The Maid of Sker

The name of our schooner, or rather ketch – for she was no more than that (to tell truth), though I wished her to be called a "schooner" – was, as I said, the "Rose of Devon," and the name of her captain was "Fuzzy." Not a bad man, I do believe, but one who almost drove me wicked, because I never could make him out. A tender and compassionate interest in the affairs of everybody, whom it pleases Providence that we should even hear of, has been (since our ancestors baffled the Flood, without consulting Noah) one of the most distinct and noblest national traits of Welshmen. Pious also; for if the Lord had not meant us to inquire, He never would have sent us all those fellow-creatures to arouse unallayed disquietude. But this man "Fuzzy," as every one called him, although his true name was "Bethel Jose," seemed to be sent from Devonshire for the mere purpose of distracting us. Concerning the other two "stone-captains" (as we call those skippers who come for limestone, and steal it from Colonel Lougher's rocks), we knew as much as would keep us going whenever their names were mentioned; but as to Fuzzy, though this was the third year of his trading over, there was not a woman in Newton who knew whether he had a wife or not! And the public eagerness over this subject grew as the question deepened; until there were seven of our best young women ready to marry him, at risk of bigamy, to find out the matter and to make it known.

Therefore, of course, he rose more and more in public esteem, voyage after voyage; and I became jealous, perhaps, of his fame, and resolved to expose its hollow basis, as compared with that of mine. Accordingly, when it came to pass that my glory, though still in its prime, was imperilled by that Irish Stew's proceedings – for he must have been Irish by origin – having my choice (as a matter of course) among the three stone captains, I chose that very hard stone to crack; and every one all through the village rejoiced, though bitterly grieved to lose me, and dreading the price there would be for fish, with that extortionate Sandy Macraw left alone to create a monopoly. There was not a man in all Newton that feared to lay half-a-crown to a sixpence that I brought back the whole of old Fuzzy's concerns: but the women, having tried Skipper Jose with everything they could think of, and not understanding the odds of betting, were ready to lay a crooked sixpence on Fuzzy, whenever they had one.

To begin with, he caught me on the hop; at a moment of rumours and serious warnings, and thoroughly pure indignation on my part. At the moment, I said (and he made me sign) that I was prepared to ship with him. After which he held me fast, and frightened me with the land-crabs, and gave me no chance to get out of his jaws. I tried to make him laugh with some of the many jokes and stories, which everybody knows of mine, and likes them for long acquaintance' sake. However, not one of them moved him so much as to fetch one squirt of tobacco-juice. This alone enabled him to take a strong lead over me. Every time that he was bound to laugh, according to human nature, and yet had neither a wag in his nose, nor a pucker upon his countenance, nor even so much as a gleam in his eye, so many times I felt in my heart that this man was the wise man, and that laughter is a folly. And I had to bottle down the laughs (which always rise inside of me, whenever my joke has the cream on it) until I could find some other fellow fit to understand me; because I knew that my jokes were good.

When I found no means of backing out from that degrading contract, my very first thought was to do strict justice to our association, and atone for the loss of my services to it. Therefore, in case of anything undesirable befalling me – in short, if I should be ordered aloft with no leave to come down again – there I made my will, and left my property to establish credit, for a new start among them. Chairs and tables, knives and forks, iron spoons, brought into the family by my wife's grandfather, several pairs of duds of my own, and sundry poles, as before described, also nets to a good extent – though some had gone under usury – bait-kettles, I forget how many, and even my character in a silk-bag; item, a great many sundry things of almost equal value; the whole of which I bravely put into my will, and left them. And knowing that the proper thing is to subscribe a codicil, therein I placed a set of delf, and after that my blessing. Eighteenpence I was compelled to pay for this pious document to a man who had been turned out of the law because he charged too little. And a better shilling-and-sixpence worth of sense, with heads and tails to it, his lordship the Bishop of Llandaff will own that he never set seal upon; unless I make another one. Only I felt it just to leave my boat entire to Bardie.

