancient lanterns, with a gentle h.o.r.n.y glimmer, and loop-holes of large exaggeration at the top, were casting upon anything quite within their reach a general idea of the crinkled tin that framed them, and a shuffle of inconstant shadows, but refused to shed any light on friend or stranger, or clear up suspicions, more than three yards off.

In rivalry with these appeared the pale disk of the moon, just setting over the western highlands, and "drawing straws" through summer haze; while away in the northeast over the sea, a slender irregular wisp of gray, so weak that it seemed as if it were being blown away, betokened the intention of the sun to restore clear ideas of number and of figure by-and-by. But little did anybody heed such things; every one ran against everybody else, and all was eagerness, haste, and bustle for the first great launch of the Flamborough boats, all of which must be taken in order.

But when they laid hold of the boat No. 7, which used to be the Mercy Robin, and were jerking the timber sh.o.r.es out, one of the men stooping under her stern beheld something white and gleaming. He put his hand down to it, and, lo! it was a child, in imminent peril of a deadly crush, as the boat came heeling over. "Hold hard!" cried the man, not in time with his voice, but in time with his st.u.r.dy shoulder, to delay the descent of the counter. Then he stooped underneath, while they steadied the boat, and drew forth a child in a white linen dress, heartily asleep and happy.

There was no time to think of any children now, even of a man's own fine breed, and the boat was beginning much to chafe upon the rope, and thirty or forty fine fellows were all waiting, loath to hurry Captain Robin (because of the many things he had dearly lost), yet straining upon their own hearts to stand still. And the captain could not find his wife, who had slipped aside of the noisy scene, to have her own little cry, because of the dance her children would have made if they had lived to see it.

There were plenty of other women running all about to help, and to talk, and to give the best advice to their husbands and to one another; but most of them naturally had their own babies, and if words came to action, quite enough to do to nurse them. On this account, c.o.c.kscroft could do no better, bound as he was to rush forth upon the sea, than lay the child gently aside of the stir, and cover him with an old sail, and leave word with an ancient woman for his wife when found. The little boy slept on calmly still, in spite of all the din and uproar, the song and the shout, the tramp of heavy feet, the creaking of capstans, and the thump of bulky oars, and the crush of ponderous rollers. Away went these upon their errand to the sea, and then came back the grating roar and plashy jerks of launching, the plunging, and the gurgling, and the quiet murmur of cleft waves.

That child slept on, in the warm good luck of having no boat keel launched upon him, nor even a human heel of bulk as likely to prove fatal. And the ancient woman fell asleep beside him, because at her time of life it was unjust that she should be astir so early. And it happened that Mrs. c.o.c.kscroft followed her troubled husband down the steep, having something in her pocket for him, which she failed to fetch to hand. So everybody went about its own business (according to the laws of nature), and the old woman slept by the side of the child, without giving him a corner of her scarlet shawl.

But when the day was broad and brave, and the spirit of the air was vigorous, and every cliff had a color of its own, and a character to come out with; and beautiful boats, upon a s.h.i.+ning sea, flashed their oars, and went up waves which clearly were the stairs of heaven; and never a woman, come to watch her husband, could be sure how far he had carried his obedience in the matter of keeping his hat and coat on; neither could anybody say what next those very clever fishermen might be after--n.o.body having a spy-gla.s.s--but only this being understood all round, that hunger and salt were the victuals for the day, and the children must chew the mouse-trap baits until their dads came home again; and yet in spite of all this, with lightsome hearts (so hope outstrips the sun, and soars with him behind her) and a strong will, up the hill they went, to do without much breakfast, but prepare for a glorious supper. For mackerel are good fish that do not strive to live forever, but seem glad to support the human race.

Flamburians speak a rich burr of their own, broadly and handsomely distinct from that of outer Yorks.h.i.+re. The same sagacious contempt for all hot haste and hurry (which people of impatient fibre are too apt to call "a drawl") may here be found, as in other Yorks.h.i.+re, guiding and r.e.t.a.r.ding well that headlong instrument the tongue. Yet even here there is advantage on the side of Flamborough--a longer resonance, a larger breadth, a deeper power of melancholy, and a stronger turn up of the tail of discourse, by some called the end of a sentence. Over and above all these there dwell in "Little Denmark" many words foreign to the real Yorks.h.i.+reman. But, alas! these merits of their speech can not be embodied in print without sad trouble, and result (if successful) still more saddening. Therefore it is proposed to let them speak in our inferior tongue, and to try to make them be not so very long about it.

For when they are left to themselves entirely, they have so much solid matter to express, and they ripen it in their minds and throats with a process so deliberate, that strangers might condemn them briefly, and be off without hearing half of it. Whenever this happens to a Flamborough man, he finishes what he proposed to say, and then says it all over again to the wind.

When the "lavings" of the village (as the weaker part, unfit for sea, and left behind, were politely called, being very old men, women, and small children), full of conversation, came, upon their way back from the tide, to the gravel brow now bare of boats, they could not help discovering there the poor old woman that fell asleep because she ought to have been in bed, and by her side a little boy, who seemed to have no bed at all. The child lay above her in a tump of stubbly gra.s.s, where Robin c.o.c.kscroft had laid him; he had tossed the old sail off, perhaps in a dream, and he threatened to roll down upon the granny. The contrast between his young, beautiful face, white raiment, and readiness to roll, and the ancient woman's weary age (which it would be ungracious to describe), and scarlet shawl which she could not spare, and satisfaction to lie still--as the best thing left her now to do--this difference between them was enough to take anybody's notice, facing the well-established sun.

"Nanny Pegler, get oop wi' ye!" cried a woman even older, but of tougher const.i.tution. "Shame on ye to lig aboot so. Be ye browt to bed this toime o' loife?"

"A wonderful foine babby for sich an owd moother," another proceeded with the elegant joke; "and foine swaddles too, wi' solid gowd upon 'em!"

"Stan' ivery one o' ye oot o' the way," cried ancient Nanny, now as wide-awake as ever; "Master Robin c.o.c.kscroft gie ma t' bairn, an'

nawbody sall hev him but Joan c.o.c.kscroft."