conscious, for he looked at her, but speechlessly. The moment others drew
nigh the girl released her load and disappeared.
The night became clearer. The wind shifted to the north, the clouds
parted. Stars appeared in the patches of dark sky. The rain ceased, but
the sea still thundered and gleamed white.
A knock at the cottage door of the old fellow who had charge of the
lifeboat. He was out still, but Cicely opened and saw Will Swan before
her with both hands extended.
She drew her hand back and looked coldly at him.
He was staggered, and said: “Well, Ciss!”
“Well,” she said, “what do you want here?”
Will stepped forward, and tried to put his arm round her to take a kiss.
She thrust him from her impatiently.
For a moment he stood motionless, then he burst forth: “It was you—you
who snatched me out of the water.”
“You are mistaken, it was Jacob Finch. I stood by. I would have done that
for any one.”
Will became white as chalk; then almost in fury, as if he would have torn
her, he cried: “Ciss! you be cruel to me and to yourself. I don’t care,
say yes or no, fight or bite if you will, mine you shall be, or I will
carry you in these arms and throw you and myself together over the cliff
into the sea.”
He seized her in his strong arms, clasped her to his heart, and covered
her face with kisses.
So, in a paroxysm of fury, was this courtship done.
And Cicely melted like wax against glowing iron. But only for a moment,
and then said: “Well, if it must be, it must.”
Fifty years have passed since that day.
There is now an old seaman sits smoking his pipe on the bench, looking
seaward, and he yarns with his mates, and is looked up to and listened to
by the younger men. He has got strapping sons of his own. They are seamen
as was their father. He has a daughter married, and the old chap is fond
of taking one of his grandchildren out with him, to walk on the quay and
sit on the old bench beside him or else on his knee.
That old man is Will Swan.
The Crowe, by holy matrimony, had become a Swan.
The pretty Cicely I remembered so long ago was now dead; and old Bill
wore a black band round his blue jersey arm.
A day or two ago I was sitting by him on the bench.
He was silent for a long time, smoking and blowing clouds.
Presently he turned his face to me. I saw there was trouble in it.
“You knew my wife, sir?” he said.
“Indeed I did, since I was a little child.”
“I know you did.”
Then again silence.
Presently again his face turned, and he drew his pipe from his mouth and
rested it on his knee.
“You’re a minister now, sir?”
“Yes; I am a parson.”
“Then p’r’aps you can tell me something.”
“I will tell you what I can.”
“You see, sir, Ciss was that won’erful sort of a woman. Though us was
married for fifty years her never once in all that time would say as her
loved me.”
Again a long pause; another smoke. Then a turn to me: “You _are_ a
parson?”
“Yes. What do you want?”
“Well, you can tell me. When I get into life everlasting, do you think
Ciss will meet me at the gates o’ Paradise and say: ‘What are you doin’
here now? Don’t you go bothering of me, _I_ don’t want you’?”
“All that is left behind,” said I, “all, all in the soil and dross of the
grave. Above, the bright happy smile will break out, and the welcome, and
the hands will be stretched out——”
“Thank you,” he said slowly. Great tears were in his eyes and rolling
down his cheeks. “I hopes the same, but I doubts it. There must be a
terrible, mirac’lous change for that to come about. But things may happen
past ’uman understanding, and even onions turn to apples, and jerseys to
pea-jackets. No offence, sir,” and he touched his forehead.
THE WEATHERCOCK
THE WEATHERCOCK
Lydia French had a shop opposite the church. The little town or
overgrown village had no market, but there were fairs held in the space
before the church on one side and Lydia French’s shop on the other
twice in the year. Both were cattle fairs, frequented by farmers. On
such occasions bullocks ran about with tails lifted, yelling men and
barking dogs behind and before them, and made either for the churchyard
wall or for Lydia French’s shop window. The Oddfellows, moreover, held
their annual feast there, and processionised behind a band, and waved
banners and wore sashes, and ate and drank heartily at the “Peal of
Bells.” On such occasions stalls were erected in the open space, where
nuts were shot for, and barley-sugar-sticks and twisted peppermint rods
and brandy-balls were sold, also ginger-pop and lemonade. On all these
occasions Lydia French’s shop was full of customers. She, moreover, had a
good _clientèle_ in the entire parish, but experienced less difficulty in
disposing of her goods than in getting her little bills paid.
