Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales

“But how did you learn to swim and dive so well?”

“When I was a little boy, I was fond of books of Voyages, and I liked, above all things, to read the description of the bathing pranks of the Otaheite savages, who were such active divers, that when a nail was thrown overboard, they would plunge after it, and catch it before it reached the bottom. I thought that I could do what a savage did so easily, and I soon learned to do what so many animals do without any instruction at all. If you want a model, take a frog, and imitate its motions in the water. Courage is everything.”

“But, Mack, every one hasn’t such long and strong legs and arms as you have – just like a frog’s.”

“Thank you for the comparison – not for the first time, Master Tyd – but I have not a great belly like a frog’s, which is useful in swimming – at least in floating. A large pot-bellied man may lie on the water as long as he likes, if he keeps his head well back so as to have it supported by the water – and with his heels closed and neck up.”

“But surely in that position he would be like a log on the water, and make no way,” remarked some one of the listeners.

“True, but he can rest himself in that position until he chooses to strike out again. Just fancy yourself a fish: you are specifically lighter than water, and you can lie as near the surface as you please; use your fins and you can move about to the right or left – as a boat is moved by its oars; use your tail and you steer in any direction – as the rudder turns the direction of the boat. Then fancy your fins and tail cut off – there you lie like a raft – without poles or oars – but you do not sink. If you have one fin, or part of one, you move like a boat with one whole or broken oar. Now our bodily apparatus is not designed like that of a fish for swimming, but it is capable of enabling us to swim sufficiently well for our necessities. Just read Old Franklin on the art of swimming, and you will understand the theory of the matter at once. The great difficulty in practice is the fear which people have of being drowned, and this can only be overcome by accustoming ourselves to the water.”

“Now, Mack,” said Tydvill, “you know I cannot swim; what ought I to have done if you had pitched me into that awful hole?”

“You should have kept yourself from struggling and plunging, letting the back of your head lie quietly under the water, with your mouth free for breathing – but not for screaming and water-drinking – till I had taken the trouble of catching hold of you.”

“But surely,” replied Tydvill, “the weight of my clothes would have sunk me?”

“I think not,” rejoined his friend; “the water would have supported them too, though you’d have found them very heavy when you came out of it. Will you try the experiment?”

“The theory is sufficient for me,” concluded the sprightly Welshman. However, another of the crew put this question: —

“Since the body can be supported on the surface of the water, as O’Mackerry has said, and with little exertion, or without any, as in swimming on the back, how is it that a drowned body sinks, and often rises some days afterwards?”

“Because,” said our philosopher, – who had been crammed on the subject, – “the lungs of a drowning person become filled with water, and therefore the body, becoming specifically heavier, sinks. The body remains at the bottom only until the water has been quite freed from it by compression; it then is swelled and expanded by gases generated within, and becoming lighter than the water, rises to the top.”

They had for some time been leaning on their oars, enjoying this chat, and were about to retrace their course, when one of the English lads asked O’Mackerry if he had ever been in real danger in a boat. The other reflected a little, and then thought of an incident which had occurred to him some years ago, before he had learned to swim. “Yes,” said he, “but for God’s good providence I would have been,” (“You mean should, I suppose,” said Coxswain Green, in an under tone) “assuredly drowned. I had been contriving how to put out striker lines in a deep loch near my father’s house, and, not having a boat, I substituted a stable door, taken from its hinges, as a raft for my purpose. I had read of rafts on the Rhine with whole families on them – with a cabin and cow-house and pig-sty; and why should not my miniature raft support my weight? I floated the door – balanced myself nicely upon it – put out for the middle of the loch, gently paddling it with a pole, and fearful of the slightest change of my position, which would have destroyed the horizontal equilibrium of my feeble raft. When I had gone far enough – into water thirty or forty feet deep – I sent off the strikers, but unfortunately flung away my paddle along with them. My insensibly nervous movements caused the door to incline into the water at one side an inch or two. I moved a hair’s breadth; it then declined to the other side. It would sink. I had no doubt of this. Then I gently stooped to try if I could unfasten a shoe; but this was impracticable. I tried a balancing movement again, and the door righted, but not entirely. My presence of mind, however, did not fail me. I took off my hat, and paddled myself with this from side to side alternately, until I reached the strand – through thick masses of aquatic plants – the water-lily in particular, whose long and interlacing stems would have embraced me to death, if I had fallen among them. I have never known any one to swim or bathe in that dangerously deep loch. I do not see how I could have escaped drowning at that time if I had slipped from the raft.”

