THE BAGPIPE
I
STREAKS OF FIRE ON THE HORIZON
Gilliatt had never spoken to Déruchette; he knew her from having seen
her at a distance, as men know the morning star.
At the period when Déruchette had met Gilliatt on the road leading from
St. Peter's Port to Vale, and had surprised him by tracing his name in
the snow, she was just sixteen years of age. Only the evening before
Mess Lethierry had said to her, "Come, no more childish tricks; you are
a great girl."
That word "Gilliatt," written by the young maiden, had sunk into an
unfathomed depth.
What were women to Gilliatt? He could not have answered that question
himself. When he met one he generally inspired her with something of the
timidity which he felt himself. He never spoke to a woman except from
urgent necessity. He had never played the part of a "gallant" to any one
of the country girls. When he found himself alone on the road, and
perceived a woman coming towards him, he would climb over a fence, or
bury himself in some copse: he even avoided old women. Once in his life
he had seen a Parisian lady. A _Parisienne_ on the wing was a strange
event in Guernsey at that distant epoch; and Gilliatt had heard this
gentle lady relate her little troubles in these words: "I am very much
annoyed; I have got some spots of rain upon my bonnet. Pale buff is a
shocking colour for rain." Having found, some time afterwards, between
the leaves of a book, an old engraving, representing "a lady of the
Chaussée d'Antin" in full dress, he had stuck it against the wall at
home as a souvenir of this remarkable apparition.
On that Christmas morning when he had met Déruchette, and when she had
written his name and disappeared laughing, he returned home, scarcely
conscious of why he had gone out. That night he slept little; he was
dreaming of a thousand things: that it would be well to cultivate black
radishes in the garden; that he had not seen the boat from Sark pass
by; had anything happened to it? Then he remembered that he had seen the
white stonecrop in flower, a rare thing at that season. He had never
known exactly who was the woman who had reared him, and he made up his
mind that she must have been his mother, and thought of her with
redoubled tenderness. He called to mind the lady's clothing in the old
leathern trunk. He thought that the Reverend Jaquemin Hérode would
probably one day or other be appointed dean of St. Peter's Port and
surrogate of the bishop, and that the rectory of St. Sampson would
become vacant. Next, he remembered that the morrow of Christmas would be
the twenty-seventh day of the moon, and that consequently high water
would be at twenty-one minutes past three, the half-ebb at a quarter
past seven, low water at thirty-three minutes past nine, and half flood
at thirty-nine minutes past twelve. He recalled, in the most trifling
details, the costume of the Highlander who had sold him the bagpipe; his
bonnet with a thistle ornament, his claymore, his close-fitting short
jacket, his philabeg ornamented with a pocket, and his snuff-horn, his
pin set with a Scottish stone, his two girdles, his sash and belts, his
sword, cutlass, dirk, and skene-dhu--his black-sheathed knife, with its
black handle ornamented with two cairngorms--and the bare knees of the
soldier; his socks, gaiters, and buckled shoes. This highly-equipped
figure became a spectre in his imagination, which pursued him with a
sense of feverishness as he sunk into oblivion. When he awoke it was
full daylight, and his first thought was of Déruchette.
The next night he slept more soundly, but he was dreaming again of the
Scottish soldier. In the midst of his sleep he remembered that the
after-Christmas sittings of the Chief Law Court would commence on the
21st of January. He dreamed also about the Reverend Jaquemin Hérode. He
thought of Déruchette, and seemed to be in violent anger with her. He
wished he had been a child again to throw stones at her windows. Then he
thought that if he were a child again he should have his mother by his
side, and he began to sob.
Gilliatt had a project at this time of going to pass three months at
Chousey, or at the Miriquiers; but he did not go.
He walked no more along the road to St. Peter's Port.
He had an odd fancy that his name of "Gilliatt" had remained there
traced upon the ground, and that the passers-by stopped to read it.
