THE HARMERS OF HARMER PLACE.
The Harmers of Harmer Place, although of ancient descent, could yet
hardly be ranked among the very old Kentish families, for they could
trace back their history very little beyond the commencement of the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, of pious and Protestant memory. About that
period it is ascertained that they were small landed proprietors,
probably half gentry, half farmers. All documentary and traditional
history goes to prove that the Harmers of those days were a stiff-necked
race, and that their consciences were by no means of the same plastic
nature as those of the great majority of their neighbours. They could
not, for the life of them, see why--because the Royal family had all of
a sudden come to the conclusion that the old Roman religion, in which
their fore-fathers had for so many centuries worshipped, was after all
wrong, that therefore the whole nation was bound to make the same
discovery at the same moment.
So the Harmers clung to the old faith, and were looked upon with
grievous disfavour in consequence by the authorities for the time being.
Many were the domiciliary visits paid them, and grievous were the fines
inflicted upon them for nonconformity. Still, whether from information
privately sent to them previous to these researches, or whether from the
superior secrecy and snugness of their "Priest's chamber," certain it
is, that although frequently denounced and searched, no priest or
emissary of papacy was ever found concealed there; and so, although
constantly harassed and vexed, they were suffered to remain in
possession of their estate.
As generation of Harmers succeeded generation, they continued the same
stiff-necked race, clinging to their old tenets, and hardening their
hearts to all inducements to desert them. Over and over again they went
through "troublous times," especially when those God-fearing and
enlightened Puritans domineered it over England. In after reigns
difficulties arose, but the days of persecution were over then, and they
had nothing to undergo comparable to their former trials.
It would have been naturally supposed that as at the commencement of the
reign of Elizabeth the Harmers were by no means a wealthy race, they
would speedily have been shorn of all the little property they then
possessed. But it was not so. The more they were persecuted so much the
more they flourished, and from mere farmers they speedily rose to the
rank of county families.
One reason, doubtless, for their immunity from more than comparatively
petty persecutions, such as fines and imprisonments, was, that the
Harmers never took any part in political affairs; neither in plots, nor
risings, nor civil wars, were they ever known actively to interfere.
As the Harmers were in other respects an obstinate, quarrelsome race,
stubborn in will, strong in their likes and dislikes, it was singular
that they should never have actively bestirred themselves in favour of
the cause which they all had so strongly at heart. The popular belief on
the matter was, that a settled and traditional line of policy had been
recommended, and enforced upon the family, by their priests; namely, to
keep quite neutral in politics, in order that there might be at least
one house in the country--and that, from its proximity to the sea-coast,
peculiarly suitable to the purpose,--where, in cases of necessity, a
secure hiding-place could be relied on. Mother Church is very good to
her obedient children; and if the Harmers gave up their personal
feelings for her benefit, and sheltered her ministers in time of peril,
she no doubt took care that in the long run they should not be losers.
And so, while their Roman Catholic neighbours threw themselves into
plots and parties, and lost house and land, and not uncommonly life, the
Harmers rode quietly through the gale, thriving more and more under the
small persecutions they suffered for the faith's sake. And thus it
happened that going into troubles as small proprietors in the reign of
Elizabeth, they came out of them in that of George, owners of a large
estate and a rambling old mansion in every style of architecture.
After that date, persecution having ceased, and "Priests' chambers"
being no longer useful, the Harmers ceased to enlarge their boundaries,
and lived retired lives on their property, passing a considerable
portion of their time on the Continent.
Robert Harmer had, contrary to the usual custom of his ancestors, six
children--four sons and two daughters. Edward was, of course, intended
to inherit the family property, and was brought up in accordance with
the strictest traditions of his race; Robert was also similarly
educated, in order to be fitted to take his brother's place should
Edward not survive his father, or die leaving no heirs; Gregory was
intended for the priesthood; and Herbert, the youngest of all, was left
to take his chance in any position which the influence of his family or
Church might obtain for him.
Herbert Harmer, however, was not so ready as the rest of his family to
submit his judgment without question to that of others; and having, when
about sixteen, had what he conceived an extremely heavy and unfair
penance imposed upon him for some trifling offence, he quitted his home,
leaving a letter behind him stating his intention of never returning to
it. Herbert Harmer was not of the stuff of which a docile son of Holy
Church is made; of a warm and affectionate disposition, and a naturally
buoyant, joyous frame of mind, the stern and repressive discipline to
which he was subjected, and the monotonous existence he led in his
father's house, seemed to him the height of misery.
