MANY WEAK MOMENTS.
Nothing less than steadfast faith, and an ancient British constitution,
can have enabled me to survive this highly-dappled period. It was not in
my body only, or legs, or parts I think nothing of, but in my brain that
I felt it most, when I had the sense to feel it. And having a brain
which has no right to claim exemption from proper work, because of being
under average, I happened to take a long time to recover from so many
spots striking inwards. An empty-headed man might have laughed at the
little drills into his brain-pan; but with me (as with a good bee-hive
early in October) there could not be the prick of a brad-awl but went
into honey. And so my brain was in a buzz for at least a twelvemonth
afterwards.
Therefore I now must tell what happened, rather as it is told to me,
than as myself remember it. Only you must not expect such truth, as I
always give, while competent.
After the master of the ship Defence had proved so unable to defend
himself, General Sir Philip Bampfylde, with his large and quiet mind
forbidding all intrusion, opened out a little of his goodness to Jack
Wildman. There are men of the highest station, and of noble intellect,
who do this, and cannot help it, when they meet a fellow-man with
something in him like them. There is no vanity in it, nor even desire to
conciliate; only a little touch of something understood between them.
And now being brought so together perhaps by their common kindliness,
and with the door of death wide open, as it were, before them, the
well-born and highly-nurtured baronet, and the lowly, neglected, and
ignorant savage, found (perhaps all the more clearly from contrast)
something harmonious in each other. At any rate they had a good deal of
talk by the side of the lonely river, where even the lighters kept
aloof, and hugged to the utmost the opposite shore. And the General,
finding much amusement in poor Jack's queer simplicity, and strange
remarks upon men and things, would often relax without losing any of his
accustomed dignity. So while they were speaking of death one day, Jack
looked at Sir Philip with an air of deep compassion and feeling, and
told him with tearful eyes how heartily he was grieved at one thing.
Being pressed as to what it was, he answered that it was Sir Philip's
wealth.
"Because," said he, "I am sad when I think that you must go to hell,
sir."
"I go to hell!" Sir Philip exclaimed, with a good deal of rather
unpleasant surprise; "why should I do that, Jack? I never thought that
you entertained so bad an opinion of me."
"Your Honour," said Jack, having picked up some of my correct
expressions, "it is not me; it is God Almighty. I was told afore ever I
learned to read, or ever heard of reading, how it was. And so it is in
the Bible now. Poor men go to heaven, rich men go to hell. It must be so
to be fair for both."
The General had too much sense to attempt to prove the opposite, and
would have thought no more about it, if Jack had dropped the subject.
But to do this at the proper moment requires great civilisation; while
on the other hand Jack sought comfort, needless to men of refinement.
"Your Honour must go there," he said, with a nod of his head which was
meant to settle it; "but there is one of your race, or family"--or
whatever word of that sort he employed, for he scarce could have come to
any knowledge of things hereditary--"who will go to heaven."
"Many are gone there already--too many," answered Sir Philip, devoutly;
"but tell me whom you mean, Jack. Do you mean my son the Captain?"
"Him! no, no. I know better than that. It is plain where he must go to."
"Your Captain! you disloyal fellow. Why, you ought to be lashed to the
triangles. But who is it you are thinking of?"
"I know, I know," said Jack, nodding his head; and no more could Sir
Philip get out of him. And whenever he tried to begin again, Jack
Wildman was more than a match for him, by feigning not to understand, or
by some other of the many tricks which nature supplies, for
self-defence, to the savage against the civilised. If I had been well, I
must have shelled this poor Jack's meaning out of him; whereas, on the
other hand, but for my illness he might never have spoken. So it came to
pass that he was sent, entirely at Sir Philip's cost, and with a
handsome gratuity, to rejoin our Captain in Plymouth Sound, and to carry
back Cannibals Dick and Joe, who had scoured away at great speed upon
hearing of my sudden misfortune.
Now I will tell you a very strange thing, and quite out of my
experience: even after small-pox, which enlarged and filled me with
charity, as well as what I had scarcely room for--increase of humility.
