A FINE OLD GENTLEMAN.
When I came to look round upon this state of things, and consider it, I
made up my mind to tempt Providence, or rather perhaps the most opposite
Power, by holding on where I was, in spite of the Parson and all his
devices. This was a stupid resolve, and one on which he had fully
calculated. I was getting a little perhaps fond of Nanette, though not
quite so much as she fancied; feeling unable to pin my faith to a thing
she had whispered into my ear; to wit, that she would thrice soon
inherit one three grand money, hunder tousand, more than one great
strong man could leeft. I asked her to let me come and try; and she said
it was possible to be. Having a thorough acquaintance with Crappos, and
the small wretched particles of their money, I did not attach much
importance to this; for I like our King's face, and they have not got
it; and they seem to stamp their stuff anyhow. But in spite of all
prejudice, it would be well to look a little into it; particularly as
this girl (whether right or wrong in thousands) had a figure not to be
denied, when you came home to her.
Nevertheless I am not the man to part with myself at random; and there
was a good farmer's daughter now, solid, and two-and-thirty--which is my
favourite ship to sail in, handy, strong, and with guns well up--this
young woman crossed the ferry, at eightpence a-day, for my sake; and I
thought of retaining a lawyer to find what might be her prospects. She
was by no means bad to look at, when you got accustomed; and her nature
very kind, and likely to see to Bunny's clothes; also she never
contradicted; which is cotton-wool to one who ever has rheumatics. But I
did not wish to pay six-and-eightpence, and then be compelled to lose
eightpence a-day, in order to steer clear of her. So I ferried both her
and Nanette alike, and let them encounter one another, and charged no
difference in their weight.
Nothing better fits a man, for dealing with the womankind, than to be
well up in fish. Now I found the benefit of that knowledge where I never
looked for it; and I knew the stale from the fresh--though these come
alike in the pickle of matrimony--also (which is far more to the point)
the soft roes from the hard roes. These you cannot change; but must
persuade yourself to like whichever you happen to get of them. And that
you find out afterwards.
While I was dwelling upon these trifles, and getting on well with my
serious trade, working my ferry, and catching salmon so as to amaze the
neighbourhood, also receiving my well-earned salary from the fair
Mistress Isabel, and surprising the public-houses every night with my
narratives--in a word, becoming the polar-star of both sides of the
river--a thing befell me which was quite beyond all sense of reason.
Through wholesome fear of Parson Chowne, and knowledge of his
fire-tricks, I kept the Rose of Devon in a berth of deep fresh water;
where a bulk of sand backed up, and left a large calm pool of river.
Here the dimpling water scarcely had the life to flow along--when the
tide was well away; and scarcely brought a single bubble big enough to
break upon us. According to the weather, so the colour of the water was.
Only when you understood, it seemed to please you always.
One night I was not asleep, but getting very near it; setting in my mind
afloat (as I felt the young tide flowing) thoughts or dreams, or lighter
visions than the lightest dream that flits, of, about, concerning,
touching, anyhow regarding, or, in any lightest side-light, gleaming,
who can tell, or glancing from the chequers of the day-work. Suddenly a
great explosion blew me out of my berth, and filled the whole of the
cuddy with blaze and smoke. I lay on the floor half-stunned, and with
only sense enough for wondering. Then Providence enabled me, on the
strength of the battles I had been through, to get on my elbow, and look
around. Everything seemed quite odd and stupid for a little while to me.
I neither knew where I was, nor what had happened or would happen me.
It may have been half an hour, or it may have been only half a minute,
before I was all alive again, and able to see to the mischief. Then I
found that a very rude thing had been done, and a most unclerical
action, not to be lightly excused, and wholly undeserved on my part. A
good-sized kettle of gunpowder had been cast into my cuddy, possibly as
a warning to me; but, to say the least, a dangerous one. My wrath
overcame all fear so much, that in spite of the risk of meeting others,
I rushed through the smoke and up the ladder, and seized my gun from its
sling on the deck, and gazed (or rather I should say stared) in every
direction around me. But whether from the darkness of the night, or the
stinging and stunning turmoil in my eyes and upon my brain, I could not
descry any moving shape, or any living creature. And this even added to
my alarm, so that I got very little more sleep that night, I do assure
you.