The lad, when he turned his back on home, knew little of the world. He
had lived the life almost of a recluse, never stirring beyond the
grounds of the mansion except to attend mass at the Roman Catholic
chapel at Canterbury, and this only upon grand occasions, as the family
confessor, who acted also as his tutor, resided in the village, and
ordinarily performed the service at the chapel attached to the place.
Companions he had none. Gregory, the brother next to him in age, was
away in Italy studying for the priesthood; Cecilia and Angela he had
seen but seldom, as they also were abroad, being educated in a convent;
Edward and Robert were young men nearly ten years older than himself,
and were when at home his father's companions rather than his, and both
were of grave taciturn disposition, ascetic and bigoted even beyond the
usual Harmer type.
Thrown therefore almost entirely upon his own resources, Herbert had
sought what companionship he best could. Books, first and best; but of
these his stock was limited. Religious and controversial treatises,
church histories, and polemical writings formed the principal part of
the library, together with a few volumes of travel and biography which
had somehow found their way there. On a library so limited as this the
boy could not employ his whole time, but had to seek amusement and
exercise out of doors, and the only companion he had there, was perhaps
of all others the very one with whom he would have been most strictly
forbidden to associate, had their intimacy been guessed at.
Robert Althorpe was the son of a tenant on the estate, and was a man of
thirty or thereabouts. Originally a wild, reckless lad, he had, as many
an English boy has done before and since, ran away to sea, and, after
nearly fifteen years absence, had lately returned with only one arm,
having lost the other in a naval engagement. On his return he had been
received with open arms by his father, as at that time (that is, in the
year 1795) all England was wild with our naval glory. And now Robert
Althorpe passed his time, sitting by the fire smoking, or wandering
about to relate his tales of adventure among the farmhouses of the
country, at each of which he was received as a welcome guest.
The sailor took a particular fancy to young Herbert Harmer, whose
ignorance of the world and eager desire to hear something of it, and
whose breathless attention to his yarns, amused and gratified him. On
many a summer afternoon, then, when Herbert had finished his prescribed
course of study, he would slip quietly away to meet Robert Althorpe, and
would sit for hours under the trees listening to tales of the world and
life of which he knew so little. Robert had in his period of service
seen much; for those were stirring times. He had taken part in the
victories of Howe and Jervis, and in the capture of the numerous West
Indian isles. He had fought, too, under the invincible Nelson at the
Nile, in which battle he had lost his arm. He had been stationed for two
years out on the Indian coast, and Herbert above all loved to hear of
that wonderful country, then the recent scene of the victories of Clive
and Hastings.
When therefore he left his home, the one fixed idea in Herbert Harmer's
mind was, that first of all he would go to sea, and that then he would
some day visit India; both which resolutions he carried into effect.
It was some ten years after, when the memory of the young brother of
whom they had seen so little had nearly faded from the minds of his
family, that a letter arrived from him, addressed to his father, but
which was opened by his brother Edward as the head of the house, the old
man having been three years before laid in the family vault. Gregory too
was dead, having died years previously of a fever contracted among the
marshes near Rome. The contents of the letter, instead of being hailed
with the delight with which news from a long lost prodigal is usually
greeted, were received with unmingled indignation and horror.
A solemn family conclave was held in the old library, Edward Harmer at
the head of the table, Father Paul at the foot, and the contents of the
letter were taken into formal consideration. A joint answer was then
drawn up, stating the horror and indignation with which his
communication had been received--that the anathema had been passed
against him, that to them he was dead for ever, and that they regretted
that he had ever been born at all.
All this was expressed at great length, and with that exceedingly
complicated bitterness of cursing, which is a characteristic of the
Roman Church when roused. At the end, each of the family signed his or
her name, and the priest added his, with a cross affixed there to, as a
token for ever against him.
The contents of the letter which had caused all this commotion of
spirit, were briefly as follows.
Herbert had gone to sea, and had for two years voyaged to different
parts of the world. At the end of that time he had arrived in India, and
there leaving his ship, had determined to cast his lot. After various
employments, he had finally obtained a situation as a clerk to a planter
up the country, whose daughter he had three years afterwards married; he
was now doing well, and hoped that his father would forgive his having
ran away from home.
