Gil's ship, with Father Brisdone on board, after waiting in vain for its
freight, grounded as the tide went down. The old priest, who had been
on deck, leaning over the bulwarks gazing up the river for the boat that
did not come, had been startled by a great flash of light which suddenly
shot up above the hills, and then by a heavy clap as of thunder,
followed shortly by a fierce glow in the sky, all of which told him only
too plainly of some terrible catastrophe at the powder-works.
He was not surprised, then, that the boat did not arrive till the long,
weary night had passed away, and the bright sun shone once more upon the
dancing waters, but even then noon was fast approaching before there was
the measured dip of oars, and the boat came round a wooded point.
He looked earnestly for Mace, but, not seeing her, he sighed.
"My eyes fail me a good deal now," he said; and, shading them with his
hand, he stood watching till, as the boat neared the ship, he could see
that she had four men lying in the stern sheets, and he concluded that
there had been an encounter.
"A bad augur," he said, sadly; "bloodshed on the eve of a wedding. Poor
boy though, there seems no chance of a wedding, for he has not won his
love."
His hands trembled as he stood at the gangway, while the boat was run up
to the side and Gil painfully climbed on board.
"Failed, my son?" cried Father Brisdone and here he stopped short as he
saw the terrible look of anguish in the young man's eyes.
"Help my poor lads, father," he said sadly. "They have been lying hurt
these many hours."
One by one four injured men were hoisted on board, and laid beneath the
shelter of a sail, while Gil and the father attended to their injuries
with rough but sensible surgery. There was a severe sword-wound and
plenty of terrible burns, but the worst sufferer was poor Wat Kilby,
whose face was blackened by the explosion, hair and beard burned off,
and his thigh-bone broken.
He was in a high fever and wandering when slung on board, turning
angrily upon those who had helped him.
"Don't I tell you the poor lass is burning?" he cried. "This is your
doing, skipper," he moaned. "You were always against it, and now you
leave the poor lass to burn, and keep me here. Father, this is the boy
I watched over and brought up, and taught. This be the way he treats me
now I am in trouble."
It was with great difficulty that they could keep the poor old fellow
sufficiently quiet to enable them to perform the necessary bandaging,
but at last he sank into the heavy sleep of exhaustion; and Gil, having
satisfied himself that his injured men were cared for, saw to his own
burns, gave orders for the ship to be floated up to her old berth on the
next tide, and then returned to the Pool.
For the next seven days he was almost constantly at Roehurst, in company
with the stricken father, whom affliction seemed to have turned back to
him as his only friend; and together they hung about the ruins, which
still smouldered slightly, and crumbled more and more into a shapeless
heap, overhung by a few masses of tottering wall.
Gil would have tried to persuade the old man to leave the spot, but that
it had so terrible a fascination for him as well, and together they
would sit hour after hour gazing at the ruins, and rebuilding the place
mentally and occupying it as of old.
The people of the sparsely inhabited district came to gaze at the wreck,
and from far and near they gathered together two days after the fire, to
see Gil's men carry the flower-sprinkled bier from Croftly's house to
the little rustic churchyard two miles away, the men taking it in turns
to bear her, four and four about. The place was densely crowded, thinly
populated as was the country there, to see Gil Carr and the weak, broken
founder, who seemed to have aged in one night to a venerable old man,
walk hand in hand behind, and stand bareheaded while Master Peasegood
read, and sobbed, and read, and finally letting fall his book, went down
upon his knees in the soft earth, and prayed beside the grave.
Sir Mark chafed more and more, but it was in vain. He was to have been
chief actor in another scene; here he was completely set aside again,
and Gil Carr had resumed his place.
Fortunately for Sir Mark, his old acquaintance Sir Thomas Beckley came
forward to offer his hospitality, and he took up his abode with him,
feeling that he could not leave the place with his task undone, and in a
bitter mood he received the attempts at consolation offered to him by
Anne, who, however, always kept very much aloof, playing the part of the
injured woman, but promising herself a sharp revenge, if ever the King's
messenger should again lay siege unto her heart.
Up to the day of the funeral the founder had been almost childish from
the effects of the shock; but after that he seemed to have recovered
himself, though he looked aged and bent, and changed to a remarkable
degree.
