THE "WARREN HASTINGS."
Time, the inexorable, kept mowing away at poor Charles's flowers until
the disagreeable old creature had cut them all down but two or three,
and mowed right into the morning when it was necessary that he should go
home; and then Charles, looking forward through his tears, could see
nothing at first but the very commonest grass. For was he not going to
leave Adelaide, probably never to see her again? In short, Charles was
in love, and going to separate from the object of his affections for the
first time; at which I request you not to laugh, but just reflect how
old you were yourself when you first fell in love.
The little flirt, she must have waited till she heard him coming out of
his room, and then have pretended to be coming upstairs all in a hurry.
He got a kiss or a dozen, though, and a lock of hair, I believe; but he
hadn't much time to think about it, for Lord Ascot was calling out for
him, and when he got into the hall, there was all the household to see
him off. Everybody had a kind word for him; the old lady cried; Lord
Saltire and the general shook hands; Lord Welter said it was a beastly
sell; and Lord Ascot hummed and hawed, and told him to tell his father
he had been a good boy. They were all sorry he was going, and he felt as
though he was leaving old friends; but the carriage was there, and the
rain was pouring down; and, with one last look at the group of faces, he
was in the carriage and away.
It was a terrible day, though he did not notice it at first. He was
thinking how pleasant it was that the people were all so kind to him,
just as kind as they were at home. He thought of Adelaide, and wondered
whether she would ever think of him. He was rather glad that Welter was
a naughty boy (not really naughty, you know), because she would be less
likely to like him. And then he thought how glad the people at home
would be to see him; and then he looked out of the window. He had left
Lord Ascot's carriage and got into the train some time before this. Now
he saw that the train was going very slowly, and nothing was visible
through the driving rain. Then he tried to remember whether he had heard
his father speak of Lord Saltire, and what he had heard about him; and
thinking about this, the train stopped.--Swindon.
He got out to go to the refreshment room, and began wondering what the
noise was which prevented him from hearing any one when they spoke, and
why the people looked scared, and talked in knots. Then he found that it
was the wind in the roof; and some one told him that a chimney had been
blown across the line, and they must wait till it was removed.
All the day the brave engine fought westward against the wind, and two
hours after time Charles found himself in the coach which would take him
to Stonnington. The night crept on, and the coach crawled on its way
through the terrible night, and Charles slept. In the cold pitiless
morning, as they were going over a loftily exposed moor, the coach,
though only going foot's pace, stood for a moment on two wheels, and
then fell crashing over on to a heap of road-side stones, awaking
Charles, who, being unhurt, lay still for a minute or so, with a faint
impression of having been shaken in his sleep, and, after due
reflection, made the brilliant discovery that the coach was upset.
He opened the door over his head and jumped out. For an instant he was
blinded by the stinging rain, but turned his back to it; and then, for
the first time, he became aware that this was the most terrible gale of
wind he had ever seen in his lifetime.
He assisted the coachman and guard, and the solitary outside passenger,
to lead the poor horses along the road. They fought on for about two
hundred yards, and came to an alehouse, on the sight of which Charles
knew that they were two stages short of where he thought they had been,
for this was the Watershed Inn, and the rain from its roof ran partly
into the Bristol Channel and partly into the British.
After an hour's rest here Charles was summoned to join the coach in the
valley below, and they crawled on again. It was a weary day over some
very bleak country. They saw in one place a cottage unroofed on a moor,
and the terrified family crouched down beneath the tottering walls. In
the valleys great trees were down across the road, which were cross-cut
and moved by country men, who told of oaks of three hundred years fallen
in the night, and of corn stacks hurried before the blast like the
leaves of autumn. Still, as each obstacle was removed, there was the
guard up blowing his horn cheerily, and Charles was inside with a jump,
and on they went.
At last, at three o'clock, the coach drove under the gate of the
"Chichester Arms," at Stonnington, and Charles, jumping out, was
received by the establishment with the air of people who had done a
clever thing, and were ready to take their meed of praise with humility.
The handsome landlady took great credit to herself for Charles's
arrival--so much so, that one would have thought she herself had
singlehanded dragged the coach from Exeter. "_She_ had been sure all
along that Mr. Charles would come"--a speech which, with the cutting
glance that accompanied it, goaded the landlord to retort in a voice
wheezy with good living, and to remind her that she had said, not ten
minutes before, that she was quite sure he wouldn't; whereupon the
landlady loftily begged him not to expose himself before the servants.
