THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE BARON’S MARRIAGE.—THE YOUNG LOVER, AND THE
REMONSTRANCE.
So it appeared that the baron was right, and that with all his
disqualifications he had succeeded in obtaining the promise of a wife,
because he had the one great qualification which outshone everything to
his disadvantage, namely, wealth.
And he was not so blind, or so foolish, as not fully to understand,
and to know, that it was to the relatives of the bride, and not to the
bride herself, that he was indebted for an answer in the affirmative to
his proposition.
Well he knew that although he had dazzled their eyes and awakened
their cupidity, he had produced no such an effect upon the young and
beautiful being who was about thus to be sacrificed upon the altar
of Mammon; and probably if anything could have added to his earnest
desire to make her his, it was that he saw she was untouched by the
power of his gold, and therefore he could not but respect, as well as
admire her; and he much preferred taking to his arms one for whom he
entertained a supreme and sovereign contempt.
She felt that she was a victim, and that if she consented to become
his, she must look upon herself as blighted and sacrificed for ever.
But he was too selfish to hesitate on such a ground as that. His
feelings were far from being so human as to stop short, because he knew
the alliance was viewed by her with hatred and horror. And that she
did view it with those feelings, spared him, at all events, as he told
himself, some trouble, for it took away from the necessity of keeping
up the constant shew and glitter of wealth, for that shew and glitter
affected her not, and therefore would have been presented to her
imagination in vain.
But far different was it regarded her friends and connections, who had
arrogated to themselves the power of deciding upon this matter of life
and death to her.
To them he felt that he must shew all the glitter of display that
belonged to his extensive means, or they would be disappointed, for
they not only wanted riches themselves, but they wanted the worldly
reputation contingent upon having so rich a relative.
Therefore was it that he determined that nothing should be wanting at
his approaching nuptials to make them most magnificent, and he racked
his imagination to discover a mode by which he could spend a large
sum of money, so as to get for it the greatest amount of display.
This was a matter which a man such as he was eminently calculated to
achieve; and, as he succeeded in fixing his nuptials to take place
in a fortnight from that time, he had ample time to make all such
preparations as he might consider requisite.
It so happened that on the following evening to that on which he
had obtained so strange a consent, through another party, to his
matrimonial speculation, that the sun sunk upon the coast with every
appearance of approaching stormy weather.
Scarcely had its disc sunk below the western horizon, when a furious
gale arose, and, for the first time since his residence at Anderbury
Hall, he felt what it was to hold an estate so near to the sea-coast.
The sea rose tempestuously, appearing to shake the mansion to its very
foundation, and more than one half of the excavation leading from the
grounds to the sea-coast was filled with water. The gale blew off
the sea, and one or two trees upon the Anderbury estate were torn up
by their roots, spreading destruction around them among the numerous
shrubs and flowers.
Some of the windows of the mansion were dashed in, and the wind came
roaring into the house, whistling up the staircases, opening and
shutting doors, and altogether producing a scene of devastation and
uproar which would have terrified most persons.
The baron, however, on the contrary, notwithstanding whatever damage
was done was of course done to his property, took the matter with the
greatest ease and composure in the world; and, in fact, rather seemed
to enjoy the fury of the elements than to be awed by them.
He remained out of doors the whole time and although the rain now and
then fell in torrents, and drenched him to the skin, he seemed scarcely
conscious of that circumstance, or, if he were, he evidently thought it
too trivial to take any notice of.
The servants looked at him in amazement, scarcely believing it possible
that any one in his senses could be so indifferent to the rage of the
elements that was proceeding; but they little knew the real character
of the man whom they had for a master, or they would have wondered at
nothing, and been surprised at nothing that they saw of him or heard of
him.
The storm continued until the night completely set in, and still it
showed no signs whatever of anything in the shape of an end; and it
seemed but too evident that it was likely to continue in all its wild
and ungovernable fury for many an hour to come.
He got as close as he could to the beach, so as not to leave his own
estate, and from there he listened attentively to the howling of the
blast, seeming rather pleased with the idea than otherwise, that much
mischief was being done by that most terrific storm.
A servant brought him a telescope, so that he could look out upon
the waste of waters, and see some of the struggling vessels that,
with might and main, were endeavouring to keep off the shore, but
which, despite all their efforts, were being hurried to destruction—a
destruction which they could not avoid, and which must present itself
in the most serious aspect, because it appears inevitable, and is
invested with all the misery of a protracted execution.
[Illustration: The baron observes the destruction of the ships.]
And in particular he remarked one vessel which was drifting onward to
certain and inevitable destruction.
