CAPTAIN CARROWAY
Fame, that light-of-love trusted by so many, and never a wife till a
widow--fame, the fair daughter of fuss and caprice, may yet take the
phantom of bold Robin Lyth by the right hand, and lead it to a pedestal
almost as lofty as Robin Hood's, or she may let it vanish like a bat
across Lethe--a thing not bad enough for eminence.
However, at the date and in the part of the world now dealt with, this
great free-trader enjoyed the warm though possibly brief embrace of
fame, having no rival, and being highly respected by all who were
unwarped by a sense of duty. And blessed as he was with a lively nature,
he proceeded happily upon his path in life, notwithstanding a certain
ticklish sense of being shot at undesirably. This had befallen him
now so often, without producing any tangible effect, that a great many
people, and especially the shooters (convinced of the accuracy of their
aim), went far to believe that he possessed some charm against wholesome
bullet and gunpowder. And lately even a crooked sixpence dipped in holy
water (which was still to be had in Yorkshire) confirmed and doubled
the faith of all good people, by being declared upon oath to have passed
clean through him, as was proved by its being picked up quite clean.
This strong belief was of great use to him; for, like many other
beliefs, it went a very long way to prove itself. Steady left hands now
grew shaky in the level of the carbine, and firm forefingers trembled
slightly upon draught of trigger, and the chief result of a large
discharge was a wale upon the marksman's shoulder. Robin, though so
clever and well practiced in the world, was scarcely old enough yet to
have learned the advantage of misapprehension, which, if well handled by
any man, helps him, in the cunning of paltry things, better than a truer
estimate. But without going into that, he was pleased with the fancy of
being invulnerable, which not only doubled his courage, but trebled
the discipline of his followers, and secured him the respect of all
tradesmen. However, the worst of all things is that just when they are
establishing themselves, and earning true faith by continuance, out of
pure opposition the direct contrary arises, and begins to prove itself.
And to Captain Lyth this had just happened in the shot which carried off
his left ear-ring.
Not that his body, or any fleshly member, could be said directly to have
parted with its charm, but that a warning and a diffidence arose from so
near a visitation. All genuine sailors are blessed with strong faith, as
they must be, by nature's compensation. Their bodies continually going
up and down upon perpetual fluxion, they never could live if their minds
did the same, like the minds of stationary landsmen. Therefore their
minds are of stanch immobility, to restore the due share of firm
element. And not only that, but these men have compressed (through
generations of circumstance), from small complications, simplicity.
Being out in all weathers, and rolling about so, how can they stand
upon trifles? Solid stays, and stanchions, and strong bulwarks are their
need, and not a dance of gnats in gossamer; hating all fogs, they blow
not up with their own breath misty mysteries, and gazing mainly at
the sky and sea, believe purely in God and the devil. In a word, these
sailors have religion.
Some of their religion is not well pronounced, but declares itself
in overstrong expressions. However, it is in them, and at any moment
waiting opportunity of action--a shipwreck or a grape-shot; and the
chaplain has good hopes of them when the doctor has given them over.
Now one of their principal canons of faith, and the one best observed
in practice, is (or at any rate used to be) that a man is bound to wear
ear-rings. For these, as sure tradition shows, and no pious mariner
would dare to doubt, act as a whetstone in all weathers to the keen
edge of the eyes. Semble--as the lawyers say--that this idea was born of
great phonetic facts in the days when a seaman knew his duty better
than the way to spell it; and when, if his outlook were sharpened by
a friendly wring from the captain of the watch, he never dreamed of a
police court.
But Robin Lyth had never cared to ask why he wore ear-rings. His nature
was not meditative. Enough for him that all the other men of Flamborough
did so; and enough for them that their fathers had done it. Whether his
own father had done so, was more than he could say, because he knew of
no such parent; and of that other necessity, a mother, he was equally
ignorant. His first appearance at Flamborough, though it made little
stir at the moment in a place of so many adventures, might still be
considered unusual, and in some little degree remarkable. So that
Mistress Anerley was not wrong when she pressed upon Lieutenant Carroway
how unwise it might be to shoot him, any more than Carroway himself was
wrong in turning in at Anerley gate for breakfast.
This he had not done without good cause of honest and loyal necessity.
Free-trading Robin had predicted well the course of his pursuers.