This is, that though Captain Bampfylde had some little spare time at
Plymouth, he had such command of himself that he never went near his
beloved Isabel. Nothing could have so checked a man of heartiness and
bravery, except the strongest power of honour, and a long time of
chastisement. There was a lovely young woman, and here a fine though
middle-aged man, her husband; they loved one another with heart and
soul, and they never met, but through a telescope! It may have been
right, or it may have been wrong--I should have thought it wrong,
perhaps, if the case had been my own--but they pledged their honour and
kept it. Drake Bampfylde (like his father) had a strength of trust in
Providence. But this trust has no landed security, now that the Lord
has found the world so clever, that He need not interfere with it.
The 74-gun ship Defence was known to be the fastest sailer in the
British Navy; not from her build alone, or balance, but from my careful
trim of her sails, and knowledge of how to handle her. Hours and hours I
spent aloft, among lifts, and braces, and clue-garnets, marking the draw
of every sail, and righting all useless bellying. So that I could now
have warranted her the first of our Navy to break the line, if rigged
according to my directions, and with me for her master. However (while I
lay docked like this, careened I might say, and unlikely ever to carry a
keel again), the Defence, without my knowledge even, being new-masted,
sailed to join the Channel Fleet, with Heaviside acting as her master;
and as might have been expected, fell to leeward one knot in three. And
even worse than this befell her; for in the second of those two
miserable actions, under Hotham in the year 1795, when even Nelson could
do nothing, the Defence having now another captain as well as a stupid
master, actually backed her mizzen-topsail, in the rear of the enemy,
when the signal was to fill and stand on. However, as even that famous
ship the Agamemnon did nothing that day, through getting no opportunity,
we must forgive poor Heaviside, especially as he was not captain. But
the one who ground his teeth the hardest, and could forgive nobody, was
the Honourable Rodney Bluett, now first lieutenant of the Defence. By
this time every one must desire to know why Captain Bampfylde was not
there, as he might have been, and might have made himself famous, but
for his usual ill-fortune. This had carried him to the East Indies,
before the Defence had finished refitting; and there, with none of his
old hands near him, he commanded a line-of-battle ship, under Commodore
Rainier; and after some hard work, and very fine fighting, drove the
brave Dutchmen out of the castle of Trincomalee, in August 1795, which
we came to hear of afterwards.
Thus it was that everybody seemed to be scattered everywhere. None of us
happened to hold together, except those three poor savages; and they, by
a sort of instinct, managed to get over accidents. For they stuck, with
that fidelity which is lost by education, to Rodney Bluett, as soon as
ever poor Father Davy failed them. But this is a melancholy subject, and
must soon be done with.
Let me, then, not dwell upon this visitation of the Lord for a moment
longer than the claims of nation and of kin combine to make it needful.
Nor did it seem to matter much for a long time what became of me. The
very first thing I remember, after months of wandering, has something to
do with the hush of waves, and the soft breath of heaven spread over me.
Also kind young voices seemed to be murmuring around me, with a dear
regard and love, and sense of pretty watchfulness; and the sound of my
native tongue as soft as the wool of a nest to my bosom.
Because I was lying in a hammock, slung, by Colonel Lougher's orders,
betwixt the very same mooring-posts (at about half-tide in Newton Bay)
which truly enabled the sons of Devon to make such a safe job of
stealing his rocks. Not only the Colonel, but Lady Bluett, who generally
led his judgment, felt by this time the pleasure of owing true gratitude
to somebody. My fatherly care of the young lieutenant had turned him out
so nobly.
It misbecomes me to speak of this; and it misbecame me to speak at all,
with the sea-breeze flowing over me, the first words of knowledge that I
had spoken for how long I know not. Nothing can be too high, or too low,
for human nature at both ends; but I ought to have known better than to
do the thing I did.
"Give me a pipe," was all I said; and then I turned away, and cared not
whether I got my pipe, or whether the rising tide extinguished me.
"Here is your pipe, sir," came in a beautiful voice from down below me;
"and we have the tinder ready. Bunny, let me do it now."
That pipe must have saved my life. Everybody said so. It came and went
in curls of comfort through the hollow dying places of my head, that had
not even blood enough to call for it; and then it never left my soul
uneasy about anything. Hammock and all must have gone afloat, with the
rapid rise of the spring, except for Colonel Lougher's foresight.
