ON THE ROCKS.
Few and far apart the days are, such as came out of the heaven just
then, when the stoutest Briton, and his wife, can find no hole
ready-made, or to be well picked, in the weather. And what is the good
of the finest weather to him, if he employs it in picking holes in his
friends, or his enemies, or even in himself? But any one, who loves
large ways and thoughts, or even little ways, when they are
good-natured, might have looked with true pleasure, at the Professor for
the first, and at Laura and me, for the latter enjoyment.
Professor Megalow heartily enjoyed the company of young people, and old
hats; and to-day, he had put his great head into a hat, with very good
reason to assign for it, of fine archæological interest. And even if
things had been as adverse with me, as they were for the moment
prosperous, no moderate misery could have held its own, against the
influx of his geniality. He marched on before us, to the haven of his
hopes, with a long forked tool upon his shoulder, and a bag of learned
organs in the other hand, and he never turned round, unless we called
upon him; which proved the perfection of scientific insight.
"Oh, how I should like to be like him!" said Laura; "but I never can
carry a long name long. I learn to pronounce them, and to try to know
their meaning; and then the next day, I am as wise as ever. Nearly all
the young ladies now are so scientific. As one of the books says, it is
such a manifold addition to their interests."
"Not to the interest felt in them;" I answered, though afraid of my own
words. "It makes them so conceited, and so full of their own ideas. And
they talk, as if they knew everything, with the little bits they pick up
from books. That is not the way great men get on. They get on, by their
own observations, and experiments, and by putting this and that
together; and so they make great discoveries. And when they have done
it, they are always humble, because of the quantity they can't find out.
Look at our dear friend there! Does he ever pretend to know anything at
all? Does he ever lay down the law about anything? Even upon subjects,
he understands more thoroughly than any other man yet born, he speaks
(when he does speak at all) with more doubt, and diffidence, and
humility, than a school-girl does, who knows nothing about it, except
from one of his own books. The smaller the mind, the more positive it
is."
"Then ladies ought to be very positive--at least I mean most of them,
like me. But how slowly we are walking! The Professor will think, that
we have no zeal for his bones at all. Whereas I fully mean to go in, and
help."
"I hope you won't think of doing that," I answered, as we turned the
corner, and could see the excavation; "unluckily, you were not
entrusted to me, or I should forbid it most decidedly. It looks rather
dangerous, and is sure to be very dirty; and what good can you do in
there?"
"What good can I do anywhere, if it comes to that? I came here, to see
everything, and I mean to do it, unless the Professor forbids it, and he
would not have let me come, if he intended that. Let us go and ask him.
No, he is too busy!"
His attention was wholly engaged, as we saw, and he was speaking
earnestly to the man, who had been left in charge of the place, last
evening.
"You see no difference," he said; "I do, and a very considerable
difference, Barnes. There has been no rain in the night, and no
groundswell to produce any vibration. Your shores are all standing, it
is true, but not quite as they stood yesterday. We must have three hours
more of work in there, before I have exhausted the _situs_; and I would
not allow any man to come in with me now. Tommy, keep away, and take
Miss Twentifold. I shall have to collect all my forces, and shore up
afresh, before I dare use a tool. The cliff is quite low, but too high
to be safe; and there is a public footpath along the top. The tide is
going out; in half an hour, you might get some good shrimping round the
point. Allow me to commend that pursuit to you, for the next two or
three hours."
"You are going in and out, yourself," I said, though I took good care to
lead Miss Twentifold away; "as if there were no sign of danger whatever.
But if we should do more harm than good, the best plan would be to go
shrimping, as you say. But how shall we know, sir, when you are ready
for us,--or at least for me, of course, I mean? Lady Twentifold will be
down, perhaps, about three o'clock."
"When all is made safe, and I want your good hand," the Professor
answered, with a look at me, and a wave of his faithful old hat to the
lady, (which said--for all his hats said something--"I like you very
much, but I don't want you now") "you will see, my dear friends, this
conspicuous example of the industry of the Orient, waving on that pole."
He pulled from his hat a large yellow silk handkerchief, spotted with
white, and shook it at us, as a flag-signal to be off.
"Now, what shall we do? Shall we obey orders, or is there anything you
would like better? Perhaps you are afraid of the rocks, and the
sea-weed, and the way the waves come running up the hollow places."
I said this, on purpose to stimulate her; perceiving the very fine
spirit she had, which the colour in her cheeks was enough to prove. All
I was afraid of was, that she might doubt the propriety of going round
the point with me.
