Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
MARJORIE
BY
Justin Huntly McCarthy
_Author of_ "IF I WERE KING"
_Oh Marjorie, my world's delight
Your yellow hair is angel-bright,
Your eyes are angel-blue.
I thought, and think, the sweetest sight
Between the morning and the night
Is just the sight of you._
New York
R. H. RUSSELL
1903
COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY R. H. RUSSELL
First Impression, March, 1903
[Illustration]
To
ANTHONY HOPE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MY APOLOGY 1
II. LANCELOT AMBER 7
III. THE ALEHOUSE BY THE RIVER 15
IV. A MAID CALLED BARBARA 29
V. LANCELOT LEAVES 38
VI. THE GENTLEMAN IN BLUE 54
VII. CAPTAIN MARMADUKE'S PLAN 62
VIII. THE COMPANY AT THE NOBLE ROSE 68
IX. THE TALK IN THE DOLPHIN 72
X. SHE COMES DOWN THE STAIRS 81
XI. A FEAST OF THE GODS 87
XII. MR. DAVIES'S GIFTS 91
XIII. TO THE SEA 100
XIV. THE SEA LIFE 105
XV. UTOPIA HO! 113
XVI. I MAKE A DISCOVERY 117
XVII. A VISITATION 126
XVIII. THE NIGHT AND MORNING 134
XIX. HOW SOME OF US GOT TO THE ISLAND 145
XX. A BAD NIGHT 155
XXI. RAFTS 163
XXII. WE LOSE CORNELYS JENSEN 168
XXIII. WE GET TO THE ISLAND 179
XXIV. FAIR ISLAND 190
XXV. THE STORY FROM THE SEA 205
XXVI. THE BUSINESS BEGINS 214
XXVII. AN ILL TALE 232
XXVIII. WE DEFY JENSEN 241
XXIX. THE ATTACK AT LAST 249
XXX. OUR FLAG COMES DOWN 261
XXXI. A PIECE OF DIPLOMACY 268
XXXII. THE SEA GIVES UP ITS QUICK 280
XXXIII. THE LAST OF THE SHIP 290
MARJORIE
CHAPTER I
MY APOLOGY
What I have written may seem to some, who have never tossed an hour
on salt water, nor, indeed, tramped far afield on dry land, to be
astounding, and well-nigh beyond belief. But it is all true none the
less, though I found it easier to live through than to set down. I
believe that nothing is harder than to tell a plain tale plainly and
with precision. Twenty times since I began this narrative I have damned
ink and paper heartily after the swearing fashion of the sea, and have
wished myself back again in my perils rather than have to write about
them.
I was born in Sendennis, in Sussex, and my earliest memories are full
of the sound and colour and smell of the sea. It was above all things
my parents' wish that I should live a landsman's life. But I was mad
for the sea from the first days that I can call to mind.
My parents were people of substance in a way--did well with a mercer's
shop in the Main Street, and were much looked up to by their neighbours.
My mother always would have it that I came through my father of gentle
lineage. Indeed, the name I bore, the name of Crowninshield, was not the
kind of name that one associates usually with a mercer's business and
with the path in life along which my father and mother walked with
content. There certainly had been old families of Crowninshields in
Sussex and elsewhere, and some of them had bustled in the big wars.
There may be plenty of Crowninshields still left for aught I know or
care, for I never troubled my head much about my possible ancestors who
carried on a field gules an Eastern crown or. I may confess, however,
that in later years, when my fortune had bettered, I assumed those armes
parlantes, if only as a brave device wherewith to seal a letter. Anyway,
Crowninshield is my name, with Raphael prefixed, a name my mother fell
upon in conning her Bible for a holiname for me. So, if my arms are but
canting heraldry, I carry the name of an archangel to better them.
I was an only son, and my parents spoilt me. They had some fancy in
their heads that I was a weakling, and needed care, though I had the
strength of a colt and the health a sea-coast lad should have, so
they did not send me to a school. Yet, because they set a store by
book-learning--which may have its uses, though it never charmed me--I
had some schooling at home in reading, writing, and ciphering. My father
sought to instil into me an admiration for the dignity of trade, because
he wished me to become a merchant in time, with mayhap the Mayoralty in
perspective. I liked the shop when I was little, and thought it a famous
place to play in, lurking down behind its dark counter as in a robbers'
den, and seeing through the open door of the parlour at the back of the
shop my mother knitting at her window and the green trees of the garden.
I liked, too, the folds of sober cloth and coloured prints, and the
faces of folk when they came in to buy or cheapen. Even the jangle of
the bell that clattered at the shop door when we put it to at meal times
pleased my ears, and has sounded there many times since and softly in
places thousands of miles away from the Main Street. I do not know how
or why, but the cling-clang of that bell always stirred strange fancies
in my mind, and strange things appeared quite possible. Whenever the
bell went tinkle I began to wonder who it was outside, and whether by
chance they wanted me, and what they might want of me. But the caller
was never better than some neighbour, who needed a button or a needle.
The great event of my childhood was my father's gift to me of an
English version of Monsieur Galland's book, 'The Arabian Nights'
Entertainments.' Then the tinkle of the shop bell assumed a new
significance. Might not Haroun al Raschid himself, with Giafar, his
vizier, and Mesrour, his man, follow its cracked summons, or some
terrible withered creature whom I, and I only, knew to be a genie in
disguise, come in to catch me by the shoulder and sink with me through
the floor?
Those were delicious terrors. But what I most learnt from that book was
an unconquerable love for travel and an unconquerable stretching to the
sea. When I read in my book of Sinbad and his Seven Voyages I would
think of the sea that lay so near me, and wish that I were waiting for a
wind in a boat with painted hull and sails like snow and my name
somewhere in great gold letters. I would wander down to the quays and
watch the shipping and the seamen, and wonder whence they came and
where they went, and if any one of them had a roc's egg on board. I was
very free for a child in those days, for my parents, still fretting on
my delicacy, rarely crossed me; and, indeed, I was tame enough, partly
from keeping such quiet, and well content to be by myself for the hour
together.
But, when I had lived in this wise until I was nearly fifteen, my father
and my mother agreed that I needed more book-learning; and, since they
were still loath to send me to school, they thought of Mr. Davies, the
bookseller, of Cliff Street. He was a man of learning. His business was
steady. He had leisure, and was never pressed for a penny, or even for a
guinea. It was agreed that I should go every day for a couple of
afternoon hours, to sit with him and ply my book, and become a famous
scholar. Poor Mr. Davies! he never got his will of me in that way, and
yet he bore me no grudge, though it filled him with disappointment at
first.
There was a vast deal of importance for me, though I did not dream it at
the time, about my going to take my lessons of Mr. Davies, of Cliff
Street. For if I had not gone I should never have got that tincture of
Latin which still clings to me, and which a world of winds and waters
has not blown or washed from my wits; nor, which is far more important,
should I ever have chanced upon Lancelot Amber; and if I had not chanced
upon Lancelot Amber I should have lost the best friend man ever had in
this world, and missed seeing the world's fairest woman.