_Bobby Shafto’s gone to sea,
Silver buckles at his knee,
When he comes home he’ll marry me,
Pretty Bobby Shafto._
_Bobby Shafto fat and fair,
Blessings on his yellow hair,
He’s my lover ever dear,
Pretty Bobby Shafto._
OLD SONG.
One afternoon you might have seen Clare running downstairs swiftly,
her legs twinkling, like the water-wagtail’s as he spins over the
lawn.
For news spreads quickly in a household of children, and rumour
had it that Mrs. Inchbald was sitting in the drawing-room, and an
idea of stories was about. Clare met Bimbo here, and Dolorès there,
and a little farther on she gathered Leslie, Beppo, and Collina;
finally she swept up Robin and Mousie and Christopher, who followed
in her wake, and together they all poured into the drawing-room
helter-skelter, to see if this rumour were true.
Mrs. Inchbald sat by the fire with her knitting, and Miss Ross
stood by her side. Her long black dress fell in soft folds, and the
firelight touched and was reflected in the loose coils of her dark
hair. She looked supremely sad, as in her picture, only the quiet
movement of her eyes as she turned towards the children, lent a
greater animation to her face.
Soon all the children were gathered round the hearthrug chattering
like pies, and loudly choosing various stories.
“I think the Smugglers’ Cave.”
“No, I think Turn-Churn Willie.”
“No, no, about highwaymen.”
“Another witch story, please.”
“No, smugglers, smugglers.”
“And smugglers it shall be,” interposed Mrs. Inchbald, in a voice
that allowed no arguing.
And then and there she began the following tale:--
I must ask you, dear children, to wing your imagination and come with
me to a tawny-cliffed village on the coast of Kent. When the tide
is far out there are miles of sand, and here when the sun sets in
November, you may see a beautiful effect of colour. The flaming skies
are duplicated in the moistened sands, so that the whole firmament is
imaged in the earth around you.
Again, on summer evenings, these sands will reflect the long shafts
of amber light, so that the failing day will take new life from them,
seeming to recover once again its golden morning beams.
Look at the smaller picture by Bonington, and you will see what I
mean. The sands stretch beyond you inimitably, steeped in the rosy
and golden colours of the sky.
In the year 1819, the practice of smuggling had reached a point of
such craft and effrontery, that only by special methods did the
authorities hope to check its course. They realised that in having
local spies, in getting help from the village people themselves, lay
the best chance of permanently quelling it.
So it happened that as one Daniel Maidment was digging in his garden,
situated in the village that I have described, a spruce and very
dapper gentleman on horseback reined up beside his gate.
“Good-morning to you. Am I addressing Mr. Daniel Maidment of the
village of Stowe-i’-the-Knowe?”
[Illustration: _Remington_ ON THE SEA-SHORE]
“That’s my name, and that’s my village,” answered Daniel, and he
stood leaning on his spade.
“I have a little matter of business with you, my man,” continued
the stranger in that particular voice in which some people talk
to children, or use when they address such as they consider their
inferiors.
“You may find it to your advantage to give me your attention for a
little while. With your permission, I will walk into your house.”
The rider dismounted, and tying his horse to the gate-post, went up
the gravel path to the cottage door.
Daniel followed, and set a chair by the table, at which an old woman
sat making lace. Her eyes were blind, as you might see by their wide
dimness, and by the extreme serenity of her face. This is a quality
that accompanies blindness. All signs of anxiety, of transient
expression, are smoothed away, and all fretful activity; the features
are set in the beauty of a great repose.
But her hands plied with swiftness the work on a lace pillow, with a
pleasant recurrency of sound the wooden bobbins flew round, and about
the shining pins.
“If your mother is deaf as well as blind,” recommenced the stranger,
in a tone fitted to reach the deafest ears, “there is no reason at
all why we should disturb her, my good fellow; but my business is of
a private nature, and it would perhaps be better if we were alone.”
He stood with his hands under his coat-tails, and waved a high and
foolish nose over the chimney ornaments as he investigated the
spotted spaniels, the china paladins on white and gold chargers, and
the pretty shell boxes that ornamented the mantelpiece. But when he
turned he found the old woman had softly risen, and passed out.