He could see the rockets and the blue lights that they burnt now and
then through the storm; while, ever and anon, with a booming strange
sound over the waste of waters there would come the signal gun of
distress, with its awful reverberations, awakening feelings of sympathy
in the breast of every one but the baron, and he seemed impenetrable to
all human feeling, for he looked on with a strange calmness, a calmness
that one might suppose would set upon some man who had nothing to do
with human hopes, human thoughts, or human feelings, but not by any
means that calmness of a pure spirit looking upon things which it would
aid, if it could, but which are beyond its power of action.
He saw the anxious throng of persons on the beach precisely below his
own estate.
He saw them launch a boat, and, with a grim smile, he saw it swamped in
the surge, and the brave bold men, who had made the gallant endeavour
to save their fellows, met themselves, with but one exception, a watery
grave.
And then even the baron smiled, and muttered to himself,—
“What is all this to me? what have I to do with human hopes and
feelings? What is it to me whether they live or die, or whether yon
ship, that I now see struggling through the waste of waters, reaches
its destination, or is engulfed for ever in the foaming surge? What is
it to me, I repeat, whether these bold brave men live or die? Will they
not be the very persons to hunt me from the face of society? Will they
not be the very persons who would declare that I was unfit to live?
And shall I trouble myself with one thought as to whether they live or
die? Ah! they come nearer, nearer, nearer still, and I shall see such a
sight as may not often be observed by one such as I am, and on such a
coast as this.”
There was a strange, wild, wailing cry, and the ship, which was a large
one, struck heavily upon a rock about a mile distant from the shore,
and very close, indeed, to where the Anderbury estates commenced.
Now, as if seized with a sudden impulse, although we cannot and do not
think it was one of humanity, the baron descended by a large fissure
in the rock to the beach. This took him some time to accomplish, for
he had to walk completely through the grounds of Anderbury Hall, and
half-a-mile beyond, before he reached it, and then it took him some
time to walk down, because he had to do so with extreme caution,
inasmuch as the heavy rain that had fallen had made the ground so
slippery that it was with great difficulty he could at all keep his
feet.
When he arrived in sight of the beach, the ship was gone, but a
life-boat was being launched, amid the hurras of the multitude, for
the purpose of picking up some of the survivors of the wreck who were
noticed drifting upon portions of its hulk.
The baron had brought his telescope with him, and he placed it to his
eye, and took a long and steady look at the boat.
A muttered malediction came from his lips, and, having shut the
telescope, he turned, and hastily pursued his path again to Anderbury
House.
• • • • •
After the wedding, Jack Pringle really felt himself so upset by the
quantity of healths he had drunk, and the general manner in which he
had disposed of a quantity of rum, that he told the admiral he found
himself not quite so well as he ought to be, and that he thought it was
all owing to having been out of sight of water for so many months.
This was a plea which sounded very reasonable to the admiral, and when
Jack said,—
“You know it ain’t possible to live very long without a glimpse, at
least, of an arm of the sea, or something of that sort.”
The old man assented to the proposition at once, and replied,—
“Why, that’s true enough, Jack, and I shall have to go somewhere myself
soon, or else get musty; for, you may depend, it never was intended
that human beings should live all their lives on land.”
“I should think not,” said Jack, “and I what I was going to say was,
that you must try and take care of yourself, you old baby, for a day or
two, while I take a run to the coast. It ain’t above twenty-five miles;
and mind you don’t get into any mischief till I come back.”
“Confound your impudence! It’s a very odd thing that you can’t come
into my presence without a lie in your mouth. You know you have been as
much trouble to me as a cargo of monkeys in a storm. Be off with ye,
and if I never see your face again, it will be a good job.”
Jack considered that he had quite sufficiently announced his departure,
so he set off at once, and made his way towards the coast, not a little
pleased, as he neared it, to fancy that, every now and then, he kept
snuffing the sea air; and when the coach in which he went put him down
within about four miles of a little village inhabited by fishermen,
he walked that distance, although, sailor-like, it was an exercise he
was by no means fond of, and, to his great joy, once more stood upon
a sandy beach, and heard the murmur of the ocean, and saw the waves
curling at his feet.
He was quite delighted, and really felt, or fancied that he felt, which
was the same thing, wonderfully invigorated by the change, and quite
another thing to what he had been.
Under such circumstances, Jack was sure not to be long in picking up a
companion, so, in one of the cottages into which, with all the free and
easy manner of a sailor, he strolled, he found an old man-of-war’s man,
retired there to spend the remainder of his days along with his son and
daughter.
We feel that it would be quite impossible for us to do justice to
the meeting between those two worthies, for they soon found out the
capabilities of each.
Some grog, which Jack thought the sweetest he had tasted for a long
time, because it was drunk within sight of the ocean, was produced,
and then the tales they set to telling each other of their adventures
afloat, would have been enough to stun any one.