So far the letter was satisfactory enough, it was the final paragraph
which had caused the explosion of family wrath against him--namely, that
his wife was a Protestant, and that having carefully examined the Bible
with her, he had come to the conclusion that the Reformed Church more
closely carried out the precepts and teachings of that book than his
own. That he was afraid this would prove a serious annoyance to his
father; but that, as he was so far away, and should never be likely to
return to obtrude the new religion he had adopted upon them, he hoped
that it would be no bar to his continuing an amicable correspondence
with them.
This hope was, as has been seen, not destined to be realized. The answer
was sealed and duly sent off, and henceforth Herbert Harmer, as far as
his family was concerned, ceased to have any existence. It was nearly
twenty years before they again heard of him, and then the news came that
he had returned to England, a widower, bringing his only son, a young
man of about twenty-one years old, with him; that he had purchased a
house in the neighbourhood of London, and that he did not intend to
return to India.
Very shortly after his return, a letter from him was received by his
elder brother, but immediately it was opened, and the first line showed
from whom it came, it was closed unread, resealed, and returned to the
writer.
During the thirty years which Herbert Harmer had been absent, the old
place had certainly not improved. Edward and Robert had both been
married, but were, like their brother, widowers. Edward never had
children. Robert had several born to him, but all had died quite young.
The sisters had remained single.
It was a gloomy house in those days. They all lived together there.
Father Paul was long since dead, and Father Gabriel literally
reigned in his stead--a man even more gloomy and bigoted than his
predecessors--chosen probably on that account, as being in keeping with
the character of the people to whom he ministered. An unhappy family;
unhappy in their lives and dispositions, unhappy in the view they had
taken of religion and its duties, very unhappy--and this was the only
count to which they themselves would have pleaded guilty--very unhappy
because the old line of Harmer would die with them, and that there was
none of the name to inherit after them; for that Herbert the apostate
should succeed them, that a Protestant Harmer should dwell where his
Catholic ancestors had so long lived, was never even for a moment
discussed as a possibility: the very idea would have been a desecration,
at which their dead fathers would have moved in their graves. Better, a
thousand times better, that the old place should go to strangers. And so
Edward's will was made; everything was done that could be done, and they
dwelt in gloomy resignation, waiting for the end.
That end was to come to some of them sooner than they expected.
Edward and Robert Harmer had one interest, one worldly amusement, in
which they indulged. As young men they had been for some time together
at Genoa, and in that town of mariners they had become passionately
attached to the sea. This taste they had never lost, and they still
delighted occasionally to go out for a day's sailing, in a small
pleasure yacht, which they kept at the little fishing-village of Herne
Bay. She was an open boat, of about eight tons, and was considered a
good sea-boat for her size. In this, with two men to sail her, under the
command of an old one-armed sailor, whom they employed because he had
once lived on the estate, they would go out for hours, once a week or
so; not on fine sunny days--in them they had no pleasure--but when the
wind blew fresh, and the waves broke a tawny yellow on the sand, and the
long banks off the coast were white with foaming breakers. It was a
strange sight in such weather, to see the two men, now from fifty to
sixty years old, and very similar in face and figure, taking their
places in the stern of their little craft, while the boatmen, in their
rough-weather coats and fearnought hats, hoisted the sails and prepared
for sea.
Very quiet they would sit, while the spray dashed over them, and the
boat tore across the surface of the water, with a smile half glad, half
defiant, on their dark features, till the one-armed captain would say,
touching his hat, "It is getting wilder, your honours; I think we had
better put about." Then they would give an assenting gesture, and the
boat's head would be turned to shore, where they would arrive, wet
through and storm-beaten, but with a deep joy in their hearts, such as
they experienced at no other time.
But once they went out, and came back alive no more. It happened thus.
It was the 3rd of March, and the morning was overcast and dull; there
was wind, though not strong, coming in short sudden puffs, and then
dying away again. The brothers started early, and drove over, through
the village of Herne, to the little fishing-hamlet in the bay, and
stopped at the cottage of the captain, as he termed himself, of their
little yacht. The old sailor came out to the door.
"You are not thinking of going out to-day, your honours, are you?"
"Why not?" Edward Harmer asked; "don't you think there will be wind
enough?"
"Aye, aye, your honour, wind enough, and more than enough before long;
there is a gale brewing up there;" and the old man shaded his eyes with
his remaining hand, and looked earnestly at the clouds.