Having done my duty thus, I found a bracing strength upon me to go through with everything. No man should know how much I felt my violent degradation from being captain of a gun, to have to tread mercantile boards! Things have changed since then so much, through the parsimony of Government, that our very best sailors now tail off into the Merchant service. But it was not so, when I was young; and even when I was turned of fifty, we despised the traders. Even the largest of their vessels, of four or as much as five hundred tons, we royal tars regarded always as so many dust-bins with three of the clothes-props hoisted. And now, as I looked in the glass, I beheld no more than the mate of a fifty-ton ketch, for a thirty-mile voyage out of Newton bay!

However, I had lived long enough then to be taught one simple thing. Whatever happens, one may descry (merely by using manly aspect) dawning glimpses of that light which the will of God intended to be joy for all of us; but so scattered now and vapoured by our own misdoings, still it will come home some time, and then we call it "comfort."

Accordingly, though so deeply fallen in my own regard, I did not find that people thought so very much the less of me. Nay, some of them even drove me wild, by talking of my "rise in life," as if I had been a pure nobody! But on the whole we learned my value, when I was going away from us. For all the village was stirred up with desire to see the last of me. My well-known narratives at the well would be missed all through the autumn; and those who had dared to call them "lies," were the foremost to feel the lack of them. Especially the children cried "Old Davy going to be drownded! No more stories at the well!" Until I vowed to be back almost before they could fill their pitchers.

These things having proved to me, in spite of inordinate modesty, that I had a certain value, I made the very best of it; and let everybody know how much I wished to say "Good-bye" to them, although so short of money. From "Felix Farley" I had received no less than seven-and-tenpence – for saving the drowned black people – under initials "D. L." at the office; accruing to a great extent from domestic female servants. Some of these craved my candid opinion as to accepting the humble addresses of coloured gentlemen in good livery, and whether it made so much difference. And now I thought that Newton might have a mark of esteem prepared for me.

But though they failed to think of that – purely from want of experience – everything else was done that could be done for a man who had no money, by his neighbours who had less; and sixpence never entered twice into the thoughts of any one. Richard Matthews, the pilot, promised to mind the church-clock for me, without even handling my salary. As for Bunny, glorification is the shortest word I know. A young man, who had never paid his bill, put her into two-inch ribbon from the Baptist preacher's shop. Also a pair of shoes upon her, which had right and left to them, although not marked by nature. And upon the front of her bosom, lace that made me think of smuggling; and such as that young man never could have expected to get booked to him, if he had felt himself to be more than a month converted.

Moreover, instead of Mother Jones (who was very well in her way, to be sure), the foremost folk in all the village, and even Master Charles Morgan himself, carpenter and churchwarden, were beginning to vie, one with the other, in desire to entertain her, without any word of her five-pound note. In short, many kind things were said and done; enough to make any unbashful man desire to represent them. But I, for my part, was quite overcome, and delivered my speech with such power of doubt concerning my own worthiness, that they had to send back to the inn three times, before they could properly say "Good-bye."

CHAPTER XXVI.

BRAUNTON BURROWS

The weather was still as fair as could be, with a light wind from the east-north-east; and as our course lay west by south, and the ebb was running, we slipped along at the rate of six or seven knots an hour, though heavily-laden with the Colonel's rocks; and after rounding Porthcawl Point we came abreast of the old Sker House a little after sunset. Skipper Jose would never have ventured inside the Sker-weathers, only that I held the tiller, and knew every vein of sand and rock. And I kept so close in shore, because one of the things that vexed me most in all this sudden departure, was to run away without proper ceremony from Bardie. She was certain to feel it much, and too young to perceive the necessity; and fried pudding had been promised her at my table come the very next Sunday.

