ONE WHO HAS INTERRED HIMSELF.
Such an effect was now produced all over all around us, that every man
pressed for his neighbour's opinion, rather than offer his own, almost.
This is a state of the public mind that cannot be long put up with; for
half the pleasure goes out of life when a man is stinted of argument.
But inasmuch as I was always ready for all comers, and would not for a
moment harken any other opinion, the great bulk of conclusion ran into
the grooves I laid for it.
This was neither more nor less than that Satan's own chaplain, Chowne,
was at the helm of the whole of it. Some people said that I formed this
opinion through an unchristian recollection of his former rudeness to
me; I mean when he blew me out of bed, and tried to drown, and to burn
me alive. However, the great majority saw that my nature was not of this
sort, but rather inclined to reflect with pleasure upon any spirited
conduct. And to tell the whole truth, upon looking back at the Parson, I
admired him more than any other man I had seen, except Captain Nelson.
For it is so rare to meet with a man who knows his own mind thoroughly,
that if you find him add thereto a knowledge of his neighbours' minds,
certain you may be that here is one entitled to lead the nation. He may
be almost too great to care about putting this power in exercise, unless
any grand occasion betides him; just as Parson Chowne refused to go into
the bishopric; and just as Nelson was vexed at being the supervisor of
smugglers. Nevertheless these men are ready, when God sees fit to
appoint them.
However, to come back to these dolls, and the opening now before them.
The public (although at first disappointed not to have found two real
babies strangled in an experienced manner) perceived the expediency of
rejoicing in the absence of any such horror. Only there were many
people, of the lower order, so disgusted at this cheat, and strain upon
their glands of weeping, with no blood to show for it, that they
declared their firm resolve to have nothing more to do with it.
For my part, being some little aware of the way in which laurels are
stolen, I kept my spade well up, and the two dolls in my arms, with
their heads down, and even their feet grudged to the view of the
gossipers. In the midst of an excited mob, a calm sight of the right
thing to do may lead them almost anywhere. And I saw that the only
proper thing was to leave everything to me. They (with that sense of
fairness which exists in slow minds more than in quick ones) fell behind
me, because all knew that the entire discovery was my own. Of course
without Snap I could never have done it; nor yet without further
accidents: still there it was; and no man even of our diffident Welsh
nation, can in any fairness be expected to obscure himself.
My tendency, throughout this story, always has been to do this. But I
really did begin to feel the need of abjuring this national fault, since
men of a mixture of any sort, without even Celtic blood in them, over
and over again had tried to make a mere nobody of me.
Hence it was, and not from any desire to advance myself, that among the
inferior race, I stood upon my rights, and stuck to them. If ever there
had been any drop of desire for money left in me, after perpetual
purification (from seven years of getting only coppers, and finding most
of them forgeries), this scene was alone sufficient to make me glad of
an empty purse. For any man who has any money must long to put more to
it; as the children pile their farthings, hoping how high they may go. I
like to see both old and young full of schemes so noble; only they must
let an ancient fellow like me keep out of them.
These superior senses glowed within me, and would not be set aside by
any other rogue preceding me, when I knocked at Sir Philip's door, and
claimed first right of audience. The other fellows were all put away by
the serving-men, as behoved them; then I carried in everything, just as
it was, and presented the whole with the utmost deference.
Sir Philip had inkling of something important, and was beginning to
shake now and then; nevertheless he acknowledged my entrance with his
wonted dignity; signed to the footman to refresh the sperm-oil lamps in
the long dark room; and then to me to come and spread my burden on a
table. Nothing could more clearly show the self-command which a good man
wins by wrestling long with adversity. For rumour had reached him that I
had dug up his son's cocked-hat, and his two grandchildren, all as fresh
as the day itself. It is not for me (who have never been so deeply
stirred in the grain of the heart by heaven's visitations) to go through
and make a show of this most noble and ancient gentleman's doings, or
feelings, or language even. A man of low station, like myself, would be
loath to have this done to him, at many and many a time of his life; so
(if I could even do it in the case of a man so far above me, and so far
more deeply harrowed) instead of being proud of describing, I must only
despise myself.
Enough to say that this snowy-haired, most simple yet stately gentleman,
mixed the usual mixture of the things that weep and the things that
laugh; which are the joint-stock of our nature, from the old Adam and
the young one. What I mean--if I keep to facts--is, that he knelt on a
strip of canvas laid at the end of the table, and after some trouble to
place his elbows (because of the grit of the sandiness), bowed his white
forehead and silvery hair, and the calm majesty of his face, over those
two dollies, and over his son's very best cocked-hat, and in silence
wept thanksgiving to the great Father of everything.