This led the adventurous youth to narrate another difficulty from which he had been mercifully extricated by God’s providence. He had been snipe-shooting in an Irish hog, and thoughtlessly trod upon a green, firm, and sound-looking, but very treacherous quagmire, us he was watching a snipe which had just sprung up. He was suddenly immersed in the semi-fluid peat to his shoulders, and only saved from quickly subsiding into the depths of the morass by a solid bed of clay, at the depth of five feet and a half. He sank to his under lip, barely escaping suffocation, and having his breath spared for shouting. He was pulled up by various contrivances, a reeking column of black mire. As it seemed clear that Mr O’Mackerry must have been engulfed in the bog if he had been half an inch under six feet two in stature, it was illogically argued that it would be a general advantage to manhood if all were exceedingly tall – suppose of the height of the suite of the Duke of Brunswick (composed of men some inches above seven feet), which came to London a hundred years ago.

“Of course,” said Tydvill, “Churchill is right in the Rosciad when he says:

”‘Your hero should be always tall, you know.’”

But the wiser ones of the crew showed that the ordinary height, as fixed by the Almighty, is the best. If the scale of men were raised a foot or so, with proportioned frame and weight, horses and other beasts of burden should be increased also; else the giants could neither hunt nor even travel, nor find beef and mutton, etc, for their support. And if the animals were larger, more grass, etc, would be required than at present. The whole scale of proportions would require alteration. Who can dare to think that God’s design is not the best? Neither giants nor dwarfs form the general rule, and extreme exceptions are happily very rare.

“What became of the gun?” inquired one of the party. “I hope that was not swallowed up?”

“No; that was pulled up with me. I had kept fast hold of it; we fell and rose together, and so I was not —

”‘Doomed to perish by the slaughtering gun.’”

However, it was unfit for service, like its owner, for the remainder of that day; its chilled barrel looked as if it were moaning forth to me, in hollow tone, —

”‘Stay by me – thou art resolute and faithful;

I have employment worthy of thy arm.’”

It will be seen that Mr O’Mackerry had a smattering of classical lore. He was asked to name his last poet.

“Dryden,” said he, off-hand.

“You hadn’t a dry den when you were up to your chin in the wet, black hole,” quickly added Tydvill. Here there was unanimous applause.

This led to some conversational nonsense about punning.

“What is a pun?”

“Don’t you know,” said O’Mackerry, “Swift’s definition in the essay which he entitled ‘The Ars Punica sive flos linguarum, by Tom-Pun-Sibi, Dublin?’” None other of the crew knew anything concerning it; O’Mack therefore gave them the concluding part as a specimen, and in reply to the question. “Punning is an art of harmonious jingling upon words, which, passing in at the ears and falling upon the diaphragms, excites a titillatory motion in those parts, and this being conveyed by the animal spirits into the muscles of the face, raises the cockles of the heart, and promotes the end of good fellowship, which is laughing.”

Just at that moment the crew in training for the coming race between the rival universities neared the Rose, for so the boat must now be called, and, as in duty bound, the latter drew to the opposite bank to allow the eight-oared cutter to pass at fullest speed, and then following in her wake, the rest of the trip was passed in comparative silence, so eagerly did our freshmen note each movement of that skilful crew.

Story 5-Chapter I

STORY FIVE – The Force of Conscience – A Tale by a Naval Chaplain

Soon after I entered Holy Orders I joined the old – , 74, in the West Indies. As we were for a considerable time stationary at Port Royal, Jamaica, and my health was suffering from the climate, I obtained leave to take a few weeks’ cruise with an elder brother, who commanded a brig of war on the station. While I was on board the brig, she was sent in search of a piratical craft, which had of late been committing great depredations on British commerce in those seas. At length, after a long search, we sighted her, made chase, attacked, and, after a desperate fight, captured her, with a loss of several of our own men, and one-third of the pirates killed and wounded.

