IN A LANE, NOT ALONE
Stephen Anerley's daughter was by no means of a crooked mind, but open
as the day in all things, unless any one mistrusted her, and showed it
by cross-questioning. When this was done, she resented it quickly by
concealing the very things which she would have told of her own accord;
and it so happened that the person to whom of all she should have been
most open, was the one most apt to check her by suspicious curiosity.
And now her mother already began to do this, as concerned the smuggler,
knowing from the revenue officer that Mary must have seen him. Mary,
being a truthful damsel, told no lies about it; but, on the other hand,
she did not rush forth with all the history, as she probably would have
done if left unexamined. And so she said nothing about the ear-ring, or
the run that was to come off that week, or the riding-skirt, or a host
of little things, including her promise to visit Bempton Lane.
On the other hand, she had a mind to tell her father, and take his
opinion about it all. But he was a little cross that evening, not with
her, but with the world at large; and that discouraged her; and then she
thought that being an officer of the king--as he liked to call himself
sometimes--he might feel bound to give information about the impending
process of free trade; which to her would be a breach of honor,
considering how she knew of it.
Upon the whole, she heartily wished that she never had seen that Robin
Lyth; and then she became ashamed of herself for indulging such a
selfish wish. For he might have been lying dead but for her; and then
what would become of the many poor people whose greatest comfort he was
said to be? And what good could arise from his destruction, if cruel
people compassed it? Free trade must be carried on, for the sake of
everybody, including Captain Carroway himself; and if an old and ugly
man succeeded a young and generous one as leader of the free-trade
movement, all the women in the country would put the blame on her.
Looking at these things loftily, and with a strong determination not
to think twice of what any one might say who did not understand the
subject, Mary was forced at last to the stern conclusion that she must
keep her promise. Not only because it was a promise--although that went
a very long way with her--but also because there seemed no other chance
of performing a positive duty. Simple honesty demanded that she should
restore to the owner a valuable, and beyond all doubt important, piece
of property. Two hours had she spent in looking for it, and deprived
her dear father of his breakfast shrimps; and was all this trouble to be
thrown away, and herself, perhaps, accused of theft, because her mother
was so short and sharp in wanting to know everything, and to turn it her
own way?
The trinket, which she had found at last, seemed to be a very uncommon
and precious piece of jewelry; it was made of pure gold, minutely chased
and threaded with curious workmanship, in form like a melon, and bearing
what seemed to be characters of some foreign language: there might be
a spell, or even witchcraft, in it, and the sooner it was out of her
keeping the better. Nevertheless she took very good care of it, wrapping
it in lamb's-wool, and peeping at it many times a day, to be sure that
it was safe, until it made her think of the owner so much, and the many
wonders she had heard about him, that she grew quite angry with herself
and it, and locked it away, and then looked at it again.
As luck would have it, on the very day when Mary was to stroll down
Bempton Lane (not to meet any one, of course, but simply for the merest
chance of what might happen), her father had business at Driffield corn
market, which would keep him from home nearly all the day. When his
daughter heard of it she was much cast down; for she hoped that he
might have been looking about on the northern part of the farm, as he
generally was in the afternoon; and although he could not see Bempton
Lane at all, perhaps, without some newly acquired power of seeing round
sharp corners, still it would have been a comfort and a strong resource
for conscience to have felt that he was not so very far away. And this
feeling of want made his daughter resolve to have some one at any
rate near her. If Jack had only been at home, she need have sought no
further, for he would have entered into all her thoughts about it, and
obeyed her orders beautifully. But Willie was quite different, and hated
any trouble, being spoiled so by his mother and the maidens all around
them.
However, in such a strait, what was there to do but to trust in Willie,
who was old enough, being five years in front of Mary, and then to try
to make him sensible? Willie Anerley had no idea that anybody--far less
his own sister--could take such a view of him. He knew himself to be,
and all would say the same of him, superior in his original gifts,
and his manner of making use of them, to the rest of the family put
together. He had spent a month in Glasgow, when the whole place was
astir with the ferment of many great inventions, and another month in
Edinburgh, when that noble city was aglow with the dawn of large ideas;
also, he had visited London, foremost of his family, and seen enough new
things there to fill all Yorkshire with surprise; and the result of such
wide experience was that he did not like hard work at all. Neither could
he even be content to accept and enjoy, without labor of his own, the
many good things provided for him. He was always trying to discover
something which never seemed to answer, and continually flying after
something new, of which he never got fast hold. In a word, he was
spoiled, by nature first, and then by circumstances, for the peaceful
life of his ancestors, and the unacknowledged blessings of a farmer.