"David Llewellyn," he said, as he rose and approached me as if I were
quite his equal; "allow me to take your hand, my friend. There are few
men to whom I would sooner owe this great debt of gratitude than
yourself, because you have sailed with my son so long. To you and your
patience and sagacity, under the mercy of God, I owe the proof, or at
any rate these tokens of my poor son's innocence. I--I thank the Lord
and you----"
Here the General for the moment could not say another word.
"It is true, your Worship," I answered, "that none of your own people
showed the sense or the courage to go on. But it is a Welshman's honest
pride to surpass all other races in valour and ability. I am no more
than the very humblest of my ancestors may have been."
"Then all of them must have been very fine fellows," Sir Philip replied,
with a twinkling glance. "But now I will beg of you one more favour.
Carry all these things, just as they are, to the room of my son, Mr
Philip Bampfylde."
At first I was so taken aback that I could only gaze at him. And then I
began to think, and to see the reason of his asking it.
"I have asked you to do a strange thing, good David; if it is an
unpleasant one, say so in your blunt sailor's fashion."
"Your honour," I answered, with all the delicacy of my nature upwards;
"say not another word. I will do it."
For truly to speak it, if anything had been often a grief and a care to
me, it was the bitterness of thinking of that Squire Philip deeply, and
not knowing anything. The General bowed to me with a kindness none could
take advantage of, and signalled me to collect my burden. Then he
appointed me how to go, together with a very old and long-accustomed
servitor. Himself would not come near his son, for fear of triumph over
him.
After a long bit of tapping, and whispering, and the mystery servants
always love to make of the simplest orders, I was shown with my arms
well aching (for those wooden dolls were no joke, and the Captain's hat
weighed a stone at least, with all the sand in the lining) into a dark
room softly strewn, and hung with ancient damask. The light of the
evening was shut out, and the failure of the candles made it seem a
cloudy starlight. Only in the furthest corner there was light enough to
see by; and there sate, at a very old desk, a white-haired man with his
hat on.
If I can say one thing truly (while I am striving at every line to tell
the downright honesty), this truth is that my bones and fibres now grew
cold inside of me. There was about this man, so placed, and with the
dimness round him, such an air of difference from whatever we can reason
with, and of far withdrawal from the ways of human nature, as must send
a dismal shudder through a genial soul like mine. There he sate, and
there he spent three parts of his time with his hat on, gazing at some
old grey tokens of a happy period, but (so far as could be judged)
hoping, fearing, doing, thinking, even dreaming--nothing! He would not
allow any clock or watch, or other record of time in the chamber, he
would not read or be read to, neither write or receive a letter.
There he sate, with one hand on his forehead pushing back the old dusty
hat, with his white hair straggling under it and even below the gaunt
shoulder-blades, his face set a little on one side, without any kind of
meaning in it, unless it were long weariness, and patient waiting God's
time of death.
I was told that once a-day, whenever the sun was going down over the
bar, in winter or summer, in wet or dry, this unfortunate man arose, as
if he knew the time by instinct without view of heaven, and drew the
velvet curtain back and flung the shutter open, and for a moment stood
and gazed with sorrow-worn yet tearless eyes upon the solemn hills and
woods, and down the gliding of the river, following the pensive footfall
of another receding day. Then with a deep sigh he retired from all
chance of starlight, darkening body, mind, and soul, until another
sunset.
Upon the better side of my heart, I could feel true pity for a man
overwhelmed like this by fortune; while my strength of mind was vexed to
see him carry on so. Therefore straight I marched up to him, when I
began to recover myself, having found no better way of getting through
perplexity.
As my footsteps sounded heavily in the gloomy chamber, Squire Philip
turned, and gazed at first with cold displeasure, and then with strong
amazement at me. I waited for him to begin, but he could not, whether
from surprise or loss of readiness through such long immurement.
"May it please your Honour," I said; "the General has sent me hither to
clear my Captain from the charge of burying your Honour's children."
"What--what do you mean?" was all that he could stammer forth, while his
glassy eyes were roving from my face to the dolls I bore, and round the
room, and then back again.
"Exactly as I say, your Honour. These are what the wild man took for
your two children in Braunton Burrows; and here is the Captain's
cocked-hat, which some one stole, to counterfeit him. The whole thing
was a vile artifice, a delusion, cheat, and mockery."
I need not repeat how I set this before him, but only his mode of
receiving it. At first he seemed wholly confused and stunned, pressing
his head with both hands, and looking as if he knew not where he was.
Then he began to enter slowly into what I was telling him, but without
the power to see its bearing, or judge how to take it. He examined the
dolls, and patted them, and added them to a whole school which he kept,
with two candles burning before them. And then he said, "They have long
been missing: I am pleased to recover them."
Then for a long time he sate in silence, and in his former attitude,
quite as if his mind relapsed into its old condition: and verily I began
to think that the only result of my discovery, so far as concerned poor
Squire Philip, would be a small addition to his gallery of dolls.
