The village of Clovelly, which looks out from the steep cliff's side
on Bideford Bay, has surely a character peculiar to itself. Rising
abruptly from an antique pier, its lichen-covered cottages are piled
up on an incline so sharp that the traveller has to climb its
oblique, pebble-paved street, and is constrained to wonder how human
habitations were perched on so precipitous an acclivity, and how the
villagers contrive to descend day after day without bodily detriment,
or to ascend with fish-filled maunds without perilling their
existence. Besides the dwellings which line the slanting
thoroughfare, a number of cottages are scattered on the right and
left, embosomed in foliage which salutes the waving ocean; and so
completely is the cliff graced with fine old trees and with tangled
underwood, through which a grey rock here and there protrudes, that
the village looks right cosy, despite its perpendicular build, and
adds no little to the picturesque appearance of the charming coast.
The only inn of those days, which swung its sign in the main street
of that unique fishing hamlet, was the Crown and Anchor, in which
Pickard and the 'prentice were quartered for the night. The captain
and Mr. Mogford repaired to the outskirts of the village, where a
relative of the former resided, a worthy bachelor, who made them
welcome to his home and to such Devonshire fare as his larder
afforded. Everything was done that evening which Cousin William
could do to make the seamen 'snug and comfortable.'
It's like a dream, cap'n,' said Mogford; 'ain't it?'
'A dream with a plaguey nightmare into the bargain,' responded
Stauncy; 'but the ship isn't launched, and the skipper isn't born,
who can stand anything that comes.'
'Misfortunes will happen,' said the relative, with a sedate smile,
'and we must all be thankful it's no worse. We shall hear of many a
wreck after such a night, and the list of widows and orphans will be
greatly increased, I'm thinking.'
'Well, William,' said the captain, 'the mate knows, and I know, that
every effort was made to weather the storm and keep her afloat. But
it was to be.'
'There!' hastily interrupted the cousin. 'You're at your old
doctrine again, James, which is really no creed at all, but only an
easy, excusing way of getting over a difficulty, and sometimes of
justifying a crime.'
'I don't know anything about that, William,' replied the captain;
'all I know is, that what is to be, will be.'
'What is to be: you mean by that, what has been determined by the
Divine will. This is true as regards Divine permission, but not as
regards responsibility and the rights and wrongs of what happens;
because a great deal comes to pass through the wickedness of men, who
act from the impulses of their own bad hearts.'
The captain winced, and, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable at the
turn his relative's logic had taken, he replied, 'I cannot argue with
you, cousin, particularly as you are a pious man. All I want to say
is, that everything was done that mortal could do to survive the
gale. But it was to be.'
'Everything,' said the mate; 'nothing but good handling would have
kept her from foundering, or from running ashore between Bude and
'Arty. No better seamanship could be.'
'Thank you, Mogford,' replied Stauncy; 'we shall have to give an
account of ourselves, I suppose, and you'll bear witness for me, I'm
sure.'
'I should think so,' answered the mate; 'and perhaps your good cousin
here will appear to prove that it wasn't to be.'
'It would require data,' responded the relative, 'with which I am
unacquainted, and which have no existence, I am sure, to prove it in
this case. But such a thing _might_ be proved.'
And thus the evening was spent pleasantly, as it seemed: their worthy
host declared it was spent profitably. They were known to become
more eloquent! as it advanced; and the mate was afterwards heard to
say that the debating theologian delivered them a final lecture
before they separated for the night, in which, as far as he could
understand it, he endeavoured to make good the point that to excuse
all things by a Divine decree was to adopt a miserably one-sided and
fallacious view, and at the termination of which he besought his
cousin to throw overboard the foolish dogma, 'What is to be, will be.'
By sunrise the next morning the little party was on its way to
Northam and Appledore. The captain first reported himself to his
wife, who was no less surprised than rejoiced to see him, and then
walked on to bear tidings to the merchant.
That gentleman was sitting in the parlour already described, and,
when the captain was announced, rose up to meet him, with a cunning
smile that would have startled most men.
'Well, Stauncy,' he said, 'what news?'
'All right, sir; she's in as snug a berth as you could wish, with
plenty of water at low tide to cover her respectably. A prettier
burying couldn't be; but we had a terrible time of it, and I scarcely
thought we should have made Lundy again. One of our hands was washed
overboard, and six, I fear, have been cast away in the jolly-boat.'
'Dear me!' exclaimed the merchant; 'and so she went down comfortably.
Well--_pax vobiscum_--I believe that's the Latin; and now let us
drink each other's health. There's a good round sum on the ship and
cargo together.'
'I don't feel very comfortable, though,' said Stauncy; 'that sneaking
'prentice, who is crafty and malicious, was down in the hold from the
time we reached Bude Bay, and I think he wants gagging.'
'Take no notice of him whatever,' replied Mr. Phillipson. 'The bark
of such a young cur as that is not worth thinking about.'
'I thought,' said the captain, 'that I would just keep him, in tow,
like, and promised to give him a guinea if he deserved it.'
'You're a simpleton--a downright simpleton!' answered the merchant
angrily. 'He's wide-awake enough to read the meaning of that; and if
he isn't his father is. Guessing that you fear something, he'll be
ready to suspect much. You've the mate and the cook on your side,
and if you don't put down that young fellow he'll be too much for
you. Begin to give, and you'll always be in his power, depend upon
it. In a case like this, either you must let the truth right out, or
you must deny the truth right out. To go in the middle is to make
yourself suspected, and halter yourself with your own hands. You
must make short work with him, Stauncy. The promise of a good rope's
end for going below without leave would serve him right, and serve
you most.'
The captain saw the force of these remarks; but, had he consulted his
wife before acting on them, he might have doubted their applicability
in Jim's case. She would have suggested, in her wisdom, that the
prentice's notion of wealth extended no further than the promised
guinea, and that it would be more than unwise to provoke bad feeling
by violating an engagement which had filled the boy's mind with such
bright hopes. Acting, however, in accordance with the merchant's
wishes, the captain treated the 'prentice in a way that his honest
nature revolted against, and, like many another who has begun to do
evil, condemned himself whilst carrying it out.
With a smiling face, which might have caused the merchant himself to
relent, and a shyness of manner which betokened a sense of
unworthiness, Jim Ortop presented himself the next day at the
captain's door, and quietly said that he came about the guinea.
'I told you,' the captain remarked, assuming a ruffled manner, 'that
you should have it if you behaved yourself; but now I come to think
it over, it would be paying you for neglecting your duty. You know
what you deserve, Jim, and be thankful to carry a whole skin. You
shall have a guinea when you've earned it.'
So stunned was the boy by this reception that he stood speechless,
and when Stauncy bid him begone, the shock was too much for him, and
he burst into tears.