Rushing eagerly up the Dike, and over its brim, with their muskets, that
gallant force of revenue men steadily scoured the neighborhood; and the
further they went, the worse they fared. There was not a horse standing
down by a pool, with his stiff legs shut up into biped form, nor a cow
staring blandly across an old rail, nor a sheep with a pectoral cough
behind a hedge, nor a rabbit making rustle at the eyebrow of his hole,
nor even a moot, that might either be a man or hold a man inside it,
whom or which those active fellows did not circumvent and poke into.
In none of these, however, could they find the smallest breach of the
strictest laws of the revenue; until at last, having exhausted their
bodies by great zeal both of themselves and of mind, they braced them
again to the duty of going, as promptly as possible, to breakfast.
For a purpose of that kind few better places, perhaps, could be found
than this Anerley Farm, though not at the best of itself just now,
because of the denials of the season. It is a sad truth about the
heyday of the year, such as August is in Yorkshire--where they have no
spring--that just when a man would like his victuals to rise to the mark
of the period, to be simple yet varied, exhilarating yet substantial,
the heat of the summer day defrauds its increased length for feeding.
For instance, to cite a very trifling point--at least in some
opinions--August has banished that bright content and most devout
resignation which ensue the removal of a petted pig from this troublous
world of grunt. The fat pig rolls in wallowing rapture, defying his
friends to make pork of him yet, and hugs with complacence unpickleable
hams. The partridge among the pillared wheat, tenderly footing the way
for his chicks, and teaching little balls of down to hop, knows how
sacred are their lives to others as well as to himself; and the less
paternal cock-pheasant scratches the ridge of green-shouldered potatoes,
without fear of keeping them company at table.
But though the bright glory of the griddle remains in suspense for the
hoary mornings, and hooks that carried woodcocks once, and hope to do
so yet again, are primed with dust instead of lard, and the frying-pan
hangs on the cellar nail with a holiday gloss of raw mutton suet, yet
is there still some comfort left, yet dappled brawn, and bacon streaked,
yet golden-hearted eggs, and mushrooms quilted with pink satin, spiced
beef carded with pellucid fat, buckstone cake, and brown bread scented
with the ash of gorse bloom--of these, and more that pave the way into
the good-will of mankind, what lack have fine farm-houses?
And then, again, for the liquid duct, the softer and more sensitive,
the one that is never out of season, but perennially clear--here we have
advantage of the gentle time that mellows thirst. The long ride of the
summer sun makes men who are in feeling with him, and like him go up and
down, not forego the moral of his labor, which is work and rest. Work
all day, and light the rounded land with fruit and nurture, and rest at
evening, looking through bright fluid, as the sun goes down.
But times there are when sun and man, by stress of work, or clouds, or
light, or it may be some Process of the Equinox, make draughts upon the
untilted day, and solace themselves in the morning. For lack of dew the
sun draws lengthy sucks of cloud quite early, and men who have labored
far and dry, and scattered the rime of the night with dust, find
themselves ready about 8 A.M. for the golden encouragement of gentle
ale.
The farm-house had an old porch of stone, with a bench of stone on
either side, and pointed windows trying to look out under brows of
ivy; and this porch led into the long low hall, where the breakfast was
beginning. To say what was on the table would be only waste of time,
because it has all been eaten so long ago; but the farmer was vexed
because there were no shrimps. Not that he cared half the clip of a
whisker for all the shrimps that ever bearded the sea, only that he
liked to seem to love them, to keep Mary at work for him. The flower
of his flock, and of all the flocks of the world of the universe to his
mind, was his darling daughter Mary: the strength of his love was upon
her, and he liked to eat any thing of her cooking.
His body was too firm to fidget; but his mind was out of its usual
comfort, because the pride of his heart, his Mary, seemed to be hiding
something from him. And with the justice to be expected from far clearer
minds than his, being vexed by one, he was ripe for the relief of
snapping at fifty others. Mary, who could read him, as a sailor reads
his compass, by the corner of one eye, awaited with good content the
usual result--an outbreak of words upon the indolent Willie, whenever
that young farmer should come down to breakfast, then a comforting
glance from the mother at her William, followed by a plate kept hot for
him, and then a fine shake of the master's shoulders, and a stamp of
departure for business. But instead of that, what came to pass was this.
