|SOME men, when crossed or “put out,” take, like Sir Richard Lisgard, to
whistling melodies--surely a very mild and harmless form of irritation.
Others rap out a thunder-clap of an oath or two, which leaves their
firmament as serene as ever. Nothing, again, can calm the wrath of some
folks but pedestrian exercise; ghost-wise, they take to “walking,” and
gradually their angry passions exude. This last was the case with Mr
Ralph Derrick, Mariner and Gold-digger.
When deeply annoyed, and some exceptional barrier existed to his
throwing the weightiest substance that happened to be at hand at the
head of his enemy, or burying some lethal weapon in his vitals, Ralph
took to walking like the Wandering Jew. With the first stage or two, his
thoughts were busy with the insult, real or imaginary, which had been
put upon him; his teeth were set, his fingers clenched, his brows were
corrugated; then he began to swing his loaded stick, not viciously,
but after the manner of an Irishman at a fair; and eventually that
calisthenic exercise, combined with the healthy influence of fresh air,
restored him to that normal state of devil-may-care, which persons
of charity go so far as to term, in folks of the like description,
good-humour. Of course, one cannot help pitying this poor fellow, for
he is one of those persons who always look much better on paper than
in real life, just the reverse of which is the case with the Walter
Lisgards; but as a matter of fact, he is not only a “rough customer,”
but a very dangerous and reckless man. Because we have seen him behave
towards that graceless captain of dragoons in a very generous and
high-flown manner, it is not to be supposed that he was always capable
of magnanimous actions. That young gentleman had been his pet, and it
had suited his mood to spoil him. A man may not only be agreeable to an
individual or two, but an excellent father, or a pattern husband, and
yet be a most offensive fellow-creature to you and to me. But it was
certainly hard upon Ralph that the only man for whom he entertained a
genuine affection, should have turned out such an ungrateful scamp. The
treatment he had lately received at that young man's hands, the knavery
of Mr Jack Withers, and the more than suspected collusion of his late
comrade, Mr Blanquette, united to put him out of humour with the world.
His previous opinions, as imported from Cariboo, before he met with
Walter, that everybody was more or less of a scoundrel, had met with the
amplest confirmation. He was more determined to take his own way than
ever, and let them look to it that crossed him. Bitter, indeed, had been
his thoughts as he had been borne along with that rabble rout on foot
from Epsom Downs. Deceived by those whom he had trusted, insulted by him
whom he had loved, and robbed of three-fourths of that wealth, to which
he now ascribed a greater importance than ever, as the _summum bonum_,
and indeed the _only_ good thing that was worth gaining, he had but
stopped in London a sufficient time to pack up his scanty wardrobe, then
started off again on foot once more, as we have seen. Disgusted with the
Turf, as with all else he had recently had to do with, he was now more
than ever bent upon leading a new life--not, indeed, in a penitential
sense (although some are so audacious as to aver that it _is_ a kind of
mortification), but, in other words, to marry. Mistress Forest was as
fond of him, he thought, and with some justice, as any woman was
ever likely to be; and he was resolved not to be balked of her by the
machinations of Sir Richard Lisgard, or the cajolments of his mother.
After the payment of all his bets, he would yet have left a sum that to
one in Mary's position would seem considerable; for he could sell _Many
Laws_, after his recent performance, for a great deal of money, to the
half of which he rather suspected Mr Blanquette would never venture to
lay claim. Yes; he would go down to the place where she had told him
her father still dwelt, and would dazzle him with such offers as could
scarcely fail to induce him to add the weight of his authority to his
own proposals; and there being no particular hurry about the matter,
and, as I have said, walking being consonant to his feelings when in
wrath, Ralph Derrick had taken the road to Coveton on foot.
It was a long distance, and would have involved several days of such
travel, under any circumstances, and he did not hurry himself at all.
At many a wayside inn, where he stopped to drink, and found the landlord
given that way, and to be good company, he stayed for the day and
night, and even longer. And often he left the high-road, and took
those short-cuts across country which, like “raw haste,” are generally
“half-sisters to delay.” This was especially the case when he began to
draw near the sea. Those who have passed much of their time upon that
element (voluntarily), the roar of ocean attracts as the trumpet-blast
the _quondam_ charger, and mile after mile did Derrick stride along the
cliff-top wherever it was practicable, and by the shore, notwithstanding
that his indulgence in that fancy doubled his journey. When we are out
of humour with our fellow-creatures, the external aspects of nature,
even though we be no Poets, have often a special attraction for us; the
winds of Spring--since as much has been said of those of Winter--are
certainly not so unkind as man's ingratitude, and we bid them blow with
a sort of soothing scorn; nor does the blue spring sky bite half so nigh
as benefits forgot. It pleased Ralph Derrick to let it do its worst,
and, rain or shine, he never sought shelter save when he needed drink or
rest; and during this last part of his travel, he obtained them as often
at some humble farmhouse as at an inn. The simple folks, who stared at
his great beard, and wondered why he did not shew them what goods he
had in his knapsack, like any other pedler, pleased him hugely; and when
some newly-soaped and carefully-brushed bashful child would steal into
his humble dining-chamber--which was the guidwife's, invariable plan of
getting her dues settled, since we cannot charge for things, you know
(and especially brandy), without a licence--he would take the little
creature upon his knee, and give him or her his newest shilling, in
addition to what was always a liberal settlement of the account. Perhaps
he was practising that _rôle_ of Paterfamilias which he hoped to be
soon called upon to play. At all events, Ralph was by this time in high
spirits; and when he was told that Coveton lay not above a dozen miles
ahead of him even by the coast-line, he threw his cudgel into the air,
and shouted a wild fragment of a diggers' song, to the consternation of
his rustic informant.