We have rather a fear, likewise, that in some cases, they were not so
strictly particular as they might have been had they been upon their
oaths, as regards truth; but they seemed to be upon the principle of
mutual forbearance, and the implied understanding of “You believe me,
and I’ll believe you.”
Whenever this kind of rivalry, however, commences between inveterate
story-tellers, there is no saying to what length they will go, and Jack
certainly related some extraordinary things.
They happened both to have been to the same latitude, but, of course,
they had not both seen the same sights exactly, or enjoyed the same
adventures; so what one did not know or could not invent, the other
pretty soon did; so that between them they made up a most entertaining
conversation, and one which really would, to any one who was willing to
be amused and not very particular about veracity, have had great charms.
“Ah,” said the old sailor, “when I was on the coast of Ingee, the hair
melted off my head.”
“Did it,” said Jack. “Oh! that’s nothing at all; we had a couple of men
roasted at the wheel with the heat, and they didn’t know it, till they
were both done brown.”
“You don’t say so?”
“Yes, I does, and, what’s more, we always had our meat cooked over
again upon one of the gun slides; and, after that, when we were a long
way southward, it was so cold not one of the crew shut his eyes for a
week.”
“Indeed! But you spoke of a man as you called Safety Jack; who was he?
I should like all for to know.”
“When I was on board the Fame, our captain was a know-nothing sort
of shore-going lubber, who had been guved a pair of swabs over
better men’s heads, and uncommon afeared he was of getting into any
danger. He’d always come on deck on a morning, and guving a kind of a
hurry-skurry skeared look all round him, he’d say, if so be as he seed
no land,—
“‘Where are we? Is there any danger?’
“Then our first luff he’d say,—
“‘No danger, sir; only a little fear.’
“Then the captain he’d say, all the while looking as skeared as a
marine in a squall,—
“‘Let us be safe—let us be safe, that’s all.’
“So we called him Safety Jack, in consekense o’ that peculiarity.
Well, you must know as we were running for the Cape, and Safety Jack
he wouldn’t be persuaded, but insisted upon hugging the coast of
Africa all the way, cos, as he said, it looked safer to see the land.
So, as it happened, when we neared the Cape, we got into a regular
north-westerly current, that set clear away south-east, or it might be
a few points more southerly. The wind, too, blew in the same direction,
and it seemed a bad job altogether. Our luff then says, says he to the
captain—that’s Safety Jack, you must understand,—
“‘It will take us some time to work into the bay with this wind and
current, but we can do it.’
“‘Is it safe?’ said Safety Jack.
“‘Oh, yes,’ said t’other; ‘though I have known a vessel of small
draught to be capsized hereaway.’
“Safety Jack at this turns very pale, and he says,—
“‘Well, run before the wind a few leagues to the south; it’s
safer—and—and the gale may go down, and we may get out of the
current—and—and—besides, it’s safer.’
“Well, everybody grumbled, but Safety Jack would have his own way, and
we went spanking along with the wind and current nearly due south.
“But instead of getting out of the current we got further into it,
and the gale increased to a hurricane. We went through the water at
such a rate that the men who stood facing the wind could not button
their jackets, or shut their eyes, and there was the mate and five
able-bodied men holding the captain’s hair on his head. The men’s
teeth, too, were all blown out of their mouths, and kept rattling among
the rigging like half-a-dozen old shot in a locker. On we went, faster
and faster, till all of a sudden we saw the sails flapping against the
masts, and the ship was evidently turning round in spite of the helm.
“‘We’re out of it now,’ mumbles Safety Jack.
“‘I think we’re in for it,’ cried the mate. ‘This is a whirlpool!’
“And so it was; round and round we flew like lightning, coming nearer
to one point at each turn. The men all fell down on the deck as giddy
as geese, and Safety Jack he begins screaming. Just to give you an idea
of how we went round, there was two of the crew as had a squabble about
a bottle of rum, and one on ’em says—‘If I can’t have it you sha’n’t,
and there it goes,’ shieing it behind him. Well, you’ll hardly believe
it—but the ship was going round so fast in a circle of about a mile,
that afore the bottle could drop the man as threw it was brought round
to it again, and it knocked his eye out. Well, presently the ship gives
a kind of shivering and stops for half a moment, and Safety Jack he
screams again. Then the water opened like a well-hole, and just for a
moment we could see it bubbling and lashing like a boiling cauldron.
Then down we went into the foaming surge like a lump of lead.”
“You don’t mean to swear to that?”
“Yes, I do; at any time and any day; I should think so, and rather
think I ought to know, as I was there.”
“And how did you get saved? That’s the question, my boy.”