II
THE UNKNOWN UNFOLDS ITSELF BY DEGREES
On the other hand, Gilliatt had the satisfaction of seeing the Bravées
every day. By some accident he was continually passing that way. His
business seemed always to lead him by the path which passed under the
wall of Déruchette's garden.
One morning, as he was walking along this path, he heard a market-woman
who was returning from the Bravées, say to another: "Mess Lethierry is
fond of sea-kale."
He dug in his garden of the Bû de la Rue a trench for sea-kale. The
sea-kale is a vegetable which has a flavour like asparagus.
The wall of the garden of the Bravées was very low; it would have been
easy to scale it. The idea of scaling it would have appeared, to him,
terrible. But there was nothing to hinder his hearing, as any one else
might, the voices of persons talking as he passed, in the rooms or in
the garden. He did not listen, but he heard them. Once he could
distinguish the voices of the two servants, Grace and Douce, disputing.
It was a sound which belonged to the house, and their quarrel remained
in his ears like a remembrance of music.
On another occasion, he distinguished a voice which was different, and
which seemed to him to be the voice of Déruchette. He quickened his
pace, and was soon out of hearing.
The words uttered by that voice, however, remained fixed in his memory.
He repeated them at every instant. They were, "Will you please give me
the little broom?"
By degrees he became bolder. He had the daring to stay awhile. One day
it happened that Déruchette was singing at her piano, altogether
invisible from without, although her window was open. The air was that
of "Bonnie Dundee." He grew pale, but he screwed his courage to the
point of listening.
Springtide came. One day Gilliatt enjoyed a beatific vision. The heavens
were opened, and there, before his eyes, appeared Déruchette, watering
lettuces in her little garden.
Soon afterwards he look to doing more than merely listening there. He
watched her habits, observed her hours, and waited to catch a glimpse of
her.
In all this he was very careful not to be seen.
The year advanced; the time came when the trellises were heavy with
roses, and haunted by the butterflies. By little and little, he had come
to conceal himself for hours behind her wall, motionless and silent,
seen by no one, and holding his breath as Déruchette passed in and out
of her garden. Men grow accustomed to poison by degrees.
From his hiding-place he could often hear the sound of Déruchette
conversing with Mess Lethierry under a thick arch of leaves, in a spot
where there was a garden-seat. The words came distinctly to his ears.
What a change had come over him! He had even descended to watch and
listen. Alas! there is something of the character of a spy in every
human heart.
There was another garden-seat, visible to him, and nearer. Déruchette
would sit there sometimes.
From the flowers that he had observed her gathering he had guessed her
taste in the matter of perfumes. The scent of the bindweed was her
favourite, then the pink, then the honeysuckle, then the jasmine. The
rose stood only fifth in the scale. She looked at the lilies, but did
not smell them.
Gilliatt figured her in his imagination from this choice of odours. With
each perfume he associated some perfection.
The very idea of speaking to Déruchette would have made his hair stand
on end. A poor old rag-picker, whose wandering brought her, from time to
time, into the little road leading under the inclosure of the Bravées,
had occasionally remarked Gilliatt's assiduity beside the wall, and his
devotion for this retired spot. Did she connect the presence of a man
before this wall with the possibility of a woman behind it? Did she
perceive that vague, invisible thread? Was she, in her decrepit
mendicancy, still youthful enough to remember something of the old
happier days? And could she, in this dark night and winter of her
wretched life, still recognise the dawn? We know not: but it appears
that, on one occasion, passing near Gilliatt at his post, she brought to
bear upon him something as like a smile as she was still capable of, and
muttered between her teeth, "It is getting warmer."
Gilliatt heard the words, and was struck by them. "It warms one," he
muttered, with an inward note of interrogation. "It is getting warmer."
What did the old woman mean?
He repeated the phrase mechanically all day, but he could not guess its
meaning.