His way lay now over a great waste of moorland, elastic to the tread,
and over which the wind swept almost as unresisted as on the ocean from
whence it came. Here and there, it whistled through a hare thorn, but
what few trees there were had hidden themselves in sunken hollows, and
stood therein huddled together, with only their shivering tops above the
surface. Nothing was to be seen inland save “a level waste of rounded
gray,” broken now and again by a church spire or a scattered hamlet; but
the seaward view was very fine. From that moorland height, you looked
upon two fair islands spread like a raised map, beneath, with every hut
and quarry distinctly plain, and the small white light-house standing
out on its little hill like a child's toy upon its pedestal. How
picturesque and sequestered they looked: how like two miniature but
independent worlds, to either of which a man who had had enough and to
spare of the turmoil of life might retire with some fitting mate, and
peacefully end his days. Surely, thought Ralph, he had somewhere seen
those two same islands before! As he stood at gaze, his thoughts went
wandering over archipelagoes of garden-ground in tropic seas; over rocky
islets sawn from iron-bound coasts by the jagged waves; and over mounds
of sand, which the ocean had thrust back into the jaws of rivers, and
suffered man to call them Land, and dwell there. But these were none of
those. As he went on more slowly, searching through the long gallery of
his mind for the picture which he knew was there, and half bewildered
by the shifting scenes, he was startled by a noise like distant thunder.
The sky was almost without a cloud, and the sea, although running high,
and dashing with pettish screech against the cliffs, was not so rough
but that the fishing-smacks, of which there was quite a fleet in motion,
carried all sail; moreover, the thunderous sound was not upon the
seaward side, but inland. A few score rapid strides in that direction
made its source apparent. An enormous hole, like half-a-dozen
gravel-pits in one, but deep as a mine, was gaping there; and at the
bottom, whether it had tunnelled through years of patient unremitting
toil, lay the churning sea. It was a gruesome sight to mark the solid
earth--just where a peaceful cornfield met the moorland--thus invaded
by its insidious foe, whose horrid pæan seemed to have something of
malicious greed as well as exultation in it, as though it lusted to eat
the heart of the round world itself away, after the same manner. “The
Devil's Cauldron!” exclaimed Ralph excitedly, and then looked round
him with a half-shudder, as though he had repeated the statement out of
deference to a Great Local Authority, rather than initiated it of his
own free-will. Yes, such was the name by which the place was known;
he felt certain of that fact; but unless in sober seriousness H. S. M.
himself had whispered the information, how did he ever come to be aware
of it? He had certainly never been there before, in all his life; it was
impossible, having once seen it, to have forgotten so abnormal as well
as tremendous a scene. True, there are pits and holes in many cliffs a
few yards from their edge which reach like shafts in a tunnel down to
the sea; but the distance of this place from the shore might be measured
by furlongs, and the pit was so large that it almost resembled a
land-locked bay. A Cauldron it might well be called, where the black
waters were seething and boiling even now, while in storm-time there
would be such wild work as no mere witches could raise, but only the
Fiend himself, their master.
Did the mad waves, finding themselves thus imprisoned, ever leap up?
Yes: now he remembered all. Thirty years ago, last autumn, he had seen
those islands once before from shipboard, and had had them in view for a
whole day. The wind, which was dead against the vessel, had kept her off
and on that dangerous coast, and eventually risen to storm, and sunk her
with all on board save him alone. The last time he had seen that little
light-house, it had flashed in vain its fiery warning through sheets
of blinding foam. The captain had told him, hours before, what sort of
shore awaited them, if ever the _North Star_ should be driven upon those
pitiless cliffs, on which Derrick himself was now standing; and, in
particular, he had mentioned the Devil's Cauldron, which was spouting
foam yonder, he said, like Leviathan, a quarter of a mile inland over
the standing corn. Ralph lay down at full length upon the thymy moor,
and peered over the brink of the abyss with earnest gaze, as though
he could fathom its dark depths, and mark what lay beneath them. Then
rising, with a sigh, he wandered on, no longer with springy tread,
until presently the cliff-top became dotted with white verandaed houses,
looking down upon a little bay, that ran up into the land between steep
banks, well clothed with trees and shrubs; whereby he knew that he had
come to his journey's end, and that this must needs be Coveton.