STUMPED OUT
“I think, my dear, that you never should allow mysterious things to be
doing in your parish, and everybody full of curiosity about them, while
the only proper person to explain their meaning is allowed to remain
without any more knowledge than a man locked up in York Castle might
have. In spite of all the weather, and the noise the sea makes, I feel
quite certain that important things, which never have any right to
happen in our parish, are going on here, and you never interfere; which
on the part of the rector, and the magistrate of the neighborhood, to
my mind is not a proper course of action. I am sure that I have not
the very smallest curiosity; I feel very often that I should have asked
questions, when it has become too late to do so, and when anybody else
would have put them at the moment, and not had to be sorry afterward.”
“I understand that feeling,” Dr. Upround answered, looking at his wife
for the third cup of coffee to wind up his breakfast as usual, “and
without hesitation I reply that it naturally arises in superior natures.
Janetta, you have eaten up that bit of broiled hake that I was keeping
for your dear mother!”
“Now really, papa, you are too crafty. You put my mother off with a
wretched generality, because you don't choose to tell her anything; and
to stop me from coming to the rescue, you attack me with a miserable
little personality. I perceive by your face, papa, every trick that
rises; and without hesitation I reply that they naturally arise in
inferior natures.”
“Janetta, you never express yourself well.” Mrs. Upround insisted upon
filial respect. “When I say 'well,' I mean--Well, well, well, you know
quite well what I mean, Janetta.”
“To be sure, mamma, I always do. You always mean the very best meaning
in the world; but you are not up to half of papa's tricks yet.”
“This is too bad!” cried the father, with a smile.
“A great deal too bad!” said the mother, with a frown. “I am sure I
would never have asked a word of anything, if I could ever have imagined
such behavior. Go away, Janetta, this very moment; your dear father
evidently wants to tell me something. Now, my dear, you were too sleepy
last night; but your peace of mind requires you to unburden itself at
once of all these very mysterious goings on.”
“Well, perhaps I shall have no peace of mind unless I do,” said the
rector, with a slight sarcasm, which missed her altogether; “only it
might save trouble, my dear, if you would first specify the points which
oppress your--or rather I should say, perhaps, my mind so much.”
“In the first place, then,” began Mrs. Upround, drawing nearer to the
doctor, “who is that highly distinguished stranger who can not get away
from the Thornwick Inn? What made him come to such a place in dreadful
weather; and if he is ill, why not send for Dr. Stirbacks? Dr. Stirbacks
will think it most unkind of you; and after all he did for dear Janetta.
And then, again, what did the milkman from Sewerby mean by the way he
shook his head this morning, about something in the family at Anerley
Farm? And what did that most unaccountable man, who calls himself Mr.
Mordacks--though I don't believe that is his name at all--”
“Yes, it is, my dear; you never should say such things. He is well known
at York, and for miles around; and I entertain very high respect for
him.”
“So you may, Dr. Upround. You do that too freely; but Janetta quite
agrees with me about him. A man with a sword, that goes slashing about,
and kills a rat, that was none of his business! A more straightforward
creature than himself, I do believe, though he struts like a soldier
with a ramrod. And what did he mean, in such horrible weather, by
dragging you out to take a deposition in a place even colder than
Flamborough itself--that vile rabbit-warren on the other side of
Bempton? Deposition of a man who had drunk himself to death--and a
Methodist too, as you could not help saying.”
“I said it, I know; and I am ashamed of saying it. I was miserably cold,
and much annoyed about my coat.”
“You never say anything to be ashamed of. It is when you do not say
things that you should rather blame yourself. For instance, I feel no
curiosity whatever, but a kind-hearted interest, in the doings of my
neighbors. We very seldom get any sort of excitement; and when exciting
things come all together, quite within the hearing of our stable bell,
to be left to guess them out, and perhaps be contradicted, destroys
one's finest feelings, and produces downright fidgets.”
“My dear, my dear, you really should endeavor to emancipate yourself
from such small ideas.”
“Large words shall never divert me from my duty. My path of duty is
distinctly traced; and if a thwarting hand withdraws me from it, it must
end in a bilious headache.”
This was a terrible menace to the household, which was always thrown out
of its course for three days when the lady became thus afflicted.
“My first duty is to my wife,” said the rector. “If people come into my
parish with secrets, which come to my knowledge without my desire, and
without official obligation, and the faithful and admirable partner of
my life threatens to be quite unwell--”
“Ill, dear, very ill--is what would happen to me.”
“--then I consider that my duty is to impart to her everything that can
not lead to mischief.”