Who was it that watched me so, and would have waited by my side, until
the waves were over her? Who was it that kept on listening, to let me
know, while I could not speak? Who was it that gave a little bit of a
sigh, every now and then, and then breathed hard to smother it? Who was
it, or who could it be, in the whole wide world, but Bardie?
Not only this, but when I began to be up to real sense again, the
kindness of every one around me made me fit for nothing. In the
weakness of expecting all to take advantage of me (as is done in health
and spirits), all the weakness I could find was in my friends and
neighbours always labouring to encourage me. This to my mind proves
almost the wrongness of expecting people to be worse than we are.
That winter was the most severe, all over Western Europe, known for
five-and-fifty years. I well remember the dreadful winter A.D. 1740,
when the Severn was frozen with a yard of ice, and the whole of the
Bristol Channel blocked with icebergs like great hay-ricks. Twelve
people were frozen to death in our parish, and seven were killed through
the ice on the sea. The winter of 1795 was nothing to be compared to
that; nevertheless it was very furious, and killed more than we could
spare of our very oldest inhabitants.
And but for the extraordinary kindness of Colonel Lougher, that winter
must have killed not only me in my weak and worn-out condition, but also
the poor maid of Sker, if left to encounter the cold in that iceberg.
For, truly speaking, the poor old house was nothing else through that
winter. The snow in swirling sheets of storm first wrapped it up to the
window-sills; and then in a single night overleaped gables, roofs, and
chimney-tops. Moxy and Watkin passed a month of bitter cold and
darkness, but were lucky enough to have some sheep, who kept them warm
outside, and warmed their insides afterwards. And after that the thaw
came. But all this time there was nobody in my little cottage at Newton,
but poor Roger Berkrolles, and how he kept soul and body together is
known to none save himself and Heaven. For Colonel Lougher and Lady
Bluett, at the very beginning of the frost, sent down my old friend,
Crumpy the butler, to report upon my condition, and to give his candid
opinion what was the best thing to do with me. After that long struggle
now (thanks to a fine constitution and the death of the only doctor
anywhere on our side of Bridgend), I had begun to look up a little and
to know the time of day. Crumpy felt my pulse, and nodded, and then
prescribed the only medicine which his own experience in life had ever
verified. Port wine, he said, was the only thing to put me on my legs
again. And this he laid before the Colonel with such absence of all
doubt, that on the very same afternoon a low and slow carriage was sent
for me, and I found myself laid in a very snug room, with the firelight
dancing in the reflection of the key of the wine-cellar. Also here was
Bardie flitting, light as a gnat in spring-time, and Bunny to be had
whenever anybody wanted her. Only her scantling and her tonnage unfitted
her for frigate-service.
What had a poor old fellow like me--as in weak moments I called
myself--ever done, or even suffered, to deserve to find the world an Inn
of good Samaritans? I felt that it was all of pure unreasonable
kindness; the very thing which a man of spirit cannot bear to put up
with. I have felt this often, when our Parson discoursed about our
gracious Lord, and all the things He did for us. A man of proper
self-respect would like to have had a voice in it.
This, however (as Hezekiah told us in the cockpit, after we had pickled
him), might be safely attributed to the force of unregeneracy; while a
man who is down in luck, and constitution also, trusts to any stout
mortal for a loan of orthodoxy. And so did I to our Rector Lougher,
brother of the Colonel, a gentleman who had bought my fish, and felt my
spiritual needs. To him I listened (for well he read), especially a
psalm to which I could for ever listen, full of noble navigation, deeper
even than our soundings in the Bay of Biscay.
Every night we used to wonder where Lieutenant Bluett was, knowing as we
did from my descriptions (when the hob was hot) what it is to be at sea
with all the rigging freezing. When the blocks are clogged with ice and
make mysterious groanings, and the shrouds have grown a beard as cold as
their own name is, and the deck begins to slip; and all the watch with
ropes to handle, spit upon their palms, and strike them (dancing with
their toes the while) one man to another man's, hoping to see sparks
come out. So it is, I can assure you, who have never been at sea, when
the barbs of icy spray by a freezing wind are driven, like a volley of
langrel-shot raking the ship from stem to stern, shrivelling blue cheeks
and red noses, shattering quids from the chattering teeth. Many a time
in these bitter nights, with the roar of east wind through the
fir-trees, and the rattle of doors in the snow-drift, I felt ashamed of
my cozy berth, and could not hug my comfort, from thinking of my ancient
messmates turned to huddled icicles.