At which the landlord laughed, and choked himself; at which the landlady
slapped him on the back, and laughed too; after which they went in.
His father, the landlord told him, had sent his pony over, as he was
afraid of a carriage on the moor to-day, and that, if he felt at all
afraid to come on, he was to sleep where he was. Charles looked at the
comfortable parlour and hesitated; but, happening to close his eyes an
instant, he saw as plain as possible the library at home, and the
flickering fire-light falling on the crimson and oak furniture, and his
father listening for him through the roaring wind; and so he hesitated
no longer, but said he would push on, and that he would wish to see his
servant while he took dinner.
The landlord eyed him admiringly with his head on one side, and
proceeded to remark that corn was down another shilling; that Squire
West had sold his chesnut mare for one hundred and twenty pounds; and
that if he kept well under the walls going home he would be out of the
wind; that his missis was took poorly in the night with spasms, and had
been cured by two wine-glasses of peppermint; that a many chimney-pots
was blown down, and that old Jim Baker had heard tell as a pig was
blowed through a church window. After which he poked the fire and
retired.
Charles was hard at his dinner when his man came in. It was the oldest
of the pad grooms--a man with grizzled hair, looking like a white
terrier; and he stood before him smoothing his face with his hand.
"Hallo, Michael," said Charley, "how came you to come?"
"Master wouldn't send no other, sir. It's a awful day down there;
there's above a hundred trees down along the road."
"Shall we be able to get there?"
"As much as we shall, sir."
"Let us try. Terrible sea, I suppose?"
"Awful to look at, sir. Mr. Mackworth and Mr. Cuthbert are down to look
at it."
"No craft ashore?"
"None as yet. None of our boats is out. Yesterday morning a Pill boat,
52, stood in to see where she was, and beat out again, but that was
before it came on so bad."
So they started. They pushed rapidly out of the town, and up a narrow
wooded valley which led to the moor which lay between them and
Ravenshoe. For some time they were well enough sheltered, and made
capital way, till the wood began to grow sparer, and the road to rise
abruptly. Here the blast began to be more sensibly felt, and in a
quarter of mile they had to leap three uprooted trees; before them they
heard a rushing noise like the sea. It was the wind upon the moor.
Creeping along under the high stone walls, and bending down, they pushed
on still, until, coming to the open moor, and receiving for the first
time the terrible tornado full in their faces, the horses reared up and
refused to proceed; but, being got side by side, and their heads being
homeward, they managed to get on, though the rain upon their faces was
agonising.
As they were proceeding thus, with Michael on the windward side, Charles
looked up, and there was another horseman beside him. He knew him
directly; it was Lloyd's agent.
"Anything wrong, Mr. Lewis? Any ship ashore?" he shouted.
"Not yet, sir," said the agent. "But there'll be many a good sailor gone
to the bottom before to-morrow morning, I am thinking. This is the
heaviest gale for forty years."
By degrees they descended to more sheltered valleys, and after a time
found themselves in the court-yard of the hall. Charles was caught up by
his father; Lloyd's agent was sent to the housekeeper's room; and very
soon Charles had forgotten all about wind and weather, and was pouring
into his father's ear all his impressions of Ranford.
"I am glad you liked it," said Densil, "and I'll be bound they liked
you. You ought to have gone first, Cuthbert don't suit them."
"Oh, Cuthbert's too clever for them," said Charles; "they are not at all
clever people, bless you!" And only just in time too, for Cuthbert
walked into the room.
"Well, Charley," he said, coolly, "so you're come back. Well, and what
did you think of Welter, eh? I suppose he suited you?"
"I thought him very funny, Cuthbert," said Charles, timidly.
"I thought him an abominable young nuisance," said Cuthbert. "I hope he
hasn't taught you any of his fool's tricks."
Charles wasn't to be put off like this; so he went and kissed his
brother, and then came back to his father. There was a long dull
evening, and when they went to complines, he went to bed. Up in his
room he could hear that the wind was worse than ever, not rushing up in
great gusts and sinking again, as in ordinary gales, but keeping up one
continued unvarying scream against the house, which was terrible to
hear.
He got frightened at being alone; afraid of finding some ghostly thing
at his elbow, which had approached him unheard through the noise. He
began, indeed, to meditate upon going down stairs, when Cuthbert, coming
into the next room, reassured him, and he got into bed.