However, I kept my own counsel about it, even from my lady patroness,
resolving to maintain a sharp look-out, and act as behoved a gallant
Cymro, thrown amongst a host of savages. To this intent, I took our
tiller, which was just about six feet long, and entirely useless now,
and I put a bit of a bottom to it, so as to stand quite decently, and
fixed a cross-tressel for shoulders, and then dressed it up so with my
old fishing-suit and a castaway hat to encourage my brains, that really,
though the thing was so grave, I could not help laughing at myself; in
the dusk it was so like me. When the labours of the day were over, and
the gleam of the water deadened, I set up this other fine Davy
Llewellyn on board the ketch, now here now there, sometimes leaning over
the bulwarks in contemplation of the river (which was my favourite
attitude, from my natural turn for reflection), sometimes idly at work
with a rope, or anything or nothing, only so as to be seen from shore,
and expose to the public his whereabouts. Meanwhile I crouched in a
ditch hard by, and with both barrels loaded.
You will say this was an unchristian thing, especially as I suspected
strongly that my besiegers wore naked backs, and would therefore receive
my discharge in full. I will not argue that point, but tell you (in
common fairness to myself, and to prevent any slur of the warm
affection, long subsisting between all who have cared to listen to me
and my free self) that whenever I hoped for a chance at those fellows, I
drew the duck-shot from the first barrel, and put a light charge of
snipe-shot in, which no man could object to. The second barrel was
ready, in case that the worst should come to the worst, as we say.
Now it is a proof of my bad luck, and perhaps of my having done a thing
below the high Welsh nature, that Providence never vouchsafed me a
single shot at any one of them. The more trouble I took, the less they
came; until I could scarcely crook my fingers through the rheumatics
they brought on me. Night after night, I said to myself, "If it only
pleases the Lord to save me from the wiles of this anointed one, I vow
to go back to my duty, and teach those other young chits of boys their
work." For I had observed (though I would not tell it, except in a
rheumatic twinge) that even Captain Bampfylde's men had lost the style
of drawing oars through the water properly, and as I used to give the
tune, five-and-twenty years agone.
It is needless to say, that after all the close actions I have conquered
in, a canister of gunpowder was nothing to disturb me. But as they might
do worse next time, whether in joke or earnest, I made me a hutch of
stout strong oak, also cut the bulkhead out, and freed myself into the
hold at once, upon any unjust disturbance. Nigh me was my double gun,
heavily shotted at bedtime, and the spar which had knocked down Parson
Chowne, and might have to do it again perhaps. And now I began to
persuade myself into happy sleep again; for my nature is not vindictive.
One night I lay broad awake, perhaps from having shot a curlew, and
eaten him, without an onion sewn inside while roasting, but he had been
so hard to shoot that I was full of zeal to dine upon him, and had no
onion handy. Whether it were so or not, I lay awake and thought about
the strange things now come over me. To be earning money at a very noble
rate indeed; to be winning the attentions of it may be ten young women
(each of whom believed that never had I been in love before); and to be
establishing a business which could scarcely fail of growing to a
public-house with benches and glass windows looking down upon the river;
and yet with all this prospect brewing, scarcely to have a moment's
peace! What a lucky thing for Parson Chowne that I have no cold black
blood in me! In this medley of vague thoughts (such as all men of large
brain have, and even myself when the moon ordains it) a strong and good
idea struck me, and one to be dwelled upon to-morrow; and if then
approved, to be carried out immediately. This was no less than to beg an
audience of Sir Philip Bampfylde himself, and tell him all that I ever
had seen of Chowne and his devices, and place Sir Philip on his guard,
and learn maybe a little of the many things that puzzled me. Of course I
had thought of this before; but for several reasons had forborne to
carry it any further. In the first place, it seemed such a coarse rude
way of meeting plans that should be met with equal stealth and subtlety,
unless a man were prepared to own himself vanquished in intelligence.
Again, it would have been very difficult to obtain a private interview
without some stir concerning it. Moreover, I felt a delicacy with
respect to my stewardship on behalf of those two children; for a
stranger might not at a glance perceive that prudence and self-denial on
my part, which the worrisome frivolousness of the fish had, for the
time, frustrated. However, I now perceived that a gentleman of Sir
Philip's lofty bearing could not with any grace or dignity allude to his
own beneficence; and as for the second difficulty, I might hope for Miss
Carey's good offices, while I could no longer think to encounter Chowne
with his own weapons, since he had blown me out of bed.
Accordingly I persuaded my beautiful young lady, who had plenty of sense
but not much craft, and was pleased with my straightforwardness, to lead
me into Sir Philip's presence in a lonely part of the grounds near the
river, to the westward, and out of sight of the house; in a word, not
far from the Braunton Burrows.