In the first place, a mighty bark of dogs arose; as needs must be, when
a man does his duty toward the nobler animals; for sure it is that the
dogs will not fail of their part. Then an inferior noise of men, crying,
“Good dog! good dog!” and other fulsome flatteries, in the hope of
avoiding any tooth-mark on their legs; and after that a shaking down
and settlement of sounds, as if feet were brought into good order, and
stopped. Then a tall man, with a body full of corners, and a face of
grim temper, stood in the doorway.
“Well, well, captain, now!” cried Stephen Anerley, getting up after
waiting to be spoken to, “the breath of us all is hard to get, with
doing of our duty, Sir. Come ye in, and sit doon to table, and his
Majesty's forces along o' ye.”
“Cadman, Ellis, and Dick, be damned!” the lieutenant shouted out to
them; “you shall have all the victuals you want, by-and-by. Cross legs,
and get your winds up. Captain of the coast-defense, I am under your
orders, in your own house.” Carroway was starving, as only a man with
long and active jaws can starve; and now the appearance of the farmer's
mouth, half full of a kindly relish, made the emptiness of his own more
bitter. But happen what might, he resolved, as usual, to enforce strict
discipline, to feed himself first, and his men in proper order.
“Walk in gentlemen, all walk in,” Master Anerley shouted, as if all men
were alike, and coming to the door with a hospitable stride; “glad to
see all of ye, upon my soul I am. Ye've hit upon the right time for
coming, too; though there might 'a been more upon the table. Mary, run,
that's a dear, and fetch your grandfather's big Sabbath carver. Them
peaky little clams a'most puts out all my shoulder-blades, and wunna
bite through a twine of gristle. Plates for all the gentlemen, Winnie
lass! Bill, go and drah the black jarge full o' yell.”
The farmer knew well enough that Willie was not down yet; but this was
his manner of letting people see that he did not approve of such hours.
“My poor lad Willie,” said the mistress of the house, returning with a
courtesy the brave lieutenant's scrape, “I fear he hath the rheum again,
overheating of himself after sungate.”
“Ay, ay, I forgot. He hath to heat himself in bed again, with the sun
upon his coverlid. Mary lof, how many hours was ye up?”
“Your daughter, Sir,” answered the lieutenant, with a glance at the
maiden over the opal gleam of froth, which she had headed up for
him--“your daughter has been down the Dike before the sun was, and doing
of her duty by the king and by his revenue. Mistress Anerley, your good
health! Master Anerley, the like to you, and your daughter, and all of
your good household.” Before they had finished their thanks for this
honor, the quart pot was set down empty. “A very pretty brew, Sir--a
pretty brew indeed! Fall back, men! Have heed of discipline. A chalked
line is what they want, Sir. Mistress Anerley, your good health again.
The air is now thirsty in the mornings. If those fellows could be given
a bench against the wall--a bench against the wall is what they feel for
with their legs. It comes so natural to their--yes, yes, their legs, and
the crook of their heels, ma'am, from what they were brought up to sit
upon. And if you have any beer brewed for washing days, ma'am, that is
what they like, and the right thing for their bellies. Cadman, Ellis,
and Dick Hackerbody, sit down and be thankful.”
“But surely, Captain Carroway, you would never be happy to sit down
without them. Look at their small-clothes, the dust and the dirt! And
their mouths show what you might make of them.”
“Yes, madam, yes; the very worst of them is that. They are always
looking out, here, there, and every where, for victuals everlasting. Let
them wait their proper time, and then they do it properly.”
“Their proper time is now, Sir. Winnie, fill their horns up. Mary, wait
you upon the officer. Captain Carroway, I will not have any body starve
in my house.”
“Madam, you are the lawgiver in your own house. Men of the coast-guard,
fall to upon your victuals.”
The lieutenant frowned horribly at his men, as much as to say, “Take no
advantage, but show your best manners;” and they touched their forelocks
with a pleasant grin, and began to feed rapidly; and verily their wives
would have said that it was high time for them. Feeding, as a duty,
was the order of the day, and discipline had no rank left. Good things
appeared and disappeared, with the speedy doom of all excellence. Mary,
and Winnie the maid, flitted in and out like carrier-pigeons.
“Now when the situation comes to this,” said the farmer at last, being
heartily pleased with the style of their feeding and laughing, “his
Majesty hath made an officer of me, though void of his own writing.
