Mary Anerley

But though the bright glory of the griddle remains in suspense for the hoary mornings, and hooks that carried woodcocks once, and hope to do so yet again, are primed with dust instead of lard, and the frying-pan hangs on the cellar nail with a holiday gloss of raw mutton suet, yet is there still some comfort left, yet dappled brawn, and bacon streaked, yet golden-hearted eggs, and mushrooms quilted with pink satin, spiced beef carded with pellucid fat, buckstone cake, and brown bread scented with the ash of gorse bloom—of these, and more that pave the way into the good-will of mankind, what lack have fine farm-houses?

And then, again, for the liquid duct, the softer and more sensitive, the one that is never out of season, but perennially clear—here we have advantage of the gentle time that mellows thirst. The long ride of the summer sun makes men who are in feeling with him, and like him go up and down, not forego the moral of his labor, which is work and rest. Work all day, and light the rounded land with fruit and nurture, and rest at evening, looking through bright fluid, as the sun goes down.

But times there are when sun and man, by stress of work, or clouds, or light, or it may be some Process of the Equinox, make draughts upon the untilted day, and solace themselves in the morning. For lack of dew the sun draws lengthy sucks of cloud quite early, and men who have labored far and dry, and scattered the rime of the night with dust, find themselves ready about 8 A.M. for the golden encouragement of gentle ale.

The farm-house had an old porch of stone, with a bench of stone on either side, and pointed windows trying to look out under brows of ivy; and this porch led into the long low hall, where the breakfast was beginning. To say what was on the table would be only waste of time, because it has all been eaten so long ago; but the farmer was vexed because there were no shrimps. Not that he cared half the clip of a whisker for all the shrimps that ever bearded the sea, only that he liked to seem to love them, to keep Mary at work for him. The flower of his flock, and of all the flocks of the world of the universe to his mind, was his darling daughter Mary: the strength of his love was upon her, and he liked to eat any thing of her cooking.

His body was too firm to fidget; but his mind was out of its usual comfort, because the pride of his heart, his Mary, seemed to be hiding something from him. And with the justice to be expected from far clearer minds than his, being vexed by one, he was ripe for the relief of snapping at fifty others. Mary, who could read him, as a sailor reads his compass, by the corner of one eye, awaited with good content the usual result—an outbreak of words upon the indolent Willie, whenever that young farmer should come down to breakfast, then a comforting glance from the mother at her William, followed by a plate kept hot for him, and then a fine shake of the master’s shoulders, and a stamp of departure for business. But instead of that, what came to pass was this.

In the first place, a mighty bark of dogs arose; as needs must be, when a man does his duty toward the nobler animals; for sure it is that the dogs will not fail of their part. Then an inferior noise of men, crying, “Good dog! good dog!” and other fulsome flatteries, in the hope of avoiding any tooth-mark on their legs; and after that a shaking down and settlement of sounds, as if feet were brought into good order, and stopped. Then a tall man, with a body full of corners, and a face of grim temper, stood in the doorway.

“Well, well, captain, now!” cried Stephen Anerley, getting up after waiting to be spoken to, “the breath of us all is hard to get, with doing of our duty, Sir. Come ye in, and sit doon to table, and his Majesty’s forces along o’ ye.”

“Cadman, Ellis, and Dick, be damned!” the lieutenant shouted out to them; “you shall have all the victuals you want, by-and-by. Cross legs, and get your winds up. Captain of the coast-defense, I am under your orders, in your own house.” Carroway was starving, as only a man with long and active jaws can starve; and now the appearance of the farmer’s mouth, half full of a kindly relish, made the emptiness of his own more bitter. But happen what might, he resolved, as usual, to enforce strict discipline, to feed himself first, and his men in proper order.

“Walk in gentlemen, all walk in,” Master Anerley shouted, as if all men were alike, and coming to the door with a hospitable stride; “glad to see all of ye, upon my soul I am. Ye’ve hit upon the right time for coming, too; though there might ‘a been more upon the table. Mary, run, that’s a dear, and fetch your grandfather’s big Sabbath carver. Them peaky little clams a’most puts out all my shoulder-blades, and wunna bite through a twine of gristle. Plates for all the gentlemen, Winnie lass! Bill, go and drah the black jarge full o’ yell.”