“Willie dear, will you come with me?” Mary said to him that day,
catching him as he ran down stairs to air some inspiration. “Will you
come with me for just one hour? I wish you would; and I would be so
thankful.”
“Child, it is quite impossible,” he answered, with a frown which set off
his delicate eyebrows and high but rather narrow forehead; “you always
want me at the very moment when I have the most important work in hand.
Any childish whim of yours matters more than hours and hours of hard
labor.”
“Oh, Willie, but you know how I try to help you, and all the patterns
I cut out last week! Do come for once, Willie; if you refuse, you will
never, never forgive yourself.”
Willie Anerley was as good-natured as any self-indulged youth can be; he
loved his sister in his way, and was indebted to her for getting out of
a great many little scrapes. He saw how much she was in earnest now, and
felt some desire to know what it was about. Moreover--which settled
the point--he was getting tired of sticking to one thing for a time
unusually long with him. But he would not throw away the chance of
scoring a huge debt of gratitude.
“Well, do what you like with me,” he answered, with a smile; “I never
can have my own way five minutes. It serves me quite right for being so
good-natured.”
Mary gave him a kiss, which must have been an object of ambition to
anybody else; but it only made him wipe his mouth; and presently the two
set forth upon the path toward Bempton.
Robin Lyth had chosen well his place for meeting Mary. The lane (of
which he knew every yard as well as he knew the rocks themselves)
was deep and winding, and fringed with bushes, so that an active and
keen-eyed man might leap into thicket almost before there was a fair
chance of shooting him. He knew well enough that he might trust Mary;
but he never could be sure that the bold “coast-riders,” despairing by
this time of catching him at sea, and longing for the weight of gold
put upon his head, might not be setting privy snares to catch him in his
walks abroad. They had done so when they pursued him up the Dike; and
though he was inclined to doubt the strict legality of that proceeding,
he could not see his way to a fair discussion of it, in case of their
putting a bullet through him. And this consideration made him careful.
The brother and sister went on well by the foot-path over the uplands of
the farm, and crossing the neck of the Flamburn peninsula, tripped away
merrily northward. The wheat looked healthy, and the barley also, and a
four-acre patch of potatoes smelled sweetly (for the breeze of them was
pleasant in their wholesome days), and Willie, having overworked his
brain, according to his own account of it, strode along loftily before
his sister, casting over his shoulder an eddy of some large ideas with
which he had been visited before she interrupted him. But as nothing
ever came of them, they need not here be stated. From a practical point
of view, however, as they both had to live upon the profits of the farm,
it pleased them to observe what a difference there was when they had
surmounted the chine and began to descend toward the north upon other
people's land. Here all was damp and cold and slow; and chalk looked
slimy instead of being clean; and shadowy places had an oozy cast; and
trees (wherever they could stand) were facing the east with wrinkled
visage, and the west with wiry beards. Willie (who had, among other
great inventions, a scheme for improvement of the climate) was reminded
at once of all the things he meant to do in that way; and making, as he
always did, a great point of getting observations first--a point whereon
he stuck fast mainly--without any time for delay he applied himself to a
rapid study of the subject. He found some things just like other things
which he had seen in Scotland, yet differing so as to prove, more
clearly than even their resemblance did, the value of his discovery.
“Look!” he cried; “can anything be clearer? The cause of all these evils
is not (as an ignorant person might suppose) the want of sunshine, or
too much wet, but an inadequate movement of the air--”
“Why, I thought it was always blowing up here. The very last time I
came, my bonnet strings were split.”
“You do not understand me; you never do. When I say inadequate, I mean,
of course, incorrect, inaccurate, unequable. Now the air is a fluid; you
may stare as you like, Mary, but the air has been proved to be a
fluid. Very well; no fluid in large bodies moves with an equal velocity
throughout. Part of it is rapid and part quite stagnant. The stagnant
places of the air produce this green scum, this mossy, unwholesome, and
injurious stuff; while the overrapid motion causes this iron appearance,
this hard surface, and general sterility. By the simplest of simple
contrivances, I make this evil its own remedy. An equable impulse given
to the air produces an adequate uniform flow, preventing stagnation in
one place, and excessive vehemence in another. And the beauty of it is
that by my new invention I make the air itself correct and regulate its
own inequalities.”