“You ought to be satisfied about that, I should think,” said Jack, “by
seeing me here. If I had not escaped, I rather suppose I shouldn’t have
been here to have told you about it.”
“That’s all very well; but I ask you how you escaped?”
“Oh, that’s quite another thing. I floated about for eight weeks upon
an empty tar barrel.”
“Eight weeks, did you say?”
“Yes; eight weeks, two days, four hours, and three-quarters.”
“The deuce you did! How came you to be so mighty particular as to the
three-quarters?”
“Because I thought some fool would be sure to ask me.”
“Oh, that indeed; but the most odd thing that happened to me, I will
say, was when I was once wrecked on an island that we called Flee
Island.”
“Flee Island; what a rum name! What made you call it that, I should
like to know?”
“Oh, a trifling circumstance—there was nothing in it but flees, and
they were as big as elephants.”
“Very good,” said Jack; “I can believe that, because there is nothing
outrageous about it. I don’t consider myself at all difficult to
please, and so long as you stick to such things as that nobody can
doubt you will find it all right with me.”
“I am very much obliged—but should you happen ever to come across that
captain of yours again——”
“Yes, but it were a good while afterwards I was on board a whaler, and
I saw something floating that looked like a great lump of chalk, and
when we picked it up, who should it turn out to be but Safety Jack,
what they call putrefied, and turned to something like white coral.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do; we keep him out of curiosity for about a week lashed up to
the mainmast, but the men of the night watch were scared at him, and
threw him overboard, because they said, when the moonlight fell upon
him, he for all the world looked like a ghost, and they couldn’t keep
their eyes off him, which I dare say was somewhere about the truth.”
“You certainly have seen a little service; but mix yourself another
glass of grog, and I shall do the same, for I don’t mean to turn into
hammock to-night.”
“What for?”
“Because there is going to be a storm. I have not been looking at the
weather for so many years without being able to tell that before it
comes. There will be a storm before twenty-four hours are over, and
I think it will blow off the sea, so that there will be no end of
mischief.”
Jack Pringle went to the door of the fisherman’s hut, and, although
the evening had set in, he cast a scrutinizing glance at the heavens,
looked earnestly in the direction from whence the wind proceeded, and
when he came back again and sat down by the side of the old sailor, he
said,—
“You are right; there will not only be a storm, but such a one too as
they hav’n’t seen for some time; so I shall no more think of turning
in than you do. Who knows but that some vessel may be drifted in shore,
and then we who are seamen will be able to do more good than a score of
your shore-going fellows, who are afraid if the saltwater gets above
their ankles.”
“That’s true enough; when the wind does rise in this way, and blows a
strong gale, it is pretty clear that there will be something in the
shape of wreck to look at.”
The prognostications of Jack and the old sailor turned out, as we
know, to be tolerably correct, for the storm which they anticipated
was precisely that severe one which roused the Baron Stolmuyer of
Saltzburgh from his lethargy, and induced him to go down to the beach,
to see what was likely to be the fate of the vessel from which the
signals of distress had proceeded.
So soon as the wind began to howl, and the waves to dash upon the
shore, Jack Pringle and the old sailor left the cottage, and stood with
great anxiety upon the beach, anxious to render what assistance they
could to those who were suffering from the fury of the storm.
We have before mentioned that a boat that the Baron Stolmuyer saw
swamped, had ventured out to the assistance of the crew.
In that boat had been Jack Pringle; and he had refused to allow the old
sailor to accompany him, on account of his age.
“No, no,” said Jack; “this is a work for youngsters, and they and they
only ought to set about it. You remain where you are. We know well
enough that your will is good, and let that be sufficient; and now, my
lads, who will go with me?”
Jack soon got a few good volunteers, and started out on his chivalrous
expedition, to see what could be done towards rescuing some of the crew
of the distressed ship.
But, alas! what the baron had said about the fate of that boat was
true, although he was incorrect as regarded the consequences of its
swamping to all on board; for Jack Pringle, in consequence of being a
first-rate swimmer, and possessed likewise as he was of great coolness
and presence of mind, contrived to reach shore again, although he was
the only one of the ill-fated crew who really did so.
But, as Jack himself said, they died in a noble cause, and as everybody
must die some time in some sort of way, he didn’t see that they had
anything very particular to complain of in that respect.
It was on the second occasion, however, that Jack was going out with a
life-boat, that the baron reached the beach, and then, as if indignant
that such daring attempts should be made to save what he evidently
thought so little of, namely, human life, he retired in indignation
again to his home.
But not all the barons in the world would have stopped Jack in his
chivalrous enterprise, and so he proceeded at once to carry it out
to the best of his ability; and he did pick up a man who was nearly
exhausted, and clinging, with but a faint hope of deliverance, to a
portion of wreck.