“If you will kindly state your business with me, sir,” said Daniel,
“I shall be pleased to attend.”
The stranger cleared his throat, and began importantly:--
“I am commissioned by the authorities serving under his most gracious
Majesty the king, to investigate this district thoroughly with a
view to checking the illicit trading that is carried on. Time and
again the hand of the law has been held, and its object baffled by
the collusion of the villagers with the smuggling trade. It is only
possible for us to secure an advantage if we are helped by those on
the spot.
“It is an open secret that the landlord of the ‘Mariner’s Rest’
keeps a receiving house; but such is the organised system of signals
and alarms that hitherto we have found it impossible to surprise
their vigilance. Your character, Mr. Maidment, I find on inquiry is
unblemished as regards this matter as yet. I repeat, as yet--I have
no desire to go into the past. Your trade as a fisherman enables
you to know this coast, and the people who live along it, more
thoroughly than any one coming as a stranger upon the scene. Will
you work with the law? May we look upon you for such service as will
conform to a better governing of the country’s trading? Will you help
in abolishing an evil that is growing more and more flagrant and
unbridled, every year?”
Daniel understood very well what was wanted of him. He had lived for
years on the outskirts of smuggling, fully aware of his neighbours’
activity in the trade. Was he to turn spy upon them? It is true he
had no near friends concerned in it, but it was hardly the kind of
part he would choose, to watch and tell.
He looked across at this gentleman with a level gaze. How cordially
he disliked him. From the flat lock on his forehead, to the very
points of his smart, disagreeable boots. He felt this feeling of
dislike grow within him, as if it literally spouted bitter juices up
his veins. Then he said--
“What do you want with me? Do you want me to turn spy?”
He moved abruptly to the window, thinking, his hands deep into his
pockets as he stood, and his hand rustled against a letter in his
pocket that brought him suddenly to a standstill in thought. He drew
it out and stood looking at it. Then he went out at the cottage door,
and down the path.
The stranger never did a wiser thing than when he remained in the
cottage. He stood looking into the fire waiting for Daniel to return,
and out in the garden Daniel opened the folded sheet of paper,
written closely in a neat hand.
“O, my dear,” ran the words of the letter, “how well I love you, and
how often I think of you, God alone knows, for I shall never find the
poor words to tell you. Only I pray every night that I may soon see
you, and that this long waiting may cease. But it isn’t only right
but what our love should be tested, I know that, and God doesn’t send
us trials for nothing.
“You know what I spoke to you about last time when we were walking
on the Common. Do you remember how the gorse was out, and how I
begged you to get free from everything that wasn’t honest--how it
isn’t like you to have dealings of that kind? I know it hasn’t come
very nigh you yet, Daniel; I know you won’t let it part us. There’s
always plenty of things in this life ready to come in between
goodness and turn lives crooked, if they can; but we won’t let them
hurt our happiness, will we?--not we two. Only the other day I was
thinking about you, and I took the Book and let my hands wander among
the pages for a sign. And I said, ‘This’ll be for Daniel,’ as I was
doing it, and I looked down and read. And the words were: ‘Love the
brotherhood, obey God, honour the king,’ and that was a sign, Daniel,
and it was for you.”
The wind blew softly through the cottage garden, bending the bushes
of chrysanthemums by the wall. It rustled among the nasturtiums, and
away out into the field beyond. And the words of the letter kept
repeating themselves in Daniel’s brain, “Obey God, honour the king.”
And now they were not only written words, but they brought the tone
of a voice with them.
He re-entered the cottage and faced the stranger once more.
“I can’t do what you’re asking of me,” he said, “but at least I
shan’t work agin you, I’ve made up my mind. You may depend upon me.”
“That’s well; then I’ll say good-morning to you, Mr. Maidment. I will
leave you this address if you should have any written communication
you may want to send.”
He unhitched his horse’s reins from the gate-post, and mounting, went
at a swinging trot down the road.