“How could you have any doubt of it, my dear? And as to the mischief, I
am the proper judge of that.”
Dr. Upround laughed in his quiet inner way; and then, as a matter
of form, he said, “My dear, you must promise most faithfully to keep
whatever I tell you as the very strictest secret.”
Mrs. Upround looked shocked at the mere idea of her ever doing
otherwise; which indeed, as she said, was impossible. Her husband very
nearly looked as if he quite believed her; and then they went into his
snug sitting-room, while the maid took away the breakfast things.
“Now don't keep me waiting,” said the lady.
“Well, then, my dear,” the rector began, after crossing stout legs
stoutly, “you must do your utmost not to interrupt me, and, in short--to
put it courteously--you must try to hold your tongue, and suffer
much astonishment in silence. We have a most distinguished visitor in
Flamborough setting up his staff at the Thornwick Hotel.”
“Lord Nelson! I knew it must be. Janetta is so quick at things.”
“Janetta is too quick at things; and she is utterly crazy about Nelson.
No; it is the famous Sir Duncan Yordas.”
“Sir Duncan Yordas! Why, I never heard of him.”
“You will find that you have heard of him when you come to think,
my dear. Our Harry is full of his wonderful doings. He is one of the
foremost men in India, though perhaps little heard of in this country
yet. He belongs to an ancient Yorkshire family, and is, I believe, the
head of it. He came here looking for his son, but has caught a most
terrible chill, instead of him; and I think we ought to send him some of
your rare soup.”
“How sensible you are! It will be the very thing. But first of all, what
character does he bear? They do such things in India.”
“His character is spotless; I might say too romantic. He is a man of
magnificent appearance, large mind, and lots of money.”
“My dear, my dear, he must never stay there. I shudder to think of it,
this weather. A chill is a thing upon the kidneys always. You know my
electuary; and if we bring him round, it is high time for Janetta to
begin to think of settling.”
“My dear!” said Dr. Upround; “well, how suddenly you jump! I must put
on my spectacles to look at you. This gentleman must be getting on for
fifty!”
“Janetta should have a man of some discretion, somebody she would not
dare to snap at. Her expressions are so reckless, that a young man would
not suit her. She ought to have some one to look up to; and you know how
she raves about fame, and celebrity, and that. She really seems to care
for very little else.”
“Then she ought to have fallen in love with Robin Lyth, the most famous
man in all this neighborhood.”
“Dr. Upround, you say things on purpose to provoke me when my remarks
are unanswerable. Robin Lyth indeed! A sailor, a smuggler, a common
working-man! And under that terrible accusation!”
“An objectionable party altogether; not even desirable as a grandson.
Therefore say nothing more of Janetta and Sir Duncan.”
“Sometimes, my dear, the chief object of your existence seems to be to
irritate me. What can poor Robin have to do with Sir Duncan Yordas?”
“Simply this. He is his only son. The proofs were completed, and
deposited with me for safe custody, last night, by that very active man
of business, Geoffrey Mordacks, of York city.”
“Well!” cried Mrs. Upround, with both hands lifted, and a high color
flowing into her unwrinkled cheeks; “from this day forth I shall never
have any confidence in you again. How long--if I may dare to put any
sort of question--have you been getting into all this very secret
knowledge? And why have I never heard a word of it till now? And not
even now, I do believe, through any proper urgency of conscience on your
part, but only because I insisted upon knowing. Oh, Dr. Upround, for
shame! for shame!”
“My dear, you have no one but yourself to blame,” her husband replied,
with a sweet and placid smile. “Three times I have told you things that
were to go no further, and all three of them went twenty miles within
three days. I do not complain of it; far less of you. You may have felt
it quite as much your duty to spread knowledge as I felt it mine to
restrict it. And I never should have let you get all this out of me now,
if it had been at all incumbent upon me to keep it quiet.”
“That means that I have never got it out of you at all. I have taken all
this trouble for nothing.”
“No, my dear, not at all. You have worked well, and have promised not
to say a word about it. You might not have known it for a week at least,
except for my confidence in you.”
“Much of it I thank you for. But don't be cross, my dear, because you
have behaved so atrociously. You have not answered half of my questions
yet.”
“Well, there were so many, that I scarcely can remember them. Let me
see: I have told you who the great man is, and the reason that brought
him to Flamborough. Then about the dangerous chill he has taken; it came
through a bitter ride from Scarborough; and if Dr. Stirbacks came, he
would probably make it still more dangerous. At least so Mordacks says;
and the patient is in his hands, and out of mine; so that Stirbacks
can not be aggrieved with us. On the other hand, as to the milkman from
Sewerby. I really do not know why he shook his head. Perhaps he found
the big pump frozen. He is not of my parish, and may shake his head
without asking my permission. Now I think that I have answered nearly
all your questions.”