But though there were defaulters, yet those who liquidated were in the
majority, or Lydia French would not have been the prosperous woman she
was. Her aspect breathed a fulness of purse and flush of comfort that
were convincing. She could afford herself, on occasion, a silk gown. She
made weekly expeditions to the bank to pay in hebdomadal profits. She had
recently repapered her little parlour, and the paper was white and gold.
She was generous. When children put down their pennies for acid drops
or almond rock, she always made the balance incline in their favour,
to their great admiration; when their mothers bought calico, she was
not particular to a quarter of a yard; and she was large-hearted—she
subscribed equally to the missionaries of Church and Chapel.
Lydia French was a widow. She had been married but for a twelvemonth to a
commercial traveller, who had in the brief year tried her forbearance and
strained her means, and she had now been a widow of three years, and was
without encumbrance.
Several had made advances to her, but she soon let commercial travellers
understand that none of them need apply. There was one who trafficked
in a “Life of Wellington,” with magnificent steel engravings, issued
in parts, who laid siege to her; and when he would not take a “No”
she refused to receive any more numbers of the series. Whereupon he
threatened her with legal proceedings, averring that she had bound
herself to Wellington from the cradle to the grave when she received the
first part. She paid up rather than go into court, and nursed bitterness
of heart against travellers thenceforth. The man whom she had married was
bad enough; this Wellingtonian man was “wusser,” as she expressed it. It
really was preposterous that such a woman, plump, prosperous, comely,
should not find her man.
But, indeed, there were plenty of men who wanted her, only she was hard
to please. A young farmer—she did not relish farm-work; she did not wish
to give up the shop. The blooming butcher—she had an aversion for the
trade. A handsome drover—he tippled. A Methodist class-leader—he was a
teetotaller, and she liked her drop of mild ale.
But, finally she seemed to hesitate between two—John Newbold, the mason,
and Jack Westcott—or, as the children called him, Jackie Waistcoat, the
sailor.
Both were fine men, and both had good characters; the first was somewhat
too heavy, the latter somewhat too lively. But where is perfection to be
found? In woman, perhaps—nay, certainly—not in man.
There was this advantage to whichsoever she cast the kerchief, that he
would not require her to give up the shop. To the shop she was attached.
The shop made her a power in the parish, brought her into relation with
all, gave her consequence, and drew to her a good deal of money. This,
then, was a _sine quâ non_—that she should keep the shop after marriage
as before. Besides, she did not desire to have a husband always hanging
about her, like a fly in hot weather, that will not be driven away. She
was accustomed to independence. A man on the premises all day implied
interference, and that she was determined not to tolerate.
Lydia French sat in her shop; no business was doing this day. She had
made up her account to midsummer, and the balance was good; it made
her feel good—like a bracing sermon or a melting hymn. She had taken
stock—roughly. Everything was satisfactory. The little house was in
excellent condition, she owned it; that is to say, on three lives, and
she had paid Newbold’s bill for putting it in thorough repair. The
chimney had smoked; that was cured by the new revolving cowl. The drain
from the sink had emitted smells; that was rectified—Newbold had put
down a stink-trap. Newbold was a useful man when any masoning work was
required. Could she put up with him for always—for better, for worse?
She looked up, and looked out at her little window between the bottles
of pink and pallid drops, and the withered oranges that would no longer
sell, and the stay-laces, and the ginger-beer bottles, and the can of
mustard, and the tin of biscuits. And she saw that which was to her a
constant worry—the weathercock on the church spire.
In the great gale of the preceding November the cock had been blown on
one side, the spindle on which for many years it had revolved had been
bent over, so that now the poor bird lay on his back in mid-air, and
could neither right himself nor turn with the wind.
Mrs. French, neat in herself, orderly in her house, above all, in the
shop, could not endure to see what was out of place, inverted, useless.
She had liked to know from which direction the wind blew. It had provided
her with conversation with her customers. It had satisfied her sense of
the fitness of things that the spindle on the spire should be upright,
and that the vane should fulfil the object for which it was ordained.
Now more than six months had passed, and the cock was still reversed. She
had remonstrated with the parson.
“My dear Mrs. French,” he had replied, “that is the affair of the
churchwardens. I have badgered all my friends, and impoverished myself
over the restoration of the church—I can do no more.”
She complained to the churchwardens. “Lor’ bless y’,” said they, “there
be no levying o’ church-rates now, what can _we_ do?”
“It really is a scandal,” said Lydia. “And now the village feast is
coming on, and the Oddfellows will march about, and the cock will——”
“Be an odd fellow, too, turned upside down, like many of the heads after
ale and punch.”