But she was too simple and good, to do that. She thought not of harm,
any more than she had done it; and the only expression in her eyes was
pleasure.
"Where have you put the nets?" she asked; "you shall have Roly's, and I
will have my own."
Now, if there had been in my nature yet any lingering of the old
tendency to rise into the air, through exultation, could anything have
baulked it of its operation now? Within a mere mile of the spot, still
shown as the scene of my early exploit, with the weather set fair, and
the wind the right way, and with beauty at my side, a millionfold more
enchanting than any first view of the sea--what was the reason that I
did not fly?
Let Professor Brachipod explain that, if he can; and there is nothing
that he will not explain most ably, whether he is able, or whether he is
not. Some great change had "permeated my organisation"--as they call it,
as if I were full of pipes--which made me cleave rather to the earth (in
periods of exuberant happiness) than soar to the sky, to complete it
there. Perhaps when I grow old, I shall become less earthy, and again
seek my happiness by going upward; but nothing now sets me on the
springs of my system, except the most expansive and elevating
indignation.
And to put aside that, and all questions whatever of the motives for
this, or the reasons against that, would manners (any more than common
sense, and sound judgment) have allowed me to fly away from lovely
Laura? So long as I had her at my side, what else in the earth, or the
air, or the sky, could I desire?
No one has noticed--to the best of my knowledge--what a comfort there
is, in the pattering of feet, when they keep time, and answer well to
one another. Not as a single pair, I mean, each coming after the other
with a gap; but as a pair of a pair-going feet, toe and heel exactly to
one another, with no more space crosswise between them, than the other
foot requires to come up, and fill the gap. And when this is done upon a
firm gray sand, with just enough spring to make it beautiful to walk,
and just enough yield to take a light impression, how can the most
scientific human body, with a fair human body at the side of it,
continue to lament that it is not quadruped?
When we came to the rocks, it was even better. For here, there was such
a fine slippery spread of the carpet of the sea, and so many green
fringes, covering traps where a little foot might sink, and perhaps get
sprained, or at any rate get soaked, that at every few yards there was
need of a hand, or sometimes of two, for discretion of step. And at
every such aid, there was a smile to pay; not to mention the downcast of
eyes sometimes, and sometimes their uplifting with a soft, sweet light,
and the fluttering of lashes in the fresh wind from the sea, and the
murmuring of lips, more pink and melodious than any clear Pacific shell.
And when the brisk freedom of the salt air shed the dark clusters of her
hair, upon her face and neck, veiling the gentle blush and the shy
damask, my very best manners, and most deep responsibility, struggled in
vain to prevent me from saying--"You are the very image of a beautiful
moss-rose."
She was not at all offended, but looked calmly at me; and answered, to
my horror--"What a beautiful idea! I shall tell Mamma, that you said
that."
"Oh, please don't do anything of the sort," I exclaimed; "she would be
sure,--or at least she might--I cannot exactly make you understand. But
she might not be altogether pleased, you know."
"Well, I don't see why. She is very fond of poetry. But if she would not
like it, you should not have said it. But don't be so distressed. I will
promise not to tell her; because I am sure that you meant no harm. Oh,
here is my first shrimping-pool!"
"I will sooner bite my tongue out," thought I to myself, as in humble
confusion I unbound the nets--"than utter another syllable of
admiration. What a fool I am! But who could help it?"
This put me on my very best behaviour, for a while; and even when she
slipped upon an oozy slab, and nearly fell into a pool a foot deep, I
did not hold her up, any more than I could help. And after that, being
under orders not to use my net (which I began with, upside down) until I
knew something about it; but rather to watch how she managed, and to
learn to do the like,--not an inch of advantage did I try to take, but
with scrupulous honour held my net betwixt us, and smiled as if my face
was as stiff as were my hands.
"I am afraid you don't enjoy this work;" she said.
"I am afraid of enjoying it too much;" said I.
And that made her laugh; for she had not the least idea of the darkness
of my meaning.
"Now, you may fish upon your own account," she told me; "you see how you
must draw the net along beneath the ledges, with the hinder part of the
rim kept higher, to brush the rock so that they can't get back over it;
and go well in under all the fringes of the weeds; and then up with the
other rim, and fetch it out briskly. Now, you fish a little; while I
look on, and applaud you, if honesty and facts permit. You shall have
this large pool all to yourself, and it is the best among all the rocks.