III
THE AIR "BONNIE DUNDEE" FINDS AN ECHO ON THE HILL
It was in a spot behind the enclosure of the garden of the Bravées, at
an angle of the wall, half concealed with holly and ivy, and covered
with nettles, wild mallow, and large white mullen growing between the
blocks of stone, that he passed the greater part of that summer. He
watched there, lost in deep thought. The lizards grew accustomed to his
presence, and basked in the sun among the same stones. The summer was
bright and full of dreamy indolence: overhead the light clouds came and
went. Gilliatt sat upon the grass. The air was full of the songs of
birds. He held his two hands up to his forehead, sometimes trying to
recollect himself: "Why should she write my name in the snow?" From a
distance the sea breeze came up in gentle breaths, at intervals the horn
of the quarrymen sounded abruptly, warning the passers-by to take
shelter, as they shattered some mass with gunpowder. The Port of St.
Sampson was not visible from this place, but he could see the tips of
masts above the trees. The sea-gulls flew wide and afar. Gilliatt had
heard his mother say that women could love men; that such things
happened sometimes. He remembered it; and said within himself, "Who
knows, may not Déruchette love me?" Then a feeling of sadness would come
upon him; he would say, "She, too, thinks of me in her turn. It is
well." He remembered that Déruchette was rich, and that he was poor: and
then the new boat appeared to him an execrable invention. He could never
remember what day of the month it was. He would stare listlessly at the
great bees, with their yellow bodies and their short wings, as they
entered with a buzzing noise into the holes in the wall.
One evening Déruchette went in-doors to retire to bed. She approached
her window to close it. The night was dark. Suddenly, something caught
her ear, and she listened. Somewhere in the darkness there was a sound
of music. It was some one, perhaps, on the hill-side, or at the foot of
the towers of Vale Castle, or, perhaps, further still, playing an air
upon some instrument. Déruchette recognised her favourite melody,
"Bonnie Dundee," played upon the bagpipe. She thought little of it.
From that night the music might be heard again from time to time at the
same hours, particularly when the nights were very dark.
Déruchette was not much pleased with all this.
IV
"A serenade by night may please a lady fair,
But of uncle and of guardian let the troubadour beware."
_Unpublished Comedy_
Four years passed away.
Déruchette was approaching her twenty-first year, and was still
unmarried. Some writer has said that a fixed idea is a sort of gimlet;
every year gives it another turn. To pull out the first year is like
plucking out the hair by the roots; in the second year, like tearing the
skin; in the third, like breaking the bones; and in the fourth, like
removing the very brain itself.
Gilliatt had arrived at this fourth stage.
He had never yet spoken a word to Déruchette. He lived and dreamed near
that delightful vision. This was all.
It happened one day that, finding himself by chance at St. Sampson, he
had seen Déruchette talking with Mess Lethierry at the door of the
Bravées, which opens upon the roadway of the port. Gilliatt ventured to
approach very near. He fancied that at the very moment of his passing
she had smiled. There was nothing impossible in that.
Déruchette still heard, from time to time, the sound of the bagpipe.
Mess Lethierry had also heard this bagpipe. By degrees he had come to
remark this persevering musician under Déruchette's window. A tender
strain, too; all the more suspicious. A nocturnal gallant was a thing
not to his taste. His wish was to marry Déruchette in his own time, when
she was willing and he was willing, purely and simply, without any
romance, or music, or anything of that sort. Irritated at it, he had at
last kept a watch, and he fancied that he had detected Gilliatt. He
passed his fingers through his beard--a sign of anger--and grumbled out,
"What has that fellow got to pipe about? He is in love with Déruchette,
that is clear. You waste your time, young man. Any one who wants
Déruchette must come to me, and not loiter about playing the flute."
An event of importance, long foreseen, occurred soon afterwards. It was
announced that the Reverend Jaquemin Hérode was appointed surrogate of
the Bishop of Winchester, dean of the island, and rector of St. Peter's
Port, and that he would leave St. Sampson for St. Peter's immediately
after his successor should be installed.
It could not be long to the arrival of the new rector. He was a
gentleman of Norman extraction, Monsieur Ebenezer Caudray.