Here the river made a bend and came to the breast of an ancient
orchard, rich with grass and thick with trees leafless now, but thickly
bearded upon every twig with moss. This was of every form and fashion,
and of almost every hue. I had never seen such a freaksome piece of work
outside the tropics, although in Devonshire common enough, where the
soil is moist and the climate damp. Some of these trees lay down on the
ground, as if they wore tired of standing, and some were in sitting
postures, and some half leaning over; but all alive, in spite of that,
and fruitful when it suited them. And everything being neglected now,
from want of the Squire's attention, heaps of rosy and golden apples lay
where they had been piled to sweat, but never led to the cider-press.
Perceiving no sign of Sir Philip about, and remembering how it was now
beginning to draw on for Christmas-time, I felt myself welcome to one or
two of these neglected apples; for it was much if nobody of the farmers'
wives who crossed the ferry could afford me a goose for Christmas in my
solitary hole. And even if all should fail disgracefully of their duty
towards me, I had my eye on a nice young bird of more than the average
plumpness, who neglected his parents' advice every day, and came for
some favourite grass of his, which only grew just on the river's verge,
within thirty yards of my fusil. It would have shown low curiosity to
ask if he owned an owner. From his independent manner I felt that he
must be public property; and I meant to reduce him into possession right
early in the morning of the Saint that was so incredulous. It is every
man's duty to treat himself well at the time of the Holy Nativity; and
having a knowledge of Devonshire geese, after two months on the
stubbles, I could not do better than store in my boat one or two of
these derelict apples.
Never do I see or taste an apple without thinking of poor Bardie.
"Appledies," she always called them, and she was so fond of them, and
her little white teeth made marks like a small-tooth comb in the flesh
of them. I was thinking of her, and had scarcely embarked more than a
bushel or so, for sauce, in a little snug locker of my own, when I had
the pleasure of seeing the gentleman whom I had come all that way to
see.
At my own desire, and through Miss Carey's faith in me, it had not been
laid before Sir Philip that I was likely to meet him here; only she had
told me when and where to come across him, so as not to be broken in
upon. Now he came down the narrow winding walk, at the lower side of the
orchard, a path overhanging a little brook which murmured under last
summer's growth; and I gazed at him silently for a while, through the
bushes that overhung my boat. He was dressed as when I had seen him last
through my telescope, at the time we came up the river; that is to say,
in black velvet, and with his long sword hanging beside him. A brave,
and stately, and noble man, walking through a steady gloom of grief, and
yet content to walk alone, and never speak of it.
I leaped through the bush at the river's brink, and suddenly stood
before him. He set his calm cold gaze upon me, without a shadow of
surprise, as if to say, "You have no business in my private grounds;
however, it is not worth speaking of." I made him a low bow with my hat
off; and he moved his own, and was passing on.
"Will your Worship look at me," I said, "and see whether you remember
me?" He seemed just a little surprised, and then with his inborn
courtesy complied.
"I have seen you before, but I know not where. Sir, I often need pardon
now for the weakness of my memory."
In a few short words I brought to his mind that evening visit to my
cottage, with Anthony Stew and the yellow carriage.
"To be sure, to be sure! I remember now," he said, with his grave and
placid smile: "David Llewellyn! Both good old names, and the latter, I
daresay, in your belief, both the older and the better one. I remember
your hospitality, your patience, and your love of children. Is there
anything I can do for you?"
"No, your Worship, nothing. I am here for your sake only; although if I
wanted, I would ask you, having found you so good and kind."
"Whence did you get that expression, my friend? The common usage is
'kind and good;' I once knew a very little child--but I suppose it is
the Welsh idiom."
"Your Worship, I can speak English thoroughly; better even than my own
language; and all around us the scholarly people have more English than
of Welsh. But to let your Worship know my cause to come so much upon
you, is of things more to the purpose. I have found a bad man meaning
mischief to your Worship."
"It cannot be so," he replied, withdrawing, as if I were taking a
liberty; "no doubt but you mean me well, Llewellyn, and yourself believe
it. But neither I, nor any one else of all my family, now so small, can
have given reason for any ill-will towards us."
It was not for me to dare to speak, while the General was reflecting
thus, as if in his own mind going through every small accident of his
life; even the servants he might have discharged; or the land-forces
ordered for punishment, whereof to my mind they lack more than they get,
and grow their backs up in a manner beyond all perception of discipline.