“How clever you are, to be sure!” exclaimed Mary, wondering that her
father could not see it. “Oh, Willie, you will make your fortune by it!
However do you do it?”
“The simplicity of it is such that even you can understand it. All
great discoveries are simple. I fix in a prominent situation a large
and vertically revolving fan, of a light and vibrating substance. The
movement of the air causes this to rotate by the mere force of the
impact. The rotation and the vibration of the fan convert an irregular
impulse into a steady and equable undulation; and such is the elasticity
of the fluid called, in popular language, 'the air,' that for miles
around the rotation of this fan regulates the circulation, modifies
extremes, annihilates sterility, and makes it quite impossible for moss
and green scum and all this sour growth to live. Even you can see, Mary,
how beautiful it is.”
“Yes, that I can,” she answered, simply, as they turned the corner upon
a large windmill, with arms revolving merrily; “but, Willie dear, would
not Farmer Topping's mill, perpetually going as it is, answer the same
purpose? And yet the moss seems to be as thick as ever here, and the
ground as naked.”
“Tush!” cried Willie. “Stuff and nonsense! When will you girls
understand? Good-by! I will throw away no more time on you.”
Without stopping to finish his sentence he was off and out of sight
both of the mill and Mary, before the poor girl, who had not the least
intention of offending him, could even beg his pardon, or say how much
she wanted him; for she had not dared as yet to tell him what was the
purpose of her walk, his nature being such that no one, not even his own
mother, could tell what conclusion he might come to upon any practical
question. He might rush off at once to put the revenue men on the
smuggler's track, or he might stop his sister from going, or he might
(in the absence of his father) order a feast to be prepared, and fetch
the outlaw to be his guest. So Mary had resolved not to tell him until
the last moment, when he could do none of these things.
But now she must either go on all alone, or give up her purpose and
break her promise. After some hesitation she determined to go on, for
the place would scarcely seem so very lonely now with the windmill
in view, which would always remind her henceforth of her dear brother
William. It was perfectly certain that Captain Robert Lyth, whose fame
for chivalry was everywhere, and whose character was all in all to him
with the ladies who bought his silks and lace, would see her through all
danger caused by confidence in him; and really it was too bad of her
to admit any paltry misgivings. But reason as she might, her young
conscience told her that this was not the proper thing to do, and she
made up her mind not to do it again. Then she laughed at the notion of
being ever even asked, and told herself that she was too conceited; and
to cut the matter short, went very bravely down the hill.
The lane, which came winding from the beach up to the windmill, was as
pretty a lane as may anywhere be found in any other county than that of
Devon. With a Devonshire lane it could not presume to vie, having little
of the glorious garniture of fern, and nothing of the crystal brook that
leaps at every corner; no arches of tall ash, keyed with dog-rose, and
not much of honeysuckle, and a sight of other wants which people feel
who have lived in the plenitude of everything. But in spite of all that,
the lane was very fine for Yorkshire.
On the other hand, Mary had prettier ankles, and a more graceful and
lighter walk, than the Devonshire lanes, which like to echo something,
for the most part seem accustomed to; and the short dress of the time
made good such favorable facts when found. Nor was this all that could
be said, for the maiden (while her mother was so busy pickling cabbage,
from which she drove all intruders) had managed to forget what the day
of the week was, and had opened the drawer that should be locked
up until Sunday. To walk with such a handsome tall fellow as Willie
compelled her to look like something too, and without any thought of it
she put her best hat on, and a very pretty thing with some French name,
and made of a delicate peach-colored silk, which came down over her
bosom, and tied in the neatest of knots at the small of her back, which
at that time of life was very small. All these were the gifts of her
dear uncle Popplewell, upon the other side of Filey, who might have been
married for forty years, but nobody knew how long it was, because he had
no children, and so he made Mary his darling. And this ancient gentleman
had leanings toward free trade.
Whether these goods were French or not--which no decent person could
think of asking--no French damsel could have put them on better, or
shown a more pleasing appearance in them; for Mary's desire was to
please all people who meant no harm to her--as nobody could--and yet
to let them know that her object was only to do what was right, and to
never think of asking whether she looked this, that, or the other. Her
mother, as a matter of duty, told her how plain she was almost every
day; but the girl was not of that opinion; and when Mrs. Anerley
finished her lecture (as she did nine times in ten) by turning the glass
to the wall, and declaring that beauty was a snare skin-deep, with a
frown of warning instead of a smile of comfort, then Mary believed in
her looking-glass again, and had the smile of comfort on her own face.