Some facts were known about the new rector, which the benevolent and
malevolent interpreted in a contrary sense. He was known to be young and
poor, but his youth was tempered with much learning, and his poverty by
good expectations. In the dialect specially invented for the subject of
riches and inheritances, death goes by the name of "expectations." He
was the nephew and heir of the aged and opulent dean of St. Asaph. At
the death of this old gentleman he would be a rich man. M. Caudray had
distinguished relations. He was almost entitled to the quality of
"Honourable." As regarded his doctrine, people judged differently. He
was an Anglican, but, according to the expression of Bishop Tillotson, a
"libertine"--that is, in reality, one who was very severe. He repudiated
all pharisaism. He was a friend rather of the Presbytery than the
Episcopacy. He dreamed of the Primitive Church of the days when even
Adam had the right to choose his Eve, and when Frumentinus, Bishop of
Hierapolis, carried off a young maiden to make her his wife, and said to
her parents, "Her will is such, and such is mine. You are no longer her
mother, and you are no longer her father. I am the Bishop of Hierapolis,
and this is my wife. Her father is in heaven." If the common belief
could be trusted, M. Caudray subordinated the text, "Honour thy father
and thy mother," to that other text, in his eyes of higher significance,
"The woman is the flesh of the man. She shall leave her father and
mother to follow her husband." This tendency, however, to circumscribe
the parental authority and to favour religiously every mode of forming
the conjugal tie, is peculiar to all Protestantism, particularly in
England, and singularly so in America.
V
A DESERVED SUCCESS HAS ALWAYS ITS DETRACTORS
At this period the affairs of Mess Lethierry were in this position:--The
Durande had well fulfilled all his expectations. He had paid his debts,
repaired his misfortunes, discharged his obligations at Brême, met his
acceptances at St. Malo. He had paid off the mortgage upon his house at
the Bravées, and had bought up all the little local rent charges upon
the property. He was also the proprietor of a great productive capital.
This was the Durande herself. The net revenue from the boat was about a
thousand pounds sterling per annum, and the traffic was constantly
increasing. Strictly speaking, the Durande constituted his entire
fortune. She was also the fortune of the island. The carriage of cattle
being one of the most profitable portions of her trade, he had been
obliged, in order to facilitate the stowage, and the embarking and
disembarking of animals, to do away with the luggage-boxes and the two
boats. It was, perhaps, imprudent. The Durande had but one boat--namely,
her long-boat; but this was an excellent one.
Ten years had elapsed since Rantaine's robbery.
This prosperity of the Durande had its weak point. It inspired no
confidence. People regarded it as a risk. Lethierry's good fortune was
looked upon as exceptional. He was considered to have gained by a lucky
rashness. Some one in the Isle of Wight who had imitated him had not
succeeded. The enterprise had ruined the shareholders. The engines, in
fact, were badly constructed. But people shook their heads. Innovations
have always to contend with the difficulty that few wish them well. The
least false step compromises them.
One of the commercial oracles of the Channel Islands, a certain banker
from Paris, named Jauge, being consulted upon a steamboat speculation,
was reported to have turned his back, with the remark, "An investment is
it you propose to me? Exactly; an investment in smoke."
On the other hand, the sailing vessels had no difficulty in finding
capitalists to take shares in a venture. Capital, in fact, was
obstinately in favour of sails, and as obstinately against boilers and
paddle-wheels. At Guernsey, the Durande was indeed a fact, but steam was
not yet an established principle. Such is the fanatical spirit of
conservatism in opposition to progress. They said of Lethierry, "It is
all very well; but he could not do it a second time." Far from
encouraging, his example inspired timidity. Nobody would have dared to
risk another Durande.