This wasn't much better, though, for there was a thing in a black hood
came and stood at the head of his bed; and, though he could not see it,
he could feel the wind of its heavy draperies as it moved. Moreover, a
thing like a caterpillar, with a cat's head, about two feet long, came
creep--creeping up the counterpane, which he valiantly smote, and found
it to be his handkerchief; and still the unvarying roar went on till it
was unendurable.
He got up and went to his brother's room, and was cheered to find a
light burning; he came softly in and called "Cuthbert."
"Who is there?" asked he, with a sudden start.
"It's I," said Charles; "can you sleep?"
"Not I," saith Cuthbert, sitting up. "I can hear people talking in the
wind. Come into bed; I'm so glad you're come."
Charles lay down by his brother, and they talked about ghosts for a long
time. Once their father came in with a light from his bedroom next door,
and sat on the bed talking, as if he, too, was glad of company, and
after that they dozed off and slept.
It was in the grey light of morning that they awoke together and started
up. The wind was as bad as ever, but the whole house was still, and they
stared terrified at one another.
"What was it?" whispered Charles.
Cuthbert shook his head, and listened again. As he was opening his mouth
to speak it came again, and they knew it was that which woke them. A
sound like a single footstep on the floor above, light enough, but which
shook the room. Cuthbert was out of bed in an instant, tearing on his
clothes. Charles jumped out too, and asked him, "What is it?"
"A gun!"
Charles well knew what awful disaster was implied in those words. The
wind was N.W., setting into the bay. The ship that fired that gun was
doomed.
He heard his father leap out of bed, and ring furiously at his bell.
Then doors began to open and shut, and voices and rapid footsteps were
heard in the passage. In ten minutes the whole terrified household were
running hither and thither, about they hardly knew what. The men were
pale, and some of the women were beginning to whimper and wring their
hands; when Densil, Lewis the agent, and Mackworth came rapidly down the
staircase and passed out. Mackworth came back, and told the women to put
on hot water and heat blankets. Then Cuthbert joined him, and they went
together; and directly after Charles found himself between two
men-servants, being dragged rapidly along towards the low headland which
bounded the bay on the east.
When they came to the beach, they found the whole village pushing on in
a long straggling line the same way as themselves. The men were walking
singly, either running or going very fast; and the women were in knots
of twos and threes, straggling along and talking excitedly, with much
gesticulation.
"There's some of the elect on board, I'll be bound," Charles heard one
woman say, "as will be supping in glory this blessed night."
"Ay, ay," said an old woman. "I'd sooner be taken to rest sudden, like
they're going to be, than drag on till all the faces you know are gone
before."
"My boy," said another, "was lost in a typhoon in the China sea. Darn
they lousy typhoons! I wonder if he thought of his mother afore he went
down."
Among such conversation as this, with the terrible, ceaseless thunder of
the surf upon the left, Charles, clinging tight to his two guardians,
made the best weather of it he could, until they found themselves on the
short turf of the promontory, with their faces seaward, and the water
right and left of them. The cape ran out about a third of a mile, rather
low, and then abruptly ended in a cone of slate, beyond which, about two
hundred yards at sea, was that terrible sunken rock, "the Wolf," on to
which, as sure as death, the flowing tide carried every stick which was
embayed. The tide was making; a ship was known to be somewhere in the
bay; it was blowing a hurricane; and what would you more?
They hurried along as well as they could among the sharp slates which
rose through the turf, until they came to where the people had halted.
Charles saw his father, the agent, Mackworth, and Cuthbert together,
under a rock; the villagers were standing around, and the crowd was
thickening every moment. Every one had his hand over his eyes, and was
peering due to windward, through the driving scud.
They had stopped at the foot of the cone, which was between them and the
sea, and some more adventurous had climbed partly up it, if, perhaps,
they might see further than their fellows; but in vain: they all saw and
heard the same--a blinding white cauldron of wind-driven spray below,
and all around, filling every cranny, the howling storm.
A quarter of an hour since she fired last, and no signs of her yet. She
must be carrying canvas and struggling for life, ignorant of the
four-knot stream. Some one says she may have gone down--hush! who spoke?
Old Sam Evans had spoken. He had laid his hand on the squire's shoulder,
and said, "There she is." And then arose a hubbub of talking from the
men, and every one crowded on his neighbour and tried to get nearer. And
the women moved hurriedly about, some moaning to themselves, and some
saying, "Ah, poor dear!" "Ah, dear Lord! there she is, sure enough."