Mounted Fencibles, Filey Briggers, called in the foreign parts
'Brigadiers.' Not that I stand upon sermonry about it, except in the
matter of his Majesty's health, as never is due without ardent spirits.
But my wife hath a right to her own way, and never yet I knowed her go
away from it.”
“Not so, by any means,” the mistress said, and said it so quietly that
some believed her; “I never was so much for that. Captain, you are a
married man. But reason is reason, in the middle of us all, and what
else should I say to my husband? Mary lass, Mary lof, wherever is your
duty? The captain hath the best pot empty!”
With a bright blush Mary sprang up to do her duty. In those days no girl
was ashamed to blush; and the bloodless cheek savored of small-pox.
“Hold up your head, my lof,” her father said aloud, with a smile of
tidy pride, and a pat upon her back; “no call to look at all ashamed,
my dear. To my mind, captain, though I may be wrong, however, but to my
mind, this little maid may stan' upright in the presence of downright
any one.”
“There lies the very thing that never should be said. Captain, you have
seven children, or it may be eight of them justly. And the pride of
life--Mary, you be off!”
Mary was glad to run away, for she liked not to be among so many men.
But her father would not have her triumphed over.
“Speak for yourself, good wife,” he said. “I know what you have got
behind, as well as rooks know plough-tail. Captain, you never heard me
say that the lass were any booty, but the very same as God hath made
her, and thankful for straight legs and eyes. Howsoever, there might be
worse-favored maidens, without running out of the Riding.”
“You may ride all the way to the city of London,” the captain exclaimed,
with a clinch of his fist, “or even to Portsmouth, where my wife came
from, and never find a maid fit to hold a candle for Mary to curl her
hair by.”
The farmer was so pleased that he whispered something; but Carroway put
his hand before his mouth, and said, “Never, no, never in the morning!”
But in spite of that, Master Anerley felt in his pocket for a key, and
departed.
“Wicked, wicked, is the word I use,” protested Mrs. Anerley, “for all
this fribble about rooks and looks, and holding of candles, and curling
of hair. When I was Mary's age--oh dear! It may not be so for your
daughters, captain; but evil for mine was the day that invented those
proud swinging-glasses.”
“That you may pronounce, ma'am, and I will say Amen. Why, my eldest
daughter, in her tenth year now--”
“Come, Captain Carroway,” broke in the farmer, returning softly with a
square old bottle, “how goes the fighting with the Crappos now? Put your
legs up, and light your pipe, and tell us all the news.”
“Cadman, and Ellis, and Dick Hackerbody,” the lieutenant of the
coast-guard shouted, “you have fed well. Be off, men; no more neglect of
duty! Place an outpost at fork of the Sewerby road, and strictly observe
the enemy, while I hold a council of war with my brother officer,
Captain Anerley. Half a crown for you, if you catch the rogue, half
a crown each, and promotion of twopence. Attention, eyes right, make
yourselves scarce! Well, now the rogues are gone, let us make ourselves
at home. Anerley, your question is a dry one. A dry one; but this is
uncommonly fine stuff! How the devil has it slipped through our fingers?
Never mind that, inter amicos--Sir, I was at school at Shrewsbury--but
as to the war, Sir, the service is going to the devil, for the want of
pure principle.”
The farmer nodded; and his looks declared that to some extent he felt
it. He had got the worst side of some bargains that week; but his wife
had another way of thinking.
“Why, Captain Carroway, whatever could be purer? When you were at sea,
had you ever a man of the downright principles of Nelson?”
“Nelson has done very well in his way; but he is a man who has risen too
fast, as other men rise too slowly. Nothing in him; no substance,
madam; I knew him as a youngster, and I could have tossed him on a
marling-spike. And instead of feeding well, Sir, he quite wore himself
away. To my firm knowledge, he would scarcely turn the scale upon a good
Frenchman of half of the peas. Every man should work his own way up,
unless his father did it for him. In my time we had fifty men as good,
and made no fuss about them.”
“And you not the last of them, captain, I dare say. Though I do love to
hear of the Lord's Lord Nelson, as the people call him. If ever a man
fought his own way up--”
“Madam, I know him, and respect him well. He would walk up to the devil,
with a sword between his teeth, and a boarder's pistol in each hand.