However, she never thought of that just now, but only of how she could
do her duty, and have no trouble in her own mind with thinking, and
satisfy her father when she told him all, as she meant to do, when there
could be no harm done to any one; and this, as she heartily hoped, would
be to-morrow. And truly, if there did exist any vanity at all, it was
not confined to the sex in which it is so much more natural and comely.
For when a very active figure came to light suddenly, at a little elbow
of the lane, and with quick steps advanced toward Mary, she was lost
in surprise at the gayety, not to say grandeur, of its apparel. A
broad hat, looped at the side, and having a pointed black crown, with a
scarlet feather and a dove-colored brim, sat well upon the mass of crisp
black curls. A short blue jacket of the finest Flemish cloth, and set
(not too thickly) with embossed silver buttons, left properly open the
strong brown neck, while a shirt of pale blue silk, with a turned-down
collar of fine needle-work, fitted, without a wrinkle or a pucker, the
broad and amply rounded chest. Then a belt of brown leather, with an
anchor clasp, and empty loops for either fire-arm or steel, supported
true sailor's trousers of the purest white and the noblest man-of-war
cut; and where these widened at the instep shone a lovely pair of pumps,
with buckles radiant of best Bristol diamonds. The wearer of all these
splendors smiled, and seemed to become them as they became him.
“Well,” thought Mary, “how free trade must pay! What a pity that he is
not in the Royal Navy!”
With his usual quickness, and the self-esteem which added such lustre to
his character, the smuggler perceived what was passing in her mind, but
he was not rude enough to say so.
“Young lady,” he began--and Mary, with all her wisdom, could not help
being fond of that--“young lady, I was quite sure that you would keep
your word.”
“I never do anything else,” she answered, showing that she scarcely
looked at him. “I have found this for you, and then good-by.”
“Surely you will wait to hear my thanks, and to know what made me dare
to ask you, after all you had done for me already, to begin again for
me. But I am such an outcast that I never should have done it.”
“I never saw any one look more thoroughly unlike an outcast,” Mary said;
and then she was angry with herself for speaking, and glancing, and,
worst of all, for smiling,
“Ladies who live on land can never understand what we go through,” Robin
replied, in his softest voice, as rich as the murmur of the summer sea.
“When we expect great honors, we try to look a little tidy, as any one
but a common boor would do; and we laugh at ourselves for trying to look
well, after all the knocking about we get. Our time is short--we must
make the most of it.”
“Oh, please not to talk in such a dreadful way,” said Mary.
“You remind me of my dear friend Dr. Upround--the very best man in the
whole world, I believe. He always says to me, 'Robin, Robin--'”
“What! is Dr. Upandown a friend of yours?” Mary exclaimed, in amazement,
and with a stoppage of the foot that was poised for quick departure.
“Dr. Upandown, as many people call him,” said the smuggler, with a tone
of condemnation, “is the best and dearest friend I have, next to Captain
and Mistress Cockscroft, who may have been heard of at Anerley Manor.
Dr. Upround is our magistrate and clergyman, and he lets people say what
they like against me, while he honors me with his friendship. I must not
stay long to thank you even, because I am going to the dear old doctor's
for supper at seven o'clock and a game of chess.”
“Oh dear! oh dear! And he is such a Justice! And yet they shot at you
last week! It makes me wonder when I hear such things.”
“Young lady, it makes everybody wonder. In my opinion there never could
be a more shameful murder than to shoot me; and yet but for you it would
surely have been done.”
“You must not dwell upon such things,” said Mary; “they may have a very
bad effect upon your mind. But good-by, Captain Lyth; I forgot that I
was robbing Dr. Upround of your society.”
“Shall I be so ungrateful as not to see you safe upon your own land
after all your trouble? My road to Flamborough lies that way. Surely you
will not refuse to hear what made me so anxious about this bauble,
which now will be worth ten times as much. I never saw it look so bright
before.”
“It--it must be the sand has made it shine,” the maiden stammered, with
a fine bright blush; “it does the same to my shrimping net.”
“Ah, shrimping is a very fine pursuit! There is nothing I love better;
what pools I could show you, if I only might; pools where you may fill
a sack with large prawns in a single tide--pools known to nobody but
myself. When do you think of going shrimping next?”