The farmer knew well enough that Willie was not down yet; but this was his manner of letting people see that he did not approve of such hours.

“My poor lad Willie,” said the mistress of the house, returning with a courtesy the brave lieutenant’s scrape, “I fear he hath the rheum again, overheating of himself after sungate.”

“Ay, ay, I forgot. He hath to heat himself in bed again, with the sun upon his coverlid. Mary lof, how many hours was ye up?”

“Your daughter, Sir,” answered the lieutenant, with a glance at the maiden over the opal gleam of froth, which she had headed up for him—“your daughter has been down the Dike before the sun was, and doing of her duty by the king and by his revenue. Mistress Anerley, your good health! Master Anerley, the like to you, and your daughter, and all of your good household.” Before they had finished their thanks for this honor, the quart pot was set down empty. “A very pretty brew, Sir—a pretty brew indeed! Fall back, men! Have heed of discipline. A chalked line is what they want, Sir. Mistress Anerley, your good health again. The air is now thirsty in the mornings. If those fellows could be given a bench against the wall—a bench against the wall is what they feel for with their legs. It comes so natural to their—yes, yes, their legs, and the crook of their heels, ma’am, from what they were brought up to sit upon. And if you have any beer brewed for washing days, ma’am, that is what they like, and the right thing for their bellies. Cadman, Ellis, and Dick Hackerbody, sit down and be thankful.”

“But surely, Captain Carroway, you would never be happy to sit down without them. Look at their small-clothes, the dust and the dirt! And their mouths show what you might make of them.”

“Yes, madam, yes; the very worst of them is that. They are always looking out, here, there, and every where, for victuals everlasting. Let them wait their proper time, and then they do it properly.”

“Their proper time is now, Sir. Winnie, fill their horns up. Mary, wait you upon the officer. Captain Carroway, I will not have any body starve in my house.”

“Madam, you are the lawgiver in your own house. Men of the coast-guard, fall to upon your victuals.”

The lieutenant frowned horribly at his men, as much as to say, “Take no advantage, but show your best manners;” and they touched their forelocks with a pleasant grin, and began to feed rapidly; and verily their wives would have said that it was high time for them. Feeding, as a duty, was the order of the day, and discipline had no rank left. Good things appeared and disappeared, with the speedy doom of all excellence. Mary, and Winnie the maid, flitted in and out like carrier-pigeons.

“Now when the situation comes to this,” said the farmer at last, being heartily pleased with the style of their feeding and laughing, “his Majesty hath made an officer of me, though void of his own writing. Mounted Fencibles, Filey Briggers, called in the foreign parts ‘Brigadiers.’ Not that I stand upon sermonry about it, except in the matter of his Majesty’s health, as never is due without ardent spirits. But my wife hath a right to her own way, and never yet I knowed her go away from it.”

“Not so, by any means,” the mistress said, and said it so quietly that some believed her; “I never was so much for that. Captain, you are a married man. But reason is reason, in the middle of us all, and what else should I say to my husband? Mary lass, Mary lof, wherever is your duty? The captain hath the best pot empty!”

With a bright blush Mary sprang up to do her duty. In those days no girl was ashamed to blush; and the bloodless cheek savored of small-pox.

“Hold up your head, my lof,” her father said aloud, with a smile of tidy pride, and a pat upon her back; “no call to look at all ashamed, my dear. To my mind, captain, though I may be wrong, however, but to my mind, this little maid may stan’ upright in the presence of downright any one.”

“There lies the very thing that never should be said. Captain, you have seven children, or it may be eight of them justly. And the pride of life—Mary, you be off!”

Mary was glad to run away, for she liked not to be among so many men. But her father would not have her triumphed over.

“Speak for yourself, good wife,” he said. “I know what you have got behind, as well as rooks know plough-tail. Captain, you never heard me say that the lass were any booty, but the very same as God hath made her, and thankful for straight legs and eyes. Howsoever, there might be worse-favored maidens, without running out of the Riding.”

“You may ride all the way to the city of London,” the captain exclaimed, with a clinch of his fist, “or even to Portsmouth, where my wife came from, and never find a maid fit to hold a candle for Mary to curl her hair by.”

The farmer was so pleased that he whispered something; but Carroway put his hand before his mouth, and said, “Never, no, never in the morning!” But in spite of that, Master Anerley felt in his pocket for a key, and departed.