“I don’t like it,” said Lydia. “I sees it with its blessed feet turned up
and its comb down—helpless. It is real unchristian and inhuman to let it
bide so.”
The churchwardens said, “Meddlin’ with aught on the steeple is darned
expensive. Beside, ’tain’t everywhere you can find a steeplejack.”
So Lydia fidgeted and mused and schemed: that vane became the trouble of
her life.
In at the shop door came simultaneously, from opposite directions, the
builder and the mariner.
They had a curious knack, these men, of spying on each other, and of
denying each other the opportunity of having a few words in private with
the widow.
In this, however, the sailor had the advantage over the mason, for he was
not daily engaged, as was the other. But Newbold so contrived that when
he was absent, should Westcott endeavour to steal a march on him, his
mother or his sister should invade the shop and so prevent privacy.
Which was the favoured swain neither could decide; but that was not
wonderful, for Lydia had not decided for herself.
“Good-morning, mem,” said the mason. “I’ll just trouble you for an ounce
of bird’s-eye.”
“And I’ll have same of Virginia shag,” said the sailor.
“Fine day, mem,” said Newbold.
“Which way is the wind?” asked the widow.
“East by nor’-east,” answered Westcott.
“Ah! then we shall have fine weather, and lasting for the revel.”
“Hope so,” said the mason.
“It is really distressing—I can now never tell the way of the wind. It
is as bad as having a kitchen clock as won’t work. That there church
stag——”
Mrs. French never spoke of the weathercock, but used the local term for a
cock, which throughout Devon is invariably—a stag.
“Ah!” said Newbold.
“Well, now,” said Westcott.
“It really do seem a burnin’ shame to have the poor unfort’nate bird
lyin’ on his back and kickin’ at the clouds, and that, too, on the day of
the parish feast. What will folk say of us? That we’ve no public spirit
left. The farmers might get up a subscription. Would it be so amazin’
expensive? Would they have to scaffold all the tower up, and to the top
of the spire?”
“That’s the way masons ’ud set about it,” said Jack Westcott
contemptuously.
“And pray how ’ud sailors do it?”
“Swarm up,” said Jack.
“Get along! That wouldn’t do it.”
“Yes, it would, I bet a guinea. I might, but you——” The sailor shrugged
his shoulders.
“For the matter of that,” observed the builder, after musing a while,
“I don’t see but what it might be done, and done at no terrible cost.
There’s a sort of a window on each side of the spire, and I suppose it
would be possible to run out planks and make a sort of a platform and set
up a ladder agin the steeple.”
“Would it not be dangerous?”
“Oh, of course there’s nothing in that way without danger. But if it has
to be done, it can be done.”
“I warrant I’d get up without any of your arrangements,” said the mariner.
“I daresay you might,” responded the builder slowly; “but what good would
that be? You’ve more to do than spike a Jacky Tar at the top; you’ve
got to remove the spindle, and that must be roped and let down with
caution. There’s a deal of things belonging to all things,” said Newbold
sententiously, “and that’s what escapes the likes of you.”
“I bet I’d do it!” said the sailor.
“I bet so would I!” said the mason.
“But,” added the latter, “I ain’t going to risk my precious life and
sacrifice time and labour for nothin’.”
“Now look here,” said Westcott, “there be you and me hoverin’ round about
this here lovely creetur, each sunnin’ of ourselves in her beamin’ eyes
and neither on us gettin’ no closer, and both of us lusty fellows, one
accustomed to masts and other to scaffold-poles——”
“I take you,” interrupted the mason; “we between us is to set the
weathercock to rights out of love to this adorable female.”
“Not just precisely that,” said the mariner. “Between us won’t do. What
if we each went up the steeple simultaneous, and from opposite sides?
Wouldn’t the distance atween us be every foot of ascent lessenin’ and
lessenin’, till our faces met at the top? And I bet a guinea we wouldn’t
kiss there; we’d come to a grapple.”
“Really,” said the widow, with a shudder, “this is startling. A contest
on the pinnacle of the spire between you—and all for me. I ain’t worth
it.”
“Not worth it!” exclaimed the mason, and was about to fall on his knees,
when the sailor pointed to his boot, and brandished his foot menacingly.
“I can’t allow that—not in my presence.”
“We will draw lots who is to go up and attempt it,” said the mason.
“And who is to have fair field and no interference for courtin’,” said
the mariner.
“Done! It shall be so!” said Newbold.
“I agrees,” said Westcott.
“Now there is one thing I bargain for,” observed the builder. “If he who
first attempts it fails and falls, and gets squelched, don’t let the
other take advantage, and shirk doing of it in his turn. Let him also
venture like a man.”