“Not at all; I have not had time to ask them yet, because I feel so
much above them. But if the milkman meant nothing, because of his not
belonging to our parish, the butcher does, and he can have no excuse.
He says that Mr. Mordacks takes all the best meanings of a mutton-sheep
every other day to Burlington.”
“I know he does. And it ought to put us to the blush that a stranger
should have to do so. Mordacks is finding clothes, food, and firing for
all the little creatures poor Carroway left, and even for his widow,
who has got a wandering mind. Without him there would not have been one
left. The poor mother locked in all her little ones, and starved them,
to save them from some quite imaginary foe. The neighbors began to think
of interfering, and might have begun to do it when it was all over.
Happily, Mordacks arrived just in time. His promptitude, skill, and
generosity saved them. Never say a word against that man again.”
“My dear, I will not,” Mrs. Upround answered, with tears coming into her
kindly eyes. “I never heard of anything more pitiful. I had no idea
Mr. Mordacks was so good. He looks more like an evil spirit. I always
regarded him as an evil spirit; and his name sounds like it, and he
jumps about so. But he ought to have gone to the rector of the parish.”
“It is a happy thing that he can jump about. The rector of the parish
can not do so, as you know; and he lives two miles away from them, and
had never even heard of it. People always talk about the rector of a
parish as if he could be everywhere and see to everything. And few
of them come near him in their prosperous times. Have you any other
questions to put to me, my dear?”
“Yes, a quantity of things which I can not think of now. How it was that
little boy--I remember it like yesterday--came ashore here, and turned
out to be Robin Lyth; or at least to be no Robin Lyth at all, but the
son of Sir Duncan Yordas. And what happened to the poor man in Bempton
Warren.”
“The poor man died a most miserable death, but I trust sincerely
penitent. He had led a sad, ungodly life, and he died at last of wooden
legs. He was hunted to his grave, he told us, by these wooden legs; and
he recognized in them Divine retribution, for the sin of his life was
committed in timber. No sooner did any of those legs appear--and the
poor fellow said they were always coming--than his heart began to
patter, and his own legs failed him, and he tried to stop his ears, but
his conscience would not let him.”
“Now there!” cried Mrs. Upround; “what the power of conscience is! He
had stolen choice timber, perhaps ready-made legs.”
“A great deal worse than that, my dear; he had knocked out a knot as
large as my shovel-hat from the side of a ship home bound from India,
because he was going to be tried for mutiny upon their arrival at Leith,
it was, I think. He and his partners had been in irons, but unluckily
they were just released. The weather was magnificent, a lovely summer's
night, soft fair breeze, and every one rejoicing in the certainty of
home within a few short hours. And they found home that night, but it
was in a better world.”
“You have made me creep all over. And you mean to say that a wretch like
that has any hope of heaven! How did he get away himself?”
“Very easily. A little boat was towing at the side. There were only
three men upon deck, through the beauty of the weather, and two of those
were asleep. They bound and gagged the waking one, lashed the wheel,
and made off in the boat wholly unperceived. There was Rickon Goold, the
ringleader, and four others, and they brought away a little boy who was
lying fast asleep, because one of them had been in the service of his
father, and because of the value of his Indian clothes, which his ayah
made him wear now in his little cot for warmth. The scoundrels took
good care that none should get away to tell the tale. They saw the poor
Golconda sink with every soul on board, including the captain's wife and
babies; then they made for land, and in the morning fog were carried by
the tide toward our North Landing. One of them knew the coast as well
as need be; but they durst not land until their story was concocted, and
everything fitted in to suit it. The sight of the rising sun, scattering
the fog, frightened them, as it well might do; and they pulled into the
cave, from which I always said, as you may now remember, Robin must have
come--the cave which already bears his name.
