|WHATEVER evils may happen unto me, may Heaven spare my reason,” was the
heartfelt prayer of a wise and reverent man. He might have added--for
he was one of those who thought it no harm to ask of Him who watches the
sparrow's fall, for particular blessings--“And however I be racked with
pain by day, by night may I still enjoy my sleep.” Next to madness, and
like enough with some folks to end in that, is the want of rest during
that period which should be the season of slumber, and which, if it be
not so, is a dread and dreary time indeed. There is many an honest soul
in the autumn of life who will protest in the morning, in the course
of a very tolerable breakfast, that she has not had a wink of sleep all
night, because she has heard a few consecutive hours recorded by the
church clock; but to lie awake indeed from eve to mom is not, thank God,
a very common experience, and still less often are any of us compelled
to endure it night after night for years. To live an existence the
converse of the rest of their fellow-creatures is the lot of more than
one trade--editors of daily newspapers, for instance, and burglars;
but to _work_ by night is a very different affair from the lying awake
unemployed, but thinking, thinking, while nothing breaks the silence of
the muffled world save the howl of the watchdog and the weird monotony
of the wind. Yet there are some of us doomed to this sad fate, who
scarcely know what it is to spend an easeful night, and who snatch their
scanty dole of sleep by day.
Poor Jacob Forest was one of these. A long life of reckless exposure to
the elements, not, perhaps, unassisted by hard drinking, had brought
him to this sad pass. Thanks to his daughter, he wanted for nothing that
money could give him; but the once hale and venturous mariner was
now bedridden and racked at most times, but especially by night, with
rheumatic twinges. Mary herself never failed to visit him every summer;
and three days out of four some ancient comrade would painfully climb
the hill that led to his cosy little house, and hob and nob with him
by his bedside. But he was still sadly in want of company during the
night-watches; true, a nurse was paid to minister to his comforts during
that season, but she generally “dropped off” into a doze, sooner or
later; and even if she was awake, her gossip was of the tea-and-muffin
sort, rather than that description of talk which goes best with hot
grog, and was more suitable to a seasoned vessel, though laid up in
extra-ordinary, like old Jacob. Therefore it was, as the waiter at the
_Royal Marine_ had observed, that visitors calling at ultrafashionably
late hours at the Guard-ship, as it was the proprietor's fancy to term
his place of residence, were especially welcome.
The home of this old veteran had been built, at his own request, of
wood, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his medical attendant, who
ascribed part of his patient's ailments to the fact, that his cottage
on the shore had been constructed of that material. But Mr Forest had
insisted upon having his way: next to one's own boat, he had argued,
there was nothing like a wooden house to make one feel at home in; nor
could he be moved from that position by the caustic rejoinder, that in
that case he might just as well get into his coffin at once. Nay, the
Guard-ship had been made still less air-tight than it otherwise would
have been by the ingenious introduction of a hinge running along one
side of the old man's bedroom on the ground-floor, the very wall of
which, in summer-time, could thereby be lowered flap-wise, exposing the
whole arrangement of his bower after the maimer of the better class of
doll's houses. With the eccentricity of taste so often exhibited in the
possessors of unexpected wealth, Mr Forest had “gone in,” as the
phrase runs, in his prosperous old age, for curious poultry; and up his
slanting shutter (exactly as horses are introduced into a railway train)
used to be driven from the yard for his immediate inspection, as he lay
in bed, every sort of feathered fowl after their kind, as into a poultry
ark. The earliness of the season, combined with the lateness of
the hour, denied this exhibition (afforded to all visitors whenever
practicable) to Ralph Derrick, but the ancient mariner gave him the
heartiest of welcomes, as had been predicted. He had heard of Mr Derrick
more than once from Mary, and was exceedingly pleased to do him
honour; at which hint the nurse at once set forth the “materials” for a
drinking-bout on a little table which stood at the invalid's elbow, and
betook herself to an adjoining cabin, where she instantly went to bed
with her clothes on. Next to the danger from draughts, to which the
captain of the Guard-ship had already succumbed, he lay in nightly peril
of perishing by fire, since he smoked in bed almost unceasingly; and in
case of a spark igniting where it should not, the whole two-decker would
not have taken a quarter of an hour to become a heap of ashes; but this
apprehension, as the old woman was glad to think, was groundless upon
this occasion, when her master had a gentleman to keep him company, and
she left them with an easy conscience to their pipes and grog.
“So I hear you are rather sweet upon my good Mary,” observed the old
sailor slyly, as soon as they were left alone. “She writes to me more
than most girls do to their fathers, you see, Mr Derrick, knowing I'm
all alone here, and so pleased to hear any news.”
“Very right and very proper,” returned Ralph quietly, “and a very good
girl, as you say, she is--although she is not a very young one.”
“Young enough for some folks, at all events--eh, eh, sir?” chuckled the
old man. “Come, come--I know all about you, and what you're come here
about; I'm wide awake enough, I can tell you, although I'm abed. You've
run down to Coveton, sir, to 'ask papa.' There, haven't _I_ hit it?”