“Perhaps next summer I may try again, if Captain Carroway will come with
me.”
“That is too unkind of you. How very harsh you are to me! I could hardly
have believed it after all that you have done. And you really do not
care to hear the story of this relic?”
“If I could stop, I should like it very much. But my brother, who came
with me, may perhaps be waiting for me.” Mary knew that this was not
very likely; still, it was just possible, for Willie's ill tempers
seldom lasted very long; and she wanted to let the smuggler know that
she had not come all alone to meet him.
“I shall not be two minutes,” Robin Lyth replied; “I have been forced to
learn short talking. May I tell you about this trinket?”
“Yes, if you will only begin at once, and finish by the time we get to
that corner.”
“That is very short measure for a tale,” said Robin, though he liked
her all the better for such qualities; “however, I will try; only walk
a little slower. Nobody knows where I was born, any more than they know
how or why. Only when I came upon this coast as a very little boy, and
without knowing anything about it, they say that I had very wonderful
buttons of gold upon a linen dress, adorned with gold-lace, which I used
to wear on Sundays. Dr. Upround ordered them to keep those buttons, and
was to have had them in his own care; but before that, all of them were
lost save two. My parents, as I call them from their wonderful goodness,
kinder than the ones who have turned me on the world (unless themselves
went out of it), resolved to have my white coat done up grandly, when
I grew too big for it, and to lay it by in lavender; and knowing of a
great man in the gold-lace trade, as far away as Scarborough, they sent
it by a fishing-smack to him, with people whom they knew thoroughly.
That was the last of it ever known here. The man swore a manifest that
he never saw it, and threatened them with libel; and the smack was
condemned, and all her hands impressed, because of some trifle she
happened to carry; and nobody knows any more of it. But two of the
buttons had fallen off, and good mother had put them by, to give a last
finish to the coat herself; and when I grew up, and had to go to sea
at night, they were turned into a pair of ear-rings. There, now, Miss
Anerley, I have not been long, and you know all about it.”
“How very lonesome it must be for you,” said Mary, with a gentle gaze,
which, coming from such lovely eyes, went straight into his heart, “to
have no one belonging to you by right, and to seem to belong to nobody!
I am sure I can not tell whatever I should do without any father, or
mother, or uncle, or even a cousin to be certain of.”
“All the ladies seem to think that it is rather hard upon me,” Robin
answered, with an excellent effort at a sigh; “but I do my very best
to get on without them. And one thing that helps me most of all is when
kind ladies, who have good hearts, allow me to talk to them as if I had
a sister. This makes me forget what I am sometimes.”
“You never should try to forget what you are. Everybody in the world
speaks well of you. Even that cruel Lieutenant Carroway can not help
admiring you. And if you have taken to free trade, what else could you
do, when you had no friends, and even your coat was stolen?”
“High-minded people take that view of it, I know. But I do not pretend
to any such excuse. I took to free trade for the sake of my friends--to
support the old couple who have been so good to me.”
“That is better still; it shows such good principle. My uncle Popplewell
has studied the subject of what they call 'political economy,' and he
says that the country requires free trade, and the only way to get it is
to go on so that the government must give way at last. However, I need
not instruct you about that; and you must not stop any longer.”
“Miss Anerley, I will not encroach upon your kindness. You have said
things that I never shall forget. On the Continent I meet very many
ladies who tell me good things, and make me better; but not at all as
you have done. A minute of talk with you is worth an hour with anybody
else. But I fear that you laugh at me all the while, and are only too
glad to be rid of me. Good-by. May I kiss your hand? God bless you!”
Mary had no time to say a single word, or even to express her ideas by
a look, before Robin Lyth, with all his bright apparel, was “conspicuous
by his absence.” As a diving bird disappears from a gun, or a trout from
a shadow on his hover, or even a debtor from his creditor, so the great
free-trader had vanished into lightsome air, and left emptiness behind
him.
The young maid, having been prepared to yield him a few yards more of
good advice, if he held out for another corner, now could only say to
herself that she never had met such a wonderful man. So active, strong,
and astonishingly brave; so thoroughly acquainted with foreign lands,
yet superior to their ladies; so able to see all the meaning of good
words, and to value them when offered quietly; so sweet in his manner,
and voice, and looks; and with all his fame so unpretending, and--much
as it frightened her to think it--really seeming to be afraid of her.