For my part, I could not help thinking, as I watched him carefully, how
low and black must be the nature of the heart that could rejoice in such
a man's unhappiness. A man who, at threescore years and five, was
compelled to rack his memory (even after being long in uncontrolled
authority) to find a time when he might have given cause for private
enmity! If I had only enjoyed such chances, I must have had at least a
score of strong enemies by this time. Being a little surprised, I looked
again and again at his white eyebrows, while his eyes were on the
ground; also at his lips and nostrils, which were highly dignified. And
I saw, in my dry low way, one reason why he had never given offence. He
was perhaps a little scant of humour and of quickness; which two things
give more offence to the outer world that has them not, than the longest
course of rigid business carried on without them. I have seen a man who
could not crack nuts fly into a fury with one who could. And these
reflections made me even yet more anxious to serve him, so grave, and
calm, and simple-minded, and so patient was his face.
Nevertheless I did not desire, and would at the point of his sword have
refused, a halfpenny, for the things of import which I now disclosed to
him. He led me to an ancient bench, beneath a well-worn apple-tree; and
sat thereon, and even signed for me to sit beside him. My knowledge of
his rank would not permit me to do this; until I was compelled to argue.
A gentleman more shaped and set inside his own opinions, it had never
been my luck to have to deal with, now and then. There are men you
cannot laugh at, though you get the best of them, unless your conscience
works with such integrity as theirs does. And the sense of this, in some
way unknown, may have now been over me. How I began it, or even showed
my sense of manners, and of all the different rank between us, is beyond
my knowledge now; and must have flowed from instinct then. Enough that I
did lead Sir Philip to have thoughts, and to hearken me.
With a power not expected by myself at first beginning, while in doubt
of throat and words, I contrived to set before him much that had
befallen me. Though I never said a word that lay outside my knowledge,
neither let a spark of heat find entrance to my mind at all, and would
rather speak too little than be thought outrageous, there could be no
doubt that my simple way of putting all I had to say, moved this lofty
man, as if he were one of the children at the well belonging to John the
Baptist. I thought of all those pretty dears (as I beheld him
listening), and the way they sat around me, and their style of moving
toes at any great catastrophe; whiles they kept their hands and noses
under very stiff control; also the universal sigh, when my story killed
any one by any means unfit to die; and their pure contempt of the things
they suck, the whole while they are swallowing. Sir Philip (to whom my
thoughts meant no failure of respect, but feeling of simplicity), this
old gentleman let me speak as one well accustomed to lengthiness. But I
did my best to keep a small helm, and yards on the creak for bracing.
"If I take you aright," he said, as I drew near the end of my story,
"you have not a high opinion of that reverend gentleman, Stoyle Chowne."
"I look upon him, your Worship, as the blackest-hearted son of Belial
ever sent into this world."
Sir Philip frowned, as behoved a man accustomed to authority, and only
to have little words, half spoken out, before him. But at my time of
life, no officer under an admiral on full pay, could have any right to
damp my power of expression. However, my respect was such for the
presence of this noble man, that I rose and made a leg to him.
"I am sorry to say," he answered, bowing to my bow, as all gentlemen
must do; "that this is not the first time I have heard unpleasant things
about poor Stoyle. He is my godson, and has been almost as one of my own
children. I never can believe that he would ever do me injury. If I
thought it, I should have to think amiss of almost every one."
He turned away, as if already he had said more than he meaned; and
feeling how he treated me, as if of his own rank almost, I did not
wonder at the tales of men who gave their lives to save him, in the
bloody battle-time. Knowing the world as I do, I only sighed, and waited
for him.
"You are very good," he said, without a tone of patronage, "to have
thought to help me by delivering your opinions. A heavy trouble has
fallen upon us, and the goodwill of the neighbourhood has many times
astonished me. However, you must indulge no more in any such wild ideas.
They all proceed from the evil one, and are his choicest device to lower
the value of holy orders. The Reverend Stoyle Chowne descends from a
very good old family, at any rate on his father's side; and he has his
dignity to maintain, and his holy office to support him. On this head, I
will hear no more."
The General shut his mouth and closed it, so that I could never dare to
open mine again to him, concerning this one subject. And his manner
stopped me so that I only made my duty. This he acknowledged in a manner
which became both him and me; and then he passed through a little gate
to his usual walk upon Braunton Burrows.