“Wicked, wicked, is the word I use,” protested Mrs. Anerley, “for all this fribble about rooks and looks, and holding of candles, and curling of hair. When I was Mary’s age—oh dear! It may not be so for your daughters, captain; but evil for mine was the day that invented those proud swinging-glasses.”

“That you may pronounce, ma’am, and I will say Amen. Why, my eldest daughter, in her tenth year now—”

“Come, Captain Carroway,” broke in the farmer, returning softly with a square old bottle, “how goes the fighting with the Crappos now? Put your legs up, and light your pipe, and tell us all the news.”

“Cadman, and Ellis, and Dick Hackerbody,” the lieutenant of the coast-guard shouted, “you have fed well. Be off, men; no more neglect of duty! Place an outpost at fork of the Sewerby road, and strictly observe the enemy, while I hold a council of war with my brother officer, Captain Anerley. Half a crown for you, if you catch the rogue, half a crown each, and promotion of twopence. Attention, eyes right, make yourselves scarce! Well, now the rogues are gone, let us make ourselves at home. Anerley, your question is a dry one. A dry one; but this is uncommonly fine stuff! How the devil has it slipped through our fingers? Never mind that, inter amicos—Sir, I was at school at Shrewsbury—but as to the war, Sir, the service is going to the devil, for the want of pure principle.”

The farmer nodded; and his looks declared that to some extent he felt it. He had got the worst side of some bargains that week; but his wife had another way of thinking.

“Why, Captain Carroway, whatever could be purer? When you were at sea, had you ever a man of the downright principles of Nelson?”

“Nelson has done very well in his way; but he is a man who has risen too fast, as other men rise too slowly. Nothing in him; no substance, madam; I knew him as a youngster, and I could have tossed him on a marling-spike. And instead of feeding well, Sir, he quite wore himself away. To my firm knowledge, he would scarcely turn the scale upon a good Frenchman of half of the peas. Every man should work his own way up, unless his father did it for him. In my time we had fifty men as good, and made no fuss about them.”

“And you not the last of them, captain, I dare say. Though I do love to hear of the Lord’s Lord Nelson, as the people call him. If ever a man fought his own way up—”

“Madam, I know him, and respect him well. He would walk up to the devil, with a sword between his teeth, and a boarder’s pistol in each hand. Madam, I leaped, in that condition, a depth of six fathoms and a half into the starboard mizzen-chains of the French line-of-battle ship Peace and Thunder.”

“Oh, Captain Carroway, how dreadful! What had you to lay hold with?”

“At such times a man must not lay hold. My business was to lay about; and I did it to some purpose. This little slash, across my eyes struck fire, and it does the same now by moonlight.”

One of the last men in the world to brag was Lieutenant Carroway. Nothing but the great thirst of this morning, and strong necessity of quenching it, could ever have led him to speak about himself, and remember his own little exploits. But the farmer was pleased, and said, “Tell us some more, Sir.”

“Mistress Anerley,” the captain answered, shutting up the scar, which he was able to expand by means of a muscle of excitement, “you know that a man should drop these subjects when he has got a large family. I have been in the Army and the Navy, madam, and now I am in the Revenue; but my duty is first to my own house.”

“Do take care, Sir; I beg you to be careful. Those free-traders now are come to such a pitch that any day or night they may shoot you.”

“Not they, madam. No, they are not murderers. In a hand-to-hand conflict they might do it, as I might do the same to them. This very morning my men shot at the captain of all smugglers, Robin Lyth, of Flamborough, with a hundred guineas upon his head. It was no wish of mine; but my breath was short to stop them, and a man with a family like mine can never despise a hundred guineas.”

“Why, Sophy,” said the farmer, thinking slowly, with a frown, “that must have been the noise come in at window, when I were getting up this morning. I said, ‘Why, there’s some poacher fellow popping at the conies!’ and out I went straight to the warren to see. Three gun-shots, or might ‘a been four. How many men was you shooting at?”

“The force under my command was in pursuit of one notorious criminal—that well-known villain, Robin Lyth.”

“Captain, your duty is to do your duty. But without your own word for it, I never would believe that you brought four gun muzzles down upon one man.”

“The force under my command carried three guns only. It was not in their power to shoot off four.”