She hove in sight so rapidly that, almost as soon as they could be sure
of a dark object, they saw that it was a ship--a great ship about 900
tons; that she was dismasted, and that her decks were crowded. They
could see that she was unmanageable, turning her head hither and thither
as the sea struck her, and that her people had seen the cliff at the
same moment, for they were hurrying aft, and crowding on to the
bulwarks.
Charles and his guardians crept up to his father's party. Densil was
standing silent, looking on the lamentable sight; and, as Charles looked
at him, he saw a tear run down his cheek, and heard him say, "Poor
fellows!" Cuthbert stood staring intently at the ship, with his lips
slightly parted. Mackworth, like one who studies a picture, held his
elbow in one hand, and kept the other over his mouth; and the agent
cried out, "A troop-ship, by gad. Dear! dear!"
It is a sad sight to see a fine ship beyond control. It is like seeing
one one loves gone mad. Sad under any circumstances; how terrible it is
when she is bearing on with her, in her mad Bacchante's dance, a freight
of living human creatures to untimely destruction!
As each terrible feature and circumstance of the catastrophe became
apparent to the lookers-on, the excitement became more intense. Forward,
and in the waist, there was a considerable body of seamen clustered
about under the bulwarks--some half-stripped. In front of the cuddy
door, between the poop and the mainmast, about forty soldiers were drawn
up, with whom were three officers, to be distinguished by their blue
coats and swords. On the quarter-deck were seven or eight women, two
apparently ladies, one of whom carried a baby. A well-dressed man,
evidently the captain, was with them; but the cynosure of all eyes was
a tall man in white trousers, at once and correctly judged to be the
mate, who carried in his arms a little girl.
The ship was going straight upon the rock, now only marked as a whiter
spot upon the whitened sea, and she was fearfully near it, rolling and
pitching, turning her head hither and thither, fighting for her life.
She had taken comparatively little water on board as yet; but now a
great sea struck her forward, and she swung with her bow towards the
rock, from which she was distant not a hundred yards. The end was
coming. Charles saw the mate slip off his coat and shirt, and take the
little girl again. He saw the lady with the baby rise very quietly and
look forward; he saw the sailors climbing on the bulwarks; he saw the
soldiers standing steady in two scarlet lines across the deck; he saw
the officers wave their hands to one another; and then he hid his face
in his hands, and sobbed as if his heart would break.
They told him after how the end had come: she had lifted up her bows
defiantly, and brought them crashing down upon the pitiless rock as
though in despair. Then her stem had swung round, and a merciful sea
broke over her, and hid her from their view, though above the storm they
plainly heard her brave old timbers crack; then she floated off, with
bulwarks gone, sinking, and drifted out of sight round the headland,
and, though they raced across the headland, and waited a few breathless
minutes for her to float round into sight again, they never saw her any
more. The _Warren Hastings_ had gone down in fifteen fathoms. And now
there was a new passion introduced into the tragedy to which it had
hitherto been a stranger--Hope. The wreck of part of the mainmast and
half the main-topmast, which they had seen, before she struck, lumbering
the deck, had floated off, and there were three, four, five men clinging
to the futtock shrouds; and then they saw the mate with the child hoist
himself on to the spar, and part his dripping hair from his eyes.
The spar had floated into the bay, into which they were looking, into
much calmer water; but, directly too leeward, the swell was tearing at
the black slate rocks, and in ten minutes it would be on them. Every man
saw the danger, and Densil, running down to the water's edge, cried--
"Fifty pounds to any one who will take 'em a rope! Fifty gold sovereigns
down to-night! Who's going?"
Jim Matthews was going, and had been going before he heard of the fifty
pounds--that was evident; for he was stripped, and out on the rocks,
with the rope round his waist. He stepped from the bank of slippery
seaweed into the heaving water, and then his magnificent limbs were in
full battle with the tide. A roar announced his success. As he was seen
clambering on to the spar, a stouter rope was paid out; and very soon it
and its burden were high and dry upon the little half-moon of land which
ended the bay.
Five sailors, the first mate, and a bright-eyed little girl, were their
precious prize. The sailors lay about upon the sand, and the mate,
untying the shawl that bound her to him, put the silent and frightened
child into the hands of a woman that stood close by.
The poor little thing was trembling in every limb. "If you please," she
said to the woman, "I should like to go to mamma. She is standing with
baby on the quarter-deck. Mr. Archer, will you take me back to mamma,
please? She will be frightened if we stay away."