But all was ordained for the best, no doubt: for supposing that I had
been at sea through the year 1795, or even 1796, what single general
action was there worthy of my presence? It might have been otherwise
with me there, and in a leading position. However, even of this I cannot
by any means be certain, for seamen quite as brave and skilful were
afloat at that very time. However, beyond a few frigate actions, and
matters far away from home, at the Cape, or in the East Indies, I did
not hear of anything that I need have longed much to partake in. So that
I did not repent of accepting a harbour-appointment at Plymouth, which
(upon my partial recovery) was obtained for me by Sir Philip Bampfylde,
an old friend of the Port-Admiral there.
For that good Sir Philip was a little uneasy, after shipping me off last
autumn, lest he might have behaved with any want of gratitude towards
me. Of course he had done nothing of the kind; for in truth I had raved
for my country so--as I came to learn long afterwards--that when all the
risk of infection was over, the doctor from Barnstaple said that my only
chance of recovering reason lay in the air of my native land. But at any
rate this kind baronet thought himself bound to come and look after me,
in the spring of the year when the buds were awake, and the iron was
gone from the soul of the earth. He had often promised that fine old
tyrant Anthony Stew to revisit him; so now he resolved to kill two birds
with one stone, as the saying is.
I had returned to my cottage now, but being still very frail and stupid,
in spite of port wine every day, I could not keep the tears from
starting, when this good and great landowner bent his silver head
beneath my humble lintel, and forbade me in his calm majestic manner to
think for a moment of dousing my pipe. And even Justice Stew, who of
course took good care to come after him, did not use an uncivil word,
when he saw what Sir Philip thought of me.
"Sir," said the General to the Squire, after shaking hands most
kindly with me, "this is a man whom I truly respect. There seems to
be but one opinion about him. I call him a noble specimen of your
fellow-countrymen."
"Yes, to be sure," answered Anthony Stew: "but my noble
fellow-countrymen say that I am an Irishman."
"No doubt whatever about that, your Worship," was the proper thing for
me to reply; but the condition of my head forbade me almost to shake it.
If it had pleased the Lord to give me only a dozen holes and
scars--which could not matter at my time of life--there would not by any
means have arisen, as all the old women of Newton said, this sad
pressure on the brain-pan, and difficulty of coping even with a man of
Anthony Stew's kind. But, alas! instead of opening out, the subtle
plague struck inwards, leaving not a sign outside, but a delicate
transparency.
This visit from Sir Philip did not end without a queer affair, whereof I
had no notice then, being set down by all the village as only fit to
poke about among the sandhills, and then to die. But no one could take
the church-clock from me, till the bell should be tolling for me; and as
a matter of duty I drew some long arrears of salary.
It seems that Sir Philip drove down one day from Pen Coed to look after
me, and having done this with his usual kindness, spread word through
the children (who throughout our lane abounded) that really none of his
money remained for any more sticks of peppermint. It was high time for
them to think, he said, after ever so much education, of earning from
sevenpence to tenpence a-week, for the good of the babies they carried.
All the children gathered round him at this fine idea, really not
believing quite that the purse of such a gentleman could have nothing
more to say. And the girls bearing babes were concave in the back, while
the boys in the same predicament stuck out clumsily where their spines
were setting.
"Drive me away," said Sir Philip to the groom; "drive me straight away
anywhere: these Welsh children are so clever, I shall have no chance
with them."
"Indeed, your Honour, they is," said the groom with a grin, as behoved a
Welshman. "Would your Honour like to go down by the sea, and see our
beautiful water-rocks, and our old annshent places?"
"To be sure," said Sir Philip; "the very thing. We have four hours' time
to dinner yet; and I fear I have worn out poor Llewellyn. Now follow the
coast-line if you are sure that your master would like it, Lewis, with
this young horse, and our weight behind."
"Your Honour, nothing ever comes amiss to this young horse here. 'Tis
tire I should like to see him, for a change, as we do say. And master do
always tell me keep salt-water on his legs whenever."
"Right!" cried Sir Philip, who loved the spree, being as full of spirits
still, when the air took his trouble out of him, as the young horse in
the shafts was.