“Captain, I never would have done it in your place. I call it no better than unmanly. Now go you not for to stir yourself amiss. To look thunder at me is what I laugh at. But many things are done in a hurry, Captain Carroway, and I take it that this was one of them.”

“As to that, no! I will not have it. All was in thorough good order. I was never so much as a cable’s length behind, though the devil, some years ago, split my heel up, like his own, Sir.”

“Captain, I see it, and I ask your pardon. Your men were out of reach of hollering. At our time of life the wind dies quick, from want of blowing oftener.”

“Stuff!” cried the captain. “Who was the freshest that came to your hospitable door, Sir? I will foot it with any man for six leagues, but not for half a mile, ma’am. I depart from nothing. I said, ‘Fire!’ and fire they did, and they shall again. What do Volunteers know of the service?”

“Stephen, you shall not say a single other word;” Mistress Anerley stopped her husband thus; “these matters are out of your line altogether; because you have never taken any body’s blood. The captain here is used to it, like all the sons of Belial, brought up in the early portions of the Holy Writ.”

Lieutenant Carroway’s acquaintance with the Bible was not more extensive than that of other officers, and comprised little more than the story of Joseph, and that of David and Goliath; so he bowed to his hostess for her comparison, while his gaunt and bristly countenance gave way to a pleasant smile. For this officer of the British Crown had a face of strong features, and upon it whatever he thought was told as plainly as the time of day is told by the clock in the kitchen. At the same time, Master Anerley was thinking that he might have said more than a host should say concerning a matter which, after all, was no particular concern of his; whereas it was his special place to be kind to any visitor. All this he considered with a sound grave mind, and then stretched forth his right hand to the officer.

Carroway, being a generous man, would not be outdone in apologies. So these two strengthened their mutual esteem, without any fighting—which generally is the quickest way of renewing respect—and Mistress Anerley, having been a little frightened, took credit to herself for the good words she had used. Then the farmer, who never drank cordials, although he liked to see other people do it, set forth to see a man who was come about a rick, and sundry other business. But Carroway, in spite of all his boasts, was stiff, though he bravely denied that he could be; and when the good housewife insisted on his stopping to listen to something that was much upon her mind, and of great importance to the revenue, he could not help owning that duty compelled him to smoke another pipe, and hearken.

CHAPTER IX

ROBIN COCKSCROFT

Nothing ever was allowed to stop Mrs. Anerley from seeing to the bedrooms. She kept them airing for about three hours at this time of the sun-stitch—as she called all the doings of the sun upon the sky—and then there was pushing, and probing, and tossing, and pulling, and thumping, and kneading of knuckles, till the rib of every feather was aching; and then (like dough before the fire) every well-belabored tick was left to yeast itself a while. Winnie, the maid, was as strong as a post, and wore them all out in bed-making. Carroway heard the beginning of this noise, but none of it meddled at all with his comfort; he lay back nicely in a happy fit of chair, stretched his legs well upon a bench, and nodded, keeping slow time with the breathings of his pipe, and drawing a vapory dream of ease. He had fared many stony miles afoot that morning; and feet, legs, and body were now less young than they used to be once upon a time. Looking up sleepily, the captain had idea of a pretty young face hanging over him, and a soft voice saying, “It was me who did it all,” which was very good grammar in those days; “will you forgive me? But I could not help it, and you must have been sorry to shoot him.”

“Shoot every body who attempts to land,” the weary man ordered, drowsily. “Mattie, once more, you are not to dust my pistols.”

“I could not be happy without telling you the truth,” the soft voice continued, “because I told you such a dreadful story. And now—Oh! here comes mother!”

“What has come over you this morning, child? You do the most extraordinary things, and now you can not let the captain rest. Go round and look for eggs this very moment. You will want to be playing fine music next. Now, captain, I am at your service, if you please, unless you feel too sleepy.”

“Mistress Anerley, I never felt more wide-awake in all my life. We of the service must snatch a wink whenever we can, but with one eye open; and it is not often that we see such charming sights.”

The farmer’s wife having set the beds to “plump,” had stolen a look at the glass, and put on her second-best Sunday cap, in honor of a real officer; and she looked very nice indeed, especially when she received a compliment. But she had seen too much of life to be disturbed thereby.

“Ah, Captain Carroway, what ways you have of getting on with simple people, while you are laughing all the time at them! It comes of the foreign war experience, going on so long that in the end we shall all be foreigners. But one place there is that you never can conquer, nor Boneypart himself, to my belief.”