Among the pirate crew a young man was brought on board badly wounded, whose countenance exhibited such an expression of deep melancholy and despair, that I could not help feeling compassion for him; indeed, I persuaded myself that he must be less guilty than his companions. They were, or their physiognomies woefully belied them, as villainous a set of scoundrels as were ever collected together, and their captain, if report spoke true, was the greatest miscreant of them all. I attended daily by the bed-side of the unhappy youth I speak of, and had hopes, although he said little, that I had worked on his mind some impression of the awful state in which he was placed; but as he recovered his strength his obduracy of heart appeared to return, and he seemed to have persuaded himself that he should escape the punishment of his crimes.

After a long beat we at length entered Port Royal in triumph with our prize, and were thanked by all the merchants for the service we had rendered them. The pirates were tried without delay, one of them turning king’s evidence, and being all convicted of the most atrocious murders on the high seas, with this single exception, they were all sentenced to death.

The evening before his execution the young man I spoke of sent to entreat me to visit him. I gladly acceded to his wish. I found him heavily ironed and chained to the ground, in a room with a strongly-grated window, where three of his piratical shipmates were also confined. These latter were Spaniards, and dark ferocious-looking ruffians they seemed – more like beasts than men with immortal souls, so brutalising are the effects of habitual crime.

They regarded me as I entered with glances of furious hate, for they recognised me as having belonged to the ship which captured them, and, had they not been manacled, they would, I truly believe, have rushed at me to satisfy their longing for vengeance, but their chains, fortunately for me, holding them down, they again sank into the sullen apathy from which my appearance had roused them.

Sitting down on a low stool, furnished by the gaoler, I expressed my willingness to afford the prisoner every aid in my power that his awful state demanded.

“You were kind to me, sir, when I lay wounded, from the first, on our passage here, and I thought you would excuse me speaking to you,” he answered, looking furtively around as if some one was watching him. “Oh, sir, there are many, many things weighing like hot lead upon my mind, and I must tell them to some fellow-creature before I am sent on my last voyage, or I should have to come back again to haunt this world, which is already sick of me and my crimes. Oh, sir, it is dreadful to think of dying when one has lived as I have done; yet my life for some years has been one of misery, ever haunted by a hideous spirit or a being of – There it is, sir! see, see! I knew that I could not talk of him without his coming! There, there, there!” he shrieked out.

I exerted all my powers to soothe the mind of the poor wretch, throwing in such observations as I thought might tend to bring him to think on the new state of existence he was about to enter. Pirate as he was, I felt that he was still a fellow-creature, and who can tell what strong temptations might have led him into crime? Who among us can say how we should have withstood the same? Let us feel grateful that we have received the benefit of a religious education, and pray Heaven to keep us from sin. Seeing that until he had relieved his mind by a narration of the circumstances in his career which pressed most heavily on it, he would be unable to attend to me, I told him that I was prepared to listen to anything he might have to say. On this he immediately commenced a sketch of his life in almost the following words: —

The Confessions of a Pirate.

“I am a Devonshire man, and was born near Salcombe. A wild-looking place is Salcombe Range. My father’s cottage stood on the hill facing directly down the bay, or range, as they call it in the west country, so that the only view I remember in childhood was that of the dark cliffs on each side of its entrance, with its heaving and foaming waters; the only music I ever heard, their hollow melancholy sound.

“My father had been an officer of excise at Plymouth, and, having somehow or other made his fortune, retired here to end his days. This he soon did, for, shortly after I was born, my mother dying, he took to drinking harder than ever – he was never a very sober man – and before I was seven years old I was left an orphan. I had now no one to look after me, except an old woman, whose chief occupation was mixing smuggled spirits to fit them for the market; when she used to taste and taste the stuff till she went reeling to bed. I consequently had plenty of time and opportunity to follow my own inclinations, and was early taught all sorts of wild pranks by boys older than myself.