However, after a while he turned round, and cried with a piercing gaze
at me--
"Mariner, whoever you are, I do not believe one word of your tale. The
hat is as new and the dolls are as fresh as if they were buried
yesterday. And I take that to be the truth of it. How many years have I
been here? I know not. Bring me a looking-glass."
He pointed to a small mirror which stood among his precious relics.
Being mounted with silver and tortoise-shell, this had been (as they
told me afterwards) the favourite toy of his handsome wife. When I
handed him this, he took off his hat, and shook his white hair back, and
gazed earnestly, but without any sorrow, at his mournful image.
"Twenty years at least," he pronounced it, in a clear decided voice;
"twenty years it must have taken to have made me what I am. Would twenty
years in a dripping sandhill leave a smart gentleman's laced hat and a
poor little baby's dolls as fresh and bright as the day they were
buried? Old mariner, I am sorry that you should lend yourself to such
devices. But perhaps you thought it right."
This, although so much perverted, made me think of his father's goodness
and kind faith in every one. And I saw that here was no place now for
any sort of argument.
"Your Honour is altogether wrong," I answered, very gently: "the matter
could have been, at the utmost, scarcely more than eight years ago,
according to what they tell me. And if you can suppose that a man of my
rank and age and service would lend himself to mean devices, there are
at least thirty of your retainers, and of honest neighbours, who have
seen the whole thing and can swear to its straightforwardness. And your
Honour, of course, knows everything a thousand times better than I do;
but of sand, and how it keeps things everlasting (so long as dry), your
Honour seems, if I may say it, to have no experience."
He did not take the trouble to answer, but fell back into his old way of
sitting, as if there was nothing worth argument.
People say that every man is like his father in many ways; but the
first resemblance that I perceived between Sir Philip and his elder son
was, that the squire arose and bowed with courtesy as I departed.
Upon the whole, this undertaking proved a disappointment to me. And it
mattered a hundredfold as much that our noble General was not only
vexed, but angered more than one could hope of him. Having been treated
a little amiss, I trusted that Sir Philip would contribute to my
self-respect by also feeling angry. Still I did not desire more than
just enough to support me, or at the utmost to overlap me, and give me
the sense of acting aright by virtue of appeasing him. But on the
present occasion he showed so large and cloudy a shape of anger, wholly
withdrawn from my sight (as happens with the Peak of Teneriffe)--also he
so clearly longed to be left alone and meditate, that I had no chance to
offer him more than three opinions. All these were of genuine value at
the time of offering; and must have continued so to be, if the facts had
not belied them. Allowing for this adverse view, I will not even state
them.
Nevertheless I had the warmest invitation to abide, and be welcome to
the best that turned upon any of all the four great spits, or simmered
and lifted the pot-lids suddenly for a puff of fine smell to come out in
advance. To a man of less patriotic feeling this might thus have
commended itself. But to my mind there was nothing visible in these
hills and valleys, and their sloping towards the sea, which could make a
true Welshman doubt the priority of Welshland. For with us the sun is
better, and the air moves less in creases, and the sea has more of rapid
gaiety in breaking. The others may have higher diffs, or deeper valleys
down them, also (if they like to think so) darker woods for robbers'
nests--but our own land has a sweetness, and a gentle liking for us, and
a motherly pleasure in its bosom when we do come home to it, such as no
other land may claim--according to my experience.
These were my sentiments as I climbed, upon the ensuing Sunday, a lofty
hill near the Ilfracombe road, commanding a view of the Bristol Channel
and the Welsh coast beyond it. The day was so clear that I could follow
the stretches and curves of my native shore, from the low lands of Gower
away in the west through the sandy ridges of Aberavon and the grey rocks
of Sker and Porthcawl, as far as the eastern cliffs of Dunraven and the
fading bend of St Donat's.
The sea between us looked so calm, and softly touched with shaded lights
and gentle variations, also in unruffled beauty so fostering and
benevolent, that the white sailed coasters seemed to be babies fast
asleep on their mother's lap.
"How long is this mere river to keep me from my people at home?" I
cried; "it looks as if one could jump it almost! A child in a
cockleshell could cross it."
At these words of my own, a sudden thought, which had never occurred
before, struck me so that my brain seemed to buzz.
But presently reason came to my aid; and I said, "No, no; it is out of
the question; without even a thread of sail! I must not let these clods
laugh at me for such a wild idea. And the name in the stern of the boat
as well, downright 'Santa Lucia!' Chowne must have drowned those two
poor children, and then rehearsed this farce of a burial with the
Captain's hat on, to enable his man to swear truly to it. Tush, I am not
in my dotage yet. I can see the force of everything."