The windows of the old grey mansion gleamed in the fading western light, but we descried no smoke or movement, neither any life or variance, only a dreary pile of loneliness in the middle of yellow sands. Then I rigged out my perspective glass, and levelled it on the cuddy chimney – for the ketch was a half-decker – to spy if the little one might so chance to be making her solitary play, as she was used to do all day, and most of all ere bedtime. And if she should so happen, I knew how wild her delight would be to discover a vessel so near the shore; because whenever a sail went by, even at two or three leagues of distance, there was no containing her. Out she would rush with her face on fire, and curly hair all jogging, and up would go two little hands, spread to the sky and the vast wide sea. "Mammy dear, I 'ants 'a so. Dear papa, I has yaited so yong. Ickle bother, such a lot of things Bardie's got to tell 'a." And thus she would run on the brink of the waves with hope and sadness fluctuating on her unformed countenance, until the sail became a speck. However, now I saw no token of this little rover, unless it were some washed clothes flapping on the rushen tufts to dry; and Jose called me back to my spell at the helm before I had finished gazing. And in less than half an hour the landmark of the ancient house was fading in the dew-fog.

Our ship's company amounted to no less than four, all hands told – viz., Captain Bethel Jose, alias Fuzzy; Isaac Hutchings, the mate; my humble self (who found it my duty to supersede Ikey and appoint myself); and a boy of general incapacity, and of the name of "Bang."

Making fine weather as we did, and with myself at the helm all night, and taking command (as my skill required), we slanted across Channel very sweetly; and when the grey of morning broke, Lundy Isle was on our lee-bow. Hereupon I gave the helm to old Ike, for beyond this was unknown to me, and Providence had never led me over Barnstaple bar as yet. So I tumbled in, and turned up no more until we were close on the bar itself, about ten o'clock of the forenoon. This is a thoroughly dangerous place, a meeting of treacherous winds and waters, in amongst uncertain shoaling, and would be worse than our Sker-weathers if it lay open to south-west gales. We waited for the tide, and then slipped over very cleverly, with Hartland Point on our starboard beam; and presently we found ourselves in a fine broad open water, with plenty of grey stretch going along it, and green hills tufting away from it. Everything looked so mild and handsome, that I wondered whether these men of Devonshire might not be such fools for bragging after all, when tested.

Because, when I found no means to escape this degrading voyage to Devonshire, I had said to myself that at any rate it would enable me to peg down those people for the future. Not that they boasted, so to speak, but that they held their tongues at our boasts; as much as to say, "You may talk if you please; it does you good; and our land is such that we never need contradict you."

But now when I saw these ins and outs, and ups and downs, and cornering places, and the wrinkles of the valleys, and the cheeks of the very rocks, set with green as bright and lively (after a burning summer) as our own country can show in May, I began to think – though I would not say it, through patriotic unwillingness – that the people who lived in such land as this could well afford to hold their tongues, and hearken our talk with pleasure. Captain Fuzzy said no word, to show that he was home again; neither did he care to ask my opinion about the look of it. And old Ike treating me likewise, though he ought to have known much better, there I found myself compelled by my natural desire to know all about my fellow-creatures, to carry on what must have been a most highly flattering patronage towards the boy who did our slop-work, and whose name was "Bang," because everybody banged him.

This boy, forgetting the respect which is due to the mate of a ship of commerce – for I now assumed that position legally, over the head of old Ikey, who acknowledged my rank when announced to him – this ignorant boy had the insolence to give me a clumsy nudge, and inquire —

"Du 'e knaw thiccy peart over yanner? Them down-plasses, and them zandy backs?"

"My boy," I replied, "I have not the honour of knowing anything about them. Very likely you think a good deal of them."

"Whai, thee must be a born vule. Them be Braunton Burrusses!"

"Be them indeed? Take this, my boy, for such valuable information." And I gave him a cuff of an earnest nature, such as he rarely obtained, perhaps, and well calculated to be of timely service to him. He howled a good bit, and attempted to kick; whereupon I raised him from his natural level, and made his head acquainted with the nature of the foremast, preserving my temper quite admirably, but bearing in mind the great importance of impressing discipline at an early age. And I reaped a well-deserved reward in his lifelong gratitude and respect.

