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 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 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 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 unobtrusive
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 noble 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 glassy
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 horny 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 shores 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 sturdy 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, Cockscroft
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. Cockscroft 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 shining 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--nobody having a spy-glass--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 Yorkshire. 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 Yorkshire, guiding and
retarding 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 Yorkshireman. 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 grass, where
Robin Cockscroft 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
constitution. “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 Cockscroft gie ma t' bairn, an'
nawbody sall hev him but Joan Cockscroft.”
Joan Cockscroft, with a heavy heart, was lingering far behind the rest,
thinking of the many merry launches, when her smart young Robin would
have been in the boat with his father, and her pretty little Mercy
clinging to her hand upon the homeward road, and prattling of the fish
to be caught that day; and inasmuch as Joan had not been able to get
face to face with her husband on the beach, she had not yet heard of the
stranger child. But soon the women sent a little boy to fetch her, and
she came among them, wondering what it could be. For now a debate of
some vigor was arising upon a momentous and exciting point, though
not so keen by a hundredth part as it would have been twenty years
afterward. For the eldest old woman had pronounced her decision.
“Tell ye wat, ah dean't think bud wat yon bairn mud he a Frogman.”
This caused some panic and a general retreat; for though the immortal
Napoleon had scarcely finished changing his teeth as yet, a chronic
uneasiness about Crappos haunted that coast already, and they might
have sent this little boy to pave the way, being capable of almost
everything.
“Frogman!” cried the old woman next to her by birth, and believed to
have higher parts, though not yet ripe. “Na, na; what Frogman here?
Frogmen ha' skinny shanks, and larks' heels, and holes down their bodies
like lamperns. No sign of no frog aboot yon bairn. As fair as a wench,
and as clean as a tyke. A' mought a'most been born to Flaambro'. And
what gowd ha' Crappos got, poor divils?”
This opened the gate for a clamor of discourse; for there surely could
be no denial of her words. And yet while her elder was alive and out of
bed, the habit of the village was to listen to her say, unless any man
of equal age arose to countervail it. But while they were thus divided,
Mrs. Cockscroft came, and they stood aside. For she had been kind to
everybody when her better chances were; and now in her trouble all were
grieved because she took it so to heart. Joan Cockscroft did not say
a word, but glanced at the child with some contempt. In spite of white
linen and yellow gold, what was he to her own dead Robin?
But suddenly this child, whatever he was, and vastly soever inferior,
opened his eyes and sent home their first glance to the very heart of
Joan Cockscroft. It was the exact look--or so she always said--of her
dead angel, when she denied him something, for the sake of his poor dear
stomach. With an outburst of tears, she flew straight to the little one,
snatched him in her arms, and tried to cover him with kisses.
The child, however, in a lordly manner, did not seem to like it. He drew
away his red lips, and gathered up his nose, and passion flew out of his
beautiful eyes, higher passion than that of any Cockscroft. And he
tried to say something which no one could make out. And women of high
consideration, looking on, were wicked enough to be pleased at this, and
say that he must be a young lord, and they had quite foreseen it. But
Joan knew what children are, and soothed him down so with delicate
hands, and a gentle look, and a subtle way of warming his cold places,
that he very soon began to cuddle into her, and smile. Then she turned
round to the other people, with both of his arms flung round her neck,
and his cheek laid on her shoulder, and she only said, “The Lord hath
sent him.”