VI
THE SLOOP "CASHMERE" SAVES A SHIPWRECKED CREW
The equinoctial gales begin early in the Channel. The sea there is
narrow, and the winds disturb it easily. The westerly gales begin from
the month of February, and the waves are beaten about from every
quarter. Navigation becomes an anxious matter. The people on the coasts
look to the signal-post, and begin to watch for vessels in distress. The
sea is then like a cut-throat in ambush for his victim. An invisible
trumpet sounds the alarm of war with the elements, furious blasts spring
up from the horizon, and a terrible wind soon begins to blow. The dark
night whistles and howls. In the depth of the clouds the black tempest
distends its cheeks, and the storm arises.
The wind is one danger; the fogs are another.
Fogs have from all time been the terror of mariners. In certain fogs
microscopic prisms of ice are found in suspension, to which Mariotte
attributes halos, mock suns, and paraselenes. Storm-fogs are of a
composite character; various gases of unequal specific gravity combine
with the vapour of water, and arrange themselves, layer over layer, in
an order which divides the dense mist into zones. Below ranges the
iodine; above the iodine is the sulphur; above the sulphur the brome;
above the brome the phosphorus. This, in a certain manner, and making
allowance for electric and magnetic tension, explains several phenomena,
as the St. Elmo's Fire of Columbus and Magellan, the flying stars moving
about the ships, of which Seneca speaks; the two flames, Castor and
Pollux, mentioned by Plutarch; the Roman legion, whose spears appeared
to Cæsar to take fire; the peak of the Chateau of Duino in Friuli which
the sentinel made to sparkle by touching it with his lance; and perhaps
even those fulgurations from the earth which the ancients called Satan's
terrestrial lightnings. At the equator, an immense mist seems
permanently to encircle the globe. It is known as the cloud-ring. The
function of the cloud-ring is to temper the heat of the tropics, as that
of the Gulf-stream is to mitigate the coldness of the Pole. Under the
cloud-ring fogs are fatal. These are what are called _horse latitudes_.
It was here that navigators of bygone ages were accustomed to cast their
horses into the sea to lighten the ship in stormy weather, and to
economise the fresh water when becalmed. Columbus said, "_Nube abaxo ex
muerte_," death lurks in the low cloud. The Etruscans, who bear the same
relation to meteorology which the Chaldeans did to astronomy, had two
high priests--the high priest of the thunder, and the high priest of the
clouds. The "fulgurators" observed the lightning, and the weather sages
watched the mists. The college of Priest-Augurs was consulted by the
Syrians, the Phoenicians, the Pelasgi, and all the primitive navigators
of the ancient _Mare Internum_. The origin of tempests was, from that
time forward, partially understood. It is intimately connected with the
generation of fogs, and is, properly speaking, the same phenomenon.
There exist upon the ocean three regions of fogs, one equatorial and two
polar. The mariners give them but one name, the _pitch-pot_.
In all latitudes, and particularly in the Channel, the equinoctial fogs
are dangerous. They shed a sudden darkness over the sea. One of the
perils of fogs, even when not very dense, arises from their preventing
the mariners perceiving the change of the bed of the sea by the
variations of the colour of the water. The result is a dangerous
concealment of the approach of sands and breakers. The vessel steers
towards the shoals without receiving any warning. Frequently the fogs
leave a ship no resource except to lie-to, or to cast anchor. There are
as many shipwrecks from the fogs as from the winds.
After a very violent squall succeeding one of these foggy days, the
mail-boat _Cashmere_ arrived safely from England. It entered at St.
Peter's Port as the first gleam of day appeared upon the sea, and at the
very moment when the cannon of Castle Cornet announced the break of day.
The sky had cleared: the sloop _Cashmere_ was anxiously expected, as she
was to bring the new rector of St. Sampson.
A little after the arrival of the sloop, a rumour ran through the town
that she had been hailed during the night at sea by a long-boat
containing a shipwrecked crew.
VII
HOW AN IDLER HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE TO BE SEEN BY A FISHERMAN
On that very night, at the moment when the wind abated, Gilliatt had
gone out with his nets, without, however, taking his famous old Dutch
boat too far from the coast.