And you can manage Roly's net, which is half again the size of mine, you
see. Now, I particularly want two dozen prawns, and they are not at all
plentiful on this coast. I have only got seven yet, with all these
shrimps. But everybody says that you are so lucky; and I shall believe
it, if you catch one prawn; they are much quicker to get away than
shrimps, and so it requires more skill to catch them. Well, I declare!
You have got at least a dozen. I never saw so many in one haul before.
Let me take them out, or they will be sure to jump away from you. Oh,
what a very spiteful creature!"
A very large prawn, with no sense of the beautiful--at least as existing
in the race that boils him--had rasped her most exquisite forefinger
(which looked in the water as pellucid as himself) with the vile long
crock-saw, which he carried on his head. And what made it the more
meritorious on her part, she held fast to him still, and dropped him
into the bag.
"How wonderfully brave you are!" I cried; "it is bleeding, two or three
large drops. Put it into your mouth, and suck out the poison. Oh, how I
should like to do it for you! Don't be so intrepid! You never can tell.
He may have been living with a water-snake. I could tell you such
stories, if it would stop bleeding. Let me tear up my handkerchief, and
bind it."
"No, it is nothing at all; and if they were poisonous, how should we eat
them? I split a piece of popweed, and put it on like a thimble, and that
stops the bleeding immediately. It is not the first time they have given
me a rasp. My dear mother likes me to wear gloves, whenever I go
shrimping; but I always pull them off. I like to feel things, with my
own hands. There, what a fuss about nothing! Now go on. How wonderfully
fortune favours you! I have heard it so often, and now I can see it. Try
that corner, there is always something there. Roly caught a fine silver
mullet there, last summer; and I caught a little fish, we didn't knew
the name of."
"Let me try to smile nicely," I said to myself; "I always get the best
luck when I smile. Cause and effect are always hugging one another. To
doubt one's luck, is to doubt it nearly always. I want to impress her
with my good luck, for what impression is more favourable? Faint heart
never won fairy prawns. That corner looks full of miraculous draught."
"Oh, please to let go--let go, Miss Twentifold! He may pull me in, but
he mustn't pull in you."
For seeing me engaged with a mighty adversary, my lovely companion
rushed forward, and put fair hands on the pole of the net, because my
light figure was thrown off its balance, by an unexpected weight and
force.
"Whatever it is, you shall have all the glory," she answered, as she
obeyed me; "only I was afraid you were tumbling in."
"So I will, if it is needful. I don't mean to let him go," I exclaimed,
as I set my heels firmly in a ledge. "Here he comes! What in the world
have we caught?"
"A giant of a lobster, a perfect giant!" She was clapping her hands,
with delight, as she said it. "Oh, I never beheld such a monster in my
life! And there never was any one, with luck like yours. There, anybody
else would have lost him but you."
"I don't mean to lose him, if he murders me," I shouted, as I swung him
out mightily, and laid hold of him; "oh, he has laid hold of me, in the
most inhuman manner! Whatever shall I do, to get out of his clutches?"
For this trenchant radical had nipped me by the wrist, with one mighty
claws, and was clutching about with the other, to embrace me somewhere
else.
"Oh, Tommy, take care of your nose," she cried, forgetting all formality
in fright; "oh, what will your mother say, if you lose your nose? I know
an old sailor, who has got the mark now. There, that claw is harmless at
any rate. Now let us consider about the other."
She had cleverly pushed a large stone between his unoccupied nippers;
but the villain lay stubbornly on his back, in a great tussock of weeds,
spreading his long whiskers, and dappled joints, and lashing about the
blue fans of his tail, and exerting all the leverage of his body, to
drive his toothed fangs through my poor wrist; and if any one else had
been there but Laura, I should have roared with the violence of pain.
"Oh, I am so sorry! Oh, how very dreadful! I would not have had it
happen, for all the lobsters in the world." As she spoke she knelt by
me, and her cheek touched mine, and a shower of her hair came streaming
down, so that I could put my lips to it.
"Let him pinch away as hard as he pleases," I exclaimed, "he'll be tired
before I am, of this position."
However, it was impossible not to feel, that the position would be
better without its drawbacks. Even love's young dream may be sweeter,
without nightmare; and painful is the bravest smile of pain. With a
quick thought, she ran for the handle of her net, and slipping it out of
the socket, entered the taper end in at the heel of the claw, and with
the aid of my other hand, unlocked my horny handcuff.