Madam, I leaped, in that condition, a depth of six fathoms and a half
into the starboard mizzen-chains of the French line-of-battle ship Peace
and Thunder.”
“Oh, Captain Carroway, how dreadful! What had you to lay hold with?”
“At such times a man must not lay hold. My business was to lay about;
and I did it to some purpose. This little slash, across my eyes struck
fire, and it does the same now by moonlight.”
One of the last men in the world to brag was Lieutenant Carroway.
Nothing but the great thirst of this morning, and strong necessity
of quenching it, could ever have led him to speak about himself, and
remember his own little exploits. But the farmer was pleased, and said,
“Tell us some more, Sir.”
“Mistress Anerley,” the captain answered, shutting up the scar, which he
was able to expand by means of a muscle of excitement, “you know that
a man should drop these subjects when he has got a large family. I have
been in the Army and the Navy, madam, and now I am in the Revenue; but
my duty is first to my own house.”
“Do take care, Sir; I beg you to be careful. Those free-traders now are
come to such a pitch that any day or night they may shoot you.”
“Not they, madam. No, they are not murderers. In a hand-to-hand conflict
they might do it, as I might do the same to them. This very morning my
men shot at the captain of all smugglers, Robin Lyth, of Flamborough,
with a hundred guineas upon his head. It was no wish of mine; but my
breath was short to stop them, and a man with a family like mine can
never despise a hundred guineas.”
“Why, Sophy,” said the farmer, thinking slowly, with a frown, “that
must have been the noise come in at window, when I were getting up
this morning. I said, 'Why, there's some poacher fellow popping at the
conies!' and out I went straight to the warren to see. Three gun-shots,
or might 'a been four. How many men was you shooting at?”
“The force under my command was in pursuit of one notorious
criminal--that well-known villain, Robin Lyth.”
“Captain, your duty is to do your duty. But without your own word for
it, I never would believe that you brought four gun muzzles down upon
one man.”
“The force under my command carried three guns only. It was not in their
power to shoot off four.”
“Captain, I never would have done it in your place. I call it no better
than unmanly. Now go you not for to stir yourself amiss. To look thunder
at me is what I laugh at. But many things are done in a hurry, Captain
Carroway, and I take it that this was one of them.”
“As to that, no! I will not have it. All was in thorough good order.
I was never so much as a cable's length behind, though the devil, some
years ago, split my heel up, like his own, Sir.”
“Captain, I see it, and I ask your pardon. Your men were out of reach of
hollering. At our time of life the wind dies quick, from want of blowing
oftener.”
“Stuff!” cried the captain. “Who was the freshest that came to your
hospitable door, Sir? I will foot it with any man for six leagues, but
not for half a mile, ma'am. I depart from nothing. I said, 'Fire!' and
fire they did, and they shall again. What do Volunteers know of the
service?”
“Stephen, you shall not say a single other word;” Mistress Anerley
stopped her husband thus; “these matters are out of your line
altogether; because you have never taken any body's blood. The captain
here is used to it, like all the sons of Belial, brought up in the early
portions of the Holy Writ.”
Lieutenant Carroway's acquaintance with the Bible was not more extensive
than that of other officers, and comprised little more than the story
of Joseph, and that of David and Goliath; so he bowed to his hostess for
her comparison, while his gaunt and bristly countenance gave way to
a pleasant smile. For this officer of the British Crown had a face of
strong features, and upon it whatever he thought was told as plainly as
the time of day is told by the clock in the kitchen. At the same time,
Master Anerley was thinking that he might have said more than a host
should say concerning a matter which, after all, was no particular
concern of his; whereas it was his special place to be kind to any
visitor. All this he considered with a sound grave mind, and then
stretched forth his right hand to the officer.
Carroway, being a generous man, would not be outdone in apologies. So
these two strengthened their mutual esteem, without any fighting--which
generally is the quickest way of renewing respect--and Mistress Anerley,
having been a little frightened, took credit to herself for the good
words she had used. Then the farmer, who never drank cordials, although
he liked to see other people do it, set forth to see a man who was come
about a rick, and sundry other business. But Carroway, in spite of all
his boasts, was stiff, though he bravely denied that he could be; and
when the good housewife insisted on his stopping to listen to something
that was much upon her mind, and of great importance to the revenue, he
could not help owning that duty compelled him to smoke another pipe, and
hearken.