“Like a man!” echoed the tar. “‘England expects every man to do his
dooty.’”
“Come, shall we draw matches?”
“Matches! It’s a match for one alone.”
“Then toss up.”
“Toss up you are. And the winner has fair field and no just cause or
impediment why these two should not be joined together in holy matrimony.”
“Here is a penny,” said Newbold.
“A penny! You ought to blush the colour of the copper to suggest it.
I will toss only gold for such a bloomin’ and lovely lady. Here is a
sovereign. Heads or Royal Arms—which?”
“Heads for me!” said Newbold.
“And arms—them extended arms for me,” said Jack Westcott, with a leer at
the widow.
The sailor tossed the sovereign.
“Heads!” he exclaimed.
“Best of three,” said the mason condescendingly.
“Tails!” said Jack, after the second toss.
Now all paused and looked at each other. The widow’s face expressed
anxiety.
Up went the gold piece once more, whisking high, and Westcott caught it,
but paused a moment before opening his palms.
“Come, man! Let us see our fate,” said Newbold.
The sailor raised his right hand, and the sovereign in his left disclosed
the reverse of the coin uppermost.
“I’ve won!” said the builder. “It is I who am to have the first shot at
the weathercock.”
“And I bide below with the lady,” said the mariner.
“Let me consider,” mused Newbold. “I have a little job on hand for Squire
Theobald; it will take me about a week, and my ladders be all engaged.
But I’ll tell you what. Monday week will suit me, and that will be time
enough before the feast.”
“Oh, Mr. Newbold, do not be _too_ rash,” pleaded the widow.
“Ma’am, I would dare anything for you,” he answered gravely.
The tidings that John Newbold was going to ascend the spire and put
the vane to rights produced lively satisfaction in the breasts of the
villagers, and awoke vast curiosity to know how he would set to work to
accomplish it.
The day was fine—grey with occasional drifts of fog, but nothing to
signify, and there was happily no wind. Nearly every parishioner was
out to observe proceedings. Nearly—not all; there were exceptions. Mrs.
French did not quit her shop. It neither comported with her ripe dignity
to be seen among the rabble staring up at the sky, nor with her affairs,
for a crowd on the green promised customers for ginger-beer and lollipops.
To her came Jack Westcott.
“Good-morning, mem. I thought, with your good favour, I’d fill my pouch
with Virginia shag. And I’d like—if you have no objection—to see how that
chap goes about it from within, on your premises.”
The widow bowed.
“Do you think, Mr. Westcott, there is real danger? I should never forgive
myself——”
“Lord bless you. That mason chap wouldn’t do nothing that would hurt the
tip of his nose. You’ll see. He’ll just run out some planks and nail a
strip o’ wood across, and lash his ladders as well as lean them agin the
strip. Bless your angel face and shining eyes, he’ll make all secure for
himself.”
“But, Mr. Westcott, it really looks a most perilous undertaking.”
“Not more so than this,” said the sailor, suddenly swinging himself over
the counter. “Excuse me, lovely creature! But I can’t well see what goes
on on the side of the shop door; there’s all them darned advertisements
block it up. But here—if I may be so bold as to watch.”
“You can take a chair, Mr. Westcott.”
“Never! unless you take one as well.”
So, with a little complimenting and resistance, it was settled: the
widow and the suitor seated themselves on her side of the counter on two
chairs, and looked out through the shop window at the proceedings of the
builder.
Now it was seen how he emerged from the lower window of the spire, and
how cautiously a short ladder was set up against it, by which, when made
secure, he mounted, and placed himself astride the gable. Then a larger
ladder was advanced against the incline of the steeple, and set so as to
reach a considerable way up. This the mason ascended, and by some means
he secured the ladder.
“It’s as easy as telling lies,” said the sailor. “I believe there are
iron crooks let into the steeple.”
“But it looks dreadfully insecure,” said the widow. “Do see! he is like a
fly against a rod.”
“More like a bumble-bee,” said Jack.
“What if he was to lose his head?”
“Not such a risk to him as to me,” sighed the mariner.
“What _do_ you mean, Mr. Westcott?”
“Only I never can see any man swarmin’ up a mast or so but I feel an itch
in my palms to be grapplin’ of somethin’. You’ll excuse me if I put my
arm round and lay hold of the back of your chair.”
“If it’s any comfort to you, Mr. Westcott.”
“I don’t think that chair-back very firm,” observed Jack.