As he was returning with the rising tide, towards two o'clock in the
afternoon, the sun was shining brightly, and he passed before the
Beast's Horn to reach the little bay of the Bû de la Rue. At that moment
he fancied that he saw, in the projection of the "Gild-Holm-'Ur" seat a
shadow, which was not that of the rock. He steered his vessel nearer,
and was able to perceive a man sitting in the "Gild-Holm-'Ur." The sea
was already very high, the rock encircled by the waves, and escape
entirely cut off. Gilliatt made signs to the man. The stranger remained
motionless. Gilliatt drew nearer; the man was asleep.
He was attired in black. "He looks like a priest," thought Gilliatt. He
approached still nearer, and could distinguish the face of a young man.
The features were unknown to him.
The rock, happily, was peaked; there was a good depth. Gilliatt wore
off, and succeeded in skirting the rocky wall. The tide raised the bark
so high that Gilliatt, by standing upon the gunwale of the sloop, could
touch the man's feet. He raised himself upon the planking, and stretched
out his hands. If he had fallen at that moment, it is doubtful if he
would have risen again on the water; the waves were rolling in between
the boat and the rock, and destruction would have been inevitable. He
pulled the foot of the sleeping man. "Ho! there. What are you doing in
this place?"
The man aroused, and muttered--
"I was looking about."
He was now completely awake, and continued--
"I have just arrived in this part. I came this way on a pleasure trip. I
have passed the night on the sea: the view from here seemed beautiful. I
was weary, and fell asleep."
"Ten minutes later, and you would have been drowned."
"Ha!"
"Jump into my bark."
Gilliatt kept the bark fast with his foot, clutched the rock with one
hand, and stretched out the other to the stranger in black, who sprang
quickly into the boat. He was a fine young man.
Gilliatt seized the tiller, and in two minutes his boat entered the bay
of the Bû de la Rue.
The young man wore a round hat and a white cravat; and his long black
frock-coat was buttoned up to the neck. He had fair hair, which he wore
_en couronne_. He had a somewhat feminine cast of features, a clear eye,
a grave manner.
Meanwhile the boat had touched the ground. Gilliatt passed the cable
through the mooring-ring, then turned and perceived the young man
holding out a sovereign in a very white hand.
Gilliatt moved the hand gently away.
There was a pause. The young man was the first to break the silence.
"You have saved me from death."
"Perhaps," replied Gilliatt.
The moorings were made fast, and they went ashore.
The stranger continued--
"I owe you my life, sir."
"No matter."
This reply from Gilliatt was again followed by a pause.
"Do you belong to this parish?"
"No," replied Gilliatt.
"To what parish, then?"
Gilliatt lifted up his right hand, pointed to the sky, and said--
"To that yonder."
The young man bowed, and left him.
After walking a few paces, the stranger stopped, felt in his pocket,
drew out a book, and returning towards Gilliatt, offered it to him.
"Permit me to make you a present of this."
Gilliatt took the volume.
It was a Bible.
An instant after, Gilliatt, leaning upon the parapet, was following the
young man with his eyes as he turned the angle of the path which led to
St. Sampson.
By little and little he lowered his gaze, forgot all about the
stranger--knew no more whether the "Gild-Holm-'Ur" existed. Everything
disappeared before him in the bottomless depth of a reverie.
There was one abyss which swallowed up all his thought. This was
Déruchette.
A voice calling him, aroused him from this dream.
"Ho there, Gilliatt!"
He recognised the voice and looked up.
"What is the matter, Sieur Landoys?"
It was, in fact, Sieur Landoys, who was passing along the road about one
hundred paces from the Bû de la Rue in his phaeton, drawn by one little
horse. He had stopped to hail Gilliatt, but he seemed hurried.
"There is news, Gilliatt."
"Where is that?"
"At the Bravées."
"What is it?"
"I am too far off to tell you the story."
Gilliatt shuddered.
"Is Miss Déruchette going to be married?"
"No; but she had better look out for a husband."
"What do you mean?"
"Go up to the house, and you will learn."
And Sieur Landoys whipped on his horse.