"Pooh, pooh, man!" Robert Harmer said; "there is no wind to speak of
yet, although I think with you that it may come on to blow as the sun
goes down. What then? It is nearly easterly, so if we sail straight out
we can always turn and run back again before the sea gets up high enough
to prevent us. You know we are always ready to return when you give the
word."
The old sailor made no further remonstrance, but summoning the two young
men who generally accompanied them, he busied himself in carrying down
the oars, and making preparations to launch the little boat which was to
carry them to where the yacht was moored about a hundred yards out, with
many quiet disapproving shakes of his head as he did so. They were soon
in, and launched through the waves, which were breaking with a long,
heavy, menacing roar. It was not rough yet, but even in the quarter of
an hour which had elapsed between their arrival at the village, and
reaching the side of the yacht, the aspect of the weather had changed
much; the gusts of wind came more frequently, and with far greater
force, whitening the surface of the water, and tearing off the tops of
the waves in sheets of spray. The dull heavy clouds overhead were
beginning to break up suddenly, as if stirred by some mighty force
within themselves, great openings and rents seemed torn asunder in the
dark curtain, and then as suddenly closed up again; but through these
momentary openings, the scud could be seen flying rapidly past in the
higher regions of the air.
On reaching the side of the yacht, which was rolling heavily on the
rising waves, the one-armed sailor again glanced at the brothers to see
if they noticed these ominous signs, and if they made any change in
their determination; but they gave no signs of doing so. Their faces
were both set in that expression of stern pleasure which they always
wore on occasions like this, and with another disapproving shake of his
head, even more decided than those in which he had before indulged, he
turned to assist the men in fastening the boat they had come in to the
moorings to await their return, in loosing the sails, and taking a
couple of reefs in them, and preparing for a start.
In another five minutes the little craft was far out at sea, ploughing
her way through the ever increasing waves, dashing them aside from her
bows in sheets of spray, and leaving a broad white track behind her.
The wind was getting up every minute, and blew with a hoarse roar across
the water.
Before they had been gone fifteen minutes, the old sailor felt that it
was indeed madness to go farther. He saw that the force of the wind was
already more than the boat could bear, and was momentarily increasing,
and that the sea was fast getting up under its power.
But as his counsel had been already once disregarded, he determined to
let the first order for return come from the brothers, and he glanced
for a moment from the sails and the sea to the two men sitting beside
him. There was no thought of turning back there. Their lips were hard
set, yet half smiling; their eyes wide open, as if to take in the
tumultuous joy of the scene; their hands lay clenched on their knees.
They had evidently no thought of danger, no thought of anything but
deep, wild pleasure.
The old sailor bit his lips. He looked again over the sea, he looked at
the sails, and at the lads crouched down in the bow with consternation
strongly expressed on their faces; he glanced at the dark green water,
rushing past the side, and sometimes as she lay over combing in over the
gunwale; he felt the boat quiver under the shock as each succeeding wave
struck her, and he knew she could bear no more. He therefore again
turned round to the impassive figures beside him, and made his usual
speech.
"Your honours, it is time to go about."
But this time so absorbed were they in their sensations, that they did
not hear him, and he had to touch them to attract their notice, and to
shout in their ears, "Your honours, we must go about."
They started at the touch, and rose like men waked suddenly from a
dream. They cast a glance round, and seemed to take in for the first
time the real state of things, the raging wind, the flying scud, the
waves which rose round the boat, and struck her with a force that
threatened to break her into fragments. And then Edward said, "Yes! by
all means, if indeed it is not already too late. God forgive us for
bringing you out into it; _peccavi, culpa mea_." And then the brothers,
influenced not by fear for themselves, but for the lives of those whom
they had brought into danger, commenced rapidly uttering, in a low
voice, the prayers of their Church for those in peril.
The prayer was never to be finished. The men sprang with alacrity to the
ropes when the order was given, "Prepare to go about;" but whether their
fingers were numb, or what it was which went wrong, no one will ever
know. The boat obeyed her rudder, and came up into the wind. There was a
momentary lull, and then as her head payed round towards the shore, a
fresh gust struck her with even greater force than ever. Some rope
refused to run, it was but for an instant, but that instant sealed the
fate of the boat; over she lay till her sail all but touched the water,
and the sea poured in over her side. For a moment she seemed to try to
recover herself, and then a wild cry went up to heaven, and the boat lay
bottom upwards in the trough of the waves.