“Ah, you mean Flamborough—Flamborough, yes! It is a nest of cockatrices.”

“Captain, it is nothing of the sort. It is the most honest place in all the world. A man may throw a guinea on the crossroads in the night, and have it back from Dr. Upandown any time within seven years. You ought to know by this time what they are, hard as it is to get among them.”

“I only know that they can shut their mouths; and the devil himself—I beg your pardon, madam—Old Nick himself never could unscrew them.”

“You are right, Sir. I know their manner well. They are open as the sky with one another, but close as the grave to all the world outside them, and most of all to people of authority like you.”

“Mistress Anerley, you have just hit it. Not a word can I get out of them. The name of the king—God bless him!—seems to have no weight among them.”

“And you can not get at them, Sir, by any dint of money, or even by living in the midst of them. The only way to do it is by kin of blood, or marriage. And that is how I come to know more about them than almost any body else outside. My master can scarcely win a word of them even, kind as he is, and well-spoken; and neither might I, though my tongue was tenfold, if it were not for Joan Cockscroft. But being Joan’s cousin, I am like one of themselves.”

“Cockscroft! Cockscroft? I have heard that name. Do they keep the public-house there?”

The lieutenant was now on the scent of duty, and assumed his most knowing air, the sole effect of which was to put every body upon guard against him. For this was a man of no subtlety, but straightforward, downright, and ready to believe; and his cleverest device was to seem to disbelieve.

“The Cockscrofts keep no public-house,” Mrs. Anerley answered, with a little flush of pride. “Why, she was half-niece to my own grandmother, and never was beer in the family. Not that it would have been wrong, if it was. Captain, you are thinking of Widow Precious, licensed to the Cod with the hook in his gills. I should have thought, Sir, that you might have known a little more of your neighbors having fallen below the path of life by reason of bad bank-tokens. Banking came up in her parts like dog-madness, as it might have done here, if our farmers were the fools to handle their cash with gloves on. And Joan became robbed by the fault of her trustees, the very best bakers in Scarborough, though Robin never married her for it, thank God! Still it was very sad, and scarcely bears describing of, and pulled them in the crook of this world’s swing to a lower pitch than if they had robbed the folk that robbed and ruined them. And Robin so was driven to the fish again, which he always had hankered after. It must have been before you heard of this coast, captain, and before the long war was so hard on us, that every body about these parts was to double his bags by banking, and no man was right to pocket his own guineas, for fear of his own wife feeling them. And bitterly such were paid out for their cowardice and swindling of their own bosoms.”

“I have heard of it often, and it served them right. Master Anerley knew where his money was safe, ma’am!”

“Neither Captain Robin Cockscroft nor his wife was in any way to blame,” answered Mrs. Anerley. “I have framed my mind to tell you about them; and I will do it truly, if I am not interrupted. Two hammers never yet drove a nail straight, and I make a rule of silence when my betters wish to talk.”

“Madam, you remind me of my own wife. She asks me a question, and she will not let me answer.”

“That is the only way I know of getting on. Mistress Carroway must understand you, captain. I was at the point of telling you how my cousin Joan was married, before her money went, and when she was really good-looking. I was quite a child, and ran along the shore to see it. It must have been in the high summer-time, with the weather fit for bathing, and the sea as smooth as a duck-pond. And Captain Robin, being well-to-do, and established with every thing except a wife, and pleased with the pretty smile and quiet ways of Joan—for he never had heard of her money, mind—put his oar into the sea and rowed from Flamborough all the way to Filey Brigg, with thirty-five fishermen after him; for the Flamborough people make a point of seeing one another through their troubles. And Robin was known for the handsomest man and the uttermost fisher of the landing, with three boats of his own, and good birth, and long sea-lines. And there at once they found my cousin Joan, with her trustees, come overland, four wagons and a cart in all of them; and after they were married, they burned sea-weed, having no fear in those days of invasions. And a merry day they made of it, and rowed back by the moonshine. For every one liked and respected Captain Cockscroft on account of his skill with the deep-sea lines, and the openness of his hands when full—a wonderful quiet and harmless man, as the manner is of all great fishermen. They had bacon for breakfast whenever they liked, and a guinea to lend to any body in distress.