"I was very hard upon you, Gil," he said to him one evening, as they
stood leaning against one of the posts that had helped to support the
swing bridge now completely swept away, and whose place was occupied by
a couple of stout planks laid across the race. "I was very hard upon
you, my lad, but, though I made that affair of Abel Churr's an excuse, I
don't think I believed at heart that you did away with the poor
wandering wretch."
Gil looked at him sadly, and bowed his head without speaking.
"What are you going to do now, my lad?" continued the founder, gazing at
him with a yearning look as one his lost child had loved.
"To do?" said Gil, in a low hopeless tone, "to do? What is there left
to do, sir, but die?"
"Hush, my lad," said the founder, laying a trembling hand upon the young
man's arm; "that is for me to say. I am old and stricken: the storm has
torn one great branch from the trunk, and the old tree will slowly
wither and die. You are young yet, and hope will come to you again as
time goes on."
"Hush, for God's sake, hush!" cried Gil, turning upon him almost
fiercely; then, gazing round him in the gathering gloom of the evening,
he let himself sink, upon his knees lower and lower, with his hands
covering his face, as for the first time in the solitude of that blasted
home he gave full vent to the pent-up agony that for days and days he
had striven to hide.
"Hope," he groaned, "hope?" as his broad shoulders heaved and the
despairing sobs tore their way from his weary breast. "He does not know
what she was to me--he cannot tell how I loved her. Mace, Mace, my
darling, would to God I were lying by thy side!"
It had grown quite dark now, and the founder sank upon his knees in the
black ashes to lay his hands upon the young man's head.
"Gil, my son," he whispered hoarsely, "forgive me, for I never knew your
heart till now. In her name I ask you to forgive me for the wrong I
would have done you both in tearing you apart. I thought I was doing
right, but I am punished for my fault."
"Forgive you!" groaned Gil, who, for the first time in his life, was
quite unmanned. "Yes, I forgive you, if there is aught to forgive."
He pressed the old man's hand, as he rose after a time, weak and
desolate, to sit down upon one of the stones cast from the main building
by the blast. Some distance away a couple of windows shed their feeble
light, as if they were signals to Mace to open her casement once again,
and a groan rose to Gil's lips as he thought of the past. Then, like a
wandering spirit, a white, filmy-looking owl swept by them, turned and
came back once more, as if attracted by the blackened ruins, glided to
and fro for a few minutes, and it seemed to the two men that it shrieked
faintly just over the very centre of the ruined house before it glided
away.
Gil sat watching the bird in a dreamy, hopeless way, and, as he gazed
through the darkness, he felt that the place would become the home of
such creatures.
He was aroused from his reverie by the founder.
"How did it happen, Gil?" he said.
He spoke in a low, hoarse voice, but his Words sounded very plain in the
silence of the autumn even.
"How did it happen?" said Gil, repeating his words.
"Yes, my boy, tell me all. I cannot believe that God would make that
old woman with her curses his instrument to punish me."
"I have little to tell," said Gil. "I saw our darling again and again,
begging that she would go with me; but she refused till she found it
hopeless to move you, and that the wedding was to be."
"Yes, yes--go on," groaned the founder.
"Then she consented, and I made my plans."
"Yes, I see," replied the founder, "you were there with your men, and
Sir Mark felt sure that you were coming. But yours was a mad revenge on
him, and meant ruin and destruction to all."
"I do not understand you," said Gil, quietly.
"Did you think by blowing down part of the place to get her away in the
confusion?"
"Blow down? The place?" said Gil. "We had not a charge of powder with
us. I left it all on board."
"Then it was the store below caught first," said the founder, musingly;
"but how--how?"
"I cannot tell," said Gil.
"Wat Kilby," exclaimed the founder, jumping at a cause for the terrible
disaster; "he was smoking his tobacco by the entry, and must have thrown
down the burning pipe."
"Nay, he did not smoke; he was by my side bearing a ladder."
"Are you speaking frankly to me, Gil?" said the founder. "I prithee
keep nothing back."