“For some time my principal employment consisted in dodging the steps of the revenue officers, both when a run was about to be made, and afterwards when the tubs and cases were to be carried up the country. I could neither read nor write, and as for religion, I never heard of it; indeed, I was as ignorant as could well be. At last, the clergyman of the parish took compassion on my unprotected state; and the old woman who had charge of me dying, like my father, in a fit of drunkenness, he sent for me up to his house, and asked me if I should like to go to school. Though I did not know what school meant, I answered ‘Yes,’ for I wanted to go somewhere; it little signified to me where. As I was treated kindly I got on very well, so that in three years I was considered one of the best scholars in the school, though at the same time one of the wildest. The vicar was a strict man, and, though he expressed himself satisfied with my progress, I was never a favourite of his.

“Although I had continued my intimacy with several of my early smuggling companions, I managed to reach my eighteenth year without being considered worse than a wild sort of chap. About this time I formed an acquaintance with a pretty girl, the daughter of a respectable farmer in the neighbourhood. Her old father spoke to me on the subject. I knocked him down and fled. I had behaved like a villain. I knew it then; I feel it now. The poor girl refused to see me when I afterwards tried to meet her, and soon died of a broken heart. The neighbourhood was no longer to my liking. I felt that every finger was pointed at me; but I stifled conscience, and tried to appear indifferent as to what folks said of me. Oh, that I had listened to that small voice then! My after-life would have been very different.

“I had always been accustomed to get about in boats; and having just before formed the acquaintance of a noted smuggler, one Brand Hallton by name – I then thought him one of the finest fellows on either side of the channel – I made my first trip across to the coast of France in his company. That man was the chief cause of my subsequent career in crime and misery – my evil genius. Oh, sir, warn all the young men you may meet to shun the company of the wicked and immoral as they would a pestilence! They are the instruments with which the devil works out his deeds of darkness. I did not know how bad he was, or, perhaps, I might have avoided him and been saved. For two years or more, I was constantly in some smuggling craft or another; and though we frequently lost a cargo, we managed to escape being taken and sent on board a man-of-war to serve the king. This hazardous varied sort of life just suited my taste, and, as I had more learning than the rest of my companions, I was looked up to by most of them. However, our success was not to last for ever: through the treachery, as we afterwards discovered, of one of the people we employed on shore, we were unusually unfortunate; and, suspecting what was the case, we vowed to be revenged on whomever it might be.

“I had never seen blood shed – my hands were free from that crime. Oh that they were so now, I should not care so much about dying! We had a large cutter, carrying four guns, with forty stout hands on board, Brand Hallton being our captain; so that we could easily beat off any revenue boats which might attempt to board us.

“Every one was armed to the teeth; and on the occasion I am about to speak of, the word was passed that all the helpers on shore should come prepared for resistance, in case of being molested. We took in our cargo, consisting of silks, laces, tea, and other valuable commodities, at Cherbourg, and made the land just before sunset. We stood in at once, and found the spotsman at his post, with a signal that all was clear. The night was pitchy dark, though calm; and, except the signals, not a light was shown. About fifty men were stationed on shore, to carry the things inland.

“We set to work as fast as possible getting the things into the boats, and all went on well for some time. I, with some others, in one of the boats, had left the cutter, when a pistol was flashed from the shore as a signal for us to return; but, before we had pulled many strokes, there was a rapid discharge of fire-arms, while loud shouts, oaths, and cries arose: torches were kindled, and by their light we could see our friends on shore mixed in a hot fight with a number of red-coats.

“As soon as we made out what was going forward, we pulled back as fast as we could to the vessel, to put the bales into her, intending to return to assist our people; but, before we reached her, a splash of oars was heard close to us, and in a moment a large boat was alongside our galley. At the same time, a loud voice ordered us to surrender; but, as we were not the chaps to do that in a hurry, our coxswain drew his pistol, and fired it towards the boat. A deep groan was the answer, and immediately other pistols were fired on each side. By the flashes we saw a number of men, their cutlasses shining brightly, about to spring into our boat; but, at the same time, we knew that we must beat them or die. They were brave fellows, and would, perhaps, have taken us all; but we were fighting with halters round our necks; for after the resistance we had offered, we knew that, if made prisoners, we should be hung. They had already cut down two or three of our people, when another of our boats came up, and attacked them on the other side. There was now little chance for them: we dared not save them if we would. They fought bravely to the last – every one of them was killed.