“Well, the fact is, Mr Forest, the love seems rather more on my side
than hers. I don't deny that I had a great liking for your daughter, but
when a man knows that his love is not returned”----
“Eh, eh,” interrupted the old Salt, pursing his lips and giving his
tasselled night-cap a pull upon one side, which gave him an expression
of much aimless intelligence; “but I don't understand this. You must
have done something, sir, to forfeit the good opinion of my Mary; for
certainly, at one time----But there, perhaps I'm saying too much. If it
ain't agreed between you and my Mary, then, may I ask, sir--not but that
I'm uncommon glad to see you, or any other gentleman, from nightfall to
any one of the small-hours, I'm sure--but may I ask what the dickens
brings you here?”
“Well, sir,” replied Ralph, forcing a smile, “I happened to find myself
in these parts, and did not like to pass by without looking in upon the
father of Mary Forest, even though all should be off between us; and,
besides, I was told you are the likeliest man to be able to give me some
information about the wreck of the _North Star_, which happened about
thirty years ago, and the particulars of which, for a reason, I want to
know.”
“Fill your pipe, then, and mix yourself another glass,” cried the old
man, delighted to be called upon for his favourite yarn, “for it's a
story as you can't tell in a five minutes, nor in ten neither. The ship
you speak of, sir, was an emigrant vessel of more than a thousand tons,
as sailed on September 10, 1832”----
“I know all about the ship,” interrupted Derrick impatiently, “for I had
a passage in her myself. I want to hear about the bodies that came on
shore.”
“_You_ were a passenger by the _North Star_?” ejaculated the old man
with amazement. “Why, it was said that every soul on board her perished
in the storm in which she went to pieces. _Derrick, Derrick!_ Well,
now you mention it, I do remember the name, for I used to have that
passenger-list by heart. I cut it out of one of the papers at the time,
and having been so much concerned in the matter myself, though little
knowing that I should owe this house to that same wreck--built out of
its very timbers, as I might say--and almost all I have in this world.
But you know how all that came about, and what Sir Robert did for me and
mine, I dare say, mate?”
“Yes, yes--I have heard something of that. But can you tell me nothing
of what came ashore? You have said not a soul was saved; I suppose,
then, it was the surviving relatives who put up the gravestones to the
memory of the drowned, which I saw as I came through the churchyard?”
“That was just it. There were five men and three women--poor souls--laid
under the big stone next the yew-tree; nobody knew who they were. Sir
Robert paid for that too, if I remember right--let's see”----
“I hear of nothing but 'Sir Robert' and 'Sir Robert' in this village of
yours,” interrupted Ralph impatiently. “Nobody has a story to tell in
Coveton but manages to bring that man's name in by head and shoulders.
Why the deuce do they do it?”
“Because he's been the making of the place--that's why, and because
there's a little gratitude left in our village still, I am glad to say,
sir, although it may have died out in the world,” replied the old sailor
firmly. “Why, he not only built the roof that is now sheltering us,
but the village school, and the little pier at the Cove foot that has
sheltered many a fishing-smack since the time when my Lady”----
“Well, he didn't put up that great bit of painted glass in the church,
I suppose,” broke in Derrick testily, “to the memory of Frank Meade and
others, did he? for _that's_ what I want to get at, and nothing else.”
“Did he not? Then who did it, I should like to know?” answered Mr Forest
sarcastically. “Who but himself and my Lady; and if it had been the
old times as I've heard tell of instead of now, there would have been
priests paid to pray for their poor souls until this day; ay, that there
would. He was never tired of shewing his thankfulness for the joy that
came to himself, and his pity for the woe that befell others upon that
awful night. It's an ill wind that blows nobody good, they say, and the
storm that carried the _North Star_ to the bottom with all on board
save one--or two, I should now say, since I have no reason to doubt your
word, Mr Derrick”----
“Ay, tell me about the storm,” said Ralph in an altered voice, and with
a face grown very white and still. “I will not interrupt you again, I
will not indeed. One poor creature came ashore alive, you said?”
“What! do you mean to say my Mary never told you? She must be a good
un to keep a secret even from her sweetheart; not that it's any secret
here, however they may treat it at Mirk; and if I didn't tell you
myself, you would hear it from the first man you met in Coveton, and
asked how Sir Robert Lisgard got his bride.”
“Just so,” said Derrick in a hoarse whisper; “therefore please to tell
me.”
“Then help yourself to grog, mate, for you look cold. Some landlubbers
will have it that this room is cold, because of the hinge yonder; but a
seafaring chap like you----There, that should warm you. Well, on the
10th of September 1832, an emigrant ship of more than a thousand
tons”----
“A thousand devils!” cried Derrick, starting to his feet; “do you wish
to drive me mad? I tell you I was on board of her myself. Tell me about
the woman that came ashore lashed to the spar.”
“What! then, you do know about it after all?” grumbled the old man,
removing his pipe from the corner of his mouth, an action which
represented the greatest amount of astonishment of which he was capable.
“Why the deuce did you bother me to spin you the yarn, then? A man at my
time of life ain't got much breath to throw away, I can tell you.”