"Can you speak to me like that?" replied Gil, in a grave, reproachful
tone. "Master Cobbe, I have kept nothing back; I have added nothing to
my story; I have only left out that there was the priest awaiting on
board of my ship, to be our darling's companion until we were made man
and wife."
"Forgive me, Gil," said the founder. "I know now that you are keeping
nothing back. But how could it have happened?"
"A shot from one of Sir Mark's men's pieces must have gone through to
your store of powder," said Gil. "They did fire, but my men struck
their pieces aside."
The founder accepted this theory, and they sat in silence for a few
moments, till they were interrupted by the approach of a great, dark
figure, who seemed at last to make them out.
"Ah! friend Cobbe," it said, in the thick rich tones of Master
Peasegood, "I was seeking thee. Come; the night-dew is falling, and it
is time you were safely housed. Ah! Gil, my good lad, you here?"
"Yes," was the curt response. "Master Peasegood, hadst thou but done
thy duty by her who was thy charge, these troubles might not have been."
"Reproach me not, good lad, I was taken away through Sir Mark's scurvy
tricks and carried up to London. And there I was, day after day, half
prisoner, half free. Sometimes they'd let me fly a little bit, like a
bird with a string at its leg. Other times they'd keep me in, and never
a word could I get to know of my offence."
"Not a legal prisoner, then?"
"Nay, lad, not at all. Though, had I tried to flee I had been tied fast
enough, I'll warrant. I took advantage of my freedom to see Saint
Paul's, and should be sorry to preach there. I bought me though, as I
had my money with me and the chance was good, six yards of cloth in
Paul's churchyard to make me a goodly cloak--four pounds sixteen it cost
me--and seven yards of calamanko for a cassock; one pound four and
sixpence that, besides a pound for a new hat, and six shillings for a
lutestring hood for Mistress Hilberry. I lightened my pocket, Gil, but
I was heavy enough at heart."
Gil nodded.
"I grew so hot of blood and angry at last with the way they kept me in,
and the too free use I made of the most villainous ale, Master Cobbe, I
ever put to my lips, that had I not been blooded freely by a chirurgeon,
I should have been ill. It was not the proper time--the haemeroyal
time, though close upon the full, but I let him take a good ten ounces
from my veins, and felt a better man."
"It would have been better, Master Peasegood, had you been here."
"True, lad, but I was not my own ruler. That Sir Mark never trusted me.
I had hard work to get free again, and hurried down to get to our
darling's side. You saw me when I came--that night? Sir Thomas Beckley
overtook me, and he brought me on."
Gil bent his head, and held out his hand, which the other pressed.
"When do you sail again?" said the parson.
"I sail again? Maybe never," said Gil. "Why should I sail?"
"To give thyself occupation--work--toil-weary evening and restful night.
Up, man, and work. Bear thy load bravely till Heaven send the soft
touch of time to make it lighter. Thou art young; thy ship waits. Go
across the sea and do thy work. This is no place for thee."
"Why do you interfere with me, Master Peasegood?" cried Gil, testily.
"I am none of thy followers."
"Nay, my lad, thou art not; but I give thee good advice that my lips
seemed urged to speak. Go and toil, and sit not down sobbing like a
fretful child."
"Man, you would madden me if I listened," cried Gil.
"Nay, but thou shalt listen," said Master Peasegood, "and I will quell
thy madness. Thou hast received one terrible loss like a man; I would
not have thee do it like a woman. Then, too, Master Cobbe, when are
these fires to be relit, and the wreathing curls of smoke to rise from
each furnace chimney?"
"Never," said the founder sadly, "my energy has gone, and I am spent."
"Tut, tut, man; fie!"
"What have I to live for?" cried the founder, as angry now as Gil.
"Not for thyself," cried Master Peasegood. "Not both of ye to indulge a
moping selfish regret, but for others--for the memory of one dead. Tut!
man, those do not pay most respect to their dead who sit and sigh, and
groan, and work themselves into fevers. Gil Carr, thy men call for thee
to lead them in some seafaring adventure. Jeremiah Cobbe, thou hast got
together here some fifty souls--workmen, their wives, and the children
they have begotten. Thou didst bring them to do thy work, and now the
furnaces are cold, the busy wheel has ceased to turn, and thy workmen
lean against the doorposts, and idle, and get out of trim. Come, come!
up, and be doing."