While Bang went below to complete his weeping, and to find some plaster, I began to take accurate observation of these Braunton Burrows, of which I had often heard before from the Devonshire men, who frequent our coast for the purpose of stealing coal or limestone. An up-and-down sort of a place it appeared, as I made it out with my spy-glass; and I could not perceive that it beat our sands, as those good people declared of it. Only I noticed that these sandhills were of a different hue from ours. Not so bare and yellow-faced, not so swept by western winds, neither with their tops thrown up like the peak of a new volcano. Rushes, spurge, and goose-foot grasses, and the rib-leafed iris, and in hollow places cat's-mint, loose-strife, and low eye-bright – these and a thousand other plants seemed to hold the flaky surface so as not to fly like ours. Ike broke silence, which to him was worse than breaking his own windows, and said that all for leagues around was full of giants and great spectres. Moreover, that all of it long had been found an unkid and unholy place, bad for a man to walk in, and swarming with great creatures, striped the contrary way to all good-luck, and having eight legs every side, and a great horn crawling after them. And their food all night was known to be travellers' skulls and sailors' bones. Having seen a good deal of land-crabs, I scarcely dared to deny the story, and yet I could hardly make it out. Therefore, without giving vent to opinions of things which might turn out otherwise, I levelled my spy-glass again at the region of which I had heard such a strange account. And suddenly here I beheld a man of no common appearance, wandering in and out the hollows, as if he never meant to stop; a tall man with a long grey beard, and wearing a cocked-hat like a colonel. There was something about him that startled me, and drew my whole attention. Therefore, with my perspective glass not long ago cleaned, and set ship-shape by a man who understood the bearings – after that rogue of a Hezekiah had done his best to spoil it – with this honest magnifier (the only one that tells no lies) I carefully followed up and down the figure, some three cables'-lengths away, of this strange walker among the sandhills. We were in smooth water now, gliding gently up the river, with the mainsail paying over just enough for steerage-way; and so I got my level truly, and could follow every step.

It was a fine old-fashioned man, tall and very upright, with a broad ribbon upon his breast, and something of metal shining; and his Hessian boots flashed now and then as he passed along with a stately stride. His beard was like a streak of silver, and his forehead broad and white; but all the rest of his face was dark, as if from foreign service. His dress seemed to be of a rich black velvet, very choice and costly, and a long sword hung at his side, although so many gentlemen now have ceased to carry even a rapier. I like to see them carry their swords – it shows that they can command themselves; but what touched me most with feeling was his manner of going on. He seemed to be searching, ever searching, up the hills and down the hollows, through the troughs and on the breastlands, in the shadow and the sunlight, seeking for some precious loss.

After watching this figure some little time, it was natural that I should grow desirous to know something more about him; especially as I obtained an idea, in spite of the distance and different dress, that I had seen some one like this gentleman not such a very long time ago. But I could not recall to my mind who it was that was hovering on the skirts of it; therefore I looked around for help. Ike Hutchings, my under-mate, was at the tiller, but I durst not lend him my glass, because he knew not one end from the other; so I shouted aloud for Captain Jose, and begged him to take a good look, and tell me everything that he knew or thought. He just set his eye, and then shut up the glass, and handed it to me without a word and walked off, as if I were nobody! This vexed me, so that I holloaed out: "Are all of you gone downright mad on this side of the Channel? Can't a man ask a civil question, and get a civil answer?"

"When he axeth what consarneth him," was the only answer Captain Fuzzy vouchsafed me over his shoulder.

I could not find it worth my while to quarrel with this ignorant man for the sake of a foolish word or two, considering how morose he was, and kept the keys of everything. For the moment, I could not help regretting my wholesome chastisement of the boy Bang; for he would have told me at least all he knew, if I could have taught him to take a good look. And as for Ike, when I went and tried him, whether it was that he failed of my meaning, or that he chose to pretend to do so (on account of my having deposed him), or that he truly knew nothing at all – at any rate, I got nothing from him. This was, indeed, a heavy trial. It is acknowleged that we have such hearts, and strength of goodwill to the universe, and power of entering into things, that not a Welshman of us is there but yearns to know all that can be said about every one he has ever seen, or heard, or even thought of. And this kind will, instead of being at all repressed by discouragement, increases tenfold in proportion as others manifest any unkind desire to keep themselves out of the way of it. My certy, no low curiosity is this, but lofty sympathy.