“Here they remained all day, considering a plausible tale to account
for themselves, without making mention of any lost ship, and trying to
remove every trace of identity from the boat they had stolen. They had
brought with them food enough to last three days, and an anker of
rum from the steward's stores; and as they grew weary of their long
confinement, they indulged more freely than wisely in the consumption of
that cordial. In a word, they became so tipsy that they frightened
the little helpless boy; and when they began to fight about his gold
buttons, which were claimed by the fellow who had saved his life, he
scrambled from the side of the boat upon the rock, and got along a
narrow ledge, where none of them could follow him. They tried to coax
him back; but he stamped his feet, and swore at them, being sadly taught
bad language by the native servants, I dare say. Rickon Goold wanted to
shoot him, for they had got a gun with them, and he feared to leave him
there. But Sir Duncan's former boatman would not allow it; and at dark
they went away and left him there. And the poor little fellow, in
his dark despair, must have been led by the hand of the Lord through
crannies too narrow for a man to pass. There is a well-known land
passage out of that cave; but he must have crawled out by a smaller one,
unknown even to our fishermen, slanting up the hill, and having outlet
in the thicket near the place where the boats draw up. And so he was
found by Robin Cockscroft in the morning. They had fed the child with
biscuit soaked in rum, which accounts for his heavy sleep and wonderful
exertions, and may have predisposed him for a contraband career.”
“And perhaps for the very bad language which he used,” said Mrs.
Upround, thoughtfully. “It is an extraordinary tale, my dear. But I
suppose there can be no doubt of it. But such a clever child should have
known his own name. Why did he call himself 'Izunsabe'?”
“That is another link in the certainty of proof. On board that
unfortunate ship, and perhaps even before he left India, he was always
called the 'Young Sahib,' and he used, having proud little ways of his
own, to shout, if anybody durst provoke him, 'I'se young Sahib, I'se
young Sahib;' which we rendered into 'Izunsabe.' But his true name is
Wilton Bart Yordas, I believe, and the initials can be made out upon his
gold beads, Mr. Mordacks tells me, among heathen texts.”
“That seems rather shocking to good principles, my dear. I trust that
Sir Duncan is a Christian at least; or he shall never set foot in this
house.”
“My dear, I can not tell. How should I know? He may have lapsed, of
course, as a good many of them do, from the heat of the climate, and bad
surroundings. But that happens mostly from their marrying native women.
And this gentleman never has done that, I do believe.”
“They tell me that he is a very handsome man, and of most commanding
aspect--the very thing Janetta likes so much. But what became of those
unhappy sadly tipsy sailors?”
“Well, they managed very cleverly, and made success of tipsiness. As
soon as it was dark that night, and before the child had crawled away,
they pushed out of the cave, and let the flood-tide take them round
the Head. They meant to have landed at Bridlington Quay, with a tale of
escape from a Frenchman; but they found no necessity for going so far. A
short-handed collier was lying in the roads; and the skipper, perceiving
that they were in liquor, thought it a fine chance, and took some
trouble to secure them. They told him that they had been trying to run
goods, and were chased by a revenue boat, and so on. He was only too
glad to be enabled to make sail, and by dawn they were under way for the
Thames; and that was the end of the Golconda.”
“What an awful crime! But you never mean to tell me that the Lord let
those men live and prosper?”
“That subject is beyond our view, my dear. There were five of them, and
Rickon Goold believed himself the last of them. But being very penitent,
he might have exaggerated. He said that one was swallowed by a shark, at
least his head was, and one was hanged for stealing sheep, and one for
a bad sixpence; but the fate of the other (too terrible to tell you)
brought this man down here, to be looking at the place, and to divide
his time between fasting, and drinking, and poaching, and discoursing to
the thoughtless. The women flocked to hear him preach, when the passion
was upon him; and he used to hint at awful sins of his own, which
made him earnest. I hope that he was so, and I do believe it. But
the wooden-legged sailors, old Joe and his son, who seem to have
been employed by Mordacks, took him at his own word for a 'miserable
sinner'--which, as they told their master, no respectable man would call
himself--and in the most business-like manner they set to to remove him
to a better world; and now they have succeeded.”
“Poor man! After all, one must be rather sorry for him. If old Joe came
stumping after me for half an hour, I should have no interest in this
life left.”
“My dear, they stumped after him the whole day long, and at night they
danced a hornpipe outside his hut. He became convinced that the Prince
of Evil was come, in that naval style, to fetch him; and he drank
everything he could lay hands on, to fortify him for the contest. The
end, as you know, was extremely sad for him, but highly satisfactory
to them, I fear. They have signified their resolution to attend his
funeral; and Mordacks has said, with unbecoming levity, that if
they never were drunk before--which seems to me an almost romantic
supposition--that night they shall be drunk, and no mistake.”
“All these things, my dear,” replied Mrs. Upround, who was gifted with
a fine vein of moral reflection, “are not as we might wish if we ordered
them ourselves. But still there is this to be said in their favor, that
they have a large tendency toward righteousness.”