“They were countrymen, and were only doing their duty. That night’s work, sir, weighed like lead upon my conscience, till other crimes drove the thoughts of it out, and my heart became seared. It is only now that I am about to quit the world that my conscience is roused up. It is very terrible, sir. My life seems a dreadful dream; and I cannot even now believe that I am to die to-morrow to go where I have already sent so many others, not more fit to die than I am. It is too much to think of. I wonder what sort of a place I shall be in to-morrow at this time!” he suddenly exclaimed, after a long silence.

“You must trust in the mercy of One who is all merciful,” I answered, “and repent of your crimes, and then be assured, as was the thief on the cross, you will be forgiven.”

“I wish I thought it might be so, sir,” he observed, “but I have been too wicked – too great a reprobate for pardon; and he—he knows better! – that ghastly figure there! —he shakes his head, and grins at me, mocking at the very idea of it! Oh, that I could have another spell of life to get free of him! Is there any chance of being let off?” he asked, with sudden animation.

“Not the slightest,” I answered. “Do not for a moment indulge in such a hope.”

“Well, sir, well – perhaps it is best as it is. I have thought a good deal about death since I lay wounded, and have made up my mind to the worst. My life has long been a burden to me; but it is the future – the future which makes me tremble; and then that dreadful ghost-like figure unnerves me. Off with you – off!” he shrieked out. “Leave me for this once at rest!”

The Spaniards, aroused by his cries, scowled fiercely on him, and cursing him for a noisy madman, again sank back upon the stone floor. After being silent for a minute, he appeared to have perfectly recovered his senses, and continued —

“I will go on, sir, with what I was telling you about – I want to get it off my mind. Well, after we had killed the people in the revenue boat, we hove the things into the cutter, and pulled again to the shore to assist our friends. It was fortunate for them that we did so, for the soldiers had come down in great numbers, and completely got the better of them. Some were made prisoners, numbers were either killed outright or desperately wounded, and the remainder were fighting hand-to-hand for their lives, close down to the water’s edge. Some of the best men were with us. We were fresh and desperate; so, managing to drive back the soldiers for a minute, by a furious charge, before they again came on, we covered the retreat of the rest to the boats, and then followed ourselves. In a moment they were afloat, and we were pulling off from the shore. Several volleys were fired at us without doing us any mischief, and we could see the soldiers, by the flashes of their pistols, galloping up and down along the beach, in search of those of our friends who were trying to escape. About twenty of our people got off, but of course all the things, except a few we had on board, were lost, and we vowed vengeance against whomever had betrayed us. We all took a dreadful oath to that effect, which we most fearfully fulfilled. Oh! I wish that it had been broken.

“We were sullen and out of humour enough when we got on board; but there was no time then to meditate on revenge, so we lost not a moment in making sail and standing off the coast. We well knew that, after what we had done, the revenue cruisers would be keeping a very sharp look-out for us; but we were not to be daunted, even by the certainty of death, if taken. We spoke a lugger standing in for the coast, and two nights afterwards we ourselves followed her, and ran the rest of our cargo. When on shore, about that work, we discovered who it was who had betrayed us, and we renewed our oath to be revenged on him whenever we could get him into our power. He was a man who often had acted as spotsman for us, and in whom we placed entire confidence, though with the world in general he did not enjoy the best of characters. His name was Arnold, a tall, fine-looking fellow, still in the prime of manhood. He had been bribed to deliver us into the hands of the law, and, fancying that his treachery was undiscovered, he was now looking forward to getting a larger reward by informing against us a second time. We did revenge ourselves! Oh, it was dreadful! Ah! – there he is! His livid, corpse-like face is laughing, and muttering at me behind your back. I knew I could not speak of him without his coming. Yes, yes, yes! – I’ll follow! I’ll follow! – I know I must!”