"For whom?" cried the founder angrily, "for whom should I toil?"
"Not for thyself, but for thy people. Nay, nay! don't take it ill, and
think me unfeeling. To both of you I say it is your duty, and, in the
name of yon sweet girl whom we all so dearly loved, I say keep her
memory green in your heart of hearts, but cease unmanly repinings
against fate."
"Ah! Master Peasegood," said the founder more gently, "thou hast never
been a father."
"Had I been sweet Mace's father could I have loved her better, Jeremiah
Cobbe? Have not mine eyes oft filled with tears at the memory of her
sweet face; has not my voice choked, and have not my words failed when I
have tried to speak, Gil Carr? Tut, man, give me credit for loving her
as well. Thou hast felt sore against me because I tried to keep you two
apart; but why was it, Gil, why was it? Had I not seen that which made
me think thou would'st prove a faithless lover to her, poor child. Give
me your hand, man, my love for her was different to thine, but it was
quite as deep."
Gil's hand was laid in the heavy palm of the parson of Roehurst, and
they joined in a close firm grip without another word.
"When shall these fires be going again, Master Cobbe," continued the
parson; "when shall the busy wheel turn plashing round? Come, come,
promise me that thy mourning shall not be quite out of bounds."
The founder had turned his back, and remained gazing away from them at
the blackened heap.
"You will be up and doing, will you not, Master Cobbe?" continued the
parson, urging him on. "Come: for thy child's sake. Would'st have this
place left a ruin? Come, promise me thou wilt."
A deep sigh seemed to tear itself from the founder's breast, and he
turned to gaze in the direction of his works.
"Thou art right, parson," he said; "it is not fair that the workmen I
brought here to feed and furnish with hard labour should suffer for my
sake. The fires shall be lit again."
"Ay, that's well," said Master Peasegood earnestly. "It will be glad
news for many a heart. Then I shall see the axe busy again as the
leaves fall, and the glow of the charcoal fire in the woods; and
meantime thy men will delve for iron, and the furnaces go roaring on.
Is it not so?"
"Yes."
"Bravely spoken, brave heart," said Master Peasegood; "and thou, Gil
Carr, off to thy ship once more, and bear away her freight. Come back
to us laden with the pale yellow brimstone and the grey-white salt.
Tut, tut, tut, of what am I speaking?" he muttered, as Gil shuddered.
"You will go, my brave lad, eh?"
"I suppose so: yes," said Gil slowly; and the parson laid his hand upon
the founder's shoulder once more.
"And the dear old house, Master Cobbe? There is sandstone waiting in
the quarry to be borne here, and thou hast oaken timber enough cut to
build it up. When wilt begin to repair thy loss?"
"Never," cried the founder fiercely. "Parson Peasegood, I'll work and
toil and invent and strive day and night to keep things going here, but
it is for others' sake, not mine."
"Nay, nay, but the house must be restored."
"Never," cried the founder; "never, Master Peasegood; never, Gil Carr.
I care nothing for the words of that reviling old woman and her curses.
Punishments come from Heaven, not from Hell, and, if she be a witch,
'tis devil's work she does; but no hand shall touch yon heap, neither
stone nor ash shall be disturbed. The flowers may spring up again, and
the grass will grow, but to touch it would be to me like disturbing my
poor child's grave. Our dear old home died with my darling. Let them
rest."
He turned away and walked firmly across the planks towards the lane
where Tom Croftly's cottage stood, followed by the parson and Gil, who
stepped back as the founder rapped upon the cottage door.
"Tom," he said, as the door was opened, and the light of a rush-candle
shone upon his deeply-lined face, "go round to the men and bid them
light the big furnace in the morning, and you see about the mixing up of
another batch of powder."
"Hurray, master," cried the man. "Give me my hat, wife. Dal me! but
that's good news again."
"Thou'lt go on making powder again--so soon?" said Master Peasegood, as
the founder joined them, and they went down the lane.
"Yes," said the founder firmly. "Gil, when thou com'st back, my lad,
there will be some score barrels of the best and strongest make. I want
to show people that an old hag's curses are as light as wind."