So they drove away over the sands towards Sker, which it is easy enough
to do with a good strong horse and a light car behind him. And by this
time the neighbourhood had quite forgotten all its dread of sand-storms.
In about half an hour they found themselves in a pretty place of grass
and furze known as the Lock's Common, which faces the sea over some low
cliffs, and at the western end coves down to it. This is some half a
mile from Sker House, and a ragged dry wall makes the parish boundary,
severing it from Sker-land.
"Drive on," cried Sir Philip; "I enjoy all this: I call this really
beautiful, and this fine sward reminds me of Devonshire. But they ought
to plant some trees here."
The driver replied that there was some danger in driving through Sker
warren, unless one knew the ground thoroughly, on account of the number
of rabbit-holes; and the baronet, with that true regard which a
gentleman feels for the horse of a friend, cancelled his order
immediately. "But," he continued, "I am so thirsty that I scarcely know
what to do. My friend Llewellyn's hospitality is so overpowering. The
taste of rum is almost unknown to me; but I could not refuse when he
pressed me so. It has made me confoundedly thirsty, Lewis."
"Your honour," said Lewis, "just round that corner, in a little break of
the rocks, there is one of the finest springs in Glamorgan, 'Ffynnon
Wen' we call it, the water does be sparkling so."
The groom, having no cup to fetch the water, stood by the horse in the
little pant or combe; while old Sir Philip went down to the shore, to
drink as our first forefather drank, and Gideon's men in the Bible.
Whether he lapped or dipped, I know not (probably the latter, at his
time of life), anyhow he assuaged his thirst--which rum of my quality
could not have caused in a really sound constitution, after taking no
more than a thimbleful--and then for a moment he sate on a rock, soothed
by the purling water, to rest and to look around him. The place has no
great beauty, as of a sea-side spring in Devonshire, but more of cheer
and life about it than their ferny grottoes. The bright water breaks
from an elbow of rock, in many veins all uniting, and without any cliff
above them; and then, after rushing a very few yards through set stone
and loose shingle, loses its self-will upon the soft sand, and spreads a
way over a hundred yards of vague wetness and shallow shining.
The mild sun of April was glancing on this, and the tide just advancing
to see to it, when the shadow of a slim figure fell on the stones before
Sir Philip. So quietly had she slipped along, and appeared from the
rocks so suddenly, that neither old man nor young maiden thought of the
other until their eyes met.
"What, why, who?" cried the General, with something as much like a
start as good conscience and long service had left in him: "who are you?
Who are you, my dear?"
For his eyes were fixed on a fair young damsel of some fifteen summers,
standing upright, with a pad on her head, and on the pad a red pitcher.
Over her shoulders, and down to her waist, fell dark-brown curls
abundantly, full of gleaming gold where the sun stole through the rocks
to dwell in them. Her dress was nothing but blue Welsh flannel, gathered
at the waist and tucked in front, and her beautifully tinted legs and
azure-veined feet shone under it.
"Who are you, my pretty creature?" Sir Philip Bampfylde asked again,
while she opened her grey eyes wide at him.
"Y Ferch o'r Scer, Syr," she answered shyly, and with the strong
guttural tone which she knew was unpleasant to English ears. For it was
her sensitive point that she could not tell any one who she was; and her
pride (which was manifold) always led her to draw back from questions.
On the other hand the old man's gaze of strong surprise and deep
interest faded into mere admiration at the sound of our fine language.
"Fair young Cambrian, I have asked you rudely, and you are displeased
with me. Lift your curls, my little dear, and let me see your face a
while. I remember one just like it. There, you are put out again! So it
was with the one I mean when anything happened hastily."
The beautiful girl flung back her hair, and knelt to stoop her pitcher
in the gurgling runnel; and then she looked at his silver locks, and was
sorry for her impatience.
"Sir, I beg you to forgive me, if I have been rude to you. I am the maid
from the old house yonder. I am often sent for this water, because it
sparkles much more than our own does. If you please, I must go home,
sir."
She filled the red pitcher, and tucked the blue skirt, as girls alone
can manage it; and Sir Philip Bampfylde sighed at thinking of his age
and loneliness, while with an old-fashioned gentleman's grace he lifted
the pitcher and asked no more upon whose head he laid it.