“How was she dressed? What had she on?” inquired Derrick, upon whose
ears his short-winded host's remonstrance had fallen unheeded.
“Devilish little,” returned the old fellow gruffly: “nothing but a
petticoat, and what my Mary calls a body--but which I should call a
bust--and a sailor's pea-jacket, and that was not rightly upon her, but
tied between her and the spar, to save her dainty limbs, poor girl; and
it is my opinion that he was an honest-hearted chap as put it there, and
almost deserved to have her for himself. But there they were, brother
and sister, so _that_ couldn't be. Moreover, she couldn't have got
better off than she did, that's certain. Lord, to think that there
poor, friendless, penniless, clotheless creature--as I had thought to
be almost lifeless too, when me and Sir Robert dragged her in from the
hungry waves--should come to be Lady Lisgard of Mirk Abbey---- What's
the matter with the man? Hi, nurse, hi! Confound the woman, how she
sleeps! Where the devil's my stick?”
Mr Jacob Forest's temper was hasty, but he had no intention of
inflicting corporal punishment on the respectable female who was too
deeply plunged in slumber to attend to his cries. He desired his stick
in order that he might smite the battered gong that hung at his bedside,
and upon which (besides using it as a gentle indication of her presence
being required) he was accustomed to execute an imitation of ship's
“bells” throughout the watchful night. Before, however, he could lay his
crippled fingers upon the instrument required, Ralph Derrick, who had
fallen from his chair upon the carpetless floor, began to recover his
senses, and with them his speech.
“Don't be alarmed, sir--don't call your nurse,” said he, gathering
himself up; “it is only a sort of fainting-fit to which I am
subject--indeed I was born with them.”
“And you'll die with them too, some day,” thought old Jacob to himself,
as he stared with undisguised apprehension at his visitor's white face
and shaking limbs. “Don't you think you had better take a little more
rum--or stay, perhaps it's that that's done the mischief?”
“No, it's not that,” answered Derrick bitterly, as he filled himself a
wine-glass of the liquor neat. “I'm better now, and I shan't give way
again. But I remember the man that took such care of the woman you speak
of, just before the vessel parted; and your mention of it gave me quite
a turn. _I_ didn't know he was her brother; but he was much more careful
about her safety than his own--God knows.”
“Very like,” rejoined the old fellow, “and what I should have expected,
even if they had not been so near related. She was just the sort of
woman that any man worth his salt would be willing to lay down his life
for. His Christian name was Ralph, was it not, the same as yours?”
“Yes, it was,” answered the other gravely. “Who was it that told you
that? I forgot, though; it is painted in the church-window.”
“I found it out for myself,” continued the old fellow cunningly, “long
before that there memorial window was put up; for my Lady never talked
about it even to Mary. But there was _Ralph Gavestone_ written inside
the collar of the pea-cot, and I kept it for many a year myself until
the moth got in it, because I thought the sight of it might distress the
poor lady.”
“Women soon get over that sort of thing,” said Ralph in a grating voice.
“Well, yes; sooner or later, I daresay they do. And a very fortunate
thing it is, in my opinion, that such is the case. It would be very
bad for us all, and particularly for seafaring folk, if we never smiled
again because a party as we liked happened to be drownded, like some
king of England as my Mary once read about to me when I was down with my
first fit of the rheumatiz. Why, _I've_ lost a couple of brothers myself
in that same way, and very good chaps they were; but why should I make
myself wretched because they're gone to Heaven? Take another pipe, man.
Why, you're not going to leave me surely?”
“Yes, I am, Jacob Forest,” answered Derrick gloomily. “I have heard all
that I want to know, and more--much more! If you have any message for
your daughter, I'll take it to her. I am going off to Mirk at once.”
“You may tell her--but no; I'll tell her myself, and not trouble you,”
answered the old fellow hastily, purple at least as much with rage as
rum. “I don't wish to be under the slightest obligation to a fellow
as looks in upon a poor cripple under pretence of friendship, and then
directly he's heard all he wants, and drank all he can, and had one
of his fits as he was born with, all as snug as can be--Hi, nurse, hi!
Damme, if the fellow hasn't actually left the front-door open!” And the
invalid applied himself to his gong with a fury that would have roused
the Seven Sleepers, had they chanced to have been slumbering (let alone
taking a nap with their clothes on) in the adjacent room. “Push my table
nearer,” cried he to his terrified attendant, “and give me paper and
pens. Yes, my Mary particularly begged of me to let her know at once in
case he called, and I will do so; but I will also take leave to tell
her what a selfish scoundrel, in my opinion, he is; and I'll mention his
alarming fits. If she has found any reason to be dissatisfied with the
beggar, I'll give her some more; and mind, Nurse, this is posted before
seven o'clock. He shall find a cool reception at Mirk Abbey, or my name
is not Jacob Forest!”
Epistolary composition was not an accomplishment in which the old sailor
was an adept, and the mechanical part of the operation was a very slow
one with him, by reason of his infirmities; but nevertheless he managed
to indite a missive more or less to his mind, long before the early mail
went out from Coveton, and his faithful attendant did his bidding by
posting the same.