"Ay, and that a bad mishap is not to be taken as a judgment, because a
would-be soothsayer says 'tis so," cried Master Peasegood. "Thou'rt
right, Master Cobbe. I thank Heaven I spoke to you both as bravely as I
did, for my heart misgave me all the while."
The next morning the smoke rolled up once more from the furnace chimney.
The great wheel turned and plashed as it shed showers of silver from
its broad paddles and spokes; blackened men bore baskets of soft dogwood
charcoal to be ground, and others shovelled up the pale yellow sulphur
and the crystals of potash for mixing into powder once again. Two heavy
tumbrils jolted and blundered down the cinder-made lane to fetch great
loads of ironstone from the pits in the woods whence it was dug, and
then fierce furnaces were charged with layers of ore and charcoal ready
for smelting, while the horses tugged at their loads in answer to the
uncouth cries of the men. It was as if the people of Roehurst had
awakened from sleep, and all were rejoicing in the gladsome feeling of
being once more at work after their enforced idleness, the change acting
like a spur. There was shouting over the various works, and now and
then some one burst forth into a song, some doleful love-ditty about a
sweet young maiden, sung in a minor key.
Tom Croftly was in his element once more, and after seeing the furnaces
started and the men preparing the next batch of powder, he anxiously set
his colliers to work to get him more coal.
It was no sending down a set of blackened miners with their Davy lamps
crowding a cage that dropped slowly into the gas and choke-damp charged
bowels of the earth, but the superintending of couples of men who
attacked some cords of wood--long, low stackings of the loppings of the
trees cut down the previous winter--and, clearing out a circular space,
throwing out the earth all round, they set up a pole in the centre.
Then picking the branches that were some four feet long, they carefully
began to build them round the centre pole, standing all on end, and
going on round and round till a low circular stack was built, when the
stout central pole was taken away, the space it occupied being filled
with light brushwood, which was then set alight ready to communicate
with the wood around, while the air running in through spaces left at
the sides soon made a swift fire. This, however, was not allowed to
burn fiercely, for old charcoal powder mixed with dry earth lay ready,
and, after the stack had been covered with a litter of weeds, dry grass,
and thin twigs from the fallen trees sufficient to keep it from falling
through, the earth was shovelled on all over the stack wherever there
was a sign of flame or thin smoke breaking forth, till at last the
flames were stifled and the thick smoke rose only from the centre.
"More loam on," cried Tom Croftly, who, spade in hand, danced excitedly
round the charcoal pile like a grim black demon busy over some fiery
task, and the men worked and watched, smothering the flames with more
earth and water till not a gleam was seen, though all the while the fire
was glowing fiercely and burning out the watery gases of the wood.
And this went on night and day, the colliers having a shelter rigged up
to keep off the night-air when they needed rest, this being called turn
and turn, for, should there be no one ready to throw on shovels-full of
loam when the fire began to work a way through, the burning would be
spoiled.
But there were no burnings spoiled with Tom Croftly, who, had the men
been disposed to fail, would have been there to catch them lapsing and
take the shovel in hand himself. So the charcoal burned its time,
glowing slowly in the well-closed heat till by gentle testing here and
there it was declared to be quite fit, when the earth was cleared away,
water used liberally for quenching, and the erst flaming heap allowed to
cool, the effect being that the branches of rough wood were turned into
black clinking metallic-sounding charcoal, hard and brittle to the
touch, and ready to fuse the ironstone or turn into potent powder in the
mill.
Then by slow degrees the traces of the explosion were softened down, and
a new bridge took the place of that which had been swept away. A fresh
fence, too, was made of riven oak, and surrounded the ruined garden, so
that Master Peasegood had hopes that the founder had re-considered his
words.
But he had not. The fence was there to protect the ruins from the feet
of straying cattle. It was not needed to keep off the people of the
little place, for they gazed upon it with awe, and whispered that it was
haunted by the dead. And, when Master Peasegood asked thereof, the
founder said his words stood firm. But this was when weeks had glided
by, and Gil Carr's ship was tossing far away upon the sea.
Volume 3, Chapter VIII.