"Well, a-deary me," said the honest woman, "she'll break my heart, a
darling; mamma's in heaven, my tender, and baby too."
"No, indeed," said the child eagerly; "she's on the quarter-deck. Mr.
Archer, Mr. Archer!"
The mate, a tall, brawny, whiskerless, hard-faced man, about
six-and-twenty, who had been thrust into a pea-coat, now approached.
"Where's mamma, Mr. Archer?" said the child.
"Where's mamma, my lady-bird? Oh, dear! oh, dear!"
"And where's the ship, and Captain Dixon, and the soldiers?"
"The ship, my pretty love?" said the mate, putting his rough hand on the
child's wet hair; "why the good ship, _Warren Hastings_, Dixon master,
is a-sunk beneath the briny waves, my darling; and all on board of her,
being good sailors and brave soldiers, is doubtless at this moment in
glory."
The poor little thing set up a low wailing cry, which went to the hearts
of all present; then the women carried her away, and the mate, walking
between Mackworth and Densil, headed the procession homeward to the
hall.
"She was the _Warren Hastings_, of 900 tons," he said, "from Calcutta,
with a detachment of the 120th on board. The old story--dismasted, both
anchors down, cables parted, and so on. And now I expect you know as
much as I do. This little girl is daughter to Captain Corby, in command
of the troops. She was always a favourite of mine, and I determined to
get her through. How steady those sojers stood, by jingo, as though they
were on parade! Well, I always thought something was going to happen,
for we had never a quarrel the whole voyage, and that's curious with
troops. Capital crew, too. Ah, well, they are comfortable enough now,
eh, Sir?"
That night the mate arose from his bed like a giant refreshed with wine,
and posted off to Bristol to "her owners," followed by a letter from
Densil, and another from Lloyd's agent of such a nature that he found
himself in command of a ship in less than a month. Periodically, unto
this day, there arrive at Ravenshoe, bows and arrows (supposed to be
poisoned), paddles, punkahs, rice-paper screens; a malignant kind of
pickle, which causeth the bowels of him that eateth of it to burn;
wicked-looking old gods of wood and stone; models of Juggernaut's car;
brown earthenware moonshees, translating glazed porcelain Bibles; and
many other Indian curiosities, all of which are imported and presented
by the kind-hearted Archer.
In a fortnight the sailors were gone, and, save a dozen or so of new
graves in the churchyard, nothing remained to tell of the _Warren
Hastings_ but the little girl saved so miraculously--little Mary Corby.
She had been handed over at once to the care of the kind-hearted Norah,
Charles's nurse, who instantaneously loved her with all her great warm
heart, and about three weeks after the wreck gave Charles these
particulars about her, when he went to pay her a visit in the cottage
behind the kennels.
After having hugged him violently, and kissed him till he laughingly
refused to let her do it again till she had told him the news, she
began--"The beauty-boy, he gets handsomer every day" (this might be
true, but there was great room for improvement yet), "and comes and sees
his old nurse, and who loves him so well, alanna? It's little I can tell
ye about the little girl, me darlin'. She's nine years old, and a
heretic, like yer own darlin' self, and who's to gainsay ye from it?
She's book-learned enough, and play she says she can, and I axed her
would she like to live in the great house, and she said no. She liked
me, and wanted to stay with me. She cries about her mother, a dear, but
not so much as she did, and she's now inside and asleep. Come here,
avick."
She bent down her handsome face to Charles's ear and whispered, "If my
boy was looking out for a little wee fairy wife, eh?"
Charles shook his hair, and laughed, and there and then told Norah all
about Adelaide, which attachment Norah highly approved of, and remarked
that he'd be old enough to be married before he knew where he was.
In spite of Densil's letters and inquiries, no friends came forward to
claim little Mary. Uncle Corby, when in possession of facts, was far too
much a man of business to do anything of the kind. In a very short time
Densil gave up inquiring, and then he began dreading lest she should be
taken from him, for he had got wonderfully fond of the quiet, pale,
bright-eyed little creature. In three months she was considered as a
permanent member of the household, and the night before Charles went to
school he told her of his grand passion. His lordship considered this
step showed deep knowledge of the world, as it would have the effect of
crushing in the bud any rash hopes which Mary might have conceived; and,
having made this provision for her peace of mind, he straightway
departed to Shrewsbury school.