“Oh! do, do look!” exclaimed the widow. “He is on one ladder, and
thrusting up another hands over head! and, oh! if his feet were to give
way! if he were to stagger! if the ladder were to slip! oh, I feel—I feel
quite giddy and faint.”
“Lean on me,” said Jack; “and—drat that chair-back! it is cracked. That’s
more substantial and agreeable to both parties.” He slipped his arm round
her waist. “England expects every man to do his dooty.”
“I really cannot bear to see poor dear Mr. Newbold thus risk his precious
life.”
“Then don’t,” said Westcott; and rising, he brought close together the
bottles of mixed sweets and almond-rock in the window. “There, now you
can’t see nor be seen. Are you better, my angel?”
“Rather,” responded Lydia in a faint voice. “And yet I’m all of a
tremble. What if he was to fall?”
“We’d mingle our tears over his grave,” said the sailor. “Now, look you
here.”
“I can’t; I’ve such a swimming in my head. O Jack! I can still see
something—a fog has swept over the top of the spire; or is it that my
eyes are deceived? He’s gone! He’s gone!”
“It is so—a passing drift of vapour. He’s all right. It will cool him.
Now, Lydia, this won’t do. You’ll fret yourself into a brain-fever if
you look at him even between the interstices of sweetie-bottles and
biscuit-tins. I must convey you where you cannot see him at all; and
there’s no place better than inside the church. And, by ginger! there
goes the parson. I’ll call him; he will let us in. And—Lydia, I took the
precaution to have a license; it cost me half-a-guinea—here it is. You’d
never be so unreasonable as to have that chucked away, so come along.”
“O Jack! I wouldn’t do anything as wasn’t right and honourable. He, up
there”—with her chin she indicated the top of the spire, then enveloped
in fog—“he’ll expect to have me if he brings down the stag.”
“Not a bit, my dear. Nothing was set down in writing, but I call you to
witness—he who had the choice was to go up the spire and leave the coast
clear for the other to propose, and to offer no just cause or impediment.
Was it not so?”
“I did not quite understand it in that light.”
“But I did.”
“Will Mr. Newbold, though?”
“My dear Lydia, he is up in a fog. England expects every man to do his
dooty. Here’s the license. Come along.”
* * * * *
Two hours later, with a triumphant air and firm stride, the builder
entered the shop, dragging along an immense battered weathercock detached
from the spindle. It had once been gilt, it was now in a rusty, measly
condition. Within he saw the widow and sailor side by side.
“Done!” shouted he. “I’ve got the cock!”
“Done!” replied the mariner. “I’ve won the hen!”
“I’ve been up in the clouds,” said Newbold.
“And I _am_ in the seventh heaven. I’ve not been in the clouds like you.
Let me introduce you to Mrs. Westcott!”
A PLUM-PUDDING
A PLUM-PUDDING
As far as man could suppose, every element that goes to make up happiness
was united to bless Mr. and Mrs. Birdwood.
He was in easy circumstances; that is to say, he had earned enough money
not to be obliged to work any longer, and had his own little house, and
could keep a “slavey.” He was inoffensive in his pursuits, being fond of
flowers, especially of roses, which he grafted; and what harm can there
be in a man who loves gardening? Next to marrying a curate, a woman
has a good certainty of her husband turning out amiable and orderly if
he grafts roses. Then, again, he was in the prime of life, by no means
bad-looking, amiable and placid. You could not study his face and not
see that he was good-humoured. On the other hand, Mrs. Birdwood was
comely, a lively woman, neat in shape, under thirty, and of a florid
complexion—which ought to suit a man addicted to flowers.
She had made a good match, said her friends, for she was one of fourteen,
and had come penniless to his arms. She had been Eliza Gubbins, and had
dropped the Gubbins at the altar. No one could deny that she was the
gainer when she acquired a name that carried with it a suggestion of
piping and tooting and whistling and jug-jugging and cooing of all kinds
of song-birds.
But there is a fly in every cup, a thorn to every rose, some bone in
every joint you get from the butcher, a cloud in every sky.
Mr. Birdwood was of an over-placid and too easy-going nature to satisfy
Mrs. Birdwood, who was impulsive, exacting, and sanguine.
He accepted connubial felicity as he did his meals—as something
anticipated, necessary, and ordinary. Instead of exhibiting an effusion
of gratitude to his wife for making him happy, he budded his roses, and
divided his bulbs, and potted his tubers as though that were the main
object of his life, instead of falling down and admiring that luminous
transcendental being who had condescended to come into Jessamine Villa to
be _his happiness_.