My grandfather nine generations back, Yorath the celebrated bard, begins perhaps his most immortal ode to a gentleman who had given him a quart of beer with this noble moral precept: "Lift up your eyes to the castle gates and behold on how small a hinge they move! The iron is an inch and a quarter thick, the gates are an hundred and fifty feet wide!" And though the gates of my history are not quite so wide as that, they often move on a hinge even less than an inch and a quarter in thickness; though I must not be too sure, of course, as to the substance of Bang's head. However, allow even two inches for it, and it seems but a very trifling matter to tell as it did upon great adventures. The boy was as sound as a boy need be in a couple of hours afterwards, except that he had, or pretended to have, a kind of a buzzing in one ear; and I found him so grateful for my correction, that I could not bear to urge his head with inquiries for the moment.

To Captain Fuzzy I said no more. If he could not see the advantage of attending to his own business, but must needs go out of his way to administer public reproof to me, I could only be sorry for him. To Ikey, however, I put some questions of a general tendency; but from his barbarous broken English – if this jargon could be called English at all – the only thing I could gather was, that none but true Devonshire folk had a right to ask about Devonshire families. This might be true to a certain extent, though I never have seen such a law laid down. The answer, however, is perfectly simple. If these people carry on in a manner that cannot fail to draw public attention, they attack us at once on our tenderest point, and tenfold so if they are our betters; for what man of common-sense could admit the idea of anybody setting up to be nobody? Therefore I felt myself quite ready to give a week's pay and victuals, in that state of life to which God alone could have seen fit to call me – as mate of that Devonshire ketch, or hoy, or tub, or whatever it might be – four shillings and a bag of suet-dumplings, twice a-day, I would have given, to understand upon the spot all about that elderly gentleman.

It helped me very little, indeed, that I kept on saying to myself, "This matters not; 'tis a few hours only. The moment we get to Barnstaple, I shall find some women; – the women can never help telling everything, and for the most part ten times that. Only contradict them bravely, and they have no silence left." However, it helped me not a little when Captain Fuzzy, with a duck of his head, tumbled up from the cuddy, brimful, as we saw, of the dinner-time. A man of my experience, who has lived for six weeks on the horns of sea-snails, which the officers found too hard for them, that time we were wrecked in the Palamede – what can a man of this kind feel when a trumpery coaster dares to pipe all hands to dinner?

However, it so happened for the moment that what I felt was appetite: and Fuzzy, who was a first-rate cook, and knew seasoning without counting, had brought an iron ladle up, so as to save his words, and yet to give us some idea. Soup it was of a sort, that set us thinking of all the meat under it. I blew upon it, and tasted a drop, and found that other people's business would keep till at least after dinner. In the midst of dinner we came to the meeting of two fine rivers, called Tawe and Torridge, and with the tide still making strong we slanted up the former. The channel was given to twists and turns, but the fine open valley made up for it, and the wealth of land on either side, sloping with green meadows gently, and winding in and out with trees. Here were cattle, as red as chesnuts, running about with tails like spankers, such as I never saw before; but Ikey gave me to understand that the colour of the earth was the cause of it, and that if I lived long upon corned beef made of them (whose quality no other land could create), I should be turned to that hue myself. At this I laughed, as a sailor's yarn; but after regarding him steadfastly, and then gazing again at the bullocks, I thought there might be some truth in it.

One thing I will say of these sons of Devon: rough they may be, and short of grain, and fond of their own opinions, and not well up in points of law – which is our very nature – queer, moreover, in thought and word, and obstinate as hedgehogs, – yet they show, and truly have, a kind desire to feed one well. Money they have no great love of spending round the corner, neither will they go surety freely for any man who is free to run; but "vittels," as they call them, "vittels!" – before you have been in a house two minutes out come these, and eat you must! Happily, upon this point I was able to afford them large and increasing satisfaction, having rarely enjoyed so fine a means of pleasing myself and others also. For the things are good, and